China

views updated May 18 2018

CHINA

LOCATION, SIZE, AND EXTENT
TOPOGRAPHY
CLIMATE
FLORA AND FAUNA
ENVIRONMENT
POPULATION
MIGRATION
ETHNIC GROUPS
LANGUAGES
RELIGIONS
TRANSPORTATION
HISTORY
GOVERNMENT
POLITICAL PARTIES
LOCAL GOVERNMENT
JUDICIAL SYSTEM
ARMED FORCES
INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION
ECONOMY
INCOME
LABOR
AGRICULTURE
ANIMAL HUSBANDRY
FISHING
FORESTRY
MINING
ENERGY AND POWER
INDUSTRY
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
DOMESTIC TRADE
FOREIGN TRADE
BALANCE OF PAYMENTS
BANKING AND SECURITIES
INSURANCE
PUBLIC FINANCE
TAXATION
CUSTOMS AND DUTIES
FOREIGN INVESTMENT
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
HEALTH
HOUSING
EDUCATION
LIBRARIES AND MUSEUMS
MEDIA
ORGANIZATIONS
TOURISM, TRAVEL, AND RECREATION
FAMOUS CHINESE
DEPENDENCIES
MACAU
BIBLIOGRAPHY

People's Republic of China

Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo

CAPITAL: Beijing (Peking)

FLAG: The flag is red with five gold stars in the upper left quadrant; one large star is near the hoist and four smaller ones are arranged in an arc to the right.

ANTHEM: March of the Volunteers.

MONETARY UNIT: The renminbi, or "people's money," denominated in yuan (y), is equivalent to 10 jiao or 100 fen. There are coins of 1, 2, and 5 fen, 1, 2, and 5 jiao, and 1 yuan, and notes of 1, 2, and 5 fen, 1, 2, and 5 jiao, and 1, 2, 5, 10, 50, and 100 yuan. y1 = $0.12210 (or $1 = y8.19) as of 2005.

WEIGHTS AND MEASURES: The metric system is the legal standard, but some Chinese units remain in common use.

HOLIDAYS: New Year's Day, 1 January; Spring Festival (Chinese New Year), from the 1st to the 3d day of the first moon of the lunar calendar, usually in February; International Women's Day, 8 March; May Day, 1 May; Army Day, 1 August; Teachers' Day, 9 September; and National Day, 12 October.

TIME: 8 pm = noon GMT.

LOCATION, SIZE, AND EXTENT

The People's Republic of China (PRC), the third-largest country in the world after the former USSR and Canada and the largest nation in Asia, claims an area of 9,596,960 sq km (3,705,406 sq mi), including Taiwan, which the PRC claims as a province; the major administrative divisions, excluding Taiwan and the offshore islands, cover 9,444,292 sq km (3,646,448 sq mi). Comparatively, the area occupied by China is slightly larger than the United States. If the area of Taiwan is excluded, China is the fourth-largest country in the world, after Russia, Canada, and the United States. The mainland has an extension of 4,845 km (3,011 mi) enewsw and 3,350 km (2,082 mi) ssennw. The mainland's 5,774 km (3,588 mi) coastline, extending from the mouth of the Yalu River in the northeast to the Gulf of Tonkin in the south, forms a great arc, with the Liaodong and Shandong peninsulas in the north protruding into the Yellow Sea and the Leizhou Peninsula in the south protruding into the South China Sea. China's territory includes several large islands, the most important of which is Hainan, off the south coast. Other islands include the reefs and islands of the South China Sea, extending as far as 4° n. These reefs and islands include Dongsha (Pratas), to which Taiwan has also laid claim. China's claims to the Xisha (Paracel) and Nansha (Spratly) archipelagoes are also in dispute. In 1986, the United Kingdom agreed to transfer Hong Kong to the PRC in 1997; in March 1987, the PRC and Portugal reached an agreement for the return of Macau to the PRC on 20 December 1999.

China is bordered on the n by Mongolia (Mongolian People's RepublicMPR) and Russia; on the ne by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK); on the e by the Yellow and the East China seas; along the southern border are Hong Kong, Macau, the South China Sea, the Gulf of Tonkin, Vietnam, and Laos; on the sw by Myanmar, India, Bhutan, and Nepal; on the w by India, Jammu and Kashmir (disputed areas), Pakistan (west of the Karakoram Pass), and Afghanistan; and on the nw by Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan. China's total boundary length, including the coastline (14,500 km/9,010 mi) is 36,647 km (22,771 mi). China's capital city, Beijing, is located in the northeastern part of the country.

TOPOGRAPHY

China may be divided roughly into a lowland portion in the east, constituting about 20% of the total territory, and a larger section consisting of mountains and plateaus in the west. The principal lowlands are the Manchurian (Dongbei) Plain, drained by the Songhua (Sungari) River, a tributary of the Amur (Heilongjiang), and by the Liao River, which flows to the Yellow Sea; the North China Plain, traversed by the lower course of the Yellow (Huang He) River; the valley and delta of the Yangtze (Chang Jiang) River; and the delta of the Pearl (Zhu) River surrounding Guangzhou (Canton). West of these lowlands, the country's topography rises to plateaus of 1,2001,500 m (about 4,0005,000 ft): the Shanxi and Shaanxi loess plateaus, in central China, and the Mongolian Plateau, in the north.

Beyond lie the high plateaus of Tibet, with an average elevation of 4,600 m (15,000 ft), and the great mountain ranges. The highest mountains are the Kunluns and the Himalayas. North of Tibet are two plateau basins of Central Asia, the Tarim and the Junggar, which are separated from each other by the Tian Mountains. The Chinese portion of the Tian range, which also extends into the former USSR, rises above 7,000 m (23,000 ft).

The great rivers of China flow eastward toward the Pacific. In the northeast, the Amur drains a great part of the Manchurian Basin as it winds along its 4,350 km (2,719 mi) course. Other north-eastern rivers include the Liao, the Tumen, and the Yalu, the last two both rising in Mt. Paaktu, flowing respectively northeast and southwest, and forming the boundary between China and the DPRK. The main river of north China, and the second-largest in the country, is the Yellow River (Huang He). From Gansu it winds about 4,671 km (2,903 mi) eastward to Shandong Province, where it empties into Bo Hai (Gulf of Zhili, or Chihli). The valley of the Yellow River covers an area of 1,554,000 sq km (600,000 mi).

Central China is drained mainly by the Yangtze and its tributaries. The largest river in China, the Yangtze travels 5,525 km (3,434 mi) and drains 1,808,500 sq km (698,300 sq mi) of land. As China's only long river with no natural outlet, the Huai River, flowing between the Yangtze and the Yellow (Huang He) and roughly parallel to them, is subject to frequent flooding. To the southwest are the upper courses of the Mekong (Lancang) and Brahmaputra (Yarlung Zangbo) rivers.

Northern China is in a major earthquake zone with some of the most destructive earthquakes on record. On 28 July 1976, a tremor measuring 7.5 on the Richter scale struck the city of Tangshan (145 km/90 mi east of Beijing), causing widespread devastation and the deaths of over 650,000 people. On 3 February 1996, a 6.6 magnitude quake occurred at Yunnan causing death for 322 people and injury to over 16,000. About 358,000 homes were completely destroyed and over 654,000 others were damaged. On 24 February 2003, a 6.4 magnitude quake in Southern Xinjiang killed at least 260 people and injured 4,000. It was recorded as the deadliest earthquake of the year worldwide.

CLIMATE

Although most of China lies within the temperate zone, climate varies greatly with topography. Minimum winter temperatures range from -27°c (-17°f) in northern Manchuria to -1°c (30°f) in the North China Plain and southern Manchuria, 4°c (39°f) along the middle and lower valleys of the Yangtze, and 16°c (61°f) farther south. Although summer temperatures are more nearly uniform in southern and central China, with a July mean of about 27°c (81°f), northern China has a shorter hot period and the nights are much cooler.

Rain falls mostly in summer. Precipitation is heaviest in the south and southeast, with Guangzhou receiving more than 200 cm (80 in), and diminishes to about 60 cm (25 in) in north and northeast China, and to less than 10 cm (4 in) in the northwest. Approximately 31% of the total land area is classified as arid, 22% as semiarid, 15% as sub-humid, and 32% as humid.

FLORA AND FAUNA

Much of China's natural vegetation has been replaced or altered by thousands of years of human settlement, but isolated areas still support one of the world's richest and most varied collections of plants and animals. Nearly every major plant found in the tropical and temperate zones of the northern hemisphere can be found there. In all, more than 7,000 species of woody plants have been recorded, of which there are 2,800 timber trees and over 300 species of gymnosperms. The rare gingko tree, cathaya tree, and metasequoia, long extinct elsewhere, can still be found growing in China. Among flowering plants, 650 of the 800 known varieties of azalea occur in China, while 390 of the 450 known varieties of primrose and about 230 of the 400 known varieties of gentian are also found there. The tree peony, which originated in Shandong Province, appears in 400 varieties.

The richest and most extensive needle-leaf forests occur in the Greater Hinggan Ling (Khingan) Mountains of the northeast, where stands of larch, Asian white birch, and Scotch pine flourish, and in the Lesser Hinggan Ling (Khingan) Mountains, with stands of Korean pine and Dahurian larch. In the Sichuan (Szechuan) Basin, vegetation changes with altitude to embrace a variety of conifers at high levels, deciduous trees and cypresses at middle elevations, and bamboo in lower elevations. Farther south, in subtropical Fujian and Zhejiang provinces, broadleaf evergreen forests predominate. Forests give way to natural grasslands and scrub in drier western and northwestern areas, especially in the semiarid regions of Shanxi and Shaanxi, in the steppes of Inner Mongolia, and along the desert margins of the Tarim and Junggar basins.

China's most celebrated wild animal is the giant panda, a rare mammal now found in the wild only in remote areas of Sichuan, Gansu, and Shanxi provinces; as of 1994, just over 500 wild pandas were still in their natural state. Other fauna unique to China include the golden-haired monkey, found in remote parts of Shaanxi, Gansu, Sichuan, Guizhou, and Yunnan; the northeast China tiger, found in the Lesser Hinggan Ling and Changbai mountains along the Korean border; the Chinese river dolphin and Chinese alligator, both found along the middle and lower Yangtze River; the rare David's deer and the white-lipped deer, the latter found mainly in Qinghai Province and Tibet; a rare kind of white bear found in Hubei Province; and the lancelet, an ancient species of fish representing a transitional stage between invertebrate and vertebrate development, now found only in Fujian Province. In addition, more than 1,000 species of birds have been recorded. Among the rarer kinds are the mandarin duck, the white-crowned long-tailed pheasant, golden pheasant, Derby's parakeet, yellow-backed sun-bird, red-billed leiothrix, and red-crowned crane.

ENVIRONMENT

It is estimated that China has lost one-fifth of its agricultural land since 1957 due to economic development and soil erosion. Since 1973, China has taken significant steps to rectify some of the environmental damage caused by rampant use of wood for fuel, uncontrolled industrial pollution, and extensive conversion of forests, pastures, and grasslands to grain production during the Cultural Revolution. Reforestation, including construction of shelter belts, has emphasized restoration of the erosionprone loesslands in the middle reaches of the Yellow River. In 1979, the Standing Committee of the Fifth National People's Congress adopted an Environmental Protection Law and a Forestry Law. In 1989, China began a nationwide program called the Great Green Wall of China which began to accelerate the rate of reforestation. In 2000, about 17.5% of the total land area was forested.

Water supplies are limitedper capita consumption in China's cities is about 34 gallons a day, less than half that in many developing countriesand conservation, reclamation, and redistribution of water constitute major national priorities. Safe drinking water is unavailable to much of the population (as much as one-third, according to some estimates). By 1989, 436 of 532 rivers were polluted. In 1994, the World Health Organization reported that Chinese cities pollute water supplies more than those of any other country in the world. Legislation provides for the protection of aquatic resources, including water quality standards for farmland irrigation and fisheries.

To alleviate water shortages in the heavily populated Beijing-Tranjin region, a massive water transfer project began in 1994 by construction of the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River. The project aroused considerable controversy. Project managers faced technological problems and higher-than-expected costs. Completion of the project (scheduled for 2009) will create a reservoir that will flood prime farm land and leave the ecology of the river area damaged. By early 2005, one million people had already been displaced by construction. An additional 900,000 people were expected to be displaced by completion of the project.

The use of high-sulfur coal as a main energy source causes air pollution and contributes to acid rain. In the mid-1990s, China had the world's second-highest level of industrial carbon dioxide emissions, totaling 2.67 billion metric tons per year, a per capita level of 2.27 metric tons per year. In 2000, the total increased to 2.7 billion metric tons. Investment in pollution-reducing technology is required of all industrial enterprises. Penalties are imposed for noncompliance and incentives, in the form of tax reductions and higher allowable profits, are available for those enterprises that meet environmental standards. Beijing has implemented programs for controlling discharges of effluents, smoke and soot emissions, and noise pollution. Special success has been claimed for the recovery of oil from effluents of the Daqing oil field in Heilongjiang, refineries, and other oil-processing establishments; use of electrostatic precipitators and bag collectors by the cement and building industries; recovery of caustic soda and waste pulp from effl uents of the pulp and paper industries; introduction of nonpolluting processes into the tanning and depilating of hides; use of nonmercuric batteries; recovery of fine ash from coal-burning power plants for use in the manufacture of bricks, tiles, cement, and road-surfacing materials; and development of new methodologies for recycling coal wastes and marine oil discharges.

To protect the nation's botanical and zoological resources, a program was adopted in 1980 to establish 300 new reserves, with a total area of 9.6 million ha (23.7 million acres). That goal was achieved by the end of 1985, one year ahead of schedule. In 2003, about 7.8% of the total land area of China was protected. The largest reserve, covering 800,000 ha (1,980,000 acres), is the Changbai Mountain Nature Reserve, in the northeast. Others include the Wolong reserve in Sichuan Province, covering 200,000 ha (494,000 acres) and famous for its research on the giant panda; the Dinghu Mountain reserve in Guangdong Province, where a subtropical evergreen broadleaf monsoon forest that has remained virtually untouched for four centuries provides opportunities for ecological studies; and the Nangun River area in Yunnan Province, where the principal focus of protection is the tropical rain forest. There are 30 Ramsar wetland sites and eight natural and mixed properties designated as UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

According to a 2006 report issued by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN), threatened species included 80 types of mammals, 82 species of birds, 31 types of reptiles, 86 species of amphibians, 47 species of fish, 1 type of mollusk, 3 other invertebrates, and 443 species of plants. Endangered species in China include Elliot's pheasant, Cabot's tragopan, yarkand deer, Shansi sika deer, South China sika, North China sika, the Chinese alligator, the Amur leopard, Javan rhinoceros, Thailand brow-antlered deer, the white-lipped deer, Bactrian camel, the giant panda, and the Siberian white crane. There are about nine extinct species, including the Yunnan box turtle and the wild horse.

POPULATION

The population of China in 2005 was estimated by the United Nations (UN) at 1,303,701,000, which ranked first in population among the 193 nations of the world. In 2005, approximately 8% of the population was over 65 years of age, with another 22% of the population under 15 years of age. There were 106 males for every 100 females in the country. According to the UN, the annual population rate of change for 200510 was expected to be 0.6%, a rate the government viewed as satisfactory. The government has emphasized family planning since the 1970s, and has accomplished a significant reduction in population growth. The projected population for the year 2025 was 1,476,000,000. The population density was 136 per sq km (353 per sq mi), but the distribution of the population throughout China is extremely uneven. The most densely populated areas near the coast have a population density of more than 154 people per sq km (400 per sq mi), while the western plateaus are sparsely populated.

China, as the most populous country in the world, accounts for 21% of the estimated world population. Until 2001, it was also the only country to have attained the status of demographic billionaire, but in March that year, India also reached a one billion population. The government policy, launched in the 1990s calling for an extensive family planning program to limit population growth, has been successful.

The UN estimated that 37% of the population lived in urban areas in 2005, and that urban areas were growing at an annual rate of 2.79%. Government policy has sought to limit the growth of the large eastern cities, especially the capital city, Beijing (Peking), Shanghai, and Tianjin, and to promote the growth of smaller cities away from the coast. China has over 60 metropolitan areas with populations greater than 750,000. As of 2005, the largest urban centers were Shanghai, 12,665,000; Beijing, 10,849,000; and Tianjin, 9,346,000. Other large metropolitan areas included Wuhan, 6,003,000; Chongqing, 4,975,000; Shenyang, 4,916,000; Guangzhou, 3,881,000; Chengdu, 3,478,000; Xi'an, 3,256,000; Changchun, 3,092,000; Harbin, 2,898,000; Dalian, 2,709,000; Jinan, 2,654,000; Hangzhou, 1,955,000; and Qingdao, 1,452,000.

MIGRATION

The overseas migration of millions of Chinese reached its peak in the 1920s when thousands of farmers and fishermen from the southeastern coastal provinces settled in other countries of South-east Asia. Chinese constitute a majority in Singapore, are an important ethnic group in Malaysia, and make up a significant minority in the Americas. In 1949, after the Communist victory, some two million civilians and 700,000 military personnel were evacuated to Taiwan.

Since in many places abroad the Chinese population has been growing at a rate faster than that of the local non-Chinese population, most countries have been trying to curtail the entrance of new Chinese immigrants. Emigration from China under the PRC government was once limited to refugees who reached Hong Kong, but is now denied only to a few political dissidents, if the state is reimbursed for postsecondary education costs. Immigration is for the most part limited to the return of overseas Chinese. At the end of 1999, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported 285,000 Vietnamese refugees in China, 91% of whom are of Chinese ancestry.

During the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, more than 60 million students, officials, peasant migrants, and unemployed were sent "down to the countryside" in a gigantic rustication movement. The goals of this program were to relocate industries and population away from vulnerable coastal areas, to provide human resources for agricultural production, to reclaim land in remote areas, to settle borderlands for economic and defense reasons, and, as has been the policy since the 1940s, to increase the proportion of Han Chinese in ethnic minority areas. Another purpose of this migration policy was to relieve urban shortages of food, housing, and services, and to reduce future urban population growth by removing large numbers of those 1630 years of age. However, most relocated youths eventually returned to the cities.

Efforts to stimulate "decentralized urbanization" have characterized government policy since the late 1970s. Decentralized urbanization and the related relocation of industries away from established centers has also been promoted as a way for China to absorb the increasing surplus labor of rural areas, estimated at 100 million in 2000. However, China's economic boom of the 2000s led to rapid growth of coastal provinces attracting inland rural males for construction and females to work in factories. This contrast extends to how children are perceived. Urban parents call their only child "little sun" (as in "center of the universe"), compared with rural parents, who call their child or children "left behind," (with their grandparents, as parents travel distances for work). For rural areas another split has developed: migrant work for the young and farming for the old.

On 1 July 1997, the sovereignty of Hong Kong reverted back to China. As of 1999, some 1,562 refugees and screened-out nonrefugees still remained in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR). In 2004, there were 299,305 refugees living in China, all but 135 in camps. In addition, 44 people sought asylum in China. The main countries to which Chinese emigrated in 2004 were the United States, Canada, South Africa, France, and the United Kingdom. Chinese sought asylum in India, the United States, Germany and Canada. In 2005, the net migration rate for China was estimated as -0.4 migrants per 1,000 population. The government views the migration levels as satisfactory.

ETHNIC GROUPS

According to the latest estimates, the largest ethnic group, accounting for 91.9% of the total population, is the Han. The Han form a majority in most of the settled east and south but remain a minority, despite continuing immigration, in the west.

The remaining 8.1% of the population is comprised of minority groups. Because of their predominance in strategically sensitive border areas, they hold a political and economic importance disproportionate to their numbers. The largest minority, at last estimate was the Zhuang, a Buddhist people, related to the Thai, who are primarily concentrated in Guangxi, Yunnan, and Guangdong. Other large minorities were the Manchu, concentrated in Heilongjiang, Jilin, and Liaoning; the Hui, a Chinese-speaking Muslim people concentrated in Ningxia, Gansu, Henan, and Hebei; the Uygur, a Muslim Turkic people of Xinjiang; the Yi, formerly called Lolo, a Buddhist people related to the Tibetans and concentrated in Yunnan, Sichuan, and Guizhou; the Miao, in Guizhou, Hunan, Yunnan, and Guangxi; and the Tibetans, concentrated in Xizang (Tibet), Qinghai, and Sichuan. Other minority nationalities, with estimated populations of more than one million, included the Mongolians; Tujia; Buyi; Koreans; Dong; Yao; Bai; Hani; Li; and the Kazaks, concentrated in Xinjiang, Gansu, and Qinghai.

LANGUAGES

Chinese, a branch of the Sino-Tibetan linguistic family, is a monosyllabic tone language written by means of characters representing complete words. The Chinese script is not phonetic and remains constant throughout China, but the spoken language has regional phonetic differences. Spoken Chinese falls into two major groups, separated roughly by a northeast-southwest line running from the mouth of the Yangtze River to the border of Vietnam. North and west of this line are the socalled Mandarin dialects, based on the Beijing dialect and known as putonghua ("common language"). The most important dialect south of the linguistic divide is that of Shanghai, the Wu dialect spoken in the Yangtze River Delta. Hakka and Hokkien are dialects of the southeastern coastal province. Cantonese, the Yue dialect spoken in southern China, is the language of the majority of Chinese emigrants. Others include the Minbei or Fuzhou dialect, the Xiang, and Gan dialects. Mandarin Chinese was adopted as the official language of China in 1955.

To communicate in written Chinese, thousands of Chinese characters must be memorized. Since the establishment of the PRC in 1949, reform of the written language has been a major priority. A simplified system of writing, reducing the number of strokes per character, has been adopted, and the language restructured so that anyone familiar with the basic 2,0003,000 characters is functionally literate (defined as being able to read a newspaper).

A number of systems have been developed to transcribe Chinese characters into the Latin alphabet. The principal romanization scheme was the Wade-Giles system until 1979, when the PRC government adopted Pinyin, a system under development in China since the mid-1950s. Inside China, Pinyin is used in the schools to facilitate the learning of Chinese characters, in minority areas where other languages are spoken, and on commercial and street signs. Pinyin has replaced the Wade-Giles system in all of China's English-language publications and for the spelling of place names. In general, pronunciation of Pinyin follows standard American English, except that among initial sounds, the sound of q is like the sound of ch as in chart, the sound of x like the sound of sh as in ship, and the sound of zh like the sound of j as in judge, and among final sounds, the sound of e is like the sound of oo as in look, the sound of eng like the sound of ung as in lung, the sound of ui like the sound of ay as in way, and the sound of uai like the sound of wi as in wide.

Of the 55 recognized minority peoples in China, only Hui and Manchus use Chinese as an everyday language. More then 20 minority nationalities have their own forms of writing for their own languages. Minority languages are used in all state institutions in minority areas and in all newspapers and books published there.

RELIGIONS

Three faithsConfucianism, Buddhism, and Taoismhave long been established in China and the religious practice of the average Chinese traditionally has been an eclectic mixture of all three. Confucianism has no religious organization but consists of a code of ethics and philosophy; filial piety, benevolence, fidelity, and justice are among its principal virtues. Taoism, a native Chinese religion that evolved from a philosophy probably founded in the 6th century bc by Laotzu (Laozi), and Buddhism, imported from India during the Han dynasty, both have elaborate rituals. Tradition-minded Chinese base their philosophy of life on Confucianism, but such old habits of thought came under strong attack during the Cultural Revolution.

Suppression of religion and the introduction of programs of antireligious indoctrination began in 1949 and intensified, with the closure of temples, shrines, mosques, and churches, from the mid-1960s through the mid-1970s. Overt antireligious activity eased in 1976, and the government reactivated its Bureau of Religious Affairs. The constitution of 1982 provides for freedom of belief and worship; however, the government restricts religious practices and maintains a great deal of control over the growth of various religious organizations. The State Administration for Religious Activities and the United Front Work Department monitor religious organizations and supervise the implementation of government regulations for religious groups and activities. All groups are required to register with the government in order to legally participate in worship. Many groups refuse to register, however, either out of protest for government policies and control over religion or from fear of providing the names of religious leaders to government authorities.

As of 2004, the country had five officially recognized religions, Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Catholicism, and Protestantism. About 8% of the population were Buddhists, 1.4% were Muslims, 1.2% were Protestants, and less than 1% were Catholics. Nearly all of the nation's Muslims are members of the ethnic minority nationalities; most belong to the Sunni branch, but the Tajiks are Shias. The tiny Jewish minority has virtually disappeared through emigration and assimilation. A majority of the population does not claim official religious affiliation.

"House churches," a term that typically applies to unregistered Christian groups that meet in homes or businesses for prayer meetings and Bible studies, are somewhat common. Small groups of a dozen or so members are usually allowed to gather without registration as long as the meetings are small, private, and unobtrusive. As membership grows however, these house churches face difficulties in finding ways to continue conducting religious activities without attracting the notice and control of the government. Tensions between the Vatican and the Chinese government have caused difficulties for the nation's Catholics. The state forbids the official Catholic church from recognizing the authority of the Papacy and in matters where government policy and traditional Catholic faith differ, such as abortion, the state takes precedence. This has had a major impact on recruiting, appointing, and retaining the Catholic clergy within the country.

Falun Gong (also known as Falun Dafa) is a combination of Taoism, Buddhism, meditation techniques, and the physical exercises of quigong. Though spiritual in content, it is considered more of a general practice than a religion, since there are no clergy and no places of worship. The group has been considered a heretical cult by the Chinese government and reports indicate that thousands of adherents have been arrested and imprisoned since 1999. It is believed that several hundred have died while in detention.

TRANSPORTATION

Railways, roads, and inland waterways all play an important role in China's transportation system, which has undergone major growth since the 1940s. China's rail network forms the backbone of the transportation system. Chinese railways increased in length from 21,989 km (13,663 mi) in 1949, to 71,898 km (44,721 mi) in 2002, of which 18,115 km (11,267 mi) were electrified. In the rush to expand rail facilities during the "Great Leap Forward," the Chinese laid rails totaling 3,500 km (2,175 mi) in 1958, with some 4,600 km (2,900 mi) added in 1959. Many major projects had been completed by the 1970s, including double-tracking of major lines in the east; the electrification of lines in the west, including the 671 km (417 mi) Baoji-Chengdu link; and the addition of several new trunk lines and spurs, many providing service to the country's more remote areas. While the total rail network is more than twice what it was in 1949, the movement of freight is more than 25 times that of 1949. Increased freight volumes have been achieved by loading freight cars up to 20% over their rated capacity and by containerization. Shortages of freight and tank cars continue to delay deliveries of coal and other industrial raw materials to their destinations. In 1991, China invested $8 billion for infrastructure improvements, including the upgrade of 309 km (192 mi) of double-track railway and the electrification of 849 km (528 mi) of track.

Road transportation has become increasingly important. Motor roads grew from about 400,000 km (249,000 mi) in 1958 to 550,000 km (342,000 mi) in 1964 and to 1,809,829 km (1,125,714 mi) by 2003. About 1,447,682 km (900,458 mi) were paved, including at least 29,745 km (18,501 mi) of expressways. Major roads completed in the 1970s included the 2,413 km (1,499 mi) Sichuan-Tibet Highway, the 2,100 km (1,305 mi) Qinghai-Tibet Highway, and the 1,455 km (904 mi) Xinjiang-Tibet Highway. Between 1981 and 1985, 50,000 km (31,000 mi) of highways and more than 15,000 bridges were built. By 2003, an estimated 6,789,000 passenger automobiles used the highway system, up from 50,000 in 1949. In addition, there were some 17,222,000 commercial vehicles operating in the same year. Bicycles are the chief mode of transport in large cities. In Beijing, there are an estimated eight million bicycles, accounting for 83.5% of the city's road traffic.

As of 2002, China had 121,557 km (75,608 mi) of navigable inland waterways. About 25% of the waterways are navigable by modern vessels, while wooden junks are used on the remainder. The principal inland waterway is the Yangtze River. Much work was done in the early 1980s to dredge and deepen the river, to improve navigational markers and channels, and to eliminate the treacherous rapids of the Three Gorges section east of Yibin. Steamboats can now travel inland throughout the year from Shanghai, at the river's mouth, upstream as far as Yibin, and 10,000ton oceangoing vessels can travel inland as far as Wuhan in the high-water season and Nanjing in the low-water season. Major ports on the river include: Chongqing, the principal transportation hub for the southwest; Wuhan, its freight dominated by shipments of coal, iron, and steel; Wuhu, a rice-exporting center; Yuxikou, across the river from Wuhu and the chief outlet for the region's coal fields; Nanjing; and Shanghai. The Pearl River is navigable via a tributary as far as Nanning. The ancient Grand Canal, rendered impassable by deposits of silt for more than 100 years, has been dredged and rebuilt; it is navigable for about 1,100 km (680 mi) in season and 400 km (250 mi) year-round.

China's merchant fleet expanded from 402,000 gross registered tonnage (GRT) in 1960 to over 10,278,000 GRT in 1986, and to 18,724,653 GRT in 2005. China's 1,649 merchant ships of 1,000 GRT or over can accommodate most of the country's foreign trade. The balance is divided among ships leased from Hong Kong owners and from other foreign sources. The principal ports are Tianjin, the port for Beijing, which consists of the three harbors of Neigang, Tanggu, and Xingang; Shanghai, with docks along the Huangpu River channel; Lüda, the chief outlet for the northeast and the Daqing oil field; and Huangpu, the port for Guangzhou, on the right bank of the Pearl River. Other important ports include Qinhuangdao; Qingdao; Ningbo, the port for Hangzhou; Fuzhou; Xiamen; and Zhanjiang.

The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) operates all domestic and international air services. Operations have grown significantly with the purchase, since the 1970s, of jet aircraft from the United States, United Kingdom, and other Western sources. In 2004, there were an estimated 472 airports. As of 2005, a total of 389 had paved runways and there were also 30 heliports. Principal airports include Capital at Beijing, Shuangliu at Chengdu, Hongqiao at Shanghai, Baiyun at Guangzhou, Wujiaba at Kunming, and Gaoqi at Xiamen. From Beijing there are scheduled daily flights to Shanghai, Guangzhou, Kunming, Chengdu, Shenyang, Changchun, Changsha, Wuhan, Zengzhou, and Harbin. The total scheduled international and domestic service performed in 2003 included 5,651 million freight tonkm, as well as 86.041 million passengers carried.

HISTORY

Fossils attest to hominid habitation in China more than 500,000 years ago, and Paleolithic cultures appeared in the southwest by 30,000 bc. Neolithic peoples appeared before 7000 bc; by 3000 bc there were millet-growing settlements along the Yellow River (Huang He). The original home of the Chinese (Han) people is probably the area of the Wei, Luo (Lo), and middle Yellow rivers. According to tradition, the Xia (Hsia) dynasty (c.2200c.1766 bc) constituted the first Chinese state. Its successor, the Shang, or Yin, dynasty (c.1766c.1122 bc), which ruled over the valley of the Yellow River, left written records cast in bronze or inscribed on tortoiseshell and bone. The Shang was probably conquered by the Western Zhou (Chou) dynasty (c.1122771 bc), which ruled a prosperous feudal agricultural society. Fleeing foreign attack in 771 bc, the Western Zhou abandoned its capital near the site of Xi'an and established a new capital farther east at Luoyang (Loyang). The new state, known as the Eastern Zhou dynasty (771256 bc), produced the great Chinese philosophers including Confucius (K'ung Futzu or Kong Fuzi) and the semi-historical figure, Lao Tzu (Lao Zi). Between 475 and 221 bc, the Qin (Ch'in) dynasty (221207 bc) gradually emerged from among warring, regional states to unify China. Shi Huangdi (Shih Huang Ti, r.221210 bc), the first Qin emperor (the outer edges of whose tomb, opened in the 1970s, were discovered to contain stunningly lifelike terracotta armies), ended the feudal states and organized China into a system of prefectures and counties under central control. For defense against nomadic proto-Mongolian tribes, Shi Huangdi connected walls of the feudal states to form what was later to become known as the Great Wall. By this time, the Yellow River had an irrigation system, and cultivation had begun in the Yangtze Valley; at the end of Shi Huangdi's reign, China probably had close to 40 million people. During the period of the Han dynasties (206 bcad 8, ad 25220), China expanded westward, nomadic tribes from the Mongolian plateau were repelled, and contacts were made with Central Asia, the West, and even Rome. The Han saw the invention of paper. Under the later Han, Buddhism was introduced into China. After the Han period, the Three Kingdoms (Wei, Shu, and Wu) contended for power, and nomadic tribes from the north and west raided northern China. From the 4th century ad on, a series of northern dynasties was set up by the invaders, while several southern dynasties succeeded one another in the Yangtze Valley, with their capital at Nanjing (Nanking). Buddhism flourished during this period, and the arts and sciences were developed. The empire was reunited by the Sui (589618) dynasty, which built the Grand Canal, linking the militarily strategic north with the economic wealth of the south and laying the basis for the Tang (T'ang, 618907) dynasty.

Under the early Tang, especially under Emperor Taizong (T'aitsung, r.62749), China became powerful. The bureaucratic system, begun by the Han, was further developed, including the regular use of an examination system to recruit officials on the basis of merit. Handicrafts and commerce flourished, a system of roads radiated from the capital (at the site of Xi'an), successful wars were fought in Central Asia, and China became the cultural and economic center of Asia. Poetry and painting flourished, particularly under Emperor Xuan-Zong (Hsüantsung, r.71256). Civil wars and rebellion in the late Tang led to a period of partition under the Five Dynasties (r.90760) which was followed by the Northern and Southern Song (Sung) dynasties (9601127, 11271279), distinguished for literature, philosophy, the invention of movable type (using clay and wood), the use of gunpowder in weapons, and the improvement of the magnetic compass. However, Mongol and Tatar tribes in the north forced the Song to abandon its capital at Kaifeng in 1126 and move it to Hangzhou (Hangchow). In 1279, Kublai Khan (r.127994) led the Mongols to bring all of China under their control and became the first ruler of the Mongols' Yuan dynasty (12791368). The Mongols encouraged commerce and increased the use of paper money. The Grand Canal was reconstructed, and a system of relay stations ensured safe travel. Many European missionaries and merchants, notably Marco Polo, came to the Mongol court.

After a long period of peasant rebellion, Mongol rule was succeeded by the native Chinese Ming dynasty (13681644). The famous Ming admiral, Zheng He (Cheng Ho, 13711433) led seven naval expeditions into the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean between 1405 and 1433, reaching as far as the east coast of Africa. The Portuguese reached China in 1516, the Spanish in 1557, the Dutch in 1606, and the English in 1637. The Ming dynasty was overthrown by the Manchus, invaders from the northeast, who established the last imperial dynasty, the Qing (Ch'ing or Manchu, 16441911). The first century and a half of Manchu rule was a period of stability and expansion of power, with outstanding reigns by Kang xi (K'anghsi, 16621722) and Qian long (Ch'ienlung, 173696). Although the Manchus ruled as conquerors, they adopted indigenous Chinese culture, administrative machinery, and laws. Under Manchu rule, Chinese territories included Manchuria, Mongolia, Tibet, Taiwan, and the Central Asian regions of Turkestan. The population of over 300 million by 1750 grew to over 400 million a century later.

By the close of the 18th century, only one port, Guangzhou (Canton), was open to merchants from abroad, and trade was greatly restricted. Demands by the British for increased trade, coupled with Chinese prohibition of opium imports from British India, led to the Opium War (183942), which China lost. By the Treaty of Nanjing (1842), the ports of Guangzhou, Xiamen (Amoy), Fuzhou (Foochow), Ningbo, and Shanghai were opened, and Hong Kong Island was ceded to Britain. The T'aiping Rebellion (185064), nearly overthrew the Manchus and cost 30 million lives. A second war (185660) with Britain, joined by France, resulted in the opening of Tianjin (Tientsin) to foreign trade. The West's interest then turned from trade to territory. Russia acquired its Far Eastern territories from China in 1860. China's defeat in the Sino-French War (188485), in which it came to the defense of its tributary, Vietnam, resulted in the establishment of French Indo-China. In the First Sino-Japanese War (189495), Japan obtained Taiwan, the opening of additional ports, and the independence of Korea (which Japan subsequently annexed in 1910). This was a major turning point and led to the "scramble for concessions." In 1898, Britain leased Weihai in Shandong and the New Territories (for 99 years) of Hong Kong, Germany leased part of Shandong, Russia leased Port Arthur at the tip of Liaedong Peninsula, and France leased land around Guangzhou Bay in the south. The Boxer Rebellion, an uprising in 18991901 by a secret society seeking to expel all foreigners and supported by the Manchu court, was crushed by the intervention of British, French, German, American, Russian, and Japanese troops.

A revolution that finally overthrew Manchu rule began in 1911 in the context of a protest against a government scheme that would have handed Chinese-owned railways to foreign interests. City after city repudiated the Manchus, and in February 1912, the dowager empress, Ci Xi (Tz'u Hsi), signed an abdication document for the infant emperor, Puyi (P'uyi). The Chinese republic, ruled briefly by Sun Zhongshan (Sun Yatsen), followed by Yuan Shikai (Yuän Shihkai), entered upon a period of internal strife. Following Yuan's death in 1916, the Beijing regime passed into the hands of warlords. The Beijing regime joined World War I on the Allied side in 1917. In 1919, the Versailles Peace Conference gave Germany's possessions in Shandong to Japan, sparking the May Fourth Movement as student protests grew into nationwide demonstrations supported by merchants and workers. This marked a new politicization of many social groups, especially those intellectuals who had been emphasizing iconoclastic cultural change.

Meanwhile, civil war grew more intense. In the south, at Guangzhou, the Nationalists (Guomindang, Kuomintang) led by Sun Zhongshan in alliance with the Communists (whose party was founded in Shanghai in 1921) and supported by Russia, built a strong, disciplined party. After Sun Zhongshan's death in 1925, his successor, Chiang Kaishek (Jiang Jieshi), unified the country under Nationalist rule in 1928 with the capital in Nanjing. In 1927, the Nationalists began a bloody purge of the Communists, who sought refuge in southern Jiangxi Province. Their ranks severely depleted by Nationalist attacks, the Communists embarked on their arduous and now historic Long March during 193435. The Communists eventually reached Shaanxi Province in north-western China, where, under the leadership of Mao Zedong (Tsetung), they set up headquarters at Yan'an (Yenan). Japan, taking advantage of Chinese dissension, occupied Manchuria (Dongbei) in 1931.

Increasing Japanese pressure against northern China led, in July 1937, to the second Sino-Japanese war, which continued into World War II and saw Japanese forces occupy most of China's major economic areas. Nationalist China, established in the south-western hinterland with its capital at Chongqing, resisted with US and UK aid, while the Communists fought the Japanese in the northwest. Japan evacuated China in 1945 and both Communist and Nationalist forces moved into liberated areas. The rift between the two factions erupted into civil war. Although supported by the United States, whose mediation efforts had failed, the Nationalists steadily lost ground through 1948 and 1949, were expelled from the mainland by early 1950, and took refuge on Taiwan.

The People's Republic

The Communists, under the leadership of Mao, as chairman of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), proclaimed the People's Republic of China (PRC) on 1 October 1949, with the capital at Beijing. A year later, China entered the Korean War (195053) on the side of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). In the fall of 1950, China entered Tibet, which had asserted its independence after the overthrow of the Manchu dynasty, despite formal claims to it by all subsequent Chinese governments. In 1959, the Dalai Lama fled to India during a Tibetan revolt against Chinese rule. Tibet became an autonomous region in 1965. The Nationalists held, in addition to Taiwan, islands in the Taiwan (Formosa) Strait: the Pescadores, Quemoy (near Xiamen), and the Matsu Islands (near Fuzhou).

In domestic affairs, a rapid program of industrialization and socialization up to 1957 was followed in 195859 by the Great Leap Forward, a crash program for drastic increases in output and the development of completely collectivized agricultural communes. The program ended in the "three bad years" of famine and economic crisis (195961), which produced 20 million deaths above the normal death rate, followed by a period of restoration and retrenchment in economics and politics. In the early 1960s, Chinese troops intermittently fought with Indian border patrols over conflicting territorial claims in Ladakh and the northeastern Indian state of Assam. Mediation attempts failed, but in 1963, the Chinese withdrew from the contested areas that they had occupied, and war prisoners were repatriated. Meanwhile, growing discord between China and the former Soviet Union had become more open, and in 1960, the USSR withdrew its scientific and technical advisers from China. Public polemics sharpened in intensity in the succeeding years, as the two powers competed for support in the world Communist movement.

After the Chinese economy recovered in 1965, Mao again steered the country onto the revolutionary path, and gradually built up momentum for the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, one of the most dramatic and convulsive periods in modern Chinese history. It continued until Mao's death in 1976, but the most tumultuous years were from 1966 to 1969, during which the cities witnessed a chaotic and violent pattern of factional fighting, accompanied by attacks on bureaucrats, intellectuals, scientists and technicians, and anyone known to have overseas connections.

Increasing confrontation between Mao and the party establishment, beginning in the fall of 1965, culminated in August 1966 with the CCP Central Committee's "16Point Decision" endorsing Mao's Cultural Revolution policy of criticizing revisionism. In response to Mao's initiative, high levels of urban protest demonstrated widespread dissatisfaction with bureaucracies and privilege. In the latter half of 1966, the Red Guard movement of radical students attacked educational and state authorities and split into competing factions. Amid the rising conflict, the party institution collapsed in major cities. Liu Shaoqi, second to Mao in the political hierarchy and Chairperson of the People's Republic, was ousted from power as the chief target of the Cultural Revolution. In 1968, Liu was formally dismissed from all positions and expelled from the party. He died at the end of 1969. From January 1967 through mid-1968, the discredited political establishment was replaced by Revolutionary Committees, comprised of the new radical organizations, the officials who remained in power, and representatives of the army. Finally, the army was told to restore order. In 1968 and 1969, students were sent out of the cities into the countryside. Colleges did not reopen until 1970. At the Ninth Party Congress in April 1969, the military's role was confirmed when Lin Biao, the Minister of Defense, was named Mao's successor.

Estimates place the number of dead as a direct result of the Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1969 at 400,000. Much of the countryside, however, was unaffected and the economy, despite a setback in 1968, suffered little. The remaining years of the Cultural Revolution decade, up to 1976, were marked by a legacy of struggles over policies and over political succession to the aging Mao (83 at his death in 1976). In September 1971, Lin Biao died in a plane crash, allegedly while fleeing to the former USSR following an abortive coup. The decade from 1966 to 1976 left persistent factionalism in Chinese politics and a crisis of confidence, particularly among the young.

These years of domestic upheaval also brought profound changes in international alignments. In 1969, Chinese and Soviet forces clashed briefly along the Amur River frontier of eastern Heilongjiang Province. Throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s, China played a major role in supporting the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) in the Vietnamese conflict. In November 1971, the PRC government replaced Taiwan's Nationalist government as China's representative at the UN and on the Security Council, following a General Assembly vote of 7635, with 17 abstentions, on 25 October. Following two preliminary visits by US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, President Richard M. Nixon journeyed to China on 21 February 1972 for an unprecedented state visit, and the two countries took major steps toward normalization of relations as the two nations sought common ground in their mutual distrust of Soviet intentions. In the period following the Nixon visit, US-China trade accelerated and cultural exchanges were arranged. In May 1973, the two countries established liaison offices in each other's capital and full diplomatic relations were established by 1979.

In 1975 at the Fourth National People's Congress, Zhou Enlai (Chou Enlai) announced a reordering of economic and social priorities to achieve the Four Modernizations (of agriculture, industry, national defense, and science and technology). Factional strife reminiscent of the late 1960s emerged between radical party elements led by Mao's wife, Jiang Qing (Chiang Ch'ing), and three associates (later collectively dubbed the Gang of Four), who opposed the modernization plans, and veteran party officials, such as Deng Xiaoping (previously associated with Liu Shaoqi and restored to power in 1973), who favored them. When Zhou died on 8 January 1976, the radicals moved to block the appointment of Deng (Zhou's heir apparent) as premier, with Mao resolving the impasse by appointing Hua Guofeng, a veteran party official and government administrator, as acting premier. Attacks on Deng continued until he was blamed for spontaneous disorders at a Beijing demonstration honoring Zhou on the Festival of the Dead, 5 April 1976, and, for the second time in his career, Deng was removed from all official positions.

After Mao

When Mao Zedong died on 9 September 1976, Hua Guofeng was quickly confirmed as party chairman and premier. A month later, the Gang of Four was arrested, and in early 1977, the banished Deng Xiaoping was again "reinstated." By 1978, Deng Xiaoping had consolidated his political dominance, and a new era of economic reforms began. The Third Party Plenum and the Fifth National People's Congress in 1978 adopted a new constitution and confirmed the goals of the Four Modernizations. Another new constitution in 1982 again confirmed policies of economic reform and emphasized legal procedure. The Cultural Revolution was officially condemned and Mao's historical role reevaluated. After a show trial from November 1980 to January 1981, the Gang of Four, together with Mao's former secretary and five others associated with Lin Biao, were convicted of crimes of the Cultural Revolution. Jiang Qing, whose death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment, committed suicide in 1991 after being diagnosed with cancer.

In 1980, Zhao Ziyang, a protégé of Deng Xiaoping, replaced Hua Guofeng as premier, and Hu Yaobang, another Deng protégé, became general secretary of the CCP while Hua resigned as party chairperson (a position which was abolished) in 1981. The 1980s saw a gradual process of economic reforms, beginning in the countryside with the introduction of the household responsibility system to replace collective farming. As the rural standard of living rose, reforms of the more complex urban economy began in the mid-1980s in an attempt to use the economic levers of the market instead of a command system of central planning to guide the economy. These included, with varying degrees of success, reforms of the rationing and price system, wage reforms, devolution of controls of state enterprises, legalization of private enterprises, creation of a labor market and stock markets, the writing of a code of civil law, and banking and tax reforms. At the same time, the Chinese pursued a policy of opening toward the outside world, establishing Special Economic Zones, and encouraging joint ventures and foreign investment.

In the 1980s and 1990s, China attempted to settle its relations with neighboring states. After a border clash with Vietnam in 1979, there were agreements with Great Britain in 1984 for the return of Hong Kong to China in 1997, and with Portugal in 1987, for the return of Macaua Portuguese colony since the 16th centuryin 1999. In May 1989, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev visited Beijing in the first Sino-Soviet summit since 1959. Top Vietnamese leaders came to China in 1991, normalizing relations between the two countries after a gap of 11 years. In the early 1990s, China and South Korea established regular relations, with China also maintaining a relationship with North Korea.

Until 1989, economic reforms were accompanied by relatively greater openness in intellectual spheres. A series of social and political movements spanning the decade from 1979 to 1989 were critical of the reforms and reacted to their effects. In the Democracy Wall movement in Beijing in the winter of 197879, figures like Wei Jingsheng (imprisoned from 1979 to 1994 and subsequently reimprisoned) called for democracy as a necessary "fifth modernization." A student demonstration in Beijing in the fall of 1985 was followed in the winter of 198687 with a larger student movement with demonstrations of up to 50,000 in Shanghai, Beijing, and Nanjing, in support of greater democracy and freedom. In June 1987, blamed for allowing the demonstrations, Hu Yaobang was dismissed as party General Secretary, and several important intellectuals, including the astrophysicist Fang Lizhi and the journalist Liu Binyan, were expelled from the party. At the 15th Party congress of November 1987, many hardline radicals failed to retain their positions, but Zhao Ziyang, who was confirmed as General Secretary to replace Hu, had to give up his position as Premier to Li Peng. By the end of 1988, economic problems, including inflation of up to 35% in major cities, led to major disagreements within the government, resulting in a slowdown of reforms. In December 1988, student disaffection and nationalism were expressed in a demonstration against African students in Nanjing.

On 15 April 1989, Hu Yaobang died of a heart attack. Students in Beijing, who had been planning to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the May Fourth Movement, responded with a demonstration, ostensibly in mourning for Hu, demanding a more democratic government and a freer press. Student marches continued and spread to other major cities. The urban population, unhappy with high inflation and the extent of corruption, largely supported the students and, by 17 May, Beijing demonstrations reached the size of one million people, including journalists, other salaried workers, private entrepreneurs and a tiny independent workers' organization, as well as students. On 19 May, martial law was imposed to no effect, and the government attempted to send troops to clear Beijing's Tiananmen Square, where demonstrators were camped, on 1920 May and 3 June. Finally, in the early hours of 4 June 1989, armed troops, armored personnel carriers, and tanks, firing on demonstrators and bystanders, managed to reach the Square. Firing continued in the city for several days and estimates of the total number killed range from 200 to 3,000. The events of 4 June sparked protests across the country, and thousands were arrested as the movement was suppressed. On 24 June, Zhao Ziyang was dismissed as General Secretary and Jiang Zemin, the mayor of Shanghai, was named in his place.

Following 4 June 1989, economic reforms were curtailed and some private enterprises closed down as the leadership launched an anticorruption drive. Ideological expression, higher education, and the news media were more tightly controlled in the ensuing years. The move toward a market oriented economy began again, with increased speed, after Deng Xiaoping made a publicized visit in the spring of 1992 to the most developed areas in southern China. China's economy became one of the most rapidly growing in the world but continued to be plagued by inflation, corruption, and a growing disparity among the provinces. With a high rate of tax evasion, state revenues were shrinking and one-third went to subsidize state enterprises. Having been at the forefront of change in the early 1980s, peasants in the early 1990s were being left behind. In 1993 and 1994, there were peasant protests and riots over receiving IOUs for their produce and over local corruption. There were workers' disputes and strikes (250,000 between 1988 and 1993) in response to low pay and poor working conditions.

Labor unrest continued into 1997 as thousands of workers in several impoverished inland provinces rioted when promises of back pay went unfulfilled. A March 1997 labor protest involving 20,000 workers in Nanchong was the largest since the Communist revolution. China's uneven economic development also led to the growth of a migrant worker class. By 2005, it was estimated that some 100150 million peasants left their homes in northern and western provinces in search of menial work along the coast. The unemployment in urban areas was 9.8% for 2004 with an overall unemployment rate of 20%; the unemployment rate does not include underemployment which also is a serious problem.

Parallel to but separate from the student and labor movements were ongoing demonstrations by ethnic minorities; there are 56 officially recognized minority groups in China. The most visible were those of the Tibetans (Buddhists), due to their international connections, but there have also been protests by other minorities, such as the Uyghurs (Muslims) in Xinjiang province. Violent Tibetan demonstrations in the fall of 1987 and spring of 1988 were forcibly suppressed, and from March 1989 to April 1990, martial law was imposed in Lhasa, Tibet. A Uyghur uprising in Xinjiang was met with force by the Chinese military in February 1997, leaving an estimated 100 ethnic Uyghur and 25 Chinese dead. But the situation in Tibet posed the most difficulty for Beijing. China's efforts to control Tibet and dilute its culture led in 1995 to the indefinite detention of the six-year-old boy chosen by the exiled Dalai Lama as his reincarnation, or Panchen Lama. Beijing selected another six-year-old and forced Tibetan leaders to accept him. According to the CCP the Panchen Lama and his family are living in 'protective custody,' however, no international organization has been able to visit the family to verify their whereabouts since he was taken in 1995.

In September 1997, the CCP's 15th National Congress elected a Central Committee, which selected the 22member Politburo. Jiang Zemin became the General Secretary of the party in addition to his title of president. Li Peng was appointed prime minister, and Zhu Rongji, deputy prime minister. During this Congress, political power was consolidated in the triumvirate, with Jiang Zemin officially taking the deceased Deng Xiaoping's position.

As the government prepared for the 50th anniversary of the proclamation of the People's Republic of China, it witnessed the return of Hong Kong (1 July 1997) and Macau (20 December 1999). Both former colonies were designated Special Administrative Regions (SAR) and Jiang stated that each SAR would continue to operate with a considerable degree of economic autonomy.

Also in 1999, Chinese nationalism increased with the US bombings of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, Yugoslavia in May as an outpouring of government-sanctioned anti-American demonstrations took place in Beijing. Despite rising nationalism, the political leadership felt threatened by a small but rapidly growing religious sect, the Falun Gong. On 22 July 1999, Chinese authorities banned the sect and arrested its leaders despite international human rights watch groups' criticism. The country celebrated its 50th anniversary on 1 October 1999 with a 500,000person military parade showcasing its new technological achievements in armaments.

In February and March 1996, China testfired missiles near Taiwan's two main ports, which caused the United States to send two aircraft carrier groups to the Taiwan Strait. It was the largest US naval movement in the Asia-Pacific region since the Vietnam War. The missile firings and accompanying military exercises were considered to be responses to Taiwan's presidential elections of March 1996, which President Lee Tenghui, whom China accused of supporting Taiwanese independence, won.

In the runup to Taiwanese presidential elections in March 2000, Chen Shuibian of the Democratic Progressive Party, the eventual winner, issued proindependence campaign speeches advocating "one country on each side," contradicting China's "one-country, two systems" policy. In March 2000, Zhu Rongji, the deputy prime minister, warned Taiwan and the United States that Taiwanese independence could lead to armed conflict. A Chinese newspaper also quoted a government white paper stating that war with the United States is inevitable in the future and that if the United States intervened on behalf of Taiwan, the Chinese may use nuclear weapons. Meanwhile, China began construction of military bases on the mainland across the Taiwan Strait. In 1996, China had fewer than 50 shortrange missiles within striking distance of Taiwan. In April 2002, it was estimated that China's military forces had more than 350 missiles in the region and by 2005 the number had escalated to 700.

On 1 April 2001, a US Navy EP-3 reconnaissance aircraft survived a midair collision with a Chinese F-8 fighter jet over the South China Sea. The Chinese fighter pilot was lost. The EP-3 conducted an emergency landing on Hainan Island, and the 24-member crew was detained there for 11 days in a standoff between the two countries. The United States and China blamed each other's aircraft for the crash. The EP-3 was later disassembled for transport back to the United States.

China expressed deep sympathy toward the United States following the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, DC. It has backed the Americanled war on terrorism, and cited its own problems with what it considers to be terrorist activities led by ethnic Uyghurs fighting for an independent homeland in the northwest Xinjiang province. China has detained thousands of Uyghurs since 11 September 2001. China voted in favor of UN Security Council Resolution 1441 on 8 November 2002, which required Iraq to immediately disarm itself of weapons of mass destruction (chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons), to allow UN and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) arms inspectors into the country, and to comply with previous UN resolutions regarding Iraq.

On 11 December 2001, China formally became a member of the World Trade Organization, representing international recognition of China's growing economic power. Several nongovernmental organizations and individuals worldwide protested China's accession to the body, due to its record on human rights violations. Another formidable problem for China, in regards to acceptance of WTO regulations, is the lack of adherence to intellectual property rights which involves industries as different as films to computer software. Most concerning is the availability of counterfeit medicine; thousands of Chinese are reported to have died from the ill effects of fake medicine. WTO regulations forbid counterfeiting although this has not yet affected China's membership in the organization.

In November 2002, China and the ten members of ASEAN signed an accord to resolve any conflicts over the Spratly Islands without armed force. The Spratlys are claimed by China, Taiwan, Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam, and are home to some of the world's busiest shipping lanes; they are also believed to be rich in oil and natural gas. Signatories to the accord agreed to cease further occupation of the islands, to help anyone in distress in the area, to exchange views with one another on defense issues, and to give advance warning of military exercises.

At the 16th Communist Party Congress held 814 November 2002, what is considered to be a "fourth generation" of Chinese leaders emerged, led by Hu Jintao, Jiang Zemin's replacement as Communist Party General Secretary. In addition to Hu, the other eight members of the 9-member Politburo Standing Committee were new appointees. In 2005 Hu advised the CCP not to focus solely on economic growth and instead integrate social and environmental factors into decision making. Hu also took a number of high profile trips to the poorer areas of China as well as made the minutes of the Politburo Standing Committee meetings public.

GOVERNMENT

On 4 December 1982, China adopted its fourth constitution since 1949, succeeding those of 1954, 1975, and 1978. In theory, the highest organ of state power is the National People's Congress (NPC), in which legislative power is vested. The constitution stipulates, however, that the congress is to function under the direction of the Chinese Communist Party, headed by the general secretary. The NPC meets annually for about two weeks to review major new policy directions, to adopt new laws, and to approve the national budget submitted to it by the state council. Each congress consists of more than 3,000 deputies elected indirectly for a term of five years. The NPC elects a standing committee as its permanent working organ between sessions. The state council, the executive organ of the NPC, consists of a premier (the head of government), five vicepremiers, ministers, and heads of other major government agencies. The state council issues administrative regulations and both formulates and executes economic policy and the state budget. The 1982 constitution restored the largely ceremonial post of state chairman, or president, a position abolished by Mao Zedong in 1968. The eighth National People's Congress in March 1993 elected Jiang Zemin as president and reelected Li Peng, first elected in 1988, to a second five-year term as premier. At the ninth National People's Congress in March 1998, Li Peng was elected chairman of the NPC standing committee, and Zhu Rongji became premier. Since the 1980s, the NPC has slowly increased its function as a locus for discussion of issues instead of merely being a rubber stamp. The 1992 debate on the Yangtze River (Chang Jiang) dam project is an example of this.

The death of Communist Party patriarch Deng Xiaoping in February 1997 brought to a head the infighting between Jiang Zemin, Li Peng, and Zhu Rongji. At the 15th National People's Congress, Jiang was chosen to succeed Deng Xiaoping. The political leadership settled into one of shared leadership. At the 16th party congress held in November 2002, Jiang Zemin, Li Peng and Zhu Rongji resigned their posts in the Politburo standing committee, and the three gave up their positions as president and general secretary, chairman of the NPC standing committee, and premier, respectively, at the 10th NPC held in March 2003. Hu Jintao was named president (he had already been named general secretary of the Communist Party) and Wen Jiabao was named premier.

Democratic elections are held at the village level, but are forbidden above that level. The one lone opposition party, China Democratic Party, is acknowledged by the CCP, but it exists in theory only. Corruption, embezzlement, and bribery are all aspects of contemporary Chinese political life. The government owns all forms of media, including television, radio stations, and most newspapers. However, access to the Internet is widespread, especially in large cities and Western news outlets can be reached.

POLITICAL PARTIES

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been the ruling political organization in China since 1949. Eight other minor parties have existed since 1949 as members of a United Front, but their existence has been purely nominal. The party, with 55 million members (1999 estimate), plays a decisive role in formulating broad and detailed government policies and supervising their implementation at all levels of administration. Party supervision is maintained not only through placement of CCP members in key government posts, but also through specialized organs of the central committee of the CCP, which focus their attention on given subjects (e.g., propaganda or rural work). The CCP also forms branches within individual government units, as well as in factories, communes, schools, shops, neighborhoods, and military units.

Theoretically, the highest organ of party power is the National Party Congress, which usually meets once every five years. At each party congress a central committee is elected to oversee party affairs between sessions. The central committee (356 members198 full members and 158 alternate members) meets annually in a plenary session to elect a political bureau, or Politburo (with 24 members as of 2006), and its standing committee, the party's most powerful organ (9 members in 2006). Directing day-to-day party affairs at the highest level is the secretariat, headed by Hu Jintao as general secretary since November 2002. In 1982, the post of party chairman, formerly the most powerful in the nation, was abolished; the title had been held by Mao Zedong until his death in 1976, by Hua Guofeng from 1976 until his ouster in 1981, and by Hu Yaobang thereafter.

Deng Xiaoping, China's acknowledged political leader since 1977, retired from the central committee in 1987, retired as chairperson of the party's central military commission in 1989, and retired as chairperson of the state's central military commission, his last formal position, in 1990. A new CCP charter adopted at the 12th Communist Party congress in September 1982 forbids "all forms of personality cult" and, in an implicit criticism of Mao, decrees that "no leaders are allowed to practice arbitrary individual rule or place themselves above the party organization." A major purge of party members in the early 1980s sought to exclude elements opposed to Deng's modernization policies. The 13th party congress, convened in October 1987, affirmed Deng's reform policies and the drive for a younger leadership.

In the wake of the June Fourth massacre in 1989, Deng Xiaoping declared that Jiang Zemin, former mayor of Shanghai, should be the "core" of collective leadership after Deng's death. The Politburo announced prohibitions, largely ineffectual, against some forms of party privileges and nepotism, the corruption that had sparked the 1989 protests. The 14th party congress in October 1992 removed Yang Shangkun, state president (198893), from the Politburo, weakening the power of his clique in the military. In 1993, the National People's Congress reelected Jiang Zemin, already party general secretary, as chairperson of the central military commission and elected him as state president. This was the first time since the late 1970s that top, formal positions in the party, government, and military were concentrated in one leader's hands.

After the 15th Communist Party congress, a highly publicized anticorruption drive resulted in the execution of several prominent cases. In addition, Jiang began to remove the Communist Party from state-owned enterprises through an aggressive privatization strategy. In 2000, Jiang introduced a theory revamping the image of the Communist Party. Called the "three represents," it was written into the party constitution at the 16th party congress in November 2002. Seen as a reorientation of the party away from its sole mission to serve the proletariat, the theory of the "three represents" emphasizes the importance of the middle class, stating that the party will represent not only workers and peasants, but the "advanced productive forces, advanced culture, and the broad masses of the people." Jiang resigned as chairman of the Central Military Commission in September 2004, his last official post.

Hu, who became state president at the National People's Congress in March 2003, was a protégé of Deng Xiaoping, chosen as the "core" of the younger generation. Seen as moderate and cautious, he was expected to proceed with Jiang's slow but steady policy of economic liberalization, and perhaps to introduce some administrative and political reform. Soon into his tenure, the SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) crisis broke out and Hu was criticized for not taking action quickly enough. Hu also chose to move China away from a policy of favoring rapid economic growth and toward a more balanced view of growth, most notably by establishing a "green" GDP, taking into consideration the degradation of both natural resources and the environment.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT

The People's Republic of China (PRC) consists of 22 provinces (sheng the PRC claims Taiwan as its 23rd province), five autonomous regions (zizhiqu ), and four centrally administered municipalities (zhixiashi ). Provinces and autonomous regions, in turn, are divided into "special districts," counties (xian ), and cities (shi ) under provincial jurisdiction, as well as into autonomous minor regions (zhou ) and autonomous counties (zizhixian ), where non-Han Chinese minority groups reside. Counties, autonomous counties, and autonomous zhou are divided into townships (xiang ), autonomous townships (for small minority groups), towns, and rural communes. Hong Kong and Macau are designated as Special Administrative Regions (SAR).

From 195882, local administrative authority formerly held by the xiang was transferred to the communes and their local people's councils. In 1988, Hainan Island, formerly part of Guangdong, was made China's newest province. The 1982 constitution returned local administrative control to the xiangs as the communes began to be disbanded. Local revolutionary committees, which replaced the local people's councils during the Cultural Revolution and under the 1975 constitution, were abolished in 1980. The restored local people's councils have the power to formulate local laws and regulations. The local people's governments are administrative organs of the state and report to the State Council.

In the 1980s an emphasis was placed on recruiting and promoting younger and better-educated officials in local party and government posts. Many provinces along the coastal regions have adopted more decentralized forms of administration while interior provinces remain highly beholden to the central party. Local elections involving multiple candidates have taken place, especially in the more urbanized coastal areas. Elections began on a trial basis in 1987, and in over 730,000 villages, peasants were scheduled to go to the polls every three years to elect local committees.

JUDICIAL SYSTEM

China's legal system, instituted after the establishment of the PRC in 1949, is largely based on that of the former USSR. However, after 1957, Mao Zedong's government consistently circumvented the system in its campaign to purge the country of rightist elements and "counter-revolutionaries." The Ministry of Justice was closed down in 1959, not to reopen until 1979, and the excesses of the Cultural Revolution wrought havoc on legal institutions and procedures. Efforts to reestablish a credible legal system resumed in 1977 (when there were no lawyers in China), as party moderates came to power. These efforts were accelerated in the early 1980s as China sought to provide the legal protection required by foreign investors.

The highest judicial organ is the Supreme People's Court, which, with the Supreme People's Procuratorates, supervises the administration of justice in the basic people's courts and people's tribunals (courts of first instance), intermediate people's courts, and higher people's courts. The judiciary is independent but subject to the Communist Party's policy guidance. The legal profession was still in an incipient stage of development in the mid-1980s. Over 25 law departments at universities and four special schools for training legal officials were in operation in 1987, when China had 26,000 lawyers. By 2000, there were 112,000 lawyers with plans to increase this number to 200,000 by 2010.

A major anticrime campaign during the autumn of 1983 resulted in public executions at the rate of at least 200 a month; capital punishment may be meted out for 65 offenses, including embezzlement and theft. Under the Chinese criminal codes, as revised in 1979, local committees may sentence "hoodlums" to terms in labor camps of up to four years, in proceedings that grant the suspect no apparent opportunity for defense or appeal. Government records for 1990 indicated that nearly 870,000 persons were assigned to such camps during the 1980s. In 2003, there were 250,000 people reported to be incarcerated in these camps. China does not permit international observation of prisons or labor camps. Since 1990, sentences to labor camps may be judicially challenged under the Administrative Procedures Law. In practice the review of such a sentence is rarely sought.

Due process rights are afforded in the 1982 constitution, but they have limited practical import. The Criminal Procedural Law requires public trials, with an exception for cases involving state secrets, juveniles, or personal privacy. Cases are rapidly processed and conviction rates are about 99%. The 1976 Criminal Code contained 26 crimes punishable by death. A 1995 law raised this number to 65, including financial crimes such as passing fake negotiable notes and letters of credit, and illegal "pooling" of funds. Appeal is possible but with little chance of success. However in 1996, the National Peoples' Congress passed new legislation to reform criminal procedure and the legal profession. The new legislation recognized for the first time that lawyers represent their clients, not the state. Under the new system lawyers may establish private law firms. Defendants may also ask near relatives or guardians to provide additional defense.

Amendments to the criminal procedure became effective in January 1997. The amendments state that suspects may retain a lawyer after being first interrogated by an investigative organ. Attorneys may conduct limited investigation, call defense witnesses, and argue their client's cases in open court. According to the amendments, defendants will enjoy a presumption of innocence.

Beginning in 1998, the government began a comprehensive "internal shakeup" of the judiciary, resulting in the punishment or dismissal of over 4,200 judicial branch employees. In January 1999, the former head of the Anticorruption Bureau of the Supreme People's Procuratorate was dismissed for corruption.

China is party to many international organizations such as the UN, the ICC, ASEAN, and most recently the World Trade Organization. China's entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) in December 2001 has caused China to undertake a full-scale revision of its laws and regulations in order to adhere to WTO rules. In opening its market up to sectors involving finance, insurance, telecommunications, commerce, transportation, construction, tourism, and other services, China will require its judicial system to perform in accordance with international standards. As of 2003, China's lawyers were adhering to a new policy to wear black suits in court, in an attempt to promote professionalism and as a step toward integration with international practices.

Independent trade unions are illegal. Striking is also illegal although there have been increased use of strikes as a method of bargaining with mixed results. Sometimes leaders are arrested but other times not.

The oft misunderstood "one-child policy" has been clarified in recent years. The Population and Family Planning Law requires couples to employ birth control measures and technically limits the couple to only one child. This is well enforced in the cities, but less so in more rural areas. However, there are many avenues through which couples may have a second child. Two examples are as follows: ethnic minorities and farming families are able to have more than one child and couples in urban areas that are both the product of a one child family are entitled to produce a second child.

In March 2005, the State Council passed the Regulation on Religious Affairs which human rights groups believe sharply curtailed both freedom of religious belief and freedom to express one's belief. However, Chinese officials claimed that the regulation safeguards "normal" religious activities, places of religious worship, and religious believers. At the same time religious believers are expected to abide by the government's laws. Religious activities that are banned if deemed "nonnormal" include publishing and distributing texts, selecting leaders, raising funds and managing finances, organizing training, inviting guests, independently scheduling meetings and choosing venues, and communicating freely with other organizations.

ARMED FORCES

In 2005, China's active military forces totaled 2,255,000 personnel, with around 800,000 reservists. China has been modernizing its military at a rapid pace even as it reduces personnel. The Army had 1,600,000 personnel, whose major weaponry included more than 7,580 main battle tanks, 1,000 light tanks, 1,000 armored infantry fighting vehicles, over 3,500 armored personnel carriers, and over 17,700 artillery pieces (14,000 towed). The Army's air arm included 31 attack helicopters and eight assault helicopters. The Army is deployed over seven regions. The Chinese Navy in 2005 consisted of an estimated 255,000 personnel, including an estimated 10,000 Marines and a naval aviation arm of 26,000 personnel. Major naval units include 68 tactical submarines including 5 nuclear-powered attack submarines (SSNs), 21 destroyers, 42 frigates, 331 patrol/coastal craft, 130 mine warfare vessels, and various types of amphibious craft and logistics/support vesels. The Navy's aviation arm had 436 combat capable aircraft including 68 bombers, 74 fighters, and 274 fighter ground attack aircraft. Chinese naval forces are deployed into three fleets. The air-force had a total of 400,000 personnel including 210,000 assigned to air defense and 40,000 assigned to China's strategic forces. The Air Force's arsenal had 2,643 combat capable aircraft, including up to 222 bombers, 1,252 fighters, and 1,169 fighter ground attack aircraft.

Chinese military strength also includes a nuclear capability. It is suspected that China possesses 410 strategic and nonstrategic nuclear weapons. There are more than 100,000 personnel assigned to the nation's Strategic Missile Forces.

China's paramilitary forces in 2005 had about 1.5 million active personnel, which made up the People's Armed Police; these forces are under the Ministry of Public Security. In addition, there are over 100,000 border defense and 69,000 communications personnel. There are also an estimated 800,000 Internal Security personnel. The Chinese are involved in UN peacekeeping missions in 10 countries or regions around the world.

China's defense budget for 2005 was reported to be $29.5 billion. However, that figure may be misleading. In 2004, the defense budget totaled $25 billion, but actual defense spending was estimated at $62.5 billion.

INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION

China has held a seat in the United Nations since 24 October 1945. After the Communist victory in 1949, UN representation was exercised by the Republic of China (ROC) government on Taiwan until November 1971, when the PRC replaced the ROC in the world organization and its member agencies. As of January 1988, the PRC belonged to ESCAP and several nonregional specialized agencies. The PRC displaced the ROC in the World Bank and IMF in 1980. China acceded to WTO membership on 11 December 2001. China also participates in APEC, the African Development Bank, the Asian Development Bank, and G-77. The country is an observer in the OAS and the Latin American Integration Association (LAIA), a nonregional member of the Caribbean Development Bank, and a dialogue partner in ASEAN.

The United States extended recognition to China on 15 December 1978 and resumed full diplomatic relations as of 1 January 1979. Continued US links with Taiwan in the 1980s, however, remained an irritant in USPRC relations. The future of Hong Kong, for which part of the lease (the New Territories) expired in 1997, dominated UK-Chinese discussions, and in 1984, an agreement to give Hong Kong back to China in 1997 was formally signed. Relations with the USSR, severed during the Sino-Soviet split in the 1960s, improved somewhat in the 1980s but remained strained over China's support of anti-Soviet forces in Cambodia and Afghanistan. By the end of 1985, more than 130 nations had extended full diplomatic recognition to the PRC, with a parallel drop to about 10 in the number recognizing Taiwan's government. By the mid-1980s, the PRC had achieved normal relations with most of its Asian neighbors, including Japan, India, Pakistan, Malaysia, Thailand, and Singapore.

Relations with Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos (all allies of the former USSR) were tense after the late 1970s, but improved in the 1990s. At the Eighth Summit of the Association of Southeast Asia Nations held in November 2002, China forgave the debts of Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar, and Cambodia. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in late 1991, China established diplomatic relations with the republics of the former Soviet Union. China normalized relations with the Republic of Korea in 1992. At an "ASEAN+3" (China, Japan, and the Republic of Korea) summit meeting held in November 2000, the three countries agreed to promote human and cultural exchanges between them. As of January 2003, a proposed ASEAN-China Free Trade Area was being planned, to begin in 2010.

China is part of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (London Group), the Zangger Committee, and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and participates as an observer in the Nonaligned Movement. In 2001, China joined with Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan to establish the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a cooperative security partnership focused on combating terrorism, extremism, and separatism. China is also a member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration.

In environmental cooperation, China is part of the Antarctic Treaty, the Basel Convention, Conventions on Biological Diversity and Whaling, Ramsar, CITES, the London Convention, International Tropical Timber Agreements, the Kyoto Protocol, the Montréal Protocol, MARPOL, the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, and the UN Conventions on the Law of the Sea, Climate Change, and Desertification.

ECONOMY

Traditional China was predominantly agricultural. Adhering to farming patterns developed over a score of centuries, China could sustain a harsh level of self-sufficiency, given surcease from natural calamities. For almost three decades prior to 1949, the incessant ravages of civil disorder, foreign (principally Japanese) invasion, and gross economic neglect virtually decimated China's frail abilities to sustain itself. The first task of the new PRC government thus was to restore the flow of natural resources to prewar levels. By the early 1950s, the government had succeeded in halting massive starvation. Almost all means of production and distribution were brought under state control, and vast parcels of land were redistributed to the peasantry. During 195357, China's first five-year plan stressed heavy industry. Economic development was aided by imports of machinery and other industrial equipment from the former USSR and East European countries. In return, China exported agricultural produce to them. A major geological prospecting drive resulted in the discovery of mineral deposits that provided a major thrust toward industrialization.

The Great Leap Forward of 195859 initially produced sharp gains in industry and agriculture, but the zeal for increased quotas quickly resulted in undue strain on resources and quality. The Great Leap was followed by "three bitter years" of economic crisis brought on by bad harvests and the economic dislocation of the previous period. By 1961, the GNP had fallen to an estimated $81 billion, roughly the level reached in 1955. By 1965, however, a readjustment of expectations, coupled with a careful program of industrial investment, helped the economy to recover. China's trade patterns, meanwhile, had shifted radically away from the USSR and toward Japan and Western Europe.

During the late 1960s, in the Cultural Revolution period, long-range central economic planning was abandoned in favor of policies promoting local self-reliance. Self-sufficiency in grain production was particularly stressed. The negative impact of this emphasis on agricultural development, together with the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution, resulted in a drop in industrial production of 1020%, while agricultural output, aided by good weather, improved only marginally.

Centralized planning resumed in 1970 with Zhou Enlai's announcement of key goals for the fourth five-year plan (197175), including an increase in grain output. The fifth five-year plan (197680), disrupted during the political upheaval that followed the deaths of Mao and Zhou in 1976, was restructured in 1978 to embody the Four Modernizations, with the use of Western technology as necessary. At the same time, a 10-year plan (197585) calling for the traditional expansion of agriculture and heavy industry was revamped to emphasize the growth of light industries and the accelerated development of industrial raw materials. Trade with the United States expanded after full diplomatic relations were restored in 1979, and four special economic zones were established as centers for foreign investment. The sixth five-year plan (198185), adopted in 1982, reflected this new pragmatic approach to economic development by emphasizing agriculture, light industry, energy, and improved transportation facilities. During the 1980s, the Chinese economy underwent a major restructuring under the leadership of Zhao Ziyang. Rural reforms launched in 1979, which linked remuneration to output and centered on household responsibility, had a profound and beneficial impact on the rural economy, and output and income rose to record levels for rural residents. The commune system was disbanded in 198384 and replaced by a system of townships, and the household or family became the main unit of rural production. In the wake of the success of these rural reforms, the CCP Central Committee published "A Decision on the Reform of the Economic Structure" in October 1984, with the goal of totally overhauling the national economy and bringing urban industrial organization in line with rural practice. The main points of the decision were that all urban enterprises would be responsible for their own profits and losses, managers would have greater decisionmaking authority, and national and local governments would relinquish direct control over enterprises and assume a regulatory and supervisory position. Remuneration would be based on productivity, subsidies would be abolished, wages and prices would find their own level, and private and collective enterprises would be encouraged.

The seventh five-year plan (198690) made reform its paramount concern. The reforms put forth in 1984 and firmly anchored in the 1988 Enterprise Law proved remarkably successful, leading to much higher rates of industrial and general economic growth than previously expected. Real GNP grew by an average of 9.6% annually between 197988, reaching 11% in 1988. By this time, however, indicators of a seriously overheated economy were also clearly emerging; inflation accelerated to 20.7% and shortages in raw material and energy supply, as well as transportation capacity, rapidly worsened. Growth fell to only 4% in 1989 before austerity measures initiated by the government brought inflation to below 10% and eventually restored growth to double digit levels.

Infrastructure development was given special priority in the China's eighth plan covering 199195. During this period economic growth accelerated, averaging more than 10% annually, giving China one of the fastest growing economies in the world. With growth came rising inflation and infrastructural bottlenecks, which highlighted the need for further improvements in macroeconomic management. The 19962000 economic plan, which called for economic growth of 910% through 2000, reaffirmed the importance of the private sector and opening the economy to the outside world. To attract and maintain foreign investors China needed to reform its legal and financial institutions. Despite the government's endorsement of market reforms, the plan continued to affirm the role of state-owned enterprises, which still accounted for more than one-third of total industrial output. In 1996, China committed two-thirds of fixed-asset investment to state-owned enterprises even though most were heavily in debt. By propping up the state sector China risked continuing budget deficits and the higher debt service that came with the borrowing necessary to pay for those expenditures. Investment in the state sector accounted for nearly all of the new investment in 1998, in the form of a special infrastructure-spending package forwarded by the government, supporting a GDP growth rate of 7% in 1999. Economic growth, which slowed during the late 1990s, recovered after China gained entrance to the WTO in 2002.

International analysts warn that reports of the GDP issued by the government may be suspect, pointing to historical inconsistencies between government-reported GDP statistics and those reported by other economic analysts. Mid-way through 2005, the Economist Intelligence Unit's estimates of a GDP increase of 9.3% appeared to be accurate. Also in that year, draft proposals for the eleventh five-year plan specified several objectives, including the promotion of energy efficiency, doubling percapita GDP, and encouraging "harmonious development."

INCOME

The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) reports that in 2002 China's gross domestic product (GDP) was estimated at $6 trillion. The per capita GDP was estimated at $4,600. The annual growth rate of GDP was estimated at 8%. The average inflation rate in 2005 was -0.8%. The CIA defines GDP as the value of all final goods and services produced within a nation in a given year and computed on the basis of purchasing power parity (PPP) rather than value as measured on the basis of the rate of exchange. It was estimated that agriculture accounted for 18% of GDP, industry 49%, and services 33%.

According to the United Nations, in 2000 remittances from citizens working abroad totaled $556 million, accounting for approximately 0.1% of GDP. Worker remittances in 2001 totaled $912 million. Foreign aid receipts amounted to about $1 per capita.

The World Bank reports that in 2001 per capita household consumption (in constant 1995 US dollars) was $399. Household consumption includes expenditures of individuals, households, and nongovernmental organizations on goods and services, excluding purchases of dwellings. It was estimated that for the same period private consumption grew at an annual rate of 5%. The richest 10% of the population accounted for approximately 30.4% of household consumption and the poorest 10% approximately 2.4%. It was estimated that in 2001 about 10% of the population had incomes below the poverty line.

LABOR

In 2005, China's labor force was estimated at 791.4 million. As of 2003, an estimated 49% of civilian employment was in agriculture, 22% in industry, and 29% in services. Although unemployment in urban areas was officially put at 4.2% in 2004, there was substantial unemployment and underemployment in rural areas. In 2003, it was estimated by an official Chinese journal that unemployment overall, which included the country's rural areas, was 20%.

Although workers in China are legally allowed the freedom of association, as of 2005, in reality they cannot organize or join a union of their own choosing. Instead, workers are represented by the AllChina Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU), which is controlled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and is headed by a top party official. The ACFTU controls all union activities and organizations, including those at the enterprise level. Independent unions are illegal. As of the end of 2004, it was reported by the ACFTU that its membership totaled 136.9 million, or 53% of the country's 264 million workers in urban areas. A total of 38% of all corporate units and 25% of private firms in China are thought to be registered with the ACFTU. Union officials working outside the official confines of the ACFTU have reported being harassed and detained by authorities.

Unlike their urban counterparts, China's estimated 540 million rural labor force (including 300 million primary sector workers) were unorganized, with no similar organization to represent the nation's farmers. In addition, only a small number of the 130 million rural residents that work in village and township enterprises were unionized.

While collective bargaining for workers in all enterprise types is legal, in reality it falls way short of international standards.

Although forced and compulsory labor is prohibited by law, it was a serious problem in penal institutions. Those held in reeducation-through-labor facilities were frequently forced to work often with no or little remuneration. In some cases they were contracted to nonprison enterprises to the profit of the facilities and their respective managers.

There is a minimum working age of 16, but compliance with this is irregular, especially in the burgeoning and unregulated private economy. The huge surplus of adult labor reduces the incentive to employ children. Children are most often found working on farms in poorer, isolated areas. Those between the ages of 16 and 18 are considered "juvenile workers" and were prohibited from certain types of physical work, including laboring in mines. The minimum wage varies depending on the area of the country. There is no set national minimum wage rate. It generally provides a decent standard of living for a family. The Labor Law provides that the standard workweek is 40 hours, with a mandatory 24-hour rest period weekly.

AGRICULTURE

With some 50% of the economically active population engaged in farming, agriculture forms the foundation of China's economy. Limitations in topography, soil, and climate, however, have restricted cultivation to only about 15% of the total land area. Despite recent advancesgrain crops totaling an estimated 377 million tons were produced in 2003 (18.2% of the world's total)the enormous pressures of feeding and clothing China's vast and growing population remain among the country's most compelling concerns. From 1980 to 1990, agricultural output grew at an average annual rate of 5.9%, above the population growth rate and the first sustained expansion of agriculture since 1966; output increased at an average annual rate of 4.1% from 1990 to 2000. By 2003, agricultural production was up another 9% from 19992001.

The PRC government expropriated large landholdings in a land reform carried out in 195152, redistributing the land among poor peasants. By the end of 1954, 11.5% of all peasant households had been collectivized; by 1955, 65%; and by 1965, 99%. The Chinese collective farms had virtually no mechanical equipment, but the peasants pooled their labor in various projects, such as water management, which were beyond the capacity of individual peasants. In 1958, the collective farms were merged into larger units as people's communes. The communes were concerned not only with agricultural output but also with subsidiary farm activities, such as light industry and handicrafts, usually produced for local consumption.

Far-reaching changes in the organization of communes took place during 196162. Formerly, the production brigade (the major division of a commune), of which there were about 719,438 in 1982, was regarded as the commune's "basic accounting unit." In 1962, however, the production team (the subdivision of a commune) became the commune's basic organizational element. The average production team consisted of 33 households and cultivated about eight hectares (20 acres). Production teams functioned almost autonomously, making basic decisions on production and distribution of income, while the commune mainly exercised the functions of a township government. Households, the final link in the system, were permitted the use of private plots, which made up about 5% of the arable land assigned to a team. In the early 1980s, these private holdings accounted for 19% of total agricultural output and the bulk of the country's production of vegetables, fruits, hogs, and poultry. Under the "responsibility system," which was introduced in 1978 and by 1983 was operating in 90% of rural China, all production in excess of assigned levels could be sold on the open market to yield a profit for individual production teams. In 1982, in addition to the rural communes, which provided most of China's agricultural output, there were 2,078 state farms working approximately 4.5% of all farmland. These farms, under the Ministry of State Farms and Reclamation, generally served as commodity production centers and as research units for the improvement of crop and livestock yields.

In 198384, a major reform of the agricultural system was launched. The 50,000 communes were disbanded and replaced by 92,000 townships, and the six million production brigades were broken up. Production decisions were now made by the household, which sets production targets in contracts with the government; households could sell their surpluses in the open market for cash. Crop diversification was encouraged. By the late 1980s, 60% of agricultural output was free of state controls, and most of China's peasants practiced the household responsibility system.

Grains are the chief crop, accounting for 70% of the total value of crop output and occupying 80% of all land under cultivation. Shandong, Jiangsu, and Henan together account for about 25% of the total crop value.

The main food crops are rice, wheat, and corn, followed by kaoliang (a type of sorghum), millet, potatoes, and soybeans. China is the world's leading producer of rice, with production increasing from 106.6 million tons in 1970 to an estimated 177.4 million tons (29% of the world's total) in 2004. Over 90% of all rice is produced in southern China, with two (and in the far south, three) crops being grown each year where irrigation facilities permit. Early rice is planted in April and harvested in July; single-crop rice is planted in May and harvested in September; and late double-cropped rice is planted in June and harvested in October. The total wheat crop in 2004 amounted to 91.3 million tons, more than double the 1970 output. Wheat is cultivated throughout the country, often as a dry-season crop in the rice-growing south, with specialized production centered in the Yangtze Valley and North China Plain. Output of other coarse grains, including corn in the southwest and drought-tolerant millet and kaoliang in northern and north-eastern China, exceeded 140.6 million tons in 2004. Production of roots and tubers, including sweet potatoes grown as a second crop in areas south of the Yellow River (Huang He) and white potatoes in cooler areas north of the Great Wall, totaled 181.4 million tons in 2004. In 2004, China's agricultural exports (including fish and forestry products) were valued at $28 billion, with 24% shipped from the port of Qingdao, 13% from Dalian, and 13% from Shanghai.

Industrial crops occupy only 89% of the cultivated areas. Among the most important are cotton (the chief raw material for the important textile industry), various oil-bearing crops, sugar, tobacco, silk, tea, and rubber. Cotton output totaled 6.3 million tons in 2004, up from 5.6 million tons in 1991, with production concentrated along the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River and on the plains of the Yellow and Huai rivers. Oilseed output in 2004 was derived from a diverse assortment of widely grown industrial crops, including sunflower seeds (1,750,000 tons) and rapeseed (13,040,000 tons). Other oilseed products included 250,000 tons of castor beans, 650,000 tons of sesame seeds, and 460,000 tons of linseed in 2004. Sugar production reached 90.6 million tons in 2004; an estimated 84% of all sugar is derived from sugarcane grown in the south, and the remaining 16% from sugar beets grown in the north and northeast. Production of tea, also an important traditional export, increased from 120,000 tons in 1956 to 861,000 tons in 2004 (26% of world production), with most of the tea grown in hilly regions of the south and southeast. Most tobacco is produced as a sideline by commune householders working private plots; output was 2.4 million tons in 2004 (37% of world production). Most natural rubber is produced on specialized state farms; production totaled 600,000 tons in 2004.

The irrigated area is estimated to have increased from about 15.3 million hectares (37.8 million acres) in 1950 to 55 million hectares (137 million acres) in 1998, making China the world's leader in irrigated land. The expansion of fertilizer production is viewed as a key to major growth in the agricultural sector. Toward this end, China during 197274 contracted for the purchase of 13 large urea plants from Japan, the United States, and Western Europe. China's use of chemical fertilizers increased from 184 kg per hectares in 1984 to about 258 kg per hectares in 2002. Farm machinery in 2002 included 926,031 tractors and 197,000 combines.

ANIMAL HUSBANDRY

Except in outlying areas, nearly all of China's arable land is devoted to crops. Most agricultural units, however, also support the raising of large quantities of hogs and poultry. Natural grasslands for the grazing of sheep and cattle occupy 4 million sq km (1.5 million sq mi), or 43% of China's total area; the four major pasture areas are Xinjiang, Gansu, Qinghai, and Inner Mongolia. In an effort to improve these pastures, 303 million hectares (749 million acres) were planted with improved forage seed strains from 1976 to 1980. Nonetheless, animal husbandry continues to be the weak link in the agricultural economy.

China leads the world in swine production, the total number of hogs reaching about 472.9 million as of 2004 (55% of the world's total), as compared with 89.8 million in 1952. The provinces with the largest hog populations are Sichuan, Hunan, Henan, and Shandong. Pig raising, often pursued as a private sideline by peasants, is the fastest-growing sector of the livestock industry, and hogs and pork products are becoming valuable export earners.

The number of sheep expanded from 36.9 million in 1952 to nearly 155.7 million in 2004. Most sheep are raised by pastoral herders, mostly the ethnic minorities, in the semiarid lands of Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Gansu, and Sichuan (Szechuan). Goats, also raised primarily in semiarid areas but increasingly promoted throughout China as a profitable household sideline for milk and dairy production, increased in number from 24.9 million in 1952 to 183.4 million in 2004. Provinces with the greatest numbers of sheep and goats include Shandong, Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, and Itenan. In 2004 there were also 128 million head of cattle and buffalo, up from 66.6 million in 1965; 7.9 million horses (792,000 in 1965); and 265,000 camels (448,000). Chickens and ducks are raised throughout China on private plots and constitute, together with fish and pork, China's chief sources of dietary protein. The provinces with the largest cattle populations are Itenan, Shandong, Sichuan, and Guangxi. China produced 306,000 tons of honey in 2004, more than any other nation. China also led the world in silk production in 2004, at some 95,000 tons (75% of world production).

In 2004, China produced 74.4 million tons of meat, ranking first in the world with 27% of the total. Some 14.7 million tons consisted of poultry, second only to the United States and accounting for 18% of world production. Pork production in 2005 amounted to 50 million tons (first in the world), equivalent to 49% of global production.

FISHING

With a coastline of some 6,500 km (4,000 mi) adjoining a broad continental shelf, China has excellent coastal fisheries. A vast number of inland lakes and ponds, covering a total area of about 300,000 sq km (116,000 sq mi), are also used for fish culture, and a 30 km (19 mi) section of the Yangtze below Gezhouba Dam at Yichang is a designated sturgeon preserve. The principal marine fisheries are located on the coast of southern and southeastern China, in the provinces of Guangdong, Fujian, and Zhejiang. The total catch in 2003 was 16,755,653 tons, the highest in the world and 18% of global production. China typically accounts for about 10% of the world's catch, but per capita Chinese consumption of fish amounts to only 9.3 kg (20.5 lb) per year (live weight equivalent), one of the lowest amounts in Asia. China's leading aquacultural products are carp, kelp, oysters, and scallops. Chinese aquaculture produced 28,892,005 tons of fish products in 2003, valued at $31.4 billion, 68% of world aquacultural production by weight and 52% by value.

Exports of fisheries products in 2003 accounted for 8.3% of the commodity's world exports, and were valued at over $5.2 billion (second after Thailand). Regulations for the protection of aquatic resources were enacted in 1979.

FORESTRY

Forest cover has grown from 8.6% of the land base in 1949 to over 18.2% in 2005. Mature stands are decreasing, however, while the share of plantation and commercial forests continues to rise in response to government policies. Coniferous forest accounts for 47%; deciduous, 50%; and mixed, 3%. Most of the forests are in remote regions, however, and lack of transportation limits exploitation. China has three major forest areas: the northeast (Heilongjiang, Jilin, and Inner Mongolia); the southwest (Sichuan and Yunnan); and the southeast (Guangdong, Guangxi, Fujian, Jiangxi, and Hainan). Fujian, Zhejiang, Anhui, and Guangdong together account for about 30% of the total value of the forestry sector. Coniferous stands, which yield the most valuable commercial timber, are found mainly in the northeast and adjoining parts of Inner Mongolia. Deciduous trees are felled in Sichuan and Yunnan. Between 1990 and 1995, however, the northeast's share of production fell from 38% to 30%, as production shifted from state-owned forests in the north to plantation forests in the south. While China is a major producer of softwood logs and lumber, virtually all of its production is domestically consumed. Paper production, which has benefited from the substitution of rice-straw and other non-wood materials for wood pulp, nearly tripled during the 1980s. Special forestry products originating in southwestern China include tung oil, cassia oil, and aniseed oil. Wood imports can vary widely from year to year. China is the largest timber importer in the worldimports of timber and related products reached $17 billion in 2003. China's domestic industrial round-wood production is divided into two partsstate quota production accounting for about 50 million cu m, and production from illegal over-quota logging, which contributes an additional 40 million cu m. About 60% of state quota timber production comes from plantations. Private mills dominate China's wood processing sector. There are more than 200,000 mills in China (located mostly in Hebei, Shandong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Guangdong, and Fujian), of which more than 90% are private.

Deforestation has been a persistent and serious problem in China, leading to massive erosion and desertification. The government has, from the start of its first five-year plan in 1953, given high priority to campaigns for afforestation. By 1980, 26 million hectares (64 million acres) of new forests had been planted, and during the 1980s, afforestation proceeded at the rate of 4.55 million hectares (11.24 million acres) per year. However, cutting of trees for fuel continued in rural areas, and many of the trees planted as part of afforestation efforts were lost because of neglect after planting. During 19902000, the forested area grew by an annual average of 1.2%. In its tenth five-year plan commencing in January 2001, the Ministry of Forestry set the annual allowable timber cut at 223.1 million cu m (7.88 billion cu ft), however illegal logging remains a considerable problem, with annual logging exceeding the quota by 75.54 million cu m (2.67 billion cu ft), or 34%.

MINING

China produced more than 70% of the world's tungsten, was the largest producer and exporter of rare earths, the largest producer of cement, tin, and steel, and a world leader in the production of antimony. Intensive geologic exploration has yielded greatly expanded mineral reserves. This increase in known subsurface resources was reflected in production rises for China's most important mineral productscoal, petroleum, iron ore, copper, lead, zinc, tungsten, mercury, antimony, tin, molybdenum, barite, fluorspar, magnesite, and rare earths. In 2000, China produced a total of 7.51 million tons of 10 nonferrous metals, 14.6% more than in 1999; production in all 10 metals increased. The production of iron and steel was China's leading industry in 2002, coal production ranked second, and petroleum, cement, and chemical fertilizers were among the top eight. Mineral fuels ranked fifth among export commodities.

Iron ore production in 2004 (gross weight) was 310 million metric tons, up from 261 million metric tons in 2003. Virtually all iron mining was carried out north of the Yangtze River, and the country's total resources totaled 55,000 million tons, the largest reserves being in Liaoning, Hebei, and Sichuan. The largest producersAnshan Mining Co. (in Liaoning, Anshan) and Shoudu (Capital) Mining Co. (Beijing)had annual capacities of 30 million tons and 20 million tons, respectively. As domestic iron deposits were of a low ore grade (less than 35% on the average) and required concentration, China has imported more than 50 million tons of ore in the past several years, and steel enterprises continued to look for jointventure possibilities for iron mines in other countries.

Tungsten output in 2004, mainly from Jiangxi, was 67,000 metric tons (metal content), up from a revised figure of 55,500 metric tons in 2003.

Copper output (metal content) was 610,000 metric tons in 2004, unchanged from 2003, but up from 568,000 metric tons in 2002.

Other metallic ore outputs in 2004 were: tin (chiefly in Yunnan), 110,000 metric tons, up from 102,000 metric tons in 2003; antimony (from Guangxi, Guizhou, and Hunan), 110,000 metric tons; bauxite (gross weight), 15 million metric tons, 13 million metric tons in 2003; lead (metal content), 950,000 metric tons, down from 955,000 metric tons in 2003; molybdenum, 29,000 metric tons; mercury, 425 metric tons, down from 610 metric tons in 2003; and zinc, 2.1 million metric tons, up from 2.03 million metric tons in 2003. China also mined alumina, bismuth, cobalt, gallium, germanium, gold, indium, manganese, nickel, platinum-group metals, silver, uranium, and vanadium. Henan geologists discovered a bauxite deposit in western Hunan Province that could contain reserves of 50 million tons and a significant amount of gallium. Another bauxite discovery, in Jingxi County, Guangxi Province, could contain reserves of 82 million tons (37 million tons of which could be economically developed), 100,00 tons of gallium, and a significant amount of niobium, scandium, and titanium.

The government since 2002 has eased restrictions on its gold market, allowing gold producers to sell their gold through the Shanghai Gold exchange, instead of to the Central Bank at a fixed price. However, imports and exports of gold ingot were still controlled by the government. The establishment of gold mining companies that were wholly owned by foreign investors was not permitted. Shandong province was the leading gold-producing province in China, followed by Henan, Fujain, Shaanxi, Liaoning, and Hebei provinces.

The output of rare-earth oxide content60% from Nei Mongol, 18% from Sichuan, and 17% from Jiangxiwas 98,000 metric tons in 2004, up from 92,000 metric tons in 2003. Major portions were exported to France, Japan, and the United States. In Nei Mongol, rare-earth concentrate, known as Baotou rare-earth concentrate, was the by-product of producing iron concentrates, and contained oxides of the light rare-earth grouplanthanum, cerium, praseodymium, neodymium, samarium, europium, and gadolinium. In Mianning and Dechang (Sichuan), rare earths were mainly bastnasite, and, in Ganzhou (Jiangxi), the rare earths were of the ionic absorption type. A joint venture in Jiangsu province was to produce vanillin. The largest producersGansu Rare Earths Co. (in Jiangxi, Nanchang) and Baotou Iron and Steel and Rare Earths Corp. (in Nei Mongol, Baotou)had capacities of 32,000 and 25,000 metric tons, respectively. China's rare-earth processing capacity expanded from 50,000 metric tons per year in 1995 to 130,000 metric tons per year in 2000. Rare earths remained a highly controlled sector, and a rare-earth quota was introduced in 1999 to control exports.

Hydraulic cement production in 2004 was 970 million metric tons, up from 862 million metric tons in 2003. Other industrial mineral production in 2004 included: fluorspar, 2.7 million metric tons; barite, 3.9 million metric tons (2.39 million metric tons of barium sulfate was exported, worth $77.8 million); magnesite, 4.65 million metric tons; gypsum, 7 million metric tons, up from 6.8 million metric tons in 2003; graphite, 700,000 metric tons, down from 710,000 in 2003 (451,735 metric tons exported, for $67,041,000); talc and related materials, 3 million metric tons, unchanged from 2003 (640,000 metric tons exported, for $65,954,000); mine boron (boron oxide equivalent), 135,000 metric tons, up from 130,000 metric tons in 2003; asbestos, 510,000 metric tons; and bromine, 4,300 metric tons, down from 42,000 metric tons in 2003. China also produced diamond, diatomite, dolomite, kyanite and related materials, lithium minerals, nitrogen, phosphate rock and apatite, potash, salt, sodium compounds, and sulfur.

The government in 2000 approved the opening of a diamond exchange market in Shanghai. China in 2000 became the world's eighth-largest consumer of precious stones (actual figures were difficult to ascertain because of smuggling and overseas purchases), and "Greater China," which included Hong Kong and Taiwan, was believed to be the world's third-largest diamond market, after the United States and Japan.

In 2000, the government issued several laws and regulations to improve the country's investment environment and foreign investors' confidence. The laws and regulations dealt with, among other things, mineral resource exploitation planning, land exploitation, mine ownership transfer, customs law, gold mining, Sinoforeign contractual joint ventures, foreign capital enterprises, and mineral-resource deposit size classification standards. The government continued its efforts to restructure the mining and metal sectors, abolishing nine bureaus, transferring responsibilities to industrial associations, dissolving three state-owned nonferrous enterprises, and, to help the industry become more efficient, ceding management to provincial and city governments. The government also offered incentives to companiesexemption from income tax, tariffs, and import value-added tax (VAT)to invest in the poorer western provinces. It also began to phase out the preferential taxes for foreign enterprises, prepared to draft a "zero tariff rate" policy for exports, issued guidelines to allow foreign enterprises to conduct mineral exploration in China, and agreed to eliminate import quotas and dismantle export subsidies. China planned to increase production of cement, copper, fertilizer, iron, lead, nickel, salt, soda ash, and zinc, and expected to retain its dominance in the world market for antimony, barite, fluorspar, magnesite, rare earths, and tungsten.

ENERGY AND POWER

China's petroleum resources are a key to its industrial development. In 2004, it became the world's second-largest consumer of petroleum products, surpassing Japan. Crude oil production increased from 102,000 barrels per day in 1960 to 3.3 million per day as of 2002, and to an estimated 3.62 million barrels per day in 2004. In 1998, China had proven reserves of 24 billion barrels. As of 1 January 2005, its proven reserves were estimated at 18.3 billion barrels. In 2004, consumption was estimated at 6.53 million barrels per day, with net oil imports estimated at 2.91 million barrels per day in 2004. The major producing centers are the Daqing field in Heilongjiang, which came into production in 1965 and the Liaohe field, located in northeastern China. Although nearly 85% of China's oil production capacity is onshore, and in addition to numerous other mainland finds, China has potential offshore reserves in the Bo Hai area (thought to have reserves of over 1.5 billion barrels) and the South China Sea, especially in the vicinity of Hainan Island.

By the mid-1970s, China no longer had to rely on oil imports; petroleum exports had, in fact, emerged as a major source of foreign exchange earnings. More than 9,740 km (6,050 mi) of long-distance pipelines transport the oil from fields to refineries and other points of consumption and export. China, however, became a net importer of oil in 1996, because rapid increases in oil demand from high economic growth rates outpaced the slower increases in oil production.

After rising dramatically in the early 1980s, owing largely to the discovery and exploitation of vast deposits in Sichuan Province during the late 1950s and early 1960s, natural gas output stagnated somewhat in the late 1980s. As of 2003, natural gas supplied only an estimated 2.6% of the country's energy. However, with proven reserves totaling an estimated 53.3 trillion cu ft, as of 1 January 2005, it was expected that consumption would double by 2010. In 2000, total national production reached 960 billion cu ft. By 2003, that figure had risen to an estimated 1.21 trillion cu ft. A pipeline to transport natural gas from the Xinjiang province in the west to Shanghai in the east was planned, with Shell chosen to lead a consortium of development companies.

Although China's rivers provide a vast hydroelectric potential (an estimated 378 million kW), only a small part has been developed. In the late 1990s, after economic growth slowed due to the Asian economic crisis, the government declared a two- to three-year moratorium on construction of new power plants due to an oversupply problem. The main hydroelectric projects include Ertan in Sichuan Province, Yantan in Guangsxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Manwan in Yunan Province, Geheyan in Hubei Province, Wuqiangxi in Hunan Province, Yamzho Yumco in Xizang Autonomous Region, and Lijia Xia in Qinghai Province. In April 1992, the government approved the construction of the largest hydropower project in Chinathe Three Gorges Project on the middle reaches of the Chang Jiang. Construction began in 1996, and as of August 2005, was still underway with completion in 2009. The Three Gorges Project will include 26 hydropower generating units, at 700 MW each, producing a total of 18.2 GW of power. The Three Gorges Project will require the relocation of millions of people just in Sichuan Province alone. A second major hydroelectric project, consisting of a series of dams on the upper portion of the Yellow River, was also underway as of August 2005. Plans for this project call for 25 generating stations to be built, having a combined 15.8 GW of installed capacity.

China's electrical generating capacity was estimated as of 1 January 2003 to stand at 338.3 GW, up from 115.5 million kW in 1988. Total output of electricity increased during the 198898 period from 545 billion to 1,098 billion kWh. Output in 2000 was 1,288 billion kWh, of which 81.8% was from fossil fuels, 16.8% from hydropower, and 1.2% from nuclear power. In 2003, electrical power output was estimated at 1,807 billion kWh, of which 1,484 billion kWh hours are from thermal sources, 279 billion kWh from hydroelectric sources, and 42 billion kWh from nuclear sources. Electricity consumption in 2000 was 1,206 trillion kWh. In 2002, consumption rose to 1,452.048 billion kWh. Electric power consumption is forecast to increase at an annual rate of 4.3% through 2025.

Traditionally, coal has been China's major energy source, with auxiliary biomass fuels provided by brushwood, rice husks, dung, and other noncommercial materials. The abundance of coal continues to provide cheap thermal power for electric plants. In 2000, China was both the world's largest coal producer, at 1.27 billion short tons, and the leading consumer of coal, at 1.31 billion short tons. In 2003, China produced an estimated 1.63 billion short tons of coal and consumed an estimated 1.53 billion short tons for the same year. Coal comes from over two dozen sites in the north, northeast, and southwest; Shanxi Province is the leading producer. Recoverable reserves as of 2003, were estimated at over 126.2 billion short tons. In 1996, China accounted for 11.1% of the world's proven reserves of coal. Large thermal power plants are situated in the northeast and along the east coast of China, where industry is concentrated, as well as in new inland industrial centers, such as Chongqing, Taiyuan, Xi'an, and Lanzhou. As of August 2005, it was reported that coal accounted for 65% of primary energy consumption.

The development of nuclear power has become a major factor within China's electricity sector. The 279 MW Qinshan nuclear power plant near Shanghai began commercial operation in 1994. That same year, two 944 MW reactors at the Guangdong facility at Daya Bay also started commercial service. In 1995, Chinese authorities approved the construction of four more reactors. In May 2002, the 1 GW first unit of the Lingao nuclear power plant came online while a second 1 GW unit began operating in January 2003. An additional 600 MW generating unit also came online at Qinshan in February 2002. Net capacity for China's three nuclear reactors was estimated at 2,167,000 kW in 1996. At the start of 2002, installed capacity for nuclear power was placed at 2 GW. By mid-2005, that capacity had risen to 15 GW and further construction is being planned. A 6 GW complex is being planned for Guangdong province at Yangjiang (slated to begin commercial operation in 2010), while a second facility is being planned for Daya Bay. By 2020, plans call for the completion of 27 GW of additional nuclear power generating capacity. Although China touts nuclear power as a way to cut its dependence upon fossil fuels and as a source of clean energy, by 2020 nuclear power will account for less than 5% of the nation's installed electric generating capacity.

INDUSTRY

China achieved a rapid increase in the gross value of industrial output (used before China switched to GNP accounting in 1986), which, according to official Chinese statistics, rose by 13.3% annually between 1950 and 1979. The greatest sustained surge in growth occurred during the first decade, with the rate averaging 22% annually during 194960. During 196174, the yearly growth rate fell to about 6%, partly as a result of the disruptions brought on by the collapse of the Great Leap Forward (which accompanied the withdrawal of Soviet technicians in mid-1960) and of work stoppages and transportation disruptions during the Cultural Revolution. Growth averaged 10% from 1970 to 1980 and 10.1% from 1979 to 1985. Major policy reforms of 1984 further accelerated the pace of industrial growth, which reached 20.8% by 1988. After a brief retrenchment period in 198990 as government policies prioritized inflation control over other concerns, expansion of the country's industrial sector resumed apace, exceeding 20% in 1992 and 18% in 1994. Industrial output was officially up 13.4% in 1995, with state enterprises contributing the majority.

While approximately 50% of total industrial output still derives from the state-owned factories, a notable feature of China's recent industrial history has been the dynamic growth of the collectively owned rural township and village enterprise as well as private and foreign jointventure sectors. Also apparent has been the spatial unevenness of recent industrial development, with growth concentrated mainly in Shanghai, the traditional hub of China's industrial activity, and, increasingly, a number of new economic centers along the southern coast. The coastal provinces of Jiangsu, Guangdong, Shandong, Shanghai, and Zhejiang together account for close to 33% of the country's total industrial output and most of its merchandise exports. One key factor in this industrial geography has been the government's establishment of several Special Economic Zones in Guangdong, Fujian, and Hainan provinces, and its designation of over 14 "open coastal cities" where foreign investment in export-oriented industries was actively encouraged during the 1980s.

Before the first five-year plan (195357), China had only one major steel centerAnshan, in the northeastand several minor ones. All these produced 1.93 million tons of pig iron and 1.35 million tons of steel in 1952. By 1995, China was producing 92,970 million tons of crude steel and 101,700 million tons of pig iron. Anshan continues to be the hub of the industry, but other huge steel complexes have been constructed at Baotou, Benxi (about 50 km/30 mi east of Anshan), Taiyuan, Wuhan, and Ma'anshan (near Nanjing).

China's cotton textile industry is the largest in the world, producing yarn, cloth, woolen piece goods, knitting wool, silk, jute bags, and synthetic fibers. Laborintensive light industries played a prominent role in the industrial boom of the late 1980s and early 1990s, accounting for 49% of total industrial output, but heavy industry and high technology took over in the late 1990s. In addition to garments and textiles, output from light industry includes footwear, toys, food processing, and consumer electronics. Heavy industries include iron and steel, coal, machine building, armaments, petroleum, cement, chemical fertilizers, and autos. High technology industries produce high-speed computers, 600 types of semiconductors, specialized electronic measuring instruments, and telecommunications equipment.

Since 1961, industry has been providing agriculture with farm machines, chemical fertilizers, insecticides, means of transportation, power, building materials, and other essential commodities. Handicraft cooperatives also have been busy making hand-operated or animal-drawn implements. Production of a variety of industrial goods has expanded, increasingly in order to supply the country's own expanding industrial base. In addition to fertilizers, the chemicals industry produces calcium carbide, ethylene, and plastics. Since 1963, great emphasis has been placed on the manufacture of transportation equipment, and China now produces varied lines of passenger cars, trucks, buses, and bicycles. In 1995, output included 1,452,697 motor vehicles (more than double the 1991 figure). Output for 1997 was over 1.6 million units. The industry underwent a major overhaul in the late 1990s in order to stimulate efficiency and production.

From 19932002, the growth in manufacturing was 11.4% each year. Contributing to this growth in the early 1990s was an increase in agriculture-related industry, as promoted by local governments in town and village enterprises (TVEs) in which agricultural surpluses were invested in low-tech and labor-intensive manufacturing processes. By the end of the 1990s, during an economic slowdown, TVEs began to employ fewer rural workers. Foreign and private enterprises (FIEsforeign-invested enterprises) became increasingly important to industry, while the state-controlled sector declined.

At the end of the 1970s, 80% of manufacturing output was attributed to state-owned enterprises (SOEs); by 2004, SOEs contributed only 35% of gross industrial output. Whereas there were 118,000 recorded SOEs in 1995, the number had decreased to 31,750 in 2004; those that exist are plagued by outdated equipment and a lack of skilled workers.

High-tech manufacturing gained ground, supplanting the low-technology, assembly-line production of the early 1990s. Though textiles still contribute largely to China's production output, industrial growth is increasingly in sectors producing advanced electronic goods such as cell phones, integrated circuits, and cars.

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Modern China is the heir to a remarkably inventive civilization that pioneered in the development of the abacus (the first mechanical calculating device), paper (and paper money), printing by movable type, gunpowder, the magnetic compass, and the rocket. Contact with the West during the 19th century however, revealed how technologically backward China had become, and it is only in recent decades that the nation has begun to catch up.

China detonated its first fission device in 1964 and its first hydrogen bomb in 1967; the nation now possesses a variety of nuclear weapons mounted on missiles, bombers, submarines, and other delivery systems. Its first satellite was launched in 1970. By 1992, the PRC had launched an INTELSAT satellite on a Chinese launch vehicle. Other priorities have been the development of high-energy physics, laser research, powerful computer memory chips, color television broadcasting technology, and laser infrared devices, although the PRC still relies heavily on outside investment and technology transfer. Major advances have also been claimed in rice hybridization, insecticides, fertilizers, biogas digesters for rural electrification, and pollution control technology.

Two scientific exchange agreements between the United States and China were signed in January 1984 during Premier Zhao Ziyang's visit to Washington, D.C. China has proposed to several Western nations that it provide long-term storage facilities in remote provinces for radioactive wastea proposal that Western observers believed would provide China not only with hard currency but also with nuclear materials for possible reprocessing.

China's principal technological handicap is lack of skilled personnel. Only 1% of the PRC's 127 million 22-year-olds receive a university degree. However, 37% of all Chinese degrees are in engineering, the highest ratio in Asia. Part of China's response to this shortage has been to send tens of thousands of students overseas for advanced study, especially in the United States. In 198797, science and engineering students accounted for 43% of college and university enrollments. China had 454 scientists and engineers and 200 technicians per million people engaged in research and development (R&D) during the same period. By 2002, the number of scientists and engineers per million people had risen to 633 (excluding Hong Kong). Scientific research is coordinated by the prestigious Chinese Academy of Sciences, founded in 1949 and headquartered in Beijing. China in 1996 had 90 specialized learned societies in the fields of agriculture, medicine, science, and technology. Most are affiliated members of the China Association for Science and Technology, founded in 1958. International science and technology cooperation is also increasing. However, concerns over human rights issues have had the effect of cooling USPRC science and technology exchanges. In 1996, China had 105 universities and colleges offering courses in basic and applied science.

In 1998, high-technology exports were valued at $23.3 billion and accounted for 15% of manufactured exports. By 2002, high technology exports (excluding Hong Kong) had risen to $68.182 billion, accounting for 23% of manufactured exports. In 2002, R&D expenditures totaled $72.014 billion, or 1.23% of GDP. In 2000, the biggest spender on R&D was business at 57.6%, followed by government at 33.4%, and foreign sources at 2.7%. The remainder was undistributed.

DOMESTIC TRADE

Three types of retail trade outletsthe periodic market, the peddler, and the urban shopconstituted the basis of the traditional commercial structure. In the early 1950s, however, a number of state trading companies were established for dealing in commodities such as food grains, cotton, textiles, coal, building materials, metals, machinery, and medicines. These companies, under the control of the Ministry of Commerce, have established branch offices and retail stores throughout the country.

In the 1960s, the establishment of state-owned department stores and cooperative retail outlets virtually replaced private trade. There was a resurgence of periodic open markets and private traders when domestic trading regulations were relaxed in 1978. In addition, the government has progressively loosened or eliminated many of its former price controls; an estimated 90% of all retail sales are no longer controlled.

In 2003, about 50% of the work force was employed in agriculture, keeping the country basically self-sufficient in grain production, even though only about 15% of the land is arable. Farm-lands and the agricultural industry, however, remain under state control.

The China Export Commodities Fair, usually held each spring and fall in Guangzhou, was for more than 20 years an important point of contact for Westerners doing business with China. Though still important as an initial introduction to the full range of China's potential suppliers, the decentralization of trading activities in recent years has greatly reduced the fair's role in mediating sustained contact between producers and buyers.

Local foreign trade commissions in various industrial centers of the country have taken on a much more active role in organizing many of the services associated with the commodities fair, while any domestic enterprise with foreign trading rights may now participate directly in all events related to trade promotion. Guangzhou still hosts two annual trade fairs, though on a reduced scale. In the major cities, Friendship Stores and other restaurants, hotels, service bureaus, and taxis cater exclusively to foreign visitors; payment is made in foreign exchange certificates.

By the mid-1980s, international credit cards could be used to obtain cash advances in selected outlets and for direct purchases in Friendship Stores. Internet commerce was initiated in China in the late 1990s, and by 2005, there were more than 100 million computer Internet users.

FOREIGN TRADE

Though China has only recently become a major trading nation, its enormous trading potential is attracting great attention by both

CountryExportsImportsBalance
World438,227.8412,759.825,468.0
United States92,626.333,944.258,682.1
China, Hong Kong SAR76,274.411,118.765,155.7
Japan59,408.774,148.1-14,739.4
Korea, Republic of20,094.843,128.1-23,033.3
Germany17,442.124,291.9-6,849.8
Netherlands13,501.21,933.111,568.1
United Kingdom10,823.73,570.37,253.4
Other Asia nes9,004.549,360.6-40,356.1
Singapore8,863.810,484.9-1,621.1
France-Monaco7,329.76,102.61,227.1
() data not available or not significant.

advanced and newly industrializing nations, shown by the world's interest in China's membership in the WTO. Trade has performed important functions within the economy, providing needed capital goods and modern technology to abet development, as well as primary commodities (such as grains) to supplement local supply in slack years. Foreign trade is under the direction of a single Ministry of Foreign Economic Relations and Trade, created in 1982 through the merger of the former ministries of Foreign Trade and Foreign Economic Relations with the Export-Import and Foreign Investment commissions. A major issue since the early 1980s, however, has been the decentralization of trade management and greater reliance on currency devaluation (major devaluations were implemented in 1989 and 1991) and market incentives rather than direct export and import controls to promote desired trade patterns. After the Asian financial crisis of 1997, officials were tempted to devalue the currency once more; instead the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economics (MOFTEC) spent massive sums of money on state industry, while dismantling trade barriers in anticipation of WTO membership.

Prior to 1949, some three-fourths of China's exports were agricultural products. This proportion ebbed to a low of 13% during the agricultural crisis of 1961. Foodstuffs and other primary products including crude nonfood raw materials, minerals and fuels averaged about 4350% of exports through 1985, after which the proportion declined steadily to reach only 6% in 1998, as manufactured exports expanded rapidly. Textiles (excluding garments) accounted for 10% of all exports in 1994 and clothing for about 19.7% (up from 7.5% in 1985). However, China's efforts to emulate the success of Japan, British Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the ROK in basing economic expansion on textile and clothing exports encountered protectionist resistance from major potential markets in the United States and European Union.

The textile and clothing industry created the large majority of China's commodity exports in 1998. China's special administrative region of Hong Kong also produces clothes, averaging 12.1% of the world's total clothes exports. Other exports include electrical parts (16%), watches and clocks (2.6%), telecommunications equipment (6.7%), and footwear (3.0%). Hong Kong produces 28% of the world's exports in watches and clocks.

Food imports, which made up only about 2% of the import volume in the 1950s, averaged 20% of the total in 1973 and 1974 but, as total imports rose, fell to less than 4% by 1985 and remained at 2.4% in 1994 and 5% in 1998.

The direction of China's trade has followed three major patterns since the 1930s. Prior to World War II, Japan, Hong Kong, the United States, and the United Kingdom together made up about three-fourths of the total trade volume. With the founding of the PRC in 1949, trade shifted in favor of the former USSR and Eastern Europe. During 195255, more than 50% of China's trade was with the former USSR; during 195660, the proportion averaged about 40%. As Sino-Soviet relations deteriorated during the 1960s, trade exchanges steadily declined, reaching a bare 1% of China's total volume in 1970 (3.6% in 1986). By the early 1980s, most of China's leading trade partners were industrialized non-Communist countries, and China's trade pattern overall reflected a high degree of multilateralism.

In recent years, as China has rapidly enlarged its role on the international market, the importance of Hong Kong as an entrepot and major source of revenue has increased. In 1992, Hong Kong accounted for close to 35% of China's total trade (up from about 21% in 1986). Hong Kong reverted to Chinese rule in 1997, but because of its enormous trade activity, Hong Kong's trade is often measured separate from China. During the 1990s, Japan ranked as the second-largest trading partner, importing oil and other raw material and claiming 15% of China's total trade. The most dramatic change in the mid-1980s was the emergence of the United States as China's third-largest trading partner; by 2000 the United States was China's second-largest trading partner, and the largest importer of Chinese goods.

As of 2005, China exported $752.2 billion in goods, 21.1% of which went to the United States, 17% to Hong Kong, 12.4% to Japan, 4.7% to South Korea, and 4% to Germany. That year, China imported an estimated $631.8 billion in goods, 16.8% from Japan, 11.4% from Taiwan, 11.1% from South Korea, 8% from the United States, and 5.4% from Germany.

BALANCE OF PAYMENTS

Both foreign trade and international financing in China are state monopolies, with policies and transactions administered by the People's Bank of China (PBC). Among its various functions, the PBC sets exchange rates for foreign currencies. The PBC releases foreign exchange to the Bank of China, which plays a major payments role through its branches in Hong Kong, Singapore, and other overseas financial centers. The government has, overall, maintained a record of financial stability, linked to a policy of stringent controls over its international transactions. Adhering generally to a principle of self-reliance, it has resorted to the use of commercial credit at certain junctures but until the 1970s avoided falling into long-term indebtedness as a means of financing major development goals. In the period 195860, the Great Leap Forward and the succeeding years of economic crisis caused a sharp deterioration in China's international payments position. In 1960,

Current Account17,401.0
     Balance on goods34,017.0
         Imports-232,058.0
         Exports266,075.0
     Balance on services-5,933.0
     Balance on income-19,175.0
     Current transfers8,492.0
Capital Account-54.0
Financial Account34,832.0
     Direct investment abroad-6,884.0
     Direct investment in China44,241.0
     Portfolio investment assets-20,654.0
     Portfolio investment liabilities1,249.0
     Financial derivatives
     Other investment assets20,813.0
     Other investment liabilities-3,933.0
Net Errors and Omissions-4,732.0
Reserves and Related Items-47,447.0
() data not available or not significant.

large negative clearing account balances with Communist countries (-$625 million) were even more than the foreign exchange reserves of $415 million. By the end of 1964, however, the negative balance with Socialist nations had been reduced to $55 million, and China's net international financial resources stood at a surplus of $345 million, owing to monetary gold holdings of $215 million and foreign exchange balances from trade with non-Communist countries amounting to $185 million. By 1965, the Chinese had completely cleared their long-term debt to the former USSR, and by 1968, China had redeemed all national bonds and was free of all long-term external and internal debts. Publication of official balance-of-payments statistics was discontinued during the Cultural Revolution and not resumed until September 1985.

According to Western analyses, the period 197881 saw a continuing surplus in current accounts, as rising levels of imports were generally matched or exceeded by increases in exports over the same period. In addition, transfers of an estimated $1.1 billion in 1978 and $1 billion in 1980, derived from increased earnings in tourism, shipping, and remittances from Hong Kong and other sources, resulted in overall current accounts surpluses of $900 million and $1.2 billion in 1978 and 1980, respectively. China's drive to industrialize under the Four Modernizations policy resulted in an unprecedented deficit on capital accounts of $1.1 billion in 1978. The subsequent unilateral decisions to cancel $2.6 billion in contracts with Japan (1979) and $2 billion with Japan and Western nations (1981) were interpreted by some observers as an indication of acute cash-flow problems and a reordering of investment priorities at the highest levels. The trade account was helped by the slow but steady devaluation that occurred after China went to a managed float exchange rate system in January 1991. Tourism receipts and visitor figures also continued to grow, passing pre-Tiananmen levels.

Foreign investment boomed in the 1990s, with a total of nearly $45 billion committed in 1998 alone. Approximately half of China's loans came from the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank, and Japan; external debt reached $159 billion in 1998. A usually positive current account balance stockpiled China's reserves. In 1998, China had some $147 billion in official reserves, but state industries had accumulated a huge amount of what was called triangular debt with the state banks and other lending agencies. Government infrastructure and industrial projects received funding for goods that could not be sold domestically in 1999 due to lower demand, losing money for each party involved. In effect, external trade plays a secondary role in China's economy because of normally high, unsatisfied domestic demand. Agreements with the WTO threaten to increase China's dependence on foreign trade. China's external debt stood at $149.4 billion in 2002.

The Economist Intelligence Unit reported that China's total exports increased from $249 million in 2000 to $593 million in 2004, with an average annual increase of $86 million. Total imports increased from $214 million in 2000 to $534 million in 2004 with an average annual increase of $80 million.

BANKING AND SECURITIES

Economic reforms under the Four Modernizations program adopted in 1978 brought major changes in China's highly centralized and tightly controlled banking system. In 1982, the People's Bank of China (PBC) became the central bank and turned over its commercial operations to the new Industrial and Commercial Bank. The State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) helps set foreign exchange policy. Other specialized agencies include the People's Construction Bank, the Agricultural Bank of China, the Bank of China, the Bank of Communications, the China Development Bank, and the Export-Import Bank of China. The China Construction Bank (CCB) makes payments for capital construction according to state plans and budgets. The Agricultural Bank of China finances agricultural expansion, grants rural loans, supervises agricultural credit cooperatives, and assists in the modernization of agriculture. The Bank of China (BOC) handles foreign exchange and international settlements for the PBC. It has branches throughout China as well as in Singapore, Hong Kong, Paris, London, Luxembourg, New York, and Tokyo. The BOC is charged with financing China's foreign trade and also acquiring and channeling into appropriate areas the foreign capital needed for imports of industrial equipment and other items for modernization.

The foreign-owned Standard Chartered Bank maintains long-established offices in China. Over 90 foreign banks, representing Japan, the United States, France, Italy, Pakistan, and the United Kingdom, received permission to establish offices in Beijing in the early 1980s. In 1985, for the first time, foreign banks were allowed to do business in the four special economic zones (established to attract foreign investment) in foreign currency. In mid-1997, 10 foreign banks were given permission to operate outside of the special zones; and in 1996, foreign banks were given limited authority to do business in rembi (the local currency at the time). The International Monetary Fund reports that in 2001, currency and demand depositsan aggregate commonly known as M1were equal to $745.3 billion. In that same year, M2an aggregate equal to M1 plus savings deposits, small time deposits, and money market mutual fundswas $1,889.7 billion. The discount rate, the interest rate at which the central bank lends to financial institutions in the short term, was 3.24%.

In 1987, stock exchanges opened in Shanghai and several other cities, and several stock and bond issues were floated domestically. Securities exchanges are controlled by the PBC, and trading in securities is very limited. In 1997, China accelerated stock-market listings of about 50 large and medium-sized state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and considered raising the number of enterprises piloting group holding structures from 57 to 100. In November 1996, the Shanghai Stock Exchange President, Yang Xianghai, predicted that China's two exchanges (Shanghai and Shenzhen) would number in excess of 1,000 companies by 2000. At the time he was speaking, there were 472 companies listed on the stock exchanges. By 2003, there were 746 listed companies and 871 listed securities being traded on the exchange. In 2004, the Shanghai and Shenzhen exchanges listed a combined total of 1,384 companies. Market capitalization of all exchanges in 2004 amounted to $639.765 billion. In that same year, the Shanghai Stock Exchange stood at 1,266.5, down 15.4% from the previous year. China's stock market is split into two sections, the "A" share market and the "B" share market. Foreigners may only participate in the Bshare market, denominated in foreign currencies and consisting predominantly of foreign private companies. The Ashare market is reserved for domestic investors (who are not allowed to participate in the Bshare market) and dominated by state enterprises.

INSURANCE

The People's Insurance Co. of China (PICC), formed in 1949, is authorized to handle all kinds of insurance, including the insurance of China's foreign trade and foreign insurance operations in China. In 2001, the People's Insurance Co. of China controlled 78% of China's property/casualty insurance industry, with 4,200 branches and a workforce of 110,000. Two newer domestic Insurance Companies, China Pacific and Ping An, have 11% and 8%, respectively, of the market. Two additional state enterprises, the China Insurance Co. and the Tai Ping Insurance Co., are in operation, and several foreign insurance companies have established representative offices in Beijing. Demand for insurance projects is predicted to grow as economic reforms limit the social security benefits provided by state enterprises. By 2001, life insurance premiums were growing at an average rate of nearly 70% per year, with nonlife premiums growing at around 15% per year. As of 2003, the value of direct premiums written totaled $46.911 billion, of which life premiums accounted for the largest portion at $32.442 billion. PICC was China's top nonlife insurer, with $7,095.6 million in gross nonlife premiums written. China Life was the country's top life insurer, with $19,583.3 million of gross life premiums written in 2003.

Motor-vehicle third-party liability for foreigners and for citizens in certain provinces, workers' compensation (in the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone), old age pension, unemployment insurance, and property (fire) in Shenzhen for commercial risks are compulsory.

PUBLIC FINANCE

The annual state budget is prepared by the Ministry of Finance and approved by the National People's Congress. A major reform in public finance, introduced in 1980, was a new system of allocating revenues and expenditures between local and national levels of government. Previous revenue-sharing procedures allowed the central government to fix maximum spending levels for each

Revenue and Grants921.2100.0%
     Tax revenue811.788.1%
     Social contributions
     Grants59.16.4%
     Other revenue50.45.5%
Expenditures1,381.6100.0%
     General public services945.468.4%
     Defense14310.4%
     Public order and safety28.42.1%
     Economic affairs189.613.7%
     Environmental protection0.20.0%
     Housing and community amenities6.10.4%
     Health2.10.2%
     Recreational, culture, and religion50.4%
     Education20.91.5%
     Social protection40.83.0%
() data not available or not significant.

province, autonomous region, and centrally administered municipality. The new system fixed for a five-year period the proportion of local income to be paid to the central government and (except for emergency appropriations for floods and other such disasters) the level of subsidies to be provided by the central government, as well as the proportion of local income to be retained by local governments. Autonomous regions receive proportionately greater state subsidies than the provinces and centrally administered municipalities, and they are entitled to keep all revenues from local industrial and commercial taxes. During the 1990s, the Chinese consolidated budget deficit grew at a rapidly increasing rate. According to the IMF, the 1998 budget deficit amounted to 4% of GDP, due to rising expenditures and tax evasion. Deficits are largely financed by domestic debt issuance rather than by money creation. In 1999, the central government performed an audit of embezzlement, finding that some $2.4 billion in state funds had been diverted into private bank accounts, and that a total equaling one-fifth of the central government's tax revenues were misused. In all, the government's liabilities were equal to 100% of GDP in 2000, according to some sources. Annual tax revenues equal 13% of GDP, one-fifth of which goes annually to paying interest on government debts.

The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) estimated that in 2005 China's central government took in revenues of approximately $392.1 billion and had expenditures of $424.3 billion. Revenues minus expenditures totaled approximately -$32.2 billion. Public debt in 2005 amounted to 28.8% of GDP. Total external debt was $242 billion.

Government outlays by function in 2001 were as follows: general public services, 68.4%; defense, 10.4%; public order and safety, 2.1%; economic affairs, 13.7%; housing and community amenities, 0.4%; health, 0.2%; recreation, culture, and religion, 0.4%; education, 1.5%; and social protection, 3.0%.

TAXATION

China's standard corporate tax rate is 33%, and includes a 3% local corporate income tax. It is applicable to resident as well as those business operations that involve foreign investments, or socalled foreign investment enterprises (FIEs). In addition, local authorities are allowed to collect certain license and registration fees, as well as levy a surcharge. FIEs typically pay taxes at concessional rates, depending upon the type of business and location. Capital gains incurred by companies are generally considered income and are taxed as such.

On 1 January 1994, the PRC Individual Income Tax law came into effect in China. As of 2005, China's individual income tax was progressively rated up to 45% for residents and foreigners, although foreigners listed as nonresidents (those living in China for less than one year) are taxed only on income sourced from China. People resident in China for five or more years are considered residents and are taxed on worldwide income. Capital gains claimed by individuals are taxed at 20%. However, the sale of a private dwelling is exempt from the capital gains tax, if the seller lived in it for at least five years. Nonresidents are subject to a 10% withholding tax. The sale or importation of goods and services are subject to a valueadded tax (VAT) at a standard rate of 17% or at a lower rate of 13%. The lower rate applies to water, grain, edible oils, certain agricultural products such as fertilizers, and books. Small firms are subject to a 6% VAT. The VAT applies to a broad range of services including the sale of immovable property, construction, insurance and entertainment, the latter of which is subject to a 20% rate. Consumption/excise taxes also apply to goods, including cigarettes, motor vehicles, cosmetics, jewelry and alcoholic beverages.

CUSTOMS AND DUTIES

Although China is in the process of aligning its trade system with international standards, prohibitively high tariffs and quotas discourage many imports. It uses the Harmonized System for tariff classification. A minimum tariff rate is granted to countries that have special agreements with China, including the United States. Tariff rates range from 3100% with the highest rates reserved for goods such as automobiles. Raw materials are exempt. In 1996, as a step toward WTO compliance, China reduced tariffs on more than 4,000 products by an average of 30%, and then reduced tariffs even further in 2001 in preparation for WTO accession. In 2000, the USChina Trade Relations Working Group successfully opened trade relations with China, with such agreements as: reducing the automobile tariff from a maximum of 100% to a maximum of 25%; reducing auto parts tariffs from 23.4% to 10%; and eliminating quotas by 2005. In addition, China agreed to a reduction in chemical tariffs from about 15% to 7% and a reduction in textile tariffs from 25% to 12% by 2005 (but a quota safeguard would be available in the event that the industry failed). Steel tariffs were to be reduced from 10% to 6% by 2003. These reductions would be implemented on a sliding yearly basis. Most other tariffs have been scheduled for reduction by more than 50%, to an average of 9.4% on industrial tariffs and an average of 17% on agricultural tariffs. China acceded to the World Trade Organization on 11 December 2001.

Official PRC policy is that direct trade with Taiwan is interregional, rather than international, since Taiwan is considered a province of China and, therefore, no customs duties are levied. There are free trade zones in Shanghai, Tianjin, Dalian, Haikov, the Hainan Island Special Economic Zone, and within the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone. Smuggling, reportedly well organized along the coasts of Guangdong, Fujian, and Zhejiang provinces and in the frontier regions of Tibet and Yunnan, is a major governmental concern.

FOREIGN INVESTMENT

China strongly emphasizes attracting foreign investment in projects that will enhance the nation's economic development. Beginning in the early 1970s, China contracted for the construction of a substantial number of complete plants, notably for iron and steel, automobile, fertilizer manufacture, and power generation, including nuclear power. Such agreements, often made with private firms from Japan, Germany, Italy, France, the United Kingdom, and Canada, as well as with agencies of the Communist states, all called for direct purchase of materials and services. Residual ownership by foreigners and remittance of profits from production were expressly disallowed. In 1979, China established the Foreign Investment Control Commission to attract and coordinate foreign investment, and the first four Special Economic Zones (SEZs) in southern China at Shenzhen, Xiamen, Shantou, and Zhuhai to attract foreign investment (the fifth SEZ was established on Hainan Island in 1988).

In the 1980s, foreign investment was restricted to export-oriented businesses, and foreign investors were required to enter into joint ventures (JVs) with Chinese counterparts in order to enter the market. Under the Joint Ventures Law, enacted in 1979 and revised in 1982, the development of joint ventures for the production of exports has been particularly stressed as a means of securing for China the foreign exchange needed to pay for purchases of advanced technology. Foreign investment in products for the domestic market, other than those needed for modernization, was discouraged. In 1984, further foreign investment opportunities were created with the designation of 14 open coastal citiesShanghai, Guangzhou, Tianjin, Fuzhou, Dailan, Qinhuangdao, Yantai, Qingdao, Lianyungan, Nantong, Ningbo, Wenzhou, Zhanjiang, and Beihaiwhere preferential incentives could also be offered. Since then, 52 state approved economic and technology zones have come into existence, and most provinces, regions, and major municipalities have their own international and trust investment corporations, of which the one in Shanghai is the largest. Special corporations for the attraction of investment by overseas Chinese have been established in Fujian and Zhejiang provinces.

In the early 1990s, the government began allowing foreign investors to manufacture and sell an increasingly wide variety of goods in the domestic market. From the mid-1990s, wholly foreign owned enterprises (WFOEs) have been allowed to operate. In 2000 and 2001, China revised its laws on JVs and WFOEs to eliminate requirements for foreign exchange balancing, to eliminate domestic sales ratio requirements, to eliminate or adjust advanced technology and export performance requirements, and to modify provisions on domestic procurement of raw materials. With China's accession to the WTO in December 2001, foreign investment opportunities were further expanded with the removal of financial and distribution services from the restricted list. Only the production of arms and the mining and processing of certain minerals are currently off limits to foreign investment.

China attracts capital in four ways: (1) by soliciting loans and credits from foreign governments and international financial institutions; (2) by floating bonds and debentures on international capital markets; (3) by promoting direct foreign investment through joint ventures and other cooperative enterprises; and (4) by accumulating trade surpluses from export sales.

From 1979 to 2000, according to Chinese government figures, FDI totaled $350 billion. This figure includes investment from the Special Administrative Regions (SARs) of Hong Kong and Macao as well as from Taiwan. On an annual basis, this not very-foreign proportion of FDI has dropped from over two-thirds to an average of 45.5% for 1999 and 2000. (Analysts have also estimated that 1030% of FDI from Hong Kong actually comes from Chinese mainland companies looking for a tax break.) From 1979 to 1990, double digit annual growth rates in the early years (55% in 1984 and 38% in 1985) declined to a low of 2.7% in 1990, the year after the Tiananmen Square violence. However, in 1991, FDI increased 25% and then soared by triple digits in 1992 (152%) and 1993 (150%). By the end of 1995, over 258,000 foreign invested enterprises had registered in China. In 1996 a World Bank study found that China attracted more than one-third of all investment in factories and other manufacturing plants in developing nations. Growth rates, of course, moderated after their early surge, but it was not until the Asian financial crisis of 199798, precipitated by China's reabsorption of Hong Kong in July 1997, that annual FDI levels stagnated, with a 0.45% growth rate in 1998, and then declined, with an 11.1% fall in 1999 from $45.46 billion to $40.4 billion annual FDI. In 1999 foreign invested firms numbered 300,000 and accounted for almost 50% of exports. In 2000, FDI only grew 0.9%, to $40.77 billion, but in 2001, a 14.6% increase sent annual FDI to a record $46.8 billion.

China continues to have no mergers and acquisitions law that would permit the involuntary takeover of a company. A company can be bought outright but the sale requires specific government approval, as do all investments in China. Indirect foreign (or portfolio) investment (FII) is limited to those willing to invest to the mainland companies listed on the Chinese stock exchange. Mainland companies raised about $22 billion in 2000. This fell to about $12 billion in 2001, reflecting the near 50% drop in foreign investment worldwide following the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States.

Until the early 1980s, the flow of Chinese funds abroad was confined to assistance to developing countries and to investment in Hong Kong real estate. In 1983, however, China began making direct investments overseas, in the United States, Canada, the Solomon Islands, and Sri Lanka. China has been a significant supplier of development aid to other countries. Recipients of Chinese military and economic assistance have included the DPRK, Vietnam, Egypt, Pakistan, and Tanzania.

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

A profound restructuring of China's economy began in 1949 following the founding of the PRC. Adhering to orthodox models borrowed wholesale from the former USSR, the PRC brought all major industrial, infrastructure, and financial enterprises directly under state ownership. Agriculture was collectivized. Management of the economy was closely controlled by central authorities, whose powers extended to the allocation of basic commodities and the basic division of resources into investment, consumption, and defense channels. Centralized planning for economic development was introduced in the form of five-year economic plans.

The first five-year plan (195357), belatedly announced in 1957, pursued rapid industrialization along Soviet lines, with a special emphasis on increases in steel and other heavy industries. The plan reportedly achieved its goals of a 5% gain in gross value of agricultural output and a 4% gain in grain production, and exceeded the 19% growth target in gross value of industrial output.

The second five-year plan (195862) was voided at its start by the social and economic upheavals of the Great Leap Forward. At the heart of the Great Leap was the establishment of the self-sufficient rural commune; decentralization of industry was stressed, and the rural unemployed put to work in "backyard steel furnaces" and other industrial enterprises of dubious efficiency. Incomes were determined by need, and coercion and revolutionary enthusiasm replaced profit as the motivation for work. Publication of economic data ceased at this time, but Western observers estimated a 1% decline in agriculture for the 195860 period, an increase in GNP of only 1%, and no more than a 6% increase in industrial output. After the bad harvests of 1960 and 1961, an "agriculture first" policy was adopted under which large areas of semiarid steppe and other marginal lands in the north and west were converted to agricultural use.

A third five-year plan (196670), formulated by governmental pragmatists and calling for rapid growth of all sectors, was aborted by the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution. In 1969, the government published a report calling for a more open approach to foreign assistance and trade. Domestically, it confirmed the use of the "mass line"the system of calling upon workers and peasants to take responsibility and initiative, and to work without material incentives. It favored the simultaneous use of modern and traditional employment methods (the "walking on two legs" policy), and recommended expansion of industry through investment of profits derived from the sale of agricultural and light industrial products. At the heart of the 1969 policy was a reversion to the commune system of 1958a program to make the countryside self-sufficient, with every commune not only growing its own food but also producing its own fertilizer and tools, generating its own electricity, and managing its own small handicrafts factories, health schemes, and primary schools. In contrast to the hastily organized communes of 195860, however, the new units frequently adhered to the traditionaland more manageablestructure of Chinese rural life.

Long-range economic planning resumed in 1970 with the announcement of a fourth five-year plan, for 197175. In late 1975, Premier Zhou Enlai proclaimed the plan successful. Agricultural output was reported to have grown by 51% during the 196474 period, while gross industrial output was said to have increased by 190%. Specifically, the following growth rates (196474) for mining and industry were reported: petroleum, 660%; coal, 92%; steel, 120%; cotton yarn, 86%; tractors, 540%; chemical fertilizers, 350%; and electric power, 200%.

A fifth five-year plan (197680), announced in 1975, gave priority to modernization of the economy and, for the first time, emphasized the development of light rather than heavy industry. Implementation of this new departure was, however, delayed by the deaths of Mao and Zhou in 1976 and did not occur until 1978, by which time the economic pragmatists, led by Deng Xiaoping, had emerged victorious from the subsequent political and ideological struggles.

The sixth five-year plan (198185) reemphasized China's commitment to the pragmatic line and to the Four Modernizations. Approximately $115 billion was allocated for capital construction, and another $65 billion for renovation of existing infrastructure. GNP increased by an annual average of 10%, industrial output by 12%, and agricultural output by 8.1%.

The seventh five-year plan (198690), announced in March 1986 and called by Deng Xiaoping "The New Long March," featured the following major goals: increasing industrial output 7.5% annually (to $357 billion); increasing agricultural output 4% annually (to $95.4 billion); increasing national income 6.7% annually (to $252.7 billion); increasing foreign trade 40% (to $83 billion); spending $54 billion on 925 major development projects in energy, raw materials, transportation, and postal and telecommunications; and investing $74.6 billion in technological transformation of state enterprises. The goal for rural per capita income was $151 annually.

Concerns about the unevenness of China's economic development progress, both in geographic and sectoral terms, shaped the country's eighth five-year plan (199195). To ameliorate potentially crippling bottlenecks in the supply of raw materials, energy, transportation, and communications capacity, the government prioritized the financing of infrastructure investments. Streamlining of inefficient state industrial enterprises was targeted as well, with the setting up of an unemployment security fund planned in order to assist laid off workers make the transition to employment in nonstate industry and the services sector. Direct foreign investment in industry, services, and infrastructure (especially energy and communications development) were promoted. The plan also emphasized better distribution of the country's development momentum. Inland cities, especially along the Russian, Mongolian, and North Korean borders were targeted for development as export-oriented special economic zones in addition to coastal areas. Particular emphasis was given to developing major infrastructure projects to link Hong Kong, Macao, and the Pearl River delta area of Guangdong province into an integrated economic area and major export base for the 21st century.

The ninth five-year plan (19962000) called for a shift from a centrally planned economy to a "socialist market economy." It also stressed resource allocation to achieve higher efficiency. The goals included continuing progress toward quadrupling the 1980 GNP by the year 2000 (a goal that had already been met by 1996) and doubling the 2000 GNP by the year 2010, a goal carried over into tenth five-year plan (200105). By the end of 2002, the Chinese economy had come through two major external shocks (the Asian financial crisis of 199798 and the global economic slowdown of 200102) without seriously faltering, at least according to official government figures. Real GDP growth registered 8% in 2000 and dipped to 7.3% in 2001. Inflation has held near zero or below, with a slight deflation in consumer prices (-0.8% in 1998, -1.4% in 1999, and -0.4% in 2002). In 2000 and 2001 inflation was below 1%, at 0.4% and 0.7%, respectively.

The tenth five-year plan (200105) called for a continuance of these trends: average GDP growth rates of 7% with a goal of reaching a GDP of $1.5 trillion by 2005 in the context of stable prices. The government estimated that the labor force would increase 40 million by 2005, and that there would also be 40 million surplus rural laborers to be transferred, as the proportion of the labor force in agriculture dropped from an estimated 50% in 2001 to a planned 44% by 2005. Under the tenth five-year plan the government sought to improve its "socialist market economy." Priorities include establishing a "modern enterprise system" in the stateowned enterprises (SOEs), improving social security, and increasing the depth and breadth of participation in the international economy. Registered urban unemployment, at 3.6% in 2001 and below 4% in 2002, was to be controlled at about 5% under the tenth plan. The CIA estimated that total urban unemployment was about 10% in 2001, and that there was substantial underemployment in rural areas; Chinese sources put unemployment overall at 20% in 2003. The tenth five-year plan foresaw agriculture's share in the GDP decreasing to 13% by 2005 from 17.7% in 2001, while industry's share was expected to increase from 49.3% to 51%, and the share of services, from 33% to 36%, across the planning period. Educational goals include attaining gross enrollments of 90% at the junior high school level, 60% in high school, and 15% in higher education. Environmental targets included attaining 18.2% forest coverage, 35% urban green rate, and an overall 10% reduction over 2000 levels in pollutants discharged.

In 2005, China's history of incrementalist economic restructuring for increased efficiency gains led to a GDP ten times higher than that recorded in the late 1970s. Such advances helped make China the second-largest economy in the world (in terms of purchasing power parity) after the United States. However, despite the country's economic advances as a whole, the low per capita income and millions of citizens living below the poverty line still placed China in a lower middle-income range. Economic development continued to be disproportionate, with more advances occurring in the eastern coastal provinces than in the rest of the country. Also, as stateowned enterprises (SOEs) have decreased, the government has been challenged to find work for the millions of former SOE employees who were unemployed as a result. Also challenging the government are charges to reduce corruption and economic crimes and to reduce environmental damage (air pollution, soil erosion, and the fall of the water table in the north) and social strife in the face of economic transformation. In July 2005, China revalued the yuan (y) by 2.1%, and benefited from foreign investment and increased involvement in world trade and increasing employment in urban jobs, despite electricity shortages in the summer of 2005.

Also, in 2005, the draft of the eleventh five-year plan was approved. The plan included provisions to reduce energy consumption (per unit GDP) by 20% and increase GDP by 45% by 2010. It also included a resource conservation and environmental protection package supplementing the other policies and reforms.

SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT

China does not yet have national social security legislation. Old age provisions in rural areas is tied to family support and community and state programs. According to the Labor Law, male workers and professional women are eligible to retire at age 60, female nonsalaried workers at 55, and other women at age 50. The amount of the pension is decided by the local or city government based on the standard of living in that area. The urban medical insurance program covers employees in urban enterprises. Local governments and employers adapt the guidelines and base rates according to local conditions. There are some local programs to provide for needy families.

Workers may receive six months' sick leave at 60100% of salary. For work-related total disability, workers are entitled to lifetime compensation of 7590% of the standard wage. Maternity leave at full pay is provided for up to 90 days. In addition, numerous health, daycare, and educational benefits are provided free of charge. In urban areas, housing rentals rarely exceed 5% of the monthly wage.

Despite constitutional provisions, women may face discrimination in the workplace. Women continue to report that unfair dismissal, sexual harassment, demotions, and wage disparity are significant problems. In addition, some enterprises are reluctant to hire women because of the additional costs of maternity leave. Sexual harassment was an ongoing problem and the first court cases were heard in 2003. Most women earn less than men, and are twice as likely to be illiterate. Violence against women remains a serious problem, and spousal abuse goes largely unreported. The suicide rate among women is three times the global average. Women are subject to pressure and sometimes physical coercion to submit to abortion or sterilization. The trafficking of women for the sex trade is a pervasive problem.

A serious human rights problem is female infanticide by families wishing for sons. The imbalance of sex ratios in the country has led to a shortage of women of marriageable age and a dramatic increase in the abduction of women for this purpose.

China's human rights record continued to draw international censure. Ongoing human rights abuses include arbitrary and lengthy detention, forced confessions, torture, and the mistreatment of prisoners. Repression of political dissent continues. Prison conditions are poor and China does not allow any independent monitoring of its prisons. Widespread human rights abuses have also been reported in Chinese occupied Tibet. The government does not tolerate any political dissent or proindependence movements in Tibet.

HEALTH

A revamping of China's health system was underway in the late 1990s to manage serious diseases. The Ministry of Public Heath's ninth five-year plan on the control of serious diseases outlined major reforms to be reached by the year 2000. These include strengthening epidemic prevention management systems and facilities. National health practices, including the provision of both Western and traditional Chinese health services are under the supervision of the Ministry of Health. The ministry has emphasized preventive medicine and general improvement of sanitary conditions.

Since the early 1950s, mass campaigns have been mounted to deal with major public health problems. These have included nationwide cleanup campaigns and mass educational programs in the sanitary preparation of food, the treatment of drinking water, personal hygiene, and waste disposal. The entire population was mobilized to eradicate the four pestsrats, sparrows, flies, and mosquitoeswith mixed results. Epidemic prevention centers were established to carry out massive immunizations, while parasitic diseases, affecting hundreds of millions in China, were also attacked. As a result, schistosomiasis, malaria, kalaazar, and hookworm are thought to have been largely brought under control.

Approximately 90% of inhabitants had access to health care services. In 2000, 75% of the population had access to safe drinking water and 38% had adequate sanitation.

There were 62,000 hospitals and total beds numbered 2.6 million, a rate of 2.33 per 1,000. As of 2004, there were an estimated 164 physicians, 104 nurses, 29 pharmacists, and 4 midwives per 100,000 people.

During the Cultural Revolution in an effort to even out the disparity between rural and urban health services, medical personnel from hospitals (as much as 3050% of a hospital's medical staff) were sent to the countryside and the number of locally trained paramedical personnel, called barefoot doctors, expanded. These paramedical personnelyoung peasants or middle school graduateswere trained on the job by township doctors or in two-month courses at township health clinics. "Barefoot doctors" and brigade health stations were still the major deliverers of health care in the countryside.

An estimated 83% of married women (ages 1549) used contraception. The infant mortality rate was reduced from as high as 200 per 1,000 live births before 1949 to an estimated 24.18 per 1,000 in 2005. The maternal mortality rate was estimated at 55 per 100,000 live births. In the mid-1990s, China vaccinated a high percentage of its children up to one year of age: tuberculosis, 94%; diphtheria, pertussis, and tetanus, 93%; polio, 94%; and measles, 89%. Despite the high immunization rates, diseases still persist. China had the greatest number of tuberculosis cases of any UN member state. According to the World Health Organization, cholera was reported in 10,344 individuals in 1995. In China, which accounts for 20% of the world's tetanus cases, over 90,000 a year die from neonatal tetanus.

Average life expectancy in 2005 was 72.27 years, up from an average of 45 years in 1950. Major causes of death were recorded as: communicable diseases and maternal/perinatal causes, noncommunicable diseases, and injuries. The HIV/AIDS prevalence was 0.10 per 100 adults in 2003. As of 2004, there were approximately 840,000 people living with HIV/AIDS in the country. There were an estimated 44,000 deaths from AIDS in 2003.

HOUSING

China has an acute shortage of housing, attributable not only to the large annual increases in population (over 10 million a year), but also to the longstanding policy of directing investment funds into heavy industry rather than into housing and other social amenities. In the mid-1990s, the total number of housing units in China stood at 276,502,000. Approximately 400,000 new dwellings were completed per year and 90.6% of all homes had piped water. By the end of 2002, an additional 19.25 million sq m (207.21 million sq ft) of commercial housing had been completed, representing a 10.5% increase from the previous year. The government expects to build 486 million sq m (5,231.26 million sq ft) to 549 million sq m (5,909.39 million sq ft) of floor space each year for the first 20 years of the 21st century. In 2002, the annual investment for housing was at about us$97 billion.

During the 1990s, the government began a program of transferring ownership of stateowned housing into private hands at fairly low costs and with subsidized mortgages. As a result, an estimated 73% of families own their own residence. In 2002, the average living space was at 23.5 sq m (252.95 sq ft). In rural areas, homes tend to be smaller. Some newer rural homes are at about 50 sq m (538.2 sq ft) in size with households of about three to six people. Though many rural homes are constructed with wood and earthen walls and tile or thatched roofs, some newer homes, such as those built by Habitat for Humanity, include red brick, stone, and compressed earth blocks.

EDUCATION

The Cultural Revolution affected education more than any other sector of society. Schools were shut down in mid-1966 to give the student Red Guards the opportunity to "make revolution" on and off campus. The Cultural Revolution touched off purges within the educational establishment. Upper- and middle level bureaucrats throughout the system were removed from office, and virtually entire university faculties and staffs dispersed. Although many lower schools had begun to reopen during 1969, several universities remained closed through the early 1970s, as an estimated 10 million urban students were removed to the countryside to take part in labor campaigns. During this period and its aftermath, revolutionary ideology, and local conditions became the principal determinants of curriculum. A nine-year program of compulsory education (compressed from 12 years) was established for youths 715 years of age.

Education was reoriented in 1978 under the Four Modernizations policy, which restored the pre-1966 emphasis on competitive examinations and the development of special schools for the most promising students. The most striking changes were effected at the junior and senior high school levels, in which students were again streamed, according to ability, into an estimated 5,000 high-quality, well-equipped schools, or into lower-quality high schools, or into the technical and vocational schools, which were perceived as the least prestigious. In addition, 96 universities, 200 technical schools, and 7,000 primary schools were designated as "key" institutions. Universities were reopened, with a renewed emphasis given to science and technology. By 1998, there were 628,840 primary schools with 5,794,000 teachers and 139,954,000 students. At the secondary level, there were 4,437,000 teachers and 718,883,000 students.

As of 2006, the nine years of compulsory education was still in effect. This consists of a six-year primary education and a three-year junior secondary program. A senior secondary program continues for another three years. The academic year runs from September to July. The primary language of instruction is Chinese.

In 2001, about 27% of children between the ages of three and six were enrolled in some type of preschool program. Primary school enrollment in 2001 was estimated at about 94.6% of age-eligible students. The same year, secondary school enrollment was about 67% of age-eligible students. It is estimated that about 98% of all students complete their primary education. The student-to-teacher ratio for primary school was at about 21:1 in 2003; the ratio for secondary school was about 19:1.

There are over 1,000 colleges and universities in China. Among the largest and most prestigious institutions were Beijing University and Qinghua University, both in Beijing; Zhongshan University, in Guangzhou; Nanjing University and Nanjing Institute of Technology; Nankai University and Tianjin University, in Tianjin; and Fudan University, in Shanghai. In 2003, about 16% of the tertiary age population were enrolled in some type of higher education program. The adult literacy rate for 2004 was estimated at about 90.9%, with 95.1% for men and 86.5% for women.

Tuition has traditionally been free in vocational secondary schools, and in training schools for elementary teachers, as well as in colleges and universities; students in need of food, clothing, and textbooks receive state grantsinaid. Primary and general secondary school students pay a nominal tuition fee. Parttime primary and secondary schools, evening universities, and correspondence schools exist for adult workers and peasants.

As of 2003, public expenditure on education was estimated at 2.1% of GDP, or 13% of total government expenditures.

LIBRARIES AND MUSEUMS

The National Library in Beijing (founded in 1909) is the largest in China, with over 22 million volumes, including more than 291,000 rare ancient Chinese books and manuscripts. The Chinese Academy of Sciences Central Library, in Beijing, has a collection of 6.2 million volumes, with branches in Shanghai, Lanzhou, Wuhan, and Chengdu. The Capital Library in Beijing (2.6 million volumes) is the city's public library and operates lending, reference, and children's services. The Shoudou Library, also in Beijing, has 2.35 million volumes. Shanghai Central Library System, established in 2001 with support from the municipal government, includes about 36 branch libraries.

Small lending libraries and reading rooms can be found in factories, offices, and rural townships. The library of Beijing University, with over four million volumes, is the largest university library. Other important university collections are at Nanjing University in Nanjing (3.2 million volumes), Fudan University in Shanghai (3.6 million volumes), and Qinghua University in Beijing (2.5 million volumes). The Central Institute of Nationalities in Beijingone of dozens of private institutions with librarieshas a collection of 800,000 volumes, including 160 foreign-language journals. The Library Association of China was founded in Peiping (modern-day Beijing), China, in 1925 and reorganized in T'aipei in 1953. The Hong Kong Library Association was founded in 1958.

China has a wealth of about 1,000 museums, most of them cultural in nature. The Imperial Palace Museum in Beijing houses collections of art, sculpture, silk fabric, and furniture. The Museum of the Chinese Revolution on Tiananmen Square has exhibits of the revolutionary movement in China from the Opium War to the founding of the PRC. In Shanghai is the Museum of Art and History, with some of the country's outstanding archaeological and art collections. Many museums are memorials to Chinese artists and writers, and house collections of their work. China also has 500 historical sites with exhibitions. With the return of Hong Kong to China, the country gained the Hong Kong Museum of Art, the University Museum and Art Gallery, the Hong Kong Museum of History, and the Hong Kong Space Museum.

MEDIA

Postal service and telecommunications facilities fall under the authority of the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications. In 2003, there were an estimated 209 mainline telephones for every 1,000 people.

The same year, there were approximately 215 mobile phones in use for every 1,000 people. Figures for Hong Kong alone were much higher, with 559 mainline telephones and 1,079 mobile phones for every 1,000 people.

Television broadcasting began in 1958, and color transmissions in 1973. As of 1998 China had 369 AM and 259 FM radio broadcasting stations. In 1997, China Central Television operated 209 government-owned television stations. There were also 31 provincial stations and almost 3,000 city stations. The most important station is Beijing's Central People's Broadcasting Station (CPBS); from there, programs are relayed by local stations. CPBS broadcasts daily on several channels using a variety of languages, including Mandarin (or standard Chinese), the Hokkien and Hakka dialects, Cantonese, Mongolian, Tibetan, Uigur, Kazakhi, and Korean. In 2005, there were about 2,100 television channels available through staterun Chinese Central TV, provincial, and municipal stations. Approximately 75 of every 1,000 people were cable subscribers. In 2003, there were an estimated 339 radios and 350 television sets for every 1,000 people. Many of the TV sets are installed in public meeting places and in government and economic enterprises, although increasingly a television set has become a muchprized private acquisition. Since large segments of the rural population are as yet without radios and television sets, the government operates a massive wired broadcast network linked to over 100 million loudspeakers. Again, figures for Hong Kong alone were much higher, with 686 radios and 504 television sets for every 1,000 people.

Despite controls, a rapidly growing number of Chinese have access to satellite television and the Internet. The government regulates access of the Internet through the Ministry of Information Industry and the Ministries of Public and State Security. In 2003, there were 27.6 personal computers for every 1,000 people and 63 of every 1,000 people had access to the Internet. There were 293 secure Internet servers in the country in 2004.

The press is closely controlled by the government, the CCP, or the various political and mass organizations associated with the CCP. Minority newspapers are published in Mongolian, Uygur, Tibetan, Korean, and other languages. The main news agencies are the official New China (Xinhua) News Agency; the China News Service, which supplies information to overseas Chinese newspapers and journals; and China Feature, which supplies articles to magazines and newspapers worldwide.

The Cultural Revolution caused substantial upheaval in the Chinese press establishment. Many publications closed down, and others underwent purges of editorial staffs. Publication of Hongqi (Red Flag ), the most authoritative of the CCP publications, resumed in 1968.

The major newspapers, with their locations and circulations in 2002, are: Gongren Ribao (Worker's Daily ), Beijing, 2,500,000; Renmin Ribao (People's Daily ), Beijing, 2,150,000; Xin Min Wanbao (Xin Min Evening News ), Shanghai, 1,800,000; Wenhui Bao (Wenhui Daily ), Shanghai, 1,700,000; Yangcheng Wanbao (Yangcheng Evening News ), Guangzhou, 1,300,000; Jiefang Ribao (Liberation Daily ), Shanghai, 1,000,000; and Jiefangjun Bao (Liberation Army Daily ), Beijing, 800,000.

Jiefangjun Bao, the army news, played a leading role in the Cultural Revolution. China's first English-language newspaper, the China Daily, founded in 1981, is published in Beijing and had a circulation of 150,000 in 1999. The most authoritative publication for foreigners is the multilingual weekly Beijing Review, which distributed in China and abroad with a 1995 circulation of more than 100,000.

In 2002, Hong Kong had over 75 daily newspapers in circulation, some of which are Englishlanguage papers from other countries, such as the Toronto Star, the Boston Globe, and The Australian. Major Hong Kong dailies and their 2002 circulations were Tin Tin Yat Pao, 199,260; Sing Tao Wan Pao, 125,000; Wah Ku Yat Po, 125,000; Ching Pao, 120,000; Hong Kong Commercial Daily, 110,000; South China Morning Post, 104,000; and Hong Kong Daily News, 101,815.

The largest daily newspaper in Macau is Ou Mun Iat Pou (Macau Daily News, 2002 circulation 100,000).

Government-approved publishing houses are the only legal book publishers.

Though China's constitution states that freedom of speech and of the press are fundamental rights, in practice the Communist Party and the government control all print and electronic media, which are compelled to propagate the current ideological line. All media are under explicit, public orders to guide public opinion as directed by the authorities.

ORGANIZATIONS

Prior to 1966, the leading mass organizations, all closely tied to the regime, were the Communist Youth League, the Women's Federation, the Federation of Literary and Art Circles, the Federation of Scientific Societies, and the Federation of Industry and Commerce. These bodies were to some extent eclipsed by the Cultural Revolution, which spawned a host of new groups. After the Cultural Revolution passed its peak, many of the new organizations lost ground, while local Communist Youth League organizations, including the Young Pioneers, gained prestige. By the mid-1980s, the preCultural Revolution groups were once again ascendant.

There are professional and trade organizations representing a wide variety of professional fields. The All China Federation of Industry and Commerce promotes international trade. The All China Federation of Trade Unions serves as an advocate for worker's rights and benefits, particularly for women. The Asia Pacific Occupational Safety and Health Organization (APOSHO) is located in Hong Kong. Labor organizations in Hong Kong include the Employers' Federation of Hong Kong, the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions, and the Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions. The International Labour Organization has an office in Beijing.

Educational and cultural organizations include the China National Association of Literature and Fine Arts based in Taiwan. The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences promotes research in philosophy and the social sciences. The Hong Kong Arts Festival Society sponsors an international arts festival. The Royal Asiatic Society, dedicated to the history and culture of China, Hong Kong, and Asia, has a branch in Hong Kong. There are also several organizations dedicated to research and education in various fields of medicine and science. There are also many associations for hobbyists.

National women's organizations include the Association for the Advancement of Feminism (AAF), based in Hong Kong and the All China Women's Federation, based in Beijing. The largest youth association is the umbrella organization the AllChina Youth Federation (ACYF), which is led by the Communist Party of China. Member organizations include the Rural Young Entrepreneurs Association, the Association for Young Journalists, the Communist Youth League (CYL) of China, the AllChina Students Federation (ACSF), the YMCA and YWCA, and the Chinese Young Entrepreneurs Association (CYEA). Scouting groups exist in Hong Kong and Macau. A wide variety of sports organizations are active throughout the country, including the Chinese Table Tennis Association, which has gained international recognition.

The Asian Human Rights Commission (Hong Kong) is a multinational organization for human rights. There are national chapters of the Red Cross, Greenpeace, Habitat for Humanity, and Amnesty International.

TOURISM, TRAVEL, AND RECREATION

Chinese restrictions on tourism were eased to allow access by foreigners on group tours in 1976 and further relaxed in 1983, when the ban on individual travel was lifted. By 1985, there were 244 Chinese cities and scenic spots open to foreign tourists and a number of resorts specifically designed for foreigners were in operation. China was opened to tourists from Taiwan in 1987. All visitors to China must have a valid passport and visa; personal interviews may also be required upon entry.

The most famous tourist attraction in China is the Great Wall, the construction of which began in the 3rd century bc as a barrier against northern invaders. Other leading tourist attractions include the Forbidden City, or Imperial Palace, in Beijing; the nearby tombs of the Ming emperors; historic Hangzhou, with its famous West Lake and gardens; busy Shanghai, with its well-stocked stores and superb cuisine; Xi'an, the site of monumental Qin dynasty excavations; and Guangzhou, the center of Cantonese cooking, with an extensive Cultural Park.

Sports activities in China are coordinated by the State Physical Culture and Sports Commission and the AllChina Sports Federation. Active sports, represented by national associations, include gymnastics, diving, basketball, football (soccer), tennis, cycling, swimming, volleyball, weight lifting, and mountain climbing. The 2008 Summer Olympics were scheduled to be held in Beijing, the first Olympic Games to be held in China.

Distinctively Chinese pastimes include wushu, a set of ancient exercises known abroad as gonfu (kung fu) or the "martial arts"; taijiquan, or shadow boxing, developed in the 17th century; and liangong shibafa, modern therapeutic exercises for easing neck, shoulder, back, and leg ailments. Qigong (literally "breathing exercises") is also widely practiced both as a sport and as physical therapy. A popular traditional spectator sport is Chinese wrestling. Traditional pastimes for the national minorities are horse racing, show jumping, and archery among the Mongolians; the sheep chase (in which the winner successfully locates and defends possession of a slaughtered sheep) among Uigurs and Kazaks; and yak and horse racing among Tibetans.

In 2003, about 11,403,000 tourists arrived in China. Total receipts from tourism that year were estimated at $18.7 billion, a decrease of 15% from 2002. There were 992,804 hotel rooms with 1,887,740 beds and a 56% occupancy rate.

The costs of traveling in China vary from city to city. In 2005, the US Department of state estimated the daily cost of staying in Shanghai at $320 and in Beijing at $241.

FAMOUS CHINESE

Confucius (K'ung Futzu or Kong Fuzi, 551479 bc) is generally regarded as the most important historical figure, as well as the greatest scholar, of ancient China. His philosophy and social ideas include observance of filial piety, the sanctity of the family, and social responsibility. Other early philosophers were Laotzu (Laozi; Li Erh, 604?531 bc), the traditional founder of Taoism; Mencius (Mengtzu or Mengzi, 385289 bc), who stressed the essential goodness of human nature and the right of subjects to revolt against unjust rulers; and Mo Ti (Di, 465?390? bc), who stressed the theme of universal love. Among the principal early poets was Chu (Chü) Yuan, (340278 bc), whose Li Sao, a melancholy rhapsody, is among the world's great poems. Sima Qian (Ssuma Ch'ien, 14587 bc) produced the monumental Shiji (Shihchi; Historical Records), the first general history of China. Ban Gu (Pan Ku, ad 3292) wrote Qian Hanshu (Ch'ienHan shu; History of the Former Han Dynasty), a continuation of Sima Qian's work. Zhang (Chang) Heng (78139), an astronomer, is credited with having invented the first seismograph. Zhang Zhongjing (Chang Chungching, 152219) was a celebrated physician, and Zu Zhongzhi (Tsu Chungchih, 429500) calculated the figure 3.14159265 as the exact value for pi. Three brilliant poets of the Tang dynasty were Li Bo (Po, 70162), Du (Tu) Fu (71270), and Bo Juyi (Po Chüyi, 772846). Li Shizhen (Shichen, 151893), an outstanding pharmacologist, wrote a monumental Materia Medica. Great authors of the Qing dynasty were Wu Jingzi (Chingtzu, 170154), who wrote Rulin Waishi (Julin waishih; Unofficial History of the Scholars), a superb satire on the civil service system, and Cao Xuequin (Ts'ao Hsüehch'in, 1715?63), who produced a remarkable novel, Honglou meng (Hunglou meng; The Dream of the Red Chamber). Lu Xun or Lu Hsun (Zhou Shuren or Chou Shujen, 18811936) is generally regarded as China's greatest writer of the modern period. Mao Dun (Shen Yanbing, 18961981) and Ba Jin (Li Feigan, b.1904) are leading novelists. Lin Yutang (Yut'ang, 18951976) popularized Chinese culture in the West. Ha Jin (b.1956) is a contemporary Chinese American novelist born in Liaoning, China. His novel Waiting (1999) won the US National Book Award and PEN/Faulkner Award, and War Trash (2004) was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Maxine Hong Kingston (b.1940), born in California, is a ChineseAmerican writer whose The Woman Warrior (1976) won the National Book Critics Award for Nonfiction.

Political Figures

Sun Yatsen (Zhongshan or Chungshan, 18661925) planned the revolution against the Manchus and became the first president (191112) of the republic. Mao Zedong (Tsetung, 18931976), the foremost figure of post-revolutionary China, served as chairman of the Central Committee of the CCP from 1956 to 1976. Other prominent Chinese Communist leaders include Zhu De (Chu Teh, 18861976), who became commander in chief of the Red Army in 1931 and chairman of the Standing Committee of the NPC; Zhou Enlai (Chou Enlai, 18981976), first premier of China's State Council; Liu Shaoqi (Shaoch'i, 18981969), who became China's head of state in 1959 and was purged during the Cultural Revolution but posthumously rehabilitated in 1985; and Lin Biao (Piao, 190871), who became deputy premier and minister of defense in 1959 and who, prior to his death and subsequent political vilification, had been certified as Mao's successor in the constitution drawn up in 1969. Women in the political hierarchy have included Song Qingling (Soong Ch'ingling, 18921981), Sun Zhongshan's wife, and Jiang Qing (Chiang Ch'ing, 191391), Mao's fourth wife, who emerged as a radical leader during the Cultural Revolution. Jiang, with other prominent radicals, was purged in the wake of the ascension of Hua Guofeng (b.1920) as CCP chairman in 1976. Deng Xiaoping (190497), twice disgraced (196673 and 1976) by radical administrations, reemerged in 1977 to become China's most powerful political figure, albeit without major office, and a major figure in its modernization drive; he officially retired in 1987. A protégé, Hu Yaobang (191589), was party secretary until his ouster in 1987. Another protégé was Zhao Ziyang (19192005), who became general secretary of the CCP in 1987; he was purged in 1989 for his support of student demonstrators in the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, and spent the last 15 years of his life under house arrest. Li Peng (b.1928) was chairman of the standing committee of the National People's Congress from 19982003. For his support of the violent suppression of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, he remains unpopular with a large part of the Chinese population. Jiang Zemin (b.1926), is part of the "third generation" of Chinese leaders (after those surrounding Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping); he served as general secretary of the CCP from 19892002, as president from 19932003, and as chairman of the military from 19892004. Hu Jintao (b.1942) is the fourth president of the People's Republic of China, general secretary of the CCP, and chairman of the central military commission, succeeding Jiang Zemin in those posts. He ushers in a "fourth generation" of leaders.

DEPENDENCIES

Hong Kong

Hong Kong consists of 237 small islands off the southeast coast of the mainland of China and a small peninsula adjoining Guangdong Province on the mainland between 22°29 and 22°37 n and 113°52 and 114°30 e. With a total area, including reclamation, of 1,068 sq km (412 sq mi), it comprises the island of Hong Kong and adjacent islands, 79 sq km (30 sq mi); the Kowloon Peninsula, 11 sq km (4 sq mi); and the New Territories (a leased section of the Chinese mainland) and the remaining islands, 978 sq km (377 sq mi). Most of Hong Kong territory is rocky, hilly, and deeply eroded. The climate is subtropical, with hot and humid summers. Rainfall is heavy and there are occasional typhoons.

Total population, which was under 600,000 in 1945, was approximately 7.3 million in 2002. Some 60% of Hong Kong's residents in 1996 were born there. The phenomenal increase since World War II (193945) resulted primarily from a large influx of mainland Chinese. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, hundreds of thousands of "boat people" arrived from Vietnam. Most have been resettled in other countries, and by mid-1987 only 8,500 remained in camps. In summer 1987, however, Hong Kong faced another influx of Vietnamese, most of them ethnic Chinese. These peoplemore than 6,000 of themhad fled to China after the Vietnam War but found it difficult to assimilate there.

The overall population density in 2002 was 5,800 per sq km (14,500 per sq mi). About 95% of the inhabitants are Chinese and about 95% of the people live in metropolitan areas. Chinese (Cantonese dialect) is the principal spoken language; both Chinese and English are official languages. Taoists, Confucianists, and Buddhists constitute a majority of the population. The Christian population (10%) is split about evenly between Roman Catholics and Protestants. There are also Muslim and Hindu communities (1%). The capital is Victoria, commonly known as Hong Kong.

Hong Kong has regular shipping, air, cable, and wireless services to every part of the world. Government-maintained roads span more than 1,830 km (1,135 mi). The milelong Cross Harbour Road Tunnel connecting Hong Kong Island to Kowloon was opened in 1972, and the Lion Rock Tunnels link Kowloon with Sha Tin; the Aberdeen Tunnel beneath Hong Kong Island entered service in 1982. The governmentowned Mass Transit Railway, a 38.6-km (24-mi) subway system, was begun in November 1975 and started operations in October 1979. The government also owns and operates a 56-km (35-mi) rail line, known as the KowloonCanton Railway. The railroad links up with the rail system of Guangdong Province and constitutes a major land-entry route to China; passenger service, suspended in 1949, was resumed in 1979. The KowloonCanton Railway operates a 34-km (21-mi) light rail system for the New Territories; as of 2001, it connected to the China railway system.

Hong Kong has one of the finest natural harbors. There are deepwater berths in Kowloon Peninsula and in Hong Kong; a container terminal at Kwaichung in Kowloon handles some 60% of Hong Kong's exports. An extensive ferry service connects Hong Kong's islands; hydrofoils provide service to Macau. The Hong Kong airport, Kai Tak, is the world's fourth-largest in terms of passenger traffic; it can handle upwards of 27 million passengers a year. A new airport, Chep Lap Kok, a us$20 billion project that included bridges, highways, tunnels, and a highspeed railway, opened in 1998. The first phase of the airport project, the West Kowloon expressway connecting the airport to Hong Kong Island, opened in February 1997. In April that year, another linkthe Tsing Ma Bridge, the longest suspension bridge for road and rail travel in the worldopened with lavish ceremonies. Three days later, a tunnel with capacity for 180,000 cars a day opened to provide another link between Hong Kong Island and the West Kowloon expressway.

A bleak fisherman's island for most of its early history, Hong Kong was occupied in 1841 by the British. Formal cession by China was made in 1842 by the Treaty of Nanking. The Kowloon Peninsula and adjacent islands were added in 1860, and in 1898, the New Territories were leased from China for 99 years. Hong Kong fell under Japanese occupation from 25 December 1941 to 30 August 1945. Negotiations between the United Kingdom and China culminated in an agreement on 26 September 1984 under which sovereignty over the entire colony would be transferred to China as of 1 July 1997. For a 50-year period, Hong Kong would be a Special Administrative Region and would retain its capitalist economy, its political rights, and its general way of life. A Basic Law, forming a constitution for this period, took effect in 1990.

In the interim, the colony was ruled by a UKappointed governor, with an advisory Executive Council headed by the local commander of UK forces, and an appointed Legislative Council presided over by the governor. Chris Patten, appointed governor in 1992, held the post until the transfer of control to China 1 July 1997. The Urban Council of 30 members (15 elected and 15 appointed by the governor) dealt primarily with municipal affairs, and the government secretariat was responsible for the work of some 40 executive departments. The public sector's share of GDP decreased steadily after 1973. Under a 1981 defense agreement, about three-fourths of the cost of the maintenance of a garrison of 8,945 troops (including four Gurkha battalions) in Hong Kong was borne by the Hong Kong government. The currency unit is the Hong Kong dollar; exchange rates as of 2005 were hk$1 = us$7.7773; us$1 = hk$0.1286).

Located at a major crossroads of world trade, Hong Kong has become a center of commerce, shipping, industry, and banking. Rapid industrialization, accelerated by the influx of new labor, skills, and capital, changed the pattern of the economy after World War II. While heavy industries, such as shipbuilding and ship repairing, iron, and steel, remain important, light industriesespecially watches, clocks, toys, and electronicshave developed more rapidly in recent years. The service sector has also experienced growth; as of 2005, approximately 90% of Hong Kong's GDP derived from services. In 2005, the gross domestic product (GDP) stood at us$172.6 billion, with annual growth that year of 7.3%.

Less than 10% of the total land area is used for farming, most of which is intensive vegetable cultivation. Agriculture does not represent a significant portion of Hong Kong's GDP and most of Hong Kong's agricultural produce is imported. Hong Kong is among the top export markets for US produce.

Electricity is supplied by two franchise companies. Water resources, for long a serious deficiency, have been increased by converting Plover Cove into a lake. About one-quarter of the water supply is purchased annually from China.

Imports in 2005 were estimated at us$291.6 billion, and exports and reexports at us$286.3 billion. As one of the world's largest banking centers, Hong Kong receives a continuous flow of outside capital. The Hong Kong Association of Banks was created in January 1981 to regulate charges and deposit interest rates and oversee banking standards. There is no central bank; currency is issued by two commercial banks. In addition to the licensed banks, many Chinese firms handle Chinese remittances from overseas.

Hong Kong is self-supportive except for external defense. Revenues in 2005 were estimated at us$31.31 billion, derived mainly from internal taxation and import duties. Government expenditures, including us$5.9 billion in capital expenditure, amounted to us$32.3 billion in 2005.

Tourism was an important industry prior to 1997, and remained so after the transfer of Hong Kong to China. About one-fourth of the total number of tourists travel to Hong Kong from the United States, Canada, and Western Europe, with another one-fourth from Japan. Travel restrictions for tourists from mainland China were eased, resulting in growth in tourism in 200305.

Main line telephones numbered about 3.8 million in 2004; mobile cellular telephones numbered about 8.2 million that year. Broadcasting services are provided by a government station, Radio Television Hong Kong, and by commercial operators. Broadcasting services are in both Chinese and English. More than 90% of all households have one or more television sets. The Hong Kong press included 734 newspapers and periodicals. Almost all the newspapers are in Chinese; five are Englishlanguage dailies.

The infant mortality rate was 2.95 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2004, down from 5.73 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2002. The average life expectancy as of 2004 was 81.59 years (females, 84.5 years and males 78.9 years), up from 79.8 years in 2002. In 1995, there were 4.7 hospital beds per 1,000 population, and the daily cost of a hospital bed in a public hospital was $60.

The Hong Kong Housing Authority plans, builds, and manages public housing developments. About 40% of the population lived in public and aided housing as of the late 1990s.

In September 1980, education until the age of 15 was made compulsory; six years of primary and three years of secondary schooling are provided by the government free of charge. Schools are of three types: Chinese, English, and AngloChinese. Prevocational training was offered in more than a dozen government run institutions. Student enrollment in primary and secondary school is about a quarter of the population. Higher education is provided primarily by the University of Hong Kong and the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Hong Kong Polytechnic and the City Polytechnic of Hong Kong also provides postsecondary education for the colony's residents. As of 2002, approximately 93.5% of the population was literate (96.9% for men and 89.6% for women).

MACAU

Macau (Macao) is situated on the south coast of China, at the mouth of the Pearl (Zhu) River, almost directly opposite Hong Kong, which is about 65 km (40 mi) away. Located at 22°6 to 22°13 n and 113°33 to 113°37 e, Macau consists of a peninsula, about 5 km (3 mi) long and 1.6 km (1 mi) wide, and two small islands, Taipa and Coloane. The total area is about 16 sq km (6 sq mi), and the total coastline is 41 km (25 mi). The climate is subtropical, with high humidity from April to October, when Macau receives most of its rainfall. Daily maximum temperatures average 29°c (84°f) during the summer; normal daily temperatures are less than 20°c (68°f) during the winter months.

Macau's population was estimated at 453,125 in mid-2006, down from 496,837 in mid-1996. The population density of over 29,000 per sq km (79,000 per sq mi) was among the highest in the world. Chinese, many of them refugees from the People's Republic of China (PRC) before Macau reverted to the PRC in 1999, constitute 95% of the total; the remaining 5% are Portuguese or of mixed Chinese Portuguese ancestry. Largescale movement of Chinese in and out of Macau has inevitably affected the economic and social life of the territory. The common language is Chinese, usually spoken in the Cantonese (87.9%), Hokkien (4.4%), or Mandarin (1.6%) dialect. As of 1997, Buddhism (50%) and Roman Catholicism (15%) were the dominant religions.

In 2003 there were about 345 km (215 mi) of highways. A causeway links Taipa and Coloane islands, and a 2.7-km (1.7-mi) bridge connects Macau and Taipa. Macau's main asset is its harbor; ferries, hydrofoils, and jetfoils offer shuttle service between Macau and Hong Kong. In 1994, a 240-km (149-mi) road connecting Macau and Hong Kong opened, running through Guangdong Province in the PRC.

Macau is the oldest European settlement in the Far East. The first Portuguese attempts to establish relations with China were made in the early 16th century. In 1557, the Chinese authorities agreed to Portuguese settlement of Macau, with leaseholder rights. The Portuguese, however, treated Macau as their possession and established a municipal government in the form of a senate of the local inhabitants. Disputes concerning jurisdiction and administration developed. In 1833, Macau, together with Timor, became an overseas province of Portugal under the control of the governor-general of Goa, and in 1849, Portugal succeeded in having Macau declared a free port. On 26 March 1887, China confirmed perpetual occupation and governance of Macau and its dependencies by Portugal, but the question of the delimitation of the boundaries was left unsettled.

As the only neutral port on the South China Sea during World War II (193945), Macau enjoyed a modicum of prosperity. In 1949, the government of the PRC renounced the "unequal treaty" granting Portuguese suzerainty over Macau. Civil disturbances in late 1966 between Macau police and Chinese leftist groups resulted in concessions to the territory's proChina elements. The 1974 military coup in Portugal led to a constitutional change in Macau's status from a Portuguese province to a "special territory." In January 1976, Portugal's remaining few hundred troops were withdrawn from Macau. China and Portugal established diplomatic ties in 1980. In March 1987, the PRC and Portugal reached an agreement for the return of Macau to the PRC on 20 December 1999. The PRC has guaranteed not to interfere in Macau's capitalist economy and way of life for a period of 50 years.

Until December 1999, Macau was ruled by a governor appointed by Portugal, although it was empowered to make its own laws, appoint and control its own civil service, and contract directly for foreign loans.

Prior to and immediately following Macau's transfer to PRC control, the unit of currency was the Macau pataca (p) of 100 avos; Hong Kong dollars also circulated freely. There are coins of 10, 20, and 50 avos and 1 and 5 patacas, and notes of 5, 10, 50, 100, and 500 patacas. The pataca is linked to the Hong Kong dollar at the rate of hk$1= p1.03; as of 2005, the rate of exchange with US dollars was us$1= p8.011 or p1 = us$0.1248. Corporate taxes and import duties are important sources of revenue; major expenditures are for finance, security, education, and health and welfare.

Macau's economy is consumer-oriented. There is little agriculture and the territory is heavily dependent on imports from China for food, fresh water, and electricity. Important economic sectors are commerce, tourism, gambling, fishing, and light industry. There are small- and mediumscale enterprises concerned especially with the finishing of imported semi-manufactured goods, in particular the manufacture of clothing, ceramics, electronic equipment, toys, and fireworks, and the printing and dyeing of cloth and yarn.

Macau's historic role has been that of a gateway for southern China. It has close trade relations with neighboring Hong Kong, another free port. Gold trading, formerly a major facet in Macau's economy, virtually came to a halt in 197475 following Hong Kong's decision to lift its own restrictions on gold trading. The principal exports were clothing, textiles, footwear, toys, electronics, and machinery and parts. Principal export partners in 2004 were the United States, 48.7%; China, 13.9%; Germany, 8.3%, Hong Kong, 7.6%, and the United Kingdom, 4.4%. The principal imports were raw materials and semimanufactured goods, consumer goods (foodstuffs, beverages, and tobacco), capital goods, and mineral fuels and oil. Total imports in 2004 were valued at $3.478 billion, of which China provided 44.4%; Hong Kong, 10.6%; Japan, 9.6%; Taiwan, 4.9%; Singapore, 4.1%, and the United States, 4.1%.

Government schools are operated mainly for the children of civil servants and wealthier families, while poor Chinese students are educated in schools supported by China. Macau's University of East Asia opened in 1981. The Medical and Health Department, although critically understaffed, operates a 400-bed hospital. The 800-bed Kiang Vu Hospital has a largely Chinatrained staff.

There were 173,900 main telephone lines and 432,400 mobile cellular phone lines in use in 2004. Macau has two FM radio stations and has access to satellite communications. There are newspapers published in Chinese and Portuguese. Macau receives television broadcasts from Hong Kong.

With its varied gambling facilities, gambling provides about 70% of government revenue. Travelers must have a valid passport and a visa, which is generally purchased at the point of disembarkation. After the transfer of Macau to Chinese control in 1999, there was an increase in tourist arrivals from China.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Aspalter, Christian. Conservative Welfare State Systems in East Asia. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2001.

Baranovitch, Nimrod. China's New Voices: Popular Music, Ethnicity, Gender, and Politics, 19781997. Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 2003.

Chang, Jung. Mao: The Unknown Story. New York: Knopf, 2005.

Chan, Ming K. and Shiuhing Lo. Historical Dictionary of the Hong Kong SAR and the Macao SAR. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow, 2006.

Ebrey, Patricia B. The Cambridge Illustrated History of China. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996.

Evans, Harriet. Women and Sexuality in China: Dominant Discourses of Female Sexuality and Gender Since 1949. Cambridge, U.K.: Polity Press, 1997.

Evans, Richard. Deng Xiaoping and the Making of Modern China. New York: Viking, 1994.

Hamilton, Gary (ed.). Cosmopolitan Capitalists: Hong Kong and the Chinese Diaspora at the End of the 20th Century. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1999.

Hoare, Jim and Susan Pares. A Political and Economic Dictionary of East Asia. Philadelphia: Routledge/Taylor and Francis, 2005.

Kaye, Lincoln. Cousin Felix Meets the Buddha. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003.

LaFleur, Robert. China: A Global Studies Handbook. San Diego, CA: ABCCLIO, 2003.

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McElrath, Karen (ed.). HIV and AIDS: A Global View. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2002.

Meyer, David R. Hong Kong as a Global Metropolis. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

One China, Many Paths. London: Verso, 2003.

Perkins, Dorothy. Encyclopedia of China: The Essential Reference to China, Its History and Culture. New York: Facts on File, 1999.

Reuvid, Jonathan and Li Yong (eds.). Doing Business with China. 5th ed. Sterling, Va.: Kogan Page, 2005.

Ross, Robert S. Negotiating Cooperation: The United States and China, 19691989. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1995.

Sullivan, Lawrence R. and Nancy Hearst. Historical Dictionary of the People's Republic of China: 19491997. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow, 1997.

Thoumi, Francisco E. Illegal Drugs, Economy and Society in the Andes. Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2003.

Zhang, Yongjin. China's Emerging Global Businesses: Political Economy and Institutional Investigations. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.

Zurlo, Tony. China. San Diego, Calif.: Greenhaven Press, 2003.

China

views updated May 18 2018

CHINA

People's Republic of China

Major Cities:
Beijing, Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Shenyang, Chengdu, Nanjing, Chongqing, Harbin, Wuhan

Other Cities:
Anshan, Cheng-chou, Chengdu, Fuzhou, Guilin, Guiyang, Hangzhou, Lüda, Suzhou, Tianjin, Xi'an, Yangshuo, Zibo

Regions:
Macau, Tibet

EDITOR'S NOTE

This chapter was adapted from the Department of State Post Reports dated December 1999 (Hong Kong) and December 1996. Supplemental material has been added to increase coverage of minor cities, facts have been updated, and some material has been condensed. Readers are encouraged to visit the Department of State's web site at http://travel.state.gov/ for the most recent information available on travel to this country.

INTRODUCTION

CHINA has the longest continuous historical and cultural tradition of any country on earth. The civilization which took shape in the Yellow River Valley of North China in the second millennium B.C. eventually came to dominate all of East Asia, including Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. The products of that civilization bear the unmistakable stamp of the vast nation which today is the home of nearly one-fourth of the world's population.

The process of change in a society structured by more than 3,000 years of civilization has not been an easy one, and China in the 20th century has been exhausted by political, economic, and intellectual chaos. The Chinese Communist Party assumed control of the mainland in 1949, after almost a generation of war and social upheaval and, on October 1 of that year, formally proclaimed establishment of the People's Republic of China.

In the intervening years, and during the period of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, diplomatic relations between the United States and the People's Republic of China (P.R.C.) were interrupted. In the late 1960s, steps were taken toward relaxing tension between the two countries, and on March 1, 1979, the United States and the P.R.C. exchanged ambassadors and established embassies in Beijing and in Washington, DC.

MAJOR CITIES

Beijing

Beijing is on the northern edge of the North China Plain. To the west and north are hills, rising to 11,000 feet, 60 miles to the west, while flat, fertile farmlands stretch to the south and east. In 2000, Beijing's population was approximately 12,033,000.

Beijing's modern architecture is undistinguished, but pockets of splendid old buildingsnotably the Forbidden City of the Ming and Qing Dynastiesstill preserve the charm of premodern Beijing. In the past 25 years, many new multistory buildings have been built along the broad east-west access, which passes through Tiananmen Square. In all sections of Beijing, new high-rise office buildings, hotels, shopping complexes, and apartment houses are either under construction or recently completed. The city is constantly changing, although certain sections are still largely characterized by narrow streets fronted by gray walls, beyond which gray roofs with slightly upturned gables mark courtyards and residences, intersected with blocks of brick apartments for workers. The city has three ring roads (some sections are raised highways) that allow for easier access around the city and to the outskirts. The six-lane airport expressway has recently been completed. While a fourth ring road is under construction, it is not expected to alleviate worsening overall traffic congestion, caused by a proliferation of taxicabs and privately owned vehicles on city streets.

Food

With the increasing availability of Western products and their Chinese counterparts, it is now possible to find locally most of the components of a typical American diet. The drawbacks to the local scene are mainly price and lack of convenience: imported goods are still quite expensive, and food shopping outside the major hotel supermarkets is very time consuming. A summary of what is and isn't available is listed below.

All kinds of meat are available, both fresh and frozen, including beef, pork, and lamb. There are various delicatessens around town, as well as a German butcher who offers Western cuts. Frozen chickens (both whole and cutup), turkey, and duck are available at the Friendship stores and other outlets. Fresh and frozen seafood comes in many varieties, including such delicacies as scallops, squid, and some imported fish such as rainbow trout and salmon; prawns are available locally, but the quality varies. Also widely available are various cold cuts and sausages (some imported, some made locally) such as hot dogs, ham, and bacon as well as liver pate and caviar. Imported cheeses (at very high prices), deli meats, and fresh baked goods are also available widely at several hotel delicatessens and bakeries.

Dairy products are readily available. Fresh pasteurized, homogenized milk is sold almost everywhere for about 12 Yuan per liter. UHT (long-life) milk (low-fat and skim as well as full-fat) is widely available as well, imported mainly from Australia. A Swedish-Chinese joint venture company produces a heavy cream similar to creme fraiche, yogurt (plain and limited selections of flavors), cottage cheese, and sour cream. With the exception of yogurt, however, these items are expensive. Butter, margarine, and cheddar-style cheese are all available, in both locally made and imported varieties. An Italian cheese store that recently opened offers locally made fresh ricotta, mozzarella, and soft Italian cheeses, and lately, fresh pasta.

Fresh produce is abundant, and the availability of a wide variety of fruits and vegetables has increased dramatically over the past few years. Local produce markets dot the city, with some around the diplomatic compounds catering to Westerners and their tastes.

Produce available year-round includes cabbage, potatoes, onions, cucumbers, beets, carrots, garlic, bean sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, celery, corn, eggplant, lettuce, green peppers, spinach, and string beans. The popularity of "hothouse farming" has made available such diverse items as fresh white and cremini mushrooms, Italian parsley, okra, zucchini, Japanese eggplant, and beautifully ripe tomatoes. Boutique fruit stands offer the likes of mangoes, lemons, imported apples, cherries, and Asian pears in addition to bananas, watermelon, peaches, lychees, strawberries, per-simmons, pineapples, plums, mandarin orangesall of which are available at different times of the year.

Frozen vegetables are available at several stores, although at considerably higher prices than in the U.S. Canned tomatoes, peas, asparagus, mushrooms, and carrots, as well as a variety of canned fruits are available; their quality may vary, but their prices are consistently high. If you cook a lot of Italian food, bring your own tomato paste as no acceptable substitute is available, and imported cans are expensive. A variety of juices are regularly available either fresh, canned, or in cartons: orange, grapefruit, pineapple, tomato juices, guava, grape, and various juice blends. All are expensive compared to prices in the U.S.

Some other items available in Beijing stores are grains (several varieties of rice, cornmeal, oatmeal, macaroni, spaghetti, millet), spices (bay leaves, cinnamon, coriander, noniodized salt, pepper, curry powder, chili powder, sesame seeds and paste, anise), chicken and duck eggs, nonegg noodles, sandwich bread, walnuts and pine nuts, granulated sugar, cooking oils, cookies, jams, honey, ice cream, rice vinegar, catsup, beer, wine (both imported and Chinese), soda water, mineral water, imported spirits, and many Western brands of candy and gum.

Clothing

In July and August, the weather turns hot and humid similar to that of Washington, D.C., and rain showers are frequent. Autumn is the best time of the year, with warm, pleasant clear days and little wind. December through March is cold, extremely dry and windy, with occasional snow. Beijing spring is mostly dry, with frequent strong winds that stir up heavy dust storms. Prepare your wardrobe with these extremes in mind. In winter most buildings are overheated, but restaurants frequently have little or no heat.

The Chinese, both men and women, wear long winter underwear and trousers with a padded tunic in winter. A light open-necked shirt is the usual dress in the summer. Foreigners' clothing is informal and reflects prevailing fashions in Europe or the U.S. Daytime requires sturdy, practical, and washable items. Bring your deck shoes, tennis shoes, or hiking boots for climbing the Great Wall (it's steep).

Warm clothing, including boots, is needed during winter. Synthetic fabrics are a problem because they collect excessive electricity in the dry winter months. Static spray is a great help in controlling static electricity in clothing, and some consider it essential. Local department stores carry limited selections of men's underwear, sports and dress shirts, polo shirts, socks, and sweaters and down jackets for men, women, and children. A number of Western designers contract with Chinese firms to produce high-style items. Some of the items, often seconds, appear in the free markets at prices that are bargains compared to their U.S. equivalents.

For older children, Chinese clothing is adequate but has a distinctly Chinese look. Clothing for school should include sweatsuits for physical education class and sneakers. Dresses and trousers are available locally, though the styling may not be Western. Shoes of cloth and rubber are inexpensive and come in all sizes, but quality is poor.

Supplies and Services

Local toiletries and cosmetics differ widely from what Americans are used to, and Western products, available at selected shops, are limited in selection and quantity and priced exorbitantly. Bath oils and lotions, moisturizers, and creams are popular because skin becomes exceedingly dry and itchy in the dry winter climate. Dandruff shampoos and hair conditioners are also useful.

There are a few hotel laundry and dry-cleaning facilities. Service time varies, and cleaning is marginally satisfactory. Shrinkage of woolen suits is not unknown, and clothing has been lost or damaged. Simple tailoring and dressmaking can be done locally. Tailors can copy clothes from pictures, and with a fitting session or two, they do adequate work. Good silk, wool, linen, blended suit fabric, and brocades (inexpensive by U.S. standards) are available, but cotton, men's shirt, and wash-and-wear fabrics can be hard to find. Many people have been pleased with the clothes they have had made here.

There are men's barbers and women's beauty/barber salons in the hotels and the International Club, and if you speak Chinese, you can go to the generally improving local salons. Prices range from inexpensive to expensive. The Chinese have their own supplies, but some women may prefer to use their own hair spray, conditioners, coloring, shampoo, and equipment such as rollers.

Religious Activities

Catholic Mass is offered in English every Saturday night at the Canadian Embassy and every Sunday at the Philippine Embassy. A Catholic Mass is also offered Sunday morning at two Chinese cathedrals in Beijing; the churches are independent of Rome, and the service is in Latin.

Nondenominational Protestant services in Chinese are held Sundays at two local Protestant churches and in English at the Sino-Japanese Center.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints holds meetings in the homes of members.

Informal Jewish services are held for the major holidays, as are Passover Seders. These services are coordinated by longtime residents of Beijing. Weekly services are not available.

Information on religious services is available from American Citizen Services, American Embassy.

Education

With the rapid growth of the foreign community, Beijing has experienced a deficit of educational opportunities for children.

Three new schools, all with programs limited so far to elementary and middle school grades, have also opened recently in Beijing: the Western Academy of Beijing (WAB), the New School for Collaborative Learning (NSCL), and the Beijing Singapore International School (BISS). The WAB and BISS both attract mostly children whose native tongue is not English, with extensive English as a Second Language (ESL) programs. The WAB's curriculum, developed by the European Council of International Schools (ECIS), is more British in its orientation as well.

It must be stressed that none of the schools in Beijing are equipped to handle children with anything but mild learning disabilities. If your child has special educational needs, be sure to have these assessed before you make the decision to come to Beijing.

International School of Beijing: Jiang Tai Road, Dongzhimenwai, Beijing 100004, People's Republic of China Tel: 86-10-6437-7119 Fax: 86-10-437-6989

The International School of Beijing, jointly sponsored by the governments of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the U.K., and the U.S., was established in 1980 as the successor to the American Educational Association and the former Australian, Canadian, and British schools. ISB is an independent, coeducational day school offering a program ranging from pre-kindergarten through grade 12 for government dependents and other citizens of the founding nations. As space is available, qualified children of citizens of other countries are also admitted. The school year extends from mid-August to mid-June.

Organization: The school is governed by an 11-member Board of Directors, 6 of whom are appointed by the sponsoring embassies, and 5 of whom are elected by the International School Association of Beijing. All parents of children who are registered for attendance in the school and members of the Board of Directors are automatically members of the Association.

Curriculum: The curriculum is based on, but not limited to, American models. Language arts and mathematics are emphasized. Social studies, science, computer studies, Chinese, French, art, music, drama, physical education, and health education are also taught. The International Baccalaureate (IB) program is also offered to students in grades 11 and 12, along with several advanced placement courses. All grades meet in regular classes, from self-contained elementary (pre-kindergarten through grade 5) through middle school (grades 6 to 8) to high school (grades 9 to 12). All students study about China within the regular subjects and through special field experiences. There are limited programs for ESL, resource, and English enrichment.

Accreditation: The ISB is accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges.

Faculty: There are about 80 full-time and 16 part-time professional staff members, many of whom are American.

Enrollment: Enrollment is about 1,000 students (50% Pre-K through grade 5, 25% grades 6 to 8, 25% grades 9 to 12).

Facilities: The school operates in 2 modern and 10 new buildings with 48 classrooms, 4 science labs, 5 music rooms, 2.5 art rooms, 3 computer labs, a learning Media Center, and a multipurpose room with stage, 14 language rooms, 8 resource and ESL classrooms, 2 gymnasiums, shower rooms, and 2 food-serving kitchens. It is located partly on the compound of the Lido Hotel Company Ltd., and partly on land leased from the Chinese Government. With the addition of 10 new buildings to the campus during the summer of 1994 to add needed enrollment capacity, the outdoor/play/sports places were cut back somewhat.

A new school facility for 1,500 students on a new 40-acre site is in the construction stages. Until the site is complete, students in grades K through 2 will attend a new "satellite" campus a short distance away from the Lido campus, accommodate the growing student.

Finances: About 95 percent of the school's income is derived from regular day school tuition. Annual tuition rates for 1996-1997 were as follows: Pre-K: $7,500; K-grade 5: $11,870; grades 6 to 8: $12,710; grades 9 to 12: $14,030; capital fee: kindergarten$1,500, grades 1 to 12$3,000. A mandatory building fee of $15,000 per student (refundable under certain terms and conditions upon withdrawal) was introduced for the 1996-97 school year to raise funds for the new campus. (All fees are quoted in U.S. dollars.)

The New School of Collaborative Learning: Shangdi West Road, Haidian District, Beijing 100085 PRC

The New School of Collaborative Learning is a cross-cultural international school sponsored by the Alliance for International Collaboration and Development (AICD), an American nonprofit educational corporation. Established in 1994, it offers, in English and Chinese, a program ranging from preprimary through 9th grade. An alternative school in the heart of Beijing's intellectual district, NSCL emphasizes immersion in Chinese and American cultures and languages and self-motivated learning through individualized education. The school sees its location in China as a positive benefit and seeks to have its students take full advantage of the unique opportunities afforded by this location. Administrators are actively involved in Chinese educational reform, with NSCL serving as a model school for the Haidian Reform Initiative.

Organization: The school year extends from the beginning of September through mid-June. The school is governed by a Board of Trustees composed of both American and Chinese educators, private sponsors, and parents. The administration has a Head of School, a Director of Education, a Director of Administration, and a Director of Outreach Programs.

Curriculum: The curriculum has been designed with the ongoing assistance of educators from Sidwell Friends School of Washington, D.C., and the bilingual program follows that of the Chinese American School of San Francisco. The best of both American and Chinese teaching is brought to the instruction of mathematics, science, social studies, and language arts. Western and Asian art, music, physical education, computer training, and a program of community service complete the curriculum. Wherever possible and appropriate, an active learning/integrated learning approach is used.

Accreditation: The NCSL is applying for accreditation from the Western Association of Schools and Colleges.

Faculty: There are team teachers at every level.

Enrollment: During its first year, the school enrolled 25 students on three levels: primary, elementary, and middle school. The school in its second year enrolled approximately 60 pupils.

Facilities: The school operates in a new educational facility on 30,000 square meters, which includes the site for a track and a Chinese garden. It will share facilities with a Chinese elementary school until enrollment expands to fill the entire building. The school's 12 classrooms include a library and an assembly room. The track is soon to be completed. A science and library building and gymnasium are to be built in the next 3 years.

Finance: In the 1994-95 school year, about 95 percent of the school's income came from regular day school tuition. Annual tuition rates for 1995-96 are Pre-K: $7,000; Primary I: $8,000; Primary II: grades 3 and 4: $10,000; grades 5 to 9: $11,000.

Preschool Options: There are a variety of preschool options in Beijing, with two Montessori schools, several private preschool programs, and the American Community Preschool (ACP).

Adult Educational Opportunities

A number of interested students in Beijing have arranged to study the Chinese language or Chinese traditional art and music at Chinese institutions and universities. Occasionally American universities offer U.S.-led extension courses in Beijing. These latter opportunities vary with the composition of the American community at post at a given moment.

Sports

China presents limited participant sports and recreational opportunities.

Cycling, hiking, tennis, golf, and ice skating are enjoyed by some. Several private tennis clubs, in addition to the various embassy courts, have both indoor and outdoor (lighted) tennis courts with varying hourly fees. The International Club holds tournaments each year for members of the foreign community. Though local tennis equipment is generally adequate, tennis enthusiasts should bring a supply of balls.

Biking is a very popular mode of transportation in Beijing. Individuals find cycling a convenient way to exercise and sight-see at the same time. Chinese bicycles are heavy and have no gears, but are sturdily made and comfortable, and some people use them to commute to work. Recent to the marketplace are an increasing variety of made-for-export mountain bicycles and accessories, available at about 50 percent of the cost in the U.S. Since Beijing is flat, gears are not really necessary, but bicycles with gears have their advantages, especially for bike trips outside the city or on windy days. Imported bikes are subject to theft, so a good locking system is recommended.

Sports facilities include several golf courses in Beijing, and the cost is relatively affordable. There are roughly 6 weeks of ice skating in Beijing every year, with outdoor, unimproved rinks at the Summer Palace and Beihai Park.

Spectator sports in Beijing include basketball, volleyball, ping-pong, badminton, soccer, gymnastics, and hockey, but tickets are very hard to get.

Health clubs are now available in many of the better hotels, including such facilities as indoor swimming pools, tennis and squash courts, a range of aerobics equipment and weight machines, and sauna, steambath, and locker facilities. Membership fees vary, as does the equipment or facilities in each club, but there is generally something for everyone, from the hardcore to the occasional club goer, in terms of facility and budget.

Touring and Outdoor Activities

Sight-seeing in and around Beijing and the rest of the PRC is a favorite activity.

Private groups also offer sight-seeing, but arrangements are often difficult. For a variety of reasonsthe language barrier, frequent delays, logistical difficultiestravel in China is a real adventure, more fun to accomplish in groups than on one's own. Fortunately, there are many fascinating sights in the PRC, which make the challenge of travel worth the effort, but travel is rarely relaxing or restful, and transportation and lodging costs are rising rapidly as well.

Entertainment

There are lots of interesting activities going on all over Beijingsymphonies, operas, acrobatics, theater groups, and sporting events. However, hearing about events in time to get tickets is often difficult. Events are often not publicized ahead of time, or ticket distribution is unknown.

There is a Chinese film series (with English subtitles) with weekly showings at a nearby hotel and a foreign film program at a downtown hotel, although the foreign films are not all that current.

Hong Kong

Hong Kong is Cantonese for "fragrant harbor," a name inspired either by the incense factories that once dotted Hong Kong Island or by the profusion of scented pink Bauhinias, the national flower.

The island is a dazzling melee of human life and enterprise. Its animated nature seems all the more perplexing when you add in the mix of nationalities, languages, customs, and fashions. People came to this city for many reasons-to find a better life or to find freedom from restrictive governments-and enough have stayed to turn a once-quiet trading village into one of the world's busiest international business centers.

From the harbor the city's latest architectural wonders stand against a green-mountain backdrop, while on the other side of the island beaches and quieter villages slow the pace considerably. Hong Kong has the best shopping in the world. Although the thought of crowded streets and mind-boggling choices can be daunting, no place makes big spending easier than this center of international commerce.

It was in the late 1970s that Hong Kong began to focus on the issue of its future. The colony's officials and business people realized they could no longer put off the question of what would happen to the New Territories, which makes up more than 90 percent of Hong Kong's land area. The New Territories were leased to Britain by China in 1898, for 99 years. That lease was set to expire on July 1, 1997.

After months of negotiations, both sides agreed in 1984 to Beijing's proposal for a Joint Declaration-making Hong Kong a Special Administrative Region, with its own distinct laws, freedoms, and way of life. On July 1, 1997, Hong Kong reverted to Chinese sovereignty amid intense interest from the international community.

So far, the transition has been smooth. Hong Kong has grown steadily more prosperous. While an estimated 387,000 citizens had emigrated over the past few years, many have been coming home as their confidence returns.

Landscape

The landscape is one of contrast, marked by a mix of old and new types of architectural design. It is quite apparent from the old churches and government buildings that are a few stories high to the high-rise skyscraper office and apartment buildings that cover the landscape from the harbor's edge and climb dramatically to the Peak.

The developed areas consist of high-density, high-rise office buildings and apartments. Hong Kong has experienced a very ambitious building program during the past decade, and more is planned for the future. Incorporated into this scheme are plans to ensure that park areas remain part of the landscape. This setting complements the steep green hills that surround the city and provide a pleasantly spectacular visual background.

Utilities

Electrical current is 220v, 50 cycle, AC. Power is dependable with little voltage fluctuation. Transformers are required for 110v appliances. Employees may purchase additional transformers locally. Synchronous 60-cycle appliances, such as electric clocks, record players, and tape recorders, will not function properly on 50 cycles without modification. American and Continental European plugs will not fit into the three-prong U.K. standard sockets used in Hong Kong,* but adapter plugs are available. Hong Kong has a wide variety of 220v appliances available at prices comparable to those in the U.S. Color TVs, video players, stereo components, and electric clocks with built-in converters for either 50 or 60 cycles and voltage adjusters from 120v to 220v are also readily available.

Food

Food markets and supermarkets in Hong Kong provide a wide variety of fresh, processed, canned, and frozen foods catering to both the Western and Asian diet. It is possible to find almost everything here that one buys in the U.S. However, certain items will carry a premium price tag, and what is on the shelf today may not be there tomorrow. Food shopping in Hong Kong is perhaps best and most economically accomplished in the European fashion rather than American, i.e. going to different shops and markets for different foods. However, the larger outlets of the two major supermarket chains (Wellcome and Park N' Shop) are stocked to European tastes and carry standard products. American products are beginning to be seen on the shelves with more regularity. Credit cards are accepted at Wellcome and Park N' Shop. Most meats in the supermarket are imported from the U.S., Australia, and New Zealand. Phone/fax orders and delivery are available. Local markets sell fresh fruits, vegetables, meats, poultry, fish, and seafood at prices somewhat less than in supermarkets. Seasonal fruits and vegetables are imported from both the northern and southern hemispheres and are available most of the year in Hong Kong. Specialty shops are popular in Hong Kong, providing an ever increasing selection of imported gourmet food and beverage items from around the world. Condiments and spices for Asian cooking are available in supermarkets and gourmet shops, as well as from vendors in the local markets. Coffees and teas from all over the world are sold here. Bakeries produce a variety of pastries, breads, and rolls. There are good quality butcher shops in addition to supermarket meat counters. Local dairies provide pasteurized milk and dairy products including yogurt, sour cream, and cottage cheese. Butter and cheeses are imported. Even health food stores have found a niche in this cosmopolitan city.

Clothing

General: With its increasing prosperity, Hong Kong has become very fashion conscious in recent years. In central Hong Kong and the shopping arcades of Kowloon, more and more fashion boutiques, including the finest of European import houses, cater to the affluent tastes of this economically flourishing territory. The sophistication of conservative big-city business attire predominates, and Hong Kong "dresses up" not only for the office but also for teas, lunches, and dinners. On the other hand, designer label "casual wear" is also very common all over Hong Kong; and jeans and sneakers identify the tourist and resident alike, whether sightseeing or bargain shopping.

A varied wardrobe, similar to what you would wear in Washington, is appropriate for Hong Kong. Definite seasons call for summer lightweight garments most of the year with mediumweight or lightweight wool for the Hong Kong winter. The winter although short, December through March, can be cold with temperatures averaging 15 °C (59°F).

Three other general comments: 1) during the humid months, cotton is highly preferable to synthetic fabric for clothing as well as undergarments; 2) getting around Hong Kong requires considerable walking, uphill as well as down, therefore special attention should be given to comfortable footwear for all activities; and 3) if you wear an unusual or especially large size, you may have difficulty with some items such as shoes or underwear.

Men: Men need lightweight suits from April through November and lightweight wool suits for the cooler months.

American and British summer and winter suit materials are stocked locally, and getting a suit made to order is still one of the best deals in Hong Kong. Prices will vary depending on your tailor and the quality of material being used. Custom-made shirts are also quite popular and also vary in price according to design and material. Shoes can also be custom made to suit your taste. Most of the popular brands of shoes used for leisure activities are available at reasonable prices. You can also find many outlets that stock popular sweaters and ties. Hats are seldom worn for formal occasions, but you will see all the familiar logo caps and styles as you walk around Kowloon and Hong Kong.

Women: Women should bring a supply of summer cottons and other lightweight dresses. Women who plan to work in Hong Kong should bring suits and other professionally appropriate outfits such as one would wear in Washington. Although dry cleaning services are readily available, the costs are similar to the U.S., so many prefer to use wash and wear apparel.

Materials such as cotton and varieties of silks and woolens are stocked for tailor-made dresses, suits, and coats. Some fabrics are inexpensive, but tailoring of women's clothing is not and the finished product often leaves much to be desired.

An increasing number of shops carry imported American and European ready-to-wear sweaters, dresses, suits and coats but prices are higher than in the U.S. unless found at bargain factory outlets or markets. Locally manufactured clothing is also available but is very limited in sizes above U.S. size 12. Evening wear, both informal and formal, is more difficult to find and is more expensive in Hong Kong than in the U.S.

Lingerie, including British and U.S. brands, is available; however, it is more expensive than in the U.S. Cotton undergarments, which are preferred due to heat and humidity, are not easily found. The supply of U.S. or British hosiery items is very limited and very expensive; tall or queen-sized hosiery is virtually unavailable.

Lightweight coats or lined raincoats are often worn during the cooler months; unlined raincoats are desirable for the warmer, rainy season. If you have a fur jacket or stole, you will probably have an opportunity to wear it in the winter.

Some ready-made American and European shoes are available but expensive and usually come in wider widths. Narrow shoes and sizes above 7-1/2 are difficult to find. Once here, you may enjoy having shoes made by Hong Kong shoemakers whom many consider to be good. Because of the need for comfortable walking shoes and the level of fashion seen in the main shopping/business district, "smart-casual" (a British term) shoes are recommended.

Sports clothes, including bathing suits, are sold here but generally in small sizes and with price tags higher than in the U.S. Locally made, inexpensive knits are also available in the street markets. Women do not generally wear shorts on the streets in Hong Kong, but slacks and pantsuits are often worn. White is still the only color acceptable on most tennis courts.

Children: Children dress just as in the U.S. Parents can enjoy the fact that heavy winter wear is not needed and blue jeans are standard streetwear. Hong Kong street markets are full of clothing for toddlers and young children. Many children's shops have attractive clothes but prices are high.

With the exception of sports shoes, children's shoes cost more than in the U.S. and the choice is limited. It is hard to find shoes of correct size, proper fit, and desired styles. Orthopedic shoes are not readily available.

Supplies and Services

As with food and clothing, almost anything you want is available in Hong Kong; however, unless it is made locally, it may be hard to find, and, it will most probably be more expensive than in the U.S. American, British, French, and German toiletries, cosmetics, and hygiene products are available in Hong Kong, but are expensive. You may wish to bring an ample supply of cosmetics. French perfumes, however, can be purchased at a reasonable price as compared to prices in the U.S. Pharmacies in Hong Kong are good; however, bring any needed prescriptions with you. Most household products are available in several brands.

Hong Kong is renowned for its toys, but you have to be careful that what you purchase complies with U.S. safety standards. Toys "R" Us has two outlets in Hong Kong and Kowloon and carries approved brands that comply with U.S. standards, although the prices are higher than you will find in the U.S. In shopping for toys locally, you must remember that there is a great difference in quality between export quality and local quality. Both kinds are available on the local market.

There are many excellent bookstores in Hong Kong but be prepared for prices considerably higher than in the U.S. Most people mail order their reading material. It should be noted, however, that paperback editions of best sellers are often out in Hong Kong long before paperback. International magazines and newspapers are readily available.

Men's and women's hairdressers are located throughout Hong Kong and have generally high standards at reasonable to expensive prices. Many use the facilities located in major hotels located near the at which appointments can be made. Hong Kong has reliable dry cleaners, many using American methods and materials. The price is similar to that charged in the U.S. and several pick up and deliver. Good laun-dries are also available. Shoe repair services operate on the street, in stairways, or in alleys. The service is fair and reasonably priced. Car maintenance and repairs are moderately priced for locally-sold models. Parts and service for American cars are more difficult to obtain.

Domestic Help

Domestic help is available in Hong Kong but has become quite costly. Full-time Chinese cooks are almost a thing of the past and very expensive. Any live-in Chinese help is a rarity and extremely costly. Although part-time help is available, it is also expensive and difficult to arrange. Most families looking for domestic help choose to hire Filipina domestics who live in and are reasonably priced. By law, minimum wage for overseas domestic helpers (Filipinas, Thais, etc.) for 1998 was set at HK $3,860 per month. Additionally, the employer is required to provide either all food or a food allowance (usually about HK $400/Mo.), housing, uniforms, medical insurance, and one round trip to the home country every 2 years for home leave. By law, these domestics have eleven local holidays, 1 week of annual leave after 1 full year of successful performance, and home leave (2 weeks) every 2 years. All domestic helpers should have a medical examination including chest x-ray, blood serological, and stool examination. All costs are borne by the employer.

Religious Activities

Religious services are held in English by the following denominations: Assemblies of God, Bahai Faith, Baptist, Christian Missionary Alliance, Christian Science, Church of Christ, Church of England (Episcopal-Anglican), Iglesia de Christo, Jewish (Orthodox and Reform congregations), Latter-day Saints, Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian/Congregational, Quakers, Roman Catholic, Seventh-day Adventist, United Pentecostal, and others. Various Buddhist sects also have English speaking congregations in Hong Kong.

Education

Hong Kong International School. The vast majority of American school-age children attend the Hong Kong International School (HKIS). It is recognized as one of the leading international schools and provides a U.S.-style education and U.S. curriculum. HKIS is sponsored by and operated under the auspices of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (USA). It is registered with the Office of Education of the Hong Kong Government and is associated with other American overseas schools in the Far East. Its accredited status by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges of the U.S. reflects its conformity with American educational standards. Half the staff is composed of trained teachers recruited in the U.S. through the Lutheran school system and appointed for a minimum of 3 years. The remainder of the staff, also professionally trained and experienced, consists of members of the American and European community in Hong Kong plus a few Chinese instructors.

HKIS serves a religiously diverse community. Although religious instruction is mandatory, course offerings may be selected that encompass Christian or Bible subjects as well as a variety of non-Christian topics such as existentialism and oriental religions. Chapel is voluntary for students in grades 7-12. For kindergarten through grade 6 there are weekly chapel services and 20-minute religious instruction classes.

Of its approximately 2,000 students, slightly more than half are U.S. citizens, while fewer than 100 are dependents of U. S. Government employees. Instruction is in English with emphasis on academic or college preparatory courses. Some advanced placement courses are offered. More than 90% of graduates enroll in American colleges and universities. In the recent years, HKIS has made great strides to include programs for special needs children. However, there is currently no school in Hong Kong, including HKIS, which is staffed or equipped to handle students with severe learning, physical, or emotional disabilities. Parents with special educational needs for their children should consult directly with the school to see how those needs can best be met.

The elementary school (K-5) in Repulse Bay is an air-conditioned "open space" facility consisting of six clusters of over 4,000 sq.ft. each. There is also a gymnasium, library, and swimming pool. Educational approaches range from self-contained classrooms to independent learning and team-teaching situations. The middle school (grades 6-8) and high school (grades 9-12) are located together at Tai Tam, several miles from Repulse Bay. The multi-million dollar facility features an open air campus similar to schools found in many parts of the U.S. with classrooms, separate science laboratories, computer lab, music rooms, a cafeteria, gymnasium, swimming pool, audio visual center, bookstore, library, and guidance offices.

Sixth grade through High School students participate annually in an "Interim Program" which consists of a week of cultural explorations in Hong Kong or overseas. These programs are a prerequisite for graduation. The school offers approximately 37 interim trips each year with about 20 students enrolled in each. The cost of these trips must be borne by the parents. For example, the least expensive trip is US$350 (for 6th grade), and the most expensive is a High School trip for US$1,600. Parents/children are allowed to indicate their preferences but sometimes are not placed in their top choice.

A full program of American-type extracurricular activities is offered, including a broad selection of clubs, drama, choral and band groups, publications, scouts, and sports: badminton, baseball, basketball, bowling, cross-country, field hockey, gymnastics, rugby, soccer, squash, swimming, tennis, track and field, volleyball, and water polo. Inter-scholastic competition includes meets with other schools in Hong Kong as well as the International School Bangkok (ISB) and the Taipei American School (TAS). HKIS also hosts an invitational basketball tournament each December that attracts schools from other Asian cities. Some emphasis is placed on inter-cultural programs. Mandarin is taught in elementary school and is offered as an elective in middle school and high school. French and Spanish are offered in grades 6-12.

The school year normally runs from the third or fourth week in August until mid-June.

Since the school is normally at capacity enrollment, it is vital that application forms be requested and forwarded well in advance. Application forms can be requested, in writing, from the Admissions Office, Hong Kong International School, 6 South Bay Close, Repulse Bay, Hong Kong. It is particularly important that parents discuss well in advance any instances in which a student has poor academic records or special needs.

English Schools Foundation (ESF) (British Curriculum). This is an alternative to HKIS. Before an application can be submitted, the student must be a resident of Hong Kong. Admittance and decision as to grade level placement are based on age, the results of an entrance examination in English and mathematics, an interview and availability of space. A medical examination is also required. The city is zoned and children attend the ESF schools according to where they live. ESF schools previously used by Consulate General families and located in Mid-Levels where many employees are housed include Glenealy Junior School and Kennedy Road Junior School for children 5-10 and Island School for children 11-17.

Other specialized school options include the Chinese International School and Singapore International School, both providing bicultural English-Mandarin programs; the French International School which has both French and English streams; the German-Swiss School which has both German and English streams; the International Christian School which is based on Taiwan's American-based Morrison Academy; and the American International School, a Catholic Church sponsored school in Kowloon. Kellett School, the only private British Primary school in Hong Kong, is another alternative considered by American families. Good preschools are available on Hong Kong Island but are quite costly.

School websites:

Hong Kong International School
http://www.hkis.edu.hk

English Schools Foundation
http://www.esf.edu.hk

German Swiss International School
http://home.netvigator.com/-gsis

Chinese International School
http://www.hk.super.net/-cis

Parkview International Pre-school
http://www.hk.super.net/^pips

Carmel School Hong Kong
http://www.carmel.edu.hk

Special Educational Opportunities

Adult education courses conducted in English are available at both Hong Kong University and the Chinese University of Hong Kong. The courses cover literature, history, journalism, philosophy, architecture, pottery making and many other subjects. Entrance as a full-time student either to the University of Hong Kong or to the Chinese University is very difficult. The entrance examinations are based on a British educational background, and the universities generally only admit students who are permanent residents of Hong Kong, except as non-credit auditors. Elsewhere, there are excellent opportunities to study many phases of Chinese culture, especially Cantonese. Instruction in modern dance, ballet, voice, instrumental music, Western and Asian painting, and sports are available. The YWCA English Speaking Members Department, Island School, Towngas, Electric Co., and the American Women's Association also offer a good variety of adult education courses. Language classes are taught at the Alliance Francaise, Goethe Institute, and the Italian Cultural Society. The YMCA and YWCA offer adult language courses in Cantonese and Mandarin.

Recreation and Social Life

Recreation and social activities are plentiful in Hong Kong but one needs to be willing to seek out opportunities, especially for sports, since public venues are extremely crowded and private facilities (clubs) are beyond the financial means of most Consulate General personnel. In addition, waiting lists for membership in most clubs exceed the average tour in Hong Kong. On the other hand, facilities for entertainment and cultural activities are quite extensive and affordable.

Sports

Most sports facilities such as golf, tennis, squash, riding and swimming pools are available through private clubs only. The Consulate General has a tennis court located on the grounds of the Consul General's compound on Barker Road and a swimming pool located at the Shouson Hill compound which are available to employees and families.

The recent opening of two public golf courses in Hong Kong has made it affordable for non-club members to hit the links. Also, the Macau Golf and Country Club (one hour away by hydrofoil) features a challenging and fun course; and within a two hour bus or boat ride from Hong Kong, there are six courses in China that offer affordable golfing packages.

Sailing and yachting are popular and possible year round. Joining a sailboarding, kayak or rowing club often provides the opportunity for sport without the expense of a recreational club. There are some very nice beaches in the territory. Beaches on Hong Kong Island, especially on the South Side of the island, tend to be quite crowded. There is also a concern about pollution, and beach-goers need to pay attention to environmental reports in the media on pollution ratings. The more remote beaches in the New Territories and on Outlying Islands are more appealing; these beaches are reached by ferries, private "junks," and/or on foot.

If you are a runner or tri-athlete, there are numerous associations to join as well as several Hash House Harriers groups that meet weekly. There are many events sponsored by such groups throughout the year for competitors. One of the more popular means of recreation and exercise for both Chinese and expatriates is walking and hiking. The opportunities are endless and the territory has a multitude of very well-marked and maintained paths and trails that meet the needs of the leisurely stroller, the family on an outing, the casual hiker, and the ardent mountain trekker.

Tenpin bowling has been popular among Consulate General personnel.

Some Americans participate in the activities of the Hong Kong Softball Association which includes men's and women's softball teams. Because of the summer heat the softball teams are active only from September through April, and games are played at night. Some Americans entered teams in the Dragon Boat Festival held annually in June and for the 100 km Trail-walker event held in November. Popular spectator sports include soccer, cricket, rugby, softball, tennis, basketball, and horse racing (October-May).

Touring and Outdoor Activities

The Outlying Islands of Cheung Chau, Ping Chau, Lamina, and Lantau, which are accessible by ferry, offer hiking and browsing opportunities for day trips. Overnight "vacation rentals" are also available at reasonable prices. Macau is an interesting place to spend a day or weekend. This 400-year-old Portuguese colony (until December 1999), 40 miles west of Hong Kong, is a place of old and gentle Mediterranean charm on the one hand, and a city on the move on the other; bright lights, large construction sites and new high rises are rapidly changing its skyline. It is the oldest European settlement in Asia. Travel by high-speed ferry takes just about an hour. Cuisine, a mixture of Portuguese, English, and Chinese styles, is tasty and interesting. Antique shopping is another good excuse to make the trip to Macau. Hong Kong is a crossroads to most destinations in Asia. Vacations in Southeast Asia, Japan, and the Philippines are popular. Many use Hong Kong as a door to tourist travel in China. Travel agents are plentiful and are eager to assist you with package deals and self-determined itineraries.

Hong Kong itself has many interesting sights for tourists and photographers. Tourist agencies offer excellent tours. Among the more interesting excursions are the water tours of the island, tours of Kowloon, the New Territories, Hong Kong Island, the fishing village of junks and sampans at Aberdeen, and the ride to the top of the Peak by funicular cable car (Peak Tram). There are also heritage tours and opportunities to visit local housing areas and schools. Ocean Park is one of Hong Kong's most popular recreational attractions. Facilities include the world's largest aquarium, an ocean theater, a zoo, flower and water gardens, and oriental and Western restaurants. Middle Kingdom, a cultural village, portrays customs, costumes, architecture and entertainment from 13 dynasties of China. A visit to Ocean Park makes a pleasurable and interesting outing for the entire family. Water World, which is located adjacent to Ocean Park, has water slides and pools galore. A visit to Water World is a great way to escape the heat of summer.

Entertainment

Eating is the most popular form of entertainment in Hong Kong. About 1.5 million people eat in restaurants daily, the highest per capita rate in the world. The range of restaurants runs from world class to street vendors. All types of Western restaurants are available, and the choice of Asian cuisines is practically endless.

A variety of performing arts programs are presented throughout the year, including symphony concerts, recitals, ballet and dance performances, drama, and Western opera. The Hong Kong Cultural Center, the Academy for the Performing Arts, the Hong Kong Arts Center and City Hall are the centers of Hong Kong's cultural life. The Hong Kong Cultural Center includes a 2,085-seat concert hall, a 1,724-seat grand theater, and a flexible 300-to 500-seat studio theater for experimental drama. It is the home of the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra. The Cultural Center complex also houses the Hong Kong Museum of Art, with its collections of Chinese arts and antiquities, ethno-graphic materials and archaeological finds, and the Hong Kong Space Museum. The Hong Kong Academy for the Performing Arts (APA) is a professional degree granting institution providing training, education, and research in the performing arts and related fields. Students from the APA Schools of Dance and Drama give public performances throughout the year in the APA's theater. The Hong Kong Arts Center features a multi-purpose theater, a recital hall for music performances and films, and art galleries. It is a multi-disciplinary center, featuring contemporary work in the performing, visual, and cinematic arts. The Center also offers classes in painting, ceramics, and other art forms for children and adults. The Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra is the nucleus of Hong Kong's musical life. It has an 11-month season from April through February and season subscriptions are available. Guest artists of world renown appear regularly with the orchestra.

Other performing arts groups that perform at Hong Kong's cultural venues include the Hong Kong Repertory Theater, the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra, the Hong Kong Dance Company, City Contemporary Dance Company, the Hong Kong Ballet, and the Chung Ying Theater Company. The American Community Theater (ACT) is Hong Kong's most active amateur theatrical group and produces several plays a year. It has an international membership and stages American theatrical productions, including musicals. The most active and best known choral groups are the Bach Choir, the Hong Kong Singers, and the St. Cecilia Singers. These non-professional groups present one or two cantatas, operettas, or musicals a year. Free lunch time concerts and recitals are held each Wednesday in St. John's Cathedral (Episcopal), which is located one-half block from the Consulate General. The program includes both sacred and secular music.

Social Activities

All travelers have the opportunity for a very active social life as they enjoy the wonderful restaurants of Hong Kong, theaters, school activities, wine tastings, food fairs, night spots.

The American Women's Association (AWA) has about 1,600 regular and associate members; by charter the membership is at least 51% American regular members with international members as associates. The Association has a number of popular monthly activities and several special membership luncheons/meetings/programs during the year. It supports many community projects and offers a wide variety of both social and charitable activities. Joining AWA is a good way to meet Americans outside the Consulate General and also to get to know women of other nationalities. The English Speaking Members' Department of the YWCA located near the Consulate General offers their members a vast number of day and evening activities including lectures on Asian Affairs, seminars on family issues, bridge, tennis, exercise, cooking and language classes, computer and other skill development sessions, and a variety of arts and crafts offerings. Their "At Home in Hong Kong" program is highly recommended for newcomers to the territory. The Rotary Clubs, American Chamber of Commerce, Lions Clubs, Toastmaster and Toast-mistress Clubs, the American University Club, League of Women Voters, Hong Kong, (an integral part of the League of Women Voters of the U.S.), and many other groups where individuals can meet local residents and expatriates are available. The Brownies, Cub Scouts,Girl Guides, and Little League baseball are active in Hong Kong. A public children's library is in City Hall. HKIS sponsors summer sports and skills programs. Various churches also have youth activities. The Welfare Handicrafts, Mother's Choice, the Red Cross, YMCA, and many other welfare agencies-some branches of U.S. organizations-offer a variety of opportunities for both men and women for volunteer service. Both civic and professional associations are numerous.

Geography and Climate

Hong Kong, a Special Administrative Region (SAR) of China, covers an area of 404 square miles, about six times the size of Washington, DC. Hong Kong is a bustling, vibrant, very Chinese, and very international city. This colorful mix of East and West, old and new, is alive with an overwhelmingly entrepreneurial spirit. To the 6.8 million residents, the city represents the dream of prosperity and the opportunity for personal betterment. One has to admire the incomparable tenacity of the Hong Kong people-their strength of purpose and devotion to work and family are striking. The SAR consists of Hong Kong Island, the Kowloon Peninsula, the New Territories, and various surrounding islands.

Hong Kong was a British colony from 1841 until June 30, 1997. On that date, which coincided with the expiration of the 99-year British lease on the New Territories, it became a Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China. Under a unique "one country, two systems" formula agreed to by Britain and China in the Joint Declaration of 1984, Beijing has granted Hong Kong people the right to govern Hong Kong with a high degree of autonomy in all areas except defense and foreign affairs. In practice, this means that life in Hong Kong after the transition to Chinese sovereignty has changed very little.

From the small fishing villages of 150 years ago, Hong Kong has grown into one of the most important trading, industrial, and financial centers in Asia. Official representatives of most major countries reside in the territory, along with a host of international bankers, lawyers, and business people who participate in Hong Kong's booming trade and industry. Hong Kong Island, the site of most of the territory's governmental, commercial, and financial activities, is about 32 square miles in area. The island's population and business centers are located across the harbor from Kowloon and extend from Pok Fu Lam to North Point, encompassing the Central, Mid-Levels, Wan Chai, and Causeway Bay areas of Hong Kong. The Consulate General office and official housing for American staff are located on the island. The seaward, or south side of Hong Kong Island, is made up of a rugged shoreline with high cliffs and sheltered bays. The interior is rough terrain with steep hills and small valleys. The highest area, known as the Peak, is 555 meters (1,830 ft.) above sea level and has a breathtaking view of the scenic harbor and Kowloon on one side and the offshore islands and South China Sea on the other. The Kowloon Peninsula is directly across the harbor from Hong Kong Island. It is separated from the New Territories by groups of hills, the highest of which rises to more than 3,000 feet. The Kowloon area, with its major subdivisions of Mong Kok and Tsim Sha Tsui, is the leading industrial area of Hong Kong, as well as a major residential area and tourist center with many hotels and shops. The major railway station, Hunt Hom, serving Guangzhou, is also located in this densely populated area. The New Territories comprises an area of 355 square miles between Kowloon and the Chinese border and also includes some 235 small offshore islands. This area accounts for most of the territory's agricultural activity and a growing portion of its industrial and residential sectors. The topography is mostly steep hills and marshes, but many places are used for small farms. The only major agriculture on the offshore islands is on Lantau Island, the largest. The remaining islands are small, and, if inhabited, are primarily fishing bases. The rustic character of the New Territories has been transformed in recent years with the construction of major satellite towns such as Sha Tin and Tuen Mun, where large numbers of Hong Kong residents live.

Hong Kong's climate is governed by the monsoons. Although the territory lies within the Tropics, it enjoys a variety of weather because of these seasonal winds. The winter monsoon blows from the north or northeast from September to mid March, and the summer wind blows from the south or southwest from mid-March to September. During the summer monsoon, the weather is hot and humid; during the winter monsoon it is cool. Average temperatures range from 58°F in February (with lows in the 40s) to 82°F in July (with highs in the 90s). The mean relative humidity ranges from a low of 67% in November to 84% in May; many days the humidity approaches 100%, accompanied by heavy clouds. Late fall is the most pleasant time of year, generally with dry and sunny weather and high temperatures of 70° to 75°F. The average annual rainfall is 95 inches.

Population

Hong Kong's population at the end of 1998 was approximately 6.8 million, with the overwhelming majority being ethnic Chinese. Most were born in Hong Kong, with others coming from China or other countries in Asia. The rest of the expatriate community includes mainly government officials and business people representing many nationalities. About 50,000 U.S. citizens (including 11,500 dual nationals) are resident in Hong Kong, representing a major foreign presence in the territory. The other major expatriate groups are from Canada, the Philippines, Thailand, and the United Kingdom. The official languages of Hong Kong are Chinese and English. Cantonese is the most common Chinese dialect spoken, and English is widely used in government and business. Most people follow traditional Chinese beliefs. The two main religions are Buddhism and Taoism. About 600,000 or 10% of the population are Christian. Hong Kong has about 50,000 followers of Islam, most of whom are Hong Kong Chinese. The Hindu community, which has been part of the territory since its earliest days, has increased to 12,000. Hong Kong's Jewish community numbers about 1,000.

Public Institutions

Hong Kong has retained almost the entire administrative structure put in place by the British. The Hong Kong Government is staffed by an effective civil service numbering more than 184,000 people.

Some 30 executive bureaus organized along functional lines constitute this administrative framework. The executive-led government is headed by the Chief Executive (who replaced the British Governor); he was selected by the Hong Kong people in late 1996 and serves for a five-year term. He is advised by the Executive Council, prominent local residents whom he appoints. The 60-member Legislative Council, whose powers are limited, consists of a mixture of directly and indirectly elected members. Beneath these bodies, the Urban Council is responsible for various local matters like recreation and sanitation for Hong Kong Island and Kowloon, while the Regional Council performs the same function for the New Territories. At the lowest level, 19 District Boards cover the entire territory, serving as grassroots advisory bodies for monitoring public opinion regarding government policies.

Environment

Due to its small size and location in the Pearl River Delta, Hong Kong's environment is strongly influenced by the rest of China. A closely-packed city, Hong Kong suffers from smog on a regular basis. Air quality is continuously monitored by the government, and a report on the air quality is announced daily. The range is usually 60 to 80 or "moderate" which means fair. An index of over 100 (which occurred in the summer of 1997) is unhealthy. Air pollution from diesel vehicle emissions remains a priority concern. In November 1997, the Hong Kong government launched a trial of liquefied petroleum gas vehicles to address this problem, but it is unlikely that there will be a major shift away from diesel vehicles in the next 3-5 years. Quality of inshore water, particularly around the beaches, is also deteriorating. This will not improve until the major government infrastructure program to treat all raw sewage and waste before discharge into the ocean is completed around 2004.

Fresh water, mostly piped from China, is treated at several water treatment plants located in Hong Kong before being used. The quality of water meets current World Health Organization requirements. However, some people choose to use distilled water or use filters to remove sediment from water sources at home.

Arts, Science, and Education

Hong Kong has a rich cultural life that embraces the arts and traditions of both East and West. A variety of performing arts is presented, including symphony concerts, recitals, ballet and dance performances, drama, Western opera, and Chinese traditional stage arts. There are two professional orchestras, three full-time dance companies, a handful of professional drama groups, and scores of amateur orchestras, choirs, dance groups and drama clubs, plus overseas artists and groups who visit the territory throughout the year. Long-established performing companies like the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra, the Hong Kong Repertory Theater, and Hong Kong Ballet offer annual subscriptions for their performances. The primary venues for arts events are the Hong Kong Cultural Center, with a 2,085-seat concert hall and a 1,724-seat grand theater, the Hong Kong Academy for the Performing Arts, the Hong Kong Arts Center, City Hall, and the three major town halls in Sha Tin, Tsuen Wan and Tuen Mun.

The annual Hong Kong Arts Festival in February/March brings a wide array of well-known local and overseas groups and is the highlight of the cultural year. The Festival of Asian Arts is a biennial event featuring performing arts from Asian and Oceanic cultures. The International Arts Carnival in the summer aims to introduce children and young people to the performing arts. The annual Hong Kong International Film Festival is one of the world's major noncompetitive film festivals. The Fringe Festival in January/February is an open platform for the arts. Hong Kong has several museums and small galleries. The Hong Kong Museum of Art houses a collection of Chinese bronzes, ceramics, and paintings and stages major international loan exhibitions of Chinese and Western art. Its branch museum, the Flagstaff House Museum of Tea Ware, is devoted exclusively to Chinese tea ware. Both the Chinese University of Hong Kong and the University of Hong Kong have museums exhibiting Chinese art and cultural artifacts. The Tsui Museum of Art displays a privately-owned collection of Chinese fine art. Galleries at the Hong Kong Arts Center emphasize contemporary and Western arts. Small commercial galleries sell works by Chinese and overseas artists.

The Hong Kong Museum of History focuses on local and Chinese history. The Hong Kong Space Museum has visitor participatory exhibits and a planetarium to introduce visitors to astronomy and space science. Exhibits at the Hong Kong Science Museum cover basic science principles, mathematics, earth science, life science, the applications of technology, and high-tech areas such as computers and robotics.

Education is highly valued by the Government and people of Hong Kong; no other element takes a larger share of the government budget. Full-time education is compulsory between the ages of 6 and 15. Instruction is mainly in Chinese in primary school and in Chinese and English in secondary school.

Ten degree-granting institutions are supported by the Hong Kong government's University Grants Committee. They all follow the British three-year system. The University of Hong Kong, founded in 1911, uses English as the language of instruction. The Chinese University of Hong Kong, a federated university composed of four colleges, uses both English and Chinese in teaching. Both universities offer academic as well as professional courses and include graduate and extension programs. The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, opened in 1991, offers first and advanced degrees primarily in science, engineering and business management. The Hong Kong Polytechnic University and the City University of Hong Kong offer degree and diploma courses combined with work and vocational training programs. The Hong Kong Baptist University and Lingnan College Hong Kong offer degree programs, primarily in social sciences, business, and liberal arts. The Hong Kong Institute of Education was formed in 1994 by merging four colleges of education. It provides pre-service teacher education for primary and secondary school teachers. It enrolled its first degree program students in 1998. The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts offers comprehensive multidisciplinary professional training for performing and related technical and media arts, leading to diploma and first degree. The Open Learning Institute of Hong Kong provides the adult population with opportunities for further education in non-degree and degree programs.

Commerce and Industry

Hong Kong is a leading international manufacturing, trading, and financial center, as well as a strategically located regional entrepôt, especially for products originating from or destined for the People's Republic of China. Hong Kong maintains a free and open trading regime, and the government pursues a policy of minimum interference in the economy. These factors, together with Hong Kong's skilled and industrious work force and a legal framework that encourages business initiative, have contributed to the territory's success and have helped transform it into the world's 8th largest trading economy. An important Asian financial center, Hong Kong plays a leading role in regional banking, shipping, and communications. The local currency, the Hong Kong dollar, is freely convertible and fluctuates in a narrow band around 7.8 to the U.S. dollar. There is complete freedom of capital movement. At the end of 1998, 172 fully licensed banks operated in the SAR (14 are subsidiaries of U.S. Banks). U.S. firms are the third most numerous in the insurance industry with 22 wholly owned. Taxes are low. The current salary and corporate tax rates are 15% and 16%, respectively. There are no taxes on royalties, interest, or capital gains. Hong Kong imposes no import tariffs. Excise taxes are levied for revenue purposes on tobacco, cosmetics, alcoholic beverages, ethyl alcohol, methyl alcohol, and some petroleum products. Reflecting the growing importance of services in the economy, Hong Kong's visible trade is increasingly in deficit ($17.7 billion in 1996 and $20.5 billion for 1997).

With few natural resources, the territory must depend on imports. Principal imports consist of food, textile yarn and fabrics, iron and steel, plastic molding materials, consumer products, paper, and machinery. Principal exports consist of textiles and apparel, watches and clocks, electronic components, and other light industrial products. The value of domestic exports alone was equal to 14.6% of Hong Kong's gross domestic product (GDP) in 1998 (a declining percentage as labor intensive production moves across the border into China). Tourism constitutes a major industry for the economy with 10.4 million visitors passing through the territory in 1997 and 9.6 million in 1998.

The U.S. is the territory's second largest trading partner (after the PRC), with 14.4% of total trade. In 1998, the U.S. was the second largest market for domestic exports with a 29.1% share. The U.S. supplied 7.5% of imports and was the number two destination for re-exports with 22.4%. Principal imports from the U.S. are electrical machinery; computer and office machines; telecommunications, sound recording and reproducing equipment; plastic, meat, vegetables, and fruit. Principal domestic exports to the U.S. are textiles, apparel, electrical machinery, photographic equipment, watches and clocks, computer and office machines, textiles, yarn and fabric. Currently, about 1,100 U.S. firms operate here and U.S. direct investment was estimated at $20 billion in 1998. The American business community is well represented by the American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong.

Transportation

Driving in Hong Kong is on the left (right-hand-drive). Automobile insurance is expensive; however, substantial discounts can be obtained based on the length of accident-free or "no-claim" driving documented by presenting a letter from your previous insurance companies).

Parking throughout the territory, especially in the downtown areas, is extremely limited and costly (approx. US$3/HR). Parking fees often exceed the cost of travel by taxi. The Consulate General will assist you in registering your car and in obtaining a valid Hong Kong driving license. Driving tests are not required for those presenting a valid license from the U.S. or from other countries whose licenses are recognized by the Hong Kong Government.

Public transport (buses, taxis, subways, ferries, and trams) is readily available and reasonably priced. Carpools, shared taxis, or public transport are the most commonly used modes of transport between home and work.

Local. The MTR (Mass Transit Railway) subway system connects Hong Kong Island with Kowloon and nearby portions of the New Territories. Since opening in February 1980, it has become a highly efficient, reasonably priced mode of transportation. The Island Line, which connects much of the harbor side of Hong Kong Island to the existing system, opened in 1985. Streetcars (trams) operate only in urban areas of Hong Kong Island. Bus service, including minibuses, covers almost the entire island, Kowloon, and the New Territories. Buses and streetcars are quite crowded during peak hours. Taxi service is relatively inexpensive and generally available at all hours. Radio-dispatched taxis are available.

The Peak Tram is a very popular tourist attraction, providing a breathtaking view of Hong Kong and Kowloon as you climb to its terminus on the Peak. At the Peak, the view is spectacular and there are many shops and restaurants. The Peak is also served by bus, mini bus and taxi for easy transport back to the City or other locations on Hong Kong Island.

An extensive network of roads exists throughout the territory; however, most are narrow and many are steep and winding because of the terrain. Traffic, which moves on the left, is heavy, but well regulated. There are three cross-harbor tunnels connecting Kowloon and Hong Kong Island. For those with a more romantic bent, the Star Ferry operates a very efficient and inexpensive passenger service between Central on the Hong Kong side and Ocean Terminal in Kowloon. Ferries also operate from numerous points on Hong Kong Island and the Kowloon Peninsula to many of the outlying islands.

Regional. In July 1998 Hong Kong's venerable Kai Tak Airport was replaced by a new airport at of Chek Lap Kok just north of Lantau Island. An impressive road, bridge, and tunnel link connects the airport to Hong Kong Island. In addition, a high speed rail link speeds passengers to the Central business district in Hong Kong. Departing passengers can obtain boarding passes and check their baggage at the new terminus in Central. Air service in and out of Hong Kong is excellent. About 50 airlines operate over 700 scheduled flights per week to Hong Kong. The U.S. carriers currently offering non-stop flights to Hong Kong are United and Northwest.

Hong Kong Harbor, one of Asia's busiest, handles more than 8,000 incoming ships a year, principally cargo ships but also a large number of cruise ships as well as U.S. Navy ships on port call. Trains run between Kowloon and Guangzhou (Canton), China. Hydrofoil and air transportation between Hong Kong and Guangzhou are also available, with connections there to other cities in China. Helicopter, hydrofoil and ferry transport between Hong Kong and Macau operate frequently throughout the day and evening.

Communications

Telephone, Fax, and Internet. Excellent local and international telephone and computer services are available throughout Hong Kong. Hong Kong was one of the first Asian cities to install fiberoptics (replacing copper) throughout its telephone and communications infrastructure. Other services, such as Internet, mobile phones, call waiting, call forwarding, and pagers, are available from Hong Kong Telecom and other local vendors. Many employees have found it convenient to utilize a U.S. calling card. Internet service costs vary depending upon which of the over 100 Internet Service Providers (ISPs) available in Hong Kong an employee decides to use. Compuserve and America On Line are also available in Hong Kong.

Mail. International mail service is reliable, and transit time to the west coast is 3-5 days.

Radio and TV. Hong Kong has 13 radio channels: seven operated by government-affiliated Radio Television Hong Kong. Cantonese, English, and Mandarin programming includes classical and popular music, BBC World Service, local news, and public affairs. Transistor radios and short-wave receivers are available in abundance at reasonable prices in Hong Kong.

Hong Kong uses the PAL 625 system for television broadcasts; a multi-system television set, readily available in Hong Kong, is the most convenient option. American NTSC sets are not compatible. Two local television stations each provide one Cantonese and one English channel. Most English-language programs are U.S. or U.K.-produced and present a variety of entertainment, including various U.S. news programs tailored for the Far East. Satellite and cable TV are available in many areas with such offerings as CNN, BBC, and HBO. The Consulate General commissary has a tape (NTSC format) rental program, and there are numerous video rental stores throughout Hong Kong that rent both video cassettes and laser disks. The most popular local cassette format is VHS-PAL System.

Newspapers, Magazines, and Technical Journals. Hong Kong has vibrant media. It has one of the highest newspaper readerships in Asia, and is the world's largest center for Chinese-language publications. American, British, and other European periodicals are readily available in Hong Kong. American magazines and technical journals are expensive but are available. Both Time and Newsweek have Far Eastern editions on the newsstands weekly. There are two local English-language morning dailies, the South China Morning Post and the Hong Kong Standard. In addition, the Asian Wall Street Journal, the International Herald Tribune, and USA Today are available. There are numerous bookstores carrying a good selection of paperbacks and magazines, but prices are higher than in the United States.

Health and Medicine

Medical Facilities. The quality of medical care in Hong Kong is high. Hong Kong is the medical evacuation center for posts in China andManila. Medications, from the UK and U.S., are readily available. The cost for medical (especially dental) care is high in comparison to U.S. prices. Dentists and physicians on the Consulate General's referral list speak English and are trained in the U.K., Australia, or the U.S. Nursing care is good. Although the majority of pregnant women elect to stay in Hong Kong for delivery, the Health Unit supports the M/MED world-wide policy which recommends that pregnant women return to the U.S. for delivery.

Community Health. Although the territory has more than doubled the reservoir capacity in the past few years, water shortages still occur when rainfall is below normal. Water sources are reported to be potable, adequately chlorinated and fluoridated. Water from taps can, at times, be discolored due to pipes in buildings. Filters can be purchased locally to improve the quality of the water. In September 1997, Hong Kong reported 290 patients with AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome) and 2000 HIV positive patients. The blood supply in Hong Kong is screened for the HIV virus and other communicable diseases by the Red Cross. Individuals requiring blood or blood products are advised to contact the Health Unit. Tuberculosis remains one of Hong Kong's major community health problems. However, an active anti-TB program has succeeded in reducing the morbidity and mortality rate.

Preventive Measures. Individuals are encouraged to have immunizations updated before traveling to Hong Kong. The yellow fever vaccine can be received (inconveniently) at a local clinic. Japanese B encephalitis vaccine is available only in Hong Kong. Children 6 years old and under are encouraged to have annual blood lead levels screenings for the prevention of lead poisoning. Do NOT put them in air freight. The following immunizations will be reviewed and updated as needed: typhoid, diphtheria, tetanus, polio, measles, mumps, rubella, HIB, Hepatitis A and Hepatitis B.

Keep your immunization records with your passport. Individuals requiring daily medications are encouraged to bring an adequate initial supply. Don't pack your medications in your sea freight or checked luggage.

Notes for Travelers

Passage, Customs & Duties. Hong Kong is served by many of the world's major airlines including leading U.S. carriers. United and Northwest offer several flights a day including nonstop service from the west coast of the U.S. and Minneapolis-St. Paul and, seasonally, to Chicago. Continental Airlines provides services via Guam. Traveling via the Pacific can take a rest stop en route in several cities in the continental U.S., as well as Honolulu, Tokyo, or Guam.

Passports and evidence of onward/return transportation by sea/air are required. A visa is not required for tourist visits by U.S. citizens of up to 90 days. An extension of stay may be granted upon application to the Hong Kong SAR Immigration Department. U.S. citizens must have passports with at least four months' validity for entry into Hong Kong. A departure tax of $80 HK (approximately $10.30 US), must be paid at the airport, unless this has been included in the traveler's airfare. Visas are required to work or study in Hong Kong. With approval from the Hong Kong Civil Aviation Department, airlines began collecting an insurance surcharge from passengers in November 2001. The insurance surcharge ranges from $30 HK ($3.80 US) to $40 HK ($5.10 US) depending on the airlines. Effective November 5, 2001, travel agents in Hong Kong which are members of the Travel Industry Council of Hong Kong (TIC) are allowed to charge a service fee of $5.00 HK (approximately $0.64 US) per sector for each air ticket issued. Public transportation from Hong Kong's International Airport at Chek Lap Kok to Central Hong Kong (about 25 miles) is readily available, as are taxis. Travelers should exchange sufficient money for transportation at the airport exchange facility located immediately outside the baggage claim area. For the most current information concerning entry and exit requirements, travelers can consult the Hong Kong SAR Immigration Department, Immigration Tower, 7 Gloucester Road, Wanchai, Hong Kong (tel. (852) 2829-3001, fax (852) 2824-1133, Internet Home Page: http://www.info.gov.hk/immd/), or the Embassy of the People's Republic of China, 2300 Connecticut Avenue, N.W., Washington D.C. 20008, tel. (202) 328-2500. Internet home page: http://www.chinaembassy.org, or the Chinese consulates general in Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, New York City, or San Francisco. Overseas, inquiries may be made at the nearest Chinese embassy or consulate.

A Hong Kong driver's license may be issued without a test to individuals who hold a valid U.S. driver's license, provided they have resided in the United States for not less than six months. American visitors who do not plan to stay in Hong Kong for more than twelve months can drive in Hong Kong on their valid U.S. driver's license.

Americans living in or visiting Hong Kong are encouraged to register at the U.S. Consulate General and to obtain updated information on travel and security conditions within the Hong Kong SAR. Americans can register on-line at http://www.usconsulate.org.hk, in person at the Consulate General or by fax or mail. The U.S. Consulate General is located at 26 Garden Road, Central, Hong Kong. The mailing address is PSC 461, Box 5, FPO AP 96521-0006, tel. (852) 2523-9011, fax (852) 2845-4845; Internet: http://www.usconsulate.org.hk.

Pets. Dogs and cats imported from any country other than the UK, Ireland, Australia, or New Zealand must remain in quarantine for 1-4 months, depending on country of origin. One month is the standard quarantine period for pets imported from the U.S. if they are accompanied by appropriate certificates attesting that they come from rabies-free areas and that their inoculations are current. Pets that have been in the United State for 6 months or longer are sometimes granted immediate entry if certain, very specific veterinary and documentary requirements are met. Quarantine regulations are rigidly enforced. Boarding fees for animals for the quarantine period are expensive and are calculated according to the weight of the animal.

The Hong Kong Government requires that all animals arrive under an airway bill via air-freight, not as accompanied baggage. Airlines will require you to present a special import permit before accepting your pet as Hong Kong-bound cargo. You should apply for this special import permit in advance.

This application must include the appropriate fee in Hong Kong dollars by check or local bank draft to the Hong Kong Government and be sent to: Senior Veterinary Officer, Agriculture and Fisheries Department Room 819, 8/F 393 Canton Road Kowloon, Hong Kong. Tel No.: (852) 2733-2142, Fax No.: (852) 2311-3731 24 Hour Interactive Inquiry: (852) 2733-2452.

The current fee schedule and an upto-date form can be found at the Hong Kong Government web site: http://www.info.gov.hk.

The Hong Kong Government requires that all dogs brought into the territory receive a microchip identification device immediately upon entry. A tiny, encapsulated microchip is injected under the skin between the neck and the shoulders using a single-use needle. This device, which can be read by a scanner held close to the dog, is linked to ownership and vaccination records stored in government computers.

Animals under quarantine can only be housed in government kennels or the private Pok Fu Lam Kennel. It is extremely difficult to secure space at the government kennels. Reservations for the private kennel should be made well in advance.

Pok Fu Lam Kennels 698 Victoria Road Hong Kong, Tel. No.: (852) 2551-6661.

Local veterinarians and international moving firms can also provide excellent airport-to-kennel service.

Firearms and Ammunition. Possession of personally owned weapons is prohibited under the laws of Hong Kong. This restriction applies to the possession or importation of any firearms, sporting weapons (including spear guns, harpoons, etc.) or ammunition.

Currency, Banking, and Weights and Measures. The local currency is the Hong Kong dollar, which is pegged to the U.S. dollar and is freely convertible to other currencies. The value in relation to the U.S. dollar fluctuates slightly according to market conditions (usually around 7.8). Any currency may be brought into the territory.

For longer stays you may want to open a local checking account as most local shops and stores accept personal checks. A local account is also useful since many clubs, grocery stores, and service stations require payment by automatic monthly withdrawal from a local bank account. Automated teller machines on the Plus and Cirrus networks abound and accept most debit cards and credit cards. Major credit cards are accepted by most stores and restaurants.

Hong Kong is a major financial center and can provide most services that are typically found in the U.S. Checking accounts, savings accounts, travelers checks, and foreign exchange facilities are readily available. Minimum balances are common, and you should be aware of this before opening a new account. The time to clear checks drawn on banks in the U.S. is about four days.

Hong Kong has converted to the metric system, but pounds, inches and gallons still compete with grams, meters and liters. Local markets continue to use the catty, which is roughly 1-1/4 pounds. Temperature is recorded in Celsius.

Guangzhou

Guangzhou (formerly Canton), the capital of Guangdong Province, is the gateway to southern China. Over 2,000 years old, Guangzhou is now the center of one of the world's fastest growing economic regions: the booming Pearl River Delta.

Lying just south of the Tropic of Cancer, Guangzhou is 1,150 miles south of Beijing and 80 miles northwest of Hong Kong. With a subtropical monsoon climate, the long summers are hot and humid. August is the hottest month, with an average temperature of 82°F. January, with an average of 55°F, is the coolest. Average annual rainfall is 77 inches; April and May are the rainiest months.

Metropolitan Guangzhou encompasses an area of over 4,500 square miles, with a population of over 3 million plus at least 1 million migrant workers. The city proper has an area of 21 square miles and an official population estimated over 3.8 million. In recent years, Guangzhou's industrial, commercial, and residential areas have greatly expanded, particularly to the south and east of the old city core. The surrounding Pearl River Delta is a fertile agricultural region supporting two rice crops yearly. Other agricultural mainstays are jute, sugarcane, oil-producing plants, pigs, chickens, ducks, and fish.

Goods from Guangzhou are marketed in nearly all countries. Light industrial manufacturing, including textiles, shoes, toys, furniture, and exportable consumer products, accounts for most of these exports. Principal heavy industries include shipbuilding, sugar refining equipment, and tool and motorcycle manufacturing.

Bustling food markets and busy restaurants are a big part of the Guangzhou street scene. Cantonese cuisine is renowned and local restaurants are packed daily with patrons. Local markets thrive and stores are stocked with both Chinese and foreign products. Brightly decorated storefronts and brisk trading in noisy markets contribute to the lively atmosphere. Buildings trimmed in lights and neon signs and billboards illuminate the city at night.

Food

A fair range of fresh fruits, vegetables, and meats is available most of the year, and these can usually be found at the famous Qing Ping market. There you can also stock up on Chinese herbal medicines, have a dog, cat, or some exotic animal slaughtered fresh for supper, and feast on a meal of snake, turtle, or scorpion.

Staple products and canned goods can be purchased from the duty-free Daily Living food store or at Park 'N Shop, a Hong Kong-based supermarket chain with several branches in Guangzhou, including one about a mile from Shamian Island. Some small shops near the Consulate are beginning to stock Western staples. Selection is often limited, and many employees make regular shopping trips to Hong Kong. Fresh milk (USDA standard), ice cream, breads, and a very limited selection of cheeses and cold cuts are available (at high prices) from the White Swan delicatessen next door to the Consulate.

Liquor and wine can be ordered from Hong Kong or purchased at Daily Living. China brews some good beers; those and some U.S. brands are readily available.

Environmental pollution and public sanitation are serious problems in Guangzhou. Fruits and vegetables must be thoroughly washed. All drinking water outside major hotels should be considered suspect. Unpeeled fruits and vegetables that are not to be cooked should be soaked in a bleach solution, then rinsed before eating. Although the variety of vegetables available is limited, the produce is organically grown without the use of night soil, so it does not have to be soaked in a sterilizing solution.

Clothing

Because the climate of Guangzhou is hot and humid most of the year, lighter weight natural fiber garments and shoes are needed. Cottons, silks, and lightweight suits are best. During the cooler, rainier months, a light topcoat, raincoat, or sweater is essential. However, for a few weeks of the year the weather turns quite cold, and heavier sweaters and a winter coat are necessary.

Buying shoes and clothing on the local market is possible if you are petite. Sizes are generally too small for larger-than-average foreigners. Fabric is available and some tailoring and dressmaking can be done locally. Some adequate children's clothes can be found on the local market.

Supplies and Services

Laundry and dry-cleaning facilities are available major hotels, as are barber and beauty shops. Service is good and prices are reasonable. Haircuts at local area barbershops are inexpensive, but the quality of service is not always up to Western standards. Hygiene is also a consideration. The White Swan's salon offers facials and other beauty treatments.

Simple shoe repair can be done locally; more difficult repairs are easily handled in Hong Kong.

Religious Activities

The Guangzhou International Christian Fellowship holds ecumenical religious service at the American School for the expatriate community. The Guangzhou Chinese Catholic Cathedral and the Shamian Island Catholic Church hold Masses in Latin, Mandarin, and Cantonese. Protestant services in Cantonese are held at Christ Church, across the street from the Consulate, and at Dongshan Church and Zion Church. Huaisheng Mosque holds services at noon on Fridays.

Education

The American School of Guangzhou (ASG) is located in the Tianhe district. ASG is fully accredited in grades K to 12. In 1995-96, the school had approximately 200 students from more than 20 countries. The teaching staff is recruited from the U.S., supplemented by several locally hired, accredited American teachers. The school offers an American curriculum, with classes in art, music, Chinese culture, and physical education. All instruction is in English, with an ESL program for nonnative English speakers. ASG's principal is Dr. Nancy Stephan.

ASG address:

American School of Guangzhou
PSC 461 Box 100
FPO AP 96521-0002
Tel: 86-20-758-0001
Fax: 86-20-758-0002
Two church-supported schools are operating in Guangzhou.

Guangzhou has several preschools accepting children from 2 to 5 years old. Half-day (morning) English-language preschools are located at the China Hotel, Garden Hotel, and Ramada Pearl Hotel. Fees of a few hundred dollars a month apply. Other international preschools plan to open in the future.

A Chinese-language, local government-sponsored preschool and kindergarten for children 3 to 5 years old operates half-day or full-day programs on Shamian Island. Care is very good. The school provides meals, or parents may provide their own. Most children without Chinese-language ability are able to adapt easily and interact with the Cantonese-speaking children. The language of instruction is Mandarin, though teachers often lapse into Cantonese. Full-day and half-day fees apply.

Sports and Outdoor Activities

Ping-pong, badminton, tennis, and tai chi are popular local sports. There are several health clubs near the Consulate and in the major hotels, some of which include swimming pools and squash and tennis courts. The city has several large, modern bowling facilities, as well as good quality indoor roller skating and ice skating rinks operating year round. Basketball and soccer games have been organized at local universities. Horseback riding is available.

Every other Saturday, joggers and walkers may join the local Hash House Harriers at various suburban locations. Guangzhou has several large parks, though they tend to be crowded on weekends. Nearby Baiyun Mountain Park has hiking trails. Guangzhou's sports complex, located near the American School, has hosted events for the Asian games, professional tennis matches, the 1995 world weightlifting championships, and the 1992 women's soccer World Cup. An 18-hole golf course is located in the northern part of the city. Shenzhen boasts a championship golf course; other golf clubs are planned.

Shamian Island is a reasonable location for jogging and is also home to an excellent tennis facility with nine indoor and outdoor lighted, hard-surface courts.

Touring

Traveling in China can be difficult (especially if you do not have some Chinese-language ability) but also rewarding. Popular trips from Guangzhou include Guilin, Macau, Hainan Island, and Kunming. A weekend of shopping and dining in Hong Kong can be expensive, but getting there is convenient via plane, overnight boat, high-speed catamaran, bus, or train. The train ride is about 2 hours one way; the bus takes about 3-1/2 hours. One can also drive as far as Shenzhen, leave the car in a parking lot, and use Hong Kong's public transportation the rest of the way. Bicycles can be rented for touring the city, and mountain bikes can be purchased at local factory outlets for outings to area villages and rice farms.

There are direct flights from Guangzhou to dozens of Chinese cities and many international destinations, including Australia, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.

Entertainment

Theaters in Guangzhou occasionally show ballets, symphonies, and plays by touring musical or theatrical groups. Occasional concerts feature Chinese or foreign pop performers. Local movie theaters show dubbed films and some English-language. Private lessons in Cantonese and Mandarin language, music, traditional painting, and calligraphy for adults and children are easy to arrange.

Shopping and browsing are a favorite pastime in Guangzhou. The famous (some would say infamous) Qing Ping market, which sells many live and exotic animals for consumption, is just north of Shamian Island. The antique market, one of China's best, is also within walking distance of the Consulate. Beijing Road has dozens of upscale clothing and jewelry stores. The semiannual Canton Trade Fair provides an opportunity to examine and purchase products, including baskets and silk carpets, from all over China.

Social Activities

The growing international business community informally organizes fund-raisers and parties. The American School is a social gathering point, especially for those with children. The Guangzhou Women's International Club is one of the most active groups in the expatriate community, organizing a wide variety of events for its members and guests. The American Chamber of Commerce branch in Guangzhou holds monthly breakfast meetings, and occasional lunches and dinners, at the major hotels. Nightclubs and karaoke clubs have become popular night spots, creating new opportunities for Chinese and foreigners to socialize.

Eating Out

Guangzhou is famous for its cuisine, and eating out is a favorite pastime for local and foreign residents. Restaurants serving Cantonese cuisine abound, though many do not have menus in English. For those in search of a change, try one of the Sichuan or Beijing-style restaurants. There is a growing number of other Asian restaurants, including Japanese, Korean, Malaysian, and Thai. Western cuisine is unavailable except at the major hotels. Of course, Guangzhou has not been excluded from the invasion of Western fast-food establishments: Pizza Hut, McDonald's, and Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Special Information

Before coming to Guangzhou, individuals should take care of all potential medical problems, including dental and eye care. Trips to Hong Kong for medical attention are costly.

In cases of accident or sudden illness, local medical facilities have been used, but they are not recommended for routine care and are considered to be a last resort option. Hospital outpatient clinics are busy and there are few private doctors. One local dental clinic comes close to meeting U.S. standards.

Shanghai

Although Shanghai is a young city by Chinese standards, with 13 million residents, it vies for the title of the most populous city in the world. The Shanghai metropolitan area (including the suburban counties) is China's most important industrial, commercial, and financial center, accounting for 5 percent of the Gross National Product. The Shanghainese, as the city's residents are known, speak their own distinctive dialect and are recognized as being among the country's most able businessmen. Today, Shanghai is a hub for several Chinese industries, including iron and steel, shipbuilding, textiles and garments, electronics, clocks, bicycles, automobiles, aircraft, pharmaceuticals, computers, publishing, and cinema. Shanghai is China's largest port and most important foreign trade center. Shanghai itself accounts for 8 percent of all Chinese exports but handles nearly two-thirds of China's total exports through its ports. Once the world's third-largest port, Shanghai remains China's principal shipping center. Shanghai is the most cosmopolitan of Chinese cities and its shops, restaurants, and night life reflect this. Shanghai-style food (seafood) is distinctive and elegantly presented. There are numerous night clubs, discos, and karaoke bars, but cultural entertainment for the expatriate family (movies, music, theater, etc.) is very limited.

Shanghai is acknowledged as the busiest and most exciting shopping center in China. From antiques to pottery, clothing to cotton goods, rugs, furniture, and jewelry, shoppers will find something for every taste in Shanghai's 24,000 stores, supplemented by shopping streets and free markets.

Food

Thanks to the construction of new joint-venture shopping complexes, shopping for food in Shanghai is now almost as convenient as shopping in a supermarket in the U.S., although the cost is considerably higher and the selection more limited. Shanghai has numerous open-air markets where fresh fruits and vegetables, meat, fowl, and fish and seafood are available. Most fresh produce is available year-round. The prices in these markets, where most Chinese shop, are much lower than in the upscale supermarkets. Locally produced and imported soft drinks (Coke, Sprite, Fanta), soda water, tonic water, and beer are available. In addition, a limited selection of local and imported liquor and wines is available at a duty-free shop at reasonable prices. However, at commercial outlets, whereas soft drink and beer prices are comparable or cheaper than those in the U.S., prices for liquor are somewhat higher.

Clothing

Shanghai has four seasons, with weather slightly warmer than that of Washington, D.C. Except for joint-venture enterprises and places frequented by tourists, few other buildings in Shanghai are heated or air-conditioned. China exports numerous items of clothing, including wool sweaters and down clothing, which are available locally at reasonable prices. Prices of cashmere sweaters have increased substantially in the past few years, but are still below those in the U.S. Children's clothing is plentiful and inexpensive. In planning your Shanghai wardrobe, remember that the summers are hot and humid, while the winters can be cold and damp, with temperatures sometimes dropping below freezing. Most items of clothing can be purchased locally, although not always in the larger sizes. This is especially true for shoes, so be sure to bring an adequate supply.

Supplies and Services

Personal care and household cleaning and paper supplies can be purchased locally. Local equivalents are available but inferior in quality, while imported ones are considerably higher in price. Locally produced American brands are midrange in price and quality.

Religious Activities

Shanghai has Catholic and Protestant churches, Buddhist/Daoist temples, and Islamic mosques. The Catholic Patriotic Church is independent of Rome. Catholic services are conducted in Chinese, except for a small Sunday morning service for expatriates that is conducted in English. Protestant services are conducted in Chinese, although simultaneous interpretation/ear-phones are provided at the Sunday service of the International Community Church. Judaism is not one of the five religions recognized by the Chinese Government and no synagogues exist.

Education

Utilizing a twin-campus design, the Shanghai American School offers a comprehensive educational program on both the east and west sides of Shanghai. Each campus includes pre-kindergarten through 12th grade on 25 to 30 acres, with approximately 30,000 square meters of building space. The west campus, completed the fall of 1996, is located in Zhu Di Township, about 3 km north and west of the Hong Qiao Airport. The east campus, completed the fall of 1997, is located in Pudong at the Shanghai Links residential community, approximately 18 km east of the Bund. The Shanghai American School can be reached at 86-21-6221-1445 (telephone) or 0-86-21-6221-1269 (fax).

Sports

Sports facilities are limited to a members-only golf club and several municipal tennis court complexes. Several hotels (as well as joint-venture housing complexes) offer health club memberships, most of which include indoor/outdoor pools, tennis/racquetball courts, weight/fitness rooms, and bowling alleys. There are occasional pickup softball, volleyball, and basketball games with members of the university and business communities.

Touring and Related Activities

Since Shanghai is an industrial and commercial center, sight-seeing in the city is relatively limited. The city has several picturesque temples and gardens, the oldest (Ming Dynasty) being in the recently renovated Old City Temple area, which has also been reconstructed in the Ming style. The countryside around Shanghai is flat and lends itself to hiking and long bicycle rides, although current traffic congestion and poor road conditions make this a bit of a trial. Short trips to the historic and scenic cities of Suzhou, Hangzhou, and Nanjing offer additional sight-seeing opportunities at relatively limited expense. Note, however, that travel outside of Shanghai is regulated. Travel by public transportation outside a 24-mile radius of Shanghai requires 48-hour notification to the Shanghai Foreign Affairs Office.

Social Activities

An active Expatriate Association sponsors monthly luncheons, sightseeing, cultural activities, and social events such as the annual Christmas Ball. There is also a large and growing American Chamber of Commerce and a professional women's organization, both of which have monthly lectures and gettogethers centering on business-related activities. However, organized family-oriented social and recreational activities are very limited and most expatriates entertain at home.

Special Information

Like many large cities in developing countries, Shanghai has a problem with water and air pollution. The water has a high concentration of minerals and metals. Bottled distilled water is available for purchase locally. Those who suffer from hay fever and sinus-or bronchial-related allergies will find these conditions aggravated by the high level of suspended particulates (dust and coal dust) and carbon monoxide in the air.

Shenyang

Shenyang is the political, military, and economic capital of northeast China, the region once known as Manchuria. The northeast, composed of the provinces of Liaoning, Jilin, and Heilongjiang, is home to over 100 million people.

A frontier land settled in the late 1800s, the northeast has for the past century been a strategic battleground and center of intrigue between Russia, Japan, Korea, and the forces of Chinese nationalism.

The two pillars of Manchuria's economy are heavy industry and agriculture. The region is home to some of China's largest state enterprises, including the massive Anshan Steel Works, the First Auto Works, and the Jilin Petrochemical Corporation. Efforts to reform ailing state enterprises remain a problematic but critical part of the nation's overall drive to achieve economic development with social stability. Jilin is China's largest exporter of corn and tobacco. Heilongjiang is known as "the king of soybeans," and Liaoning's apples, peaches, and pears are exported throughout Asia. In addition, ginseng from southern Jilin's Changbai mountain range has fortified Chinese traditional medicines for years.

The northeast is an extremely diverse part of China. Geographically, the region stretches from the magnificent natural harbor at Dalian, through the heavily populated Manchurian plain, east along the spectacularly rugged Sino-Korean border, and north to the wetlands and forests that characterize the Sino-Russian border.

The region is ethnically diverse as well, a unique blend of Han Chinese, Manchu, Mongolian, and Korean culture. In fact, the southern quarter of Jilin Province contains the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture, known as "China's Korean Corner" and home to nearly 1 million ethnic Korean Chinese.

The city of Shenyang itself is a heavily polluted, industrial metropolis of about 5 million people in the midst of unprecedented economic growth. It is home to several of the region's largest state enterprises, but also contains several prominent universities and cultural attractions. For example, Shenyang is home to a smaller version of Beijing's Forbidden City, used by the Manchus before they captured the imperial capital in the 17th century and established their own dynastic rule. The founder of the Qing (as they called themselves) line is also buried in Shenyang.

The region's climate is mainly influenced by the continental landmass of central Asia. Shenyang's winter is a little longer than Beijing's and compares to that of Chicago without the Windy City's raw winter winds and is much drier. Traveling south to the ice-free port of Dalian on the southern tip of the Liaodong peninsula, the extremes of weather become less pronounced.

Food

Pork, chicken, duck, mutton, some seafood (frozen fish and shrimp), and beef are normally available, but quality varies and only chicken is available in American-style cuts.

A variety of vegetables and fresh fruits, including excellent strawberries and peaches, are available in the market in season. Recently, at least three to four fresh vegetables and two to three fresh fruits have been available throughout the year.

Some imported foodstuffs are available, but many locally available substitutes are acceptable. Some imported beers, wines, and liquors are available at prices comparable to those in the U.S. Local beer is available.

Clothing

Shenyang has a short, warm summer sandwiched between an extended spring and fall. The winter is long and cold, comparable to the northern Midwest in the U.S. Most buildings are heated but not to U.S. standard.

Supplies and Services

Toiletries, cosmetics, and household cleaning products are available locally but differ widely from similar American products. Shenyang's winters reduce the usual problems with cockroaches and insects found in developing countries, but moth infestation is a big problem.

Shenyang does not have the large international hotels found in China's major tourist centers. As a result, the usual services found in such establishments are generally unavailable. Barbers and beauticians at the few hotels provide a utilitarian if not high-fashion service. Local dry-cleaning services are of variable quality.

Winter outer garments and sweaters can sometimes be purchased locally. A wide range in size, style, and color of other garments is nonexistent.

Religious Activities

One nondenominational Protestant church in Shenyang conducts services in Chinese. Mass at the Chinese Catholic Church is in Latin. No synagogue exists, but Shenyang does have one mosque and several Buddhist and Daoist temples. Protestant services for foreigners are conducted at China Medical University and at Riverside Gardens.

Touring and Outdoor Activities

Shenyang has some interesting parks and monuments. Nanhu and Lu Xun Parks provide good jogging paths during the less crowded times of day. Consulate General families have enjoyed picnicking at Dongling, the imperial tomb of the first Qing emperor, during the warmer months.

Entertainment

Three local TV stations broadcast in Chinese every evening, in color. One English-speaking channel, Star Plus, offers a variety of old movies and TV series. There are also up-to-date sportscasts on Star Sports. Liaoning Radio has recently begun offering a nightly English news program, and VOA, BBC, Radio Australia, and others can be picked up by shortwave radio.

Special Information

The facilities at local clinics are modest by U.S. standards. Individuals with serious medical problems should be evacuated to Hong Kong.

Chengdu

Chengdu is the capital of China's most populous province, Sichuan, and the traditional center of government and transportation in southwest China. The Chengdu consular district is made up of the provinces of Sichuan, Yunnan, and Guizhou, as well as the Xizang Autonomous Region, more commonly known as Tibet.

As Chengdu serves as the air transport hub of southwest China, air service is provided to all major Chinese cities. Centrally located, Chengdu is between a 2-and 2 1/2-hour flight to Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Lhasa. There is also a twice weekly flight to Hong Kong, which is Chengdu's sole international connection at this time. Chengdu also has rail service to all major destinations.

Chengdu has a moderate climate with fairly mild winters, early springs, rainy summers, and warm autumns. Though not uncomfortable in terms of temperature, there is a near-perpetual overcast. This condition is attributable to Chengdu's location in the Sichuan basin, one of the world's most productive agricultural plains. Pollution, caused primarily by the burning of coal in winter, is also an irritant.

Chengdu has been a governmental and cultural center since at least 400 B.C., undergoing numerous name changes over the years. During the Han Dynasty (206 B.C.-A.D. 220) it was known as the "City of Brocade," becoming so prosperous that it gained the nickname "Storehouse of Heaven." Under the Five Dynasties, the local warlord planted so much hibiscus on the city walls (since destroyed) that it was known as the "City of Hibiscus."

Present-day Chengdu has a population of 8.7 million, of whom about 3 million live in the city center. There has been a great deal of new and unimaginative high-rise construction over the past few years as is the case with most of China's major cities. Nonetheless, the city maintains a great deal of charm with several nice city parks and areas where old-style buildings have remained. These older smaller buildings have been central to the renaissance of small private businesses. In Chengdu's alleys, one can amble for hours, on foot or bicycle, going from small shop to small shop.

Chengdu's role as a regional center of government, transportation, and culture, as well as of electronic and other industries, has brought increasing numbers of foreigners. The tourist trade continues to increase, and one now frequently encounters American and other tourists, as well as expatriates employed as English teachers.

Food

Chengdu is acknowledged as the center of authentic Sichuan cuisine. Several good Sichuan restaurants and countless "xiaochi" or traditional snack restaurants exist. The major hotels have Western restaurants. Chengdu has two fast-food restaurants.

There are a number of Chinese-produced canned and dry goods on the market. Some Western products, such as instant coffee, artificial creamer, and powdered whole milk, are widely available, and one can usually find American peanut butter and Australian dried pastas. Other than yogurt, fresh dairy products are not found. UHT milk is available but expensive (15 to 20 yuan per liter). Pork, beef, shrimp, and chicken are available, but quality and presentation vary.

On the positive side, there is an impressive array of fruits and vegetables available year round. There is a proper joint-venture bakery that sells French bread, wheat bread, croissants, cakes, and pies. Some foreign liquors are available, but the wine selection is almost exclusively Chinese. Hotel shops and major department stores also stock a small variety of Western goods at higher than U.S. prices.

Clothing

Clothing and shoes of unreliable quality are available at both small stores and large department stores. Although winter temperatures are not extreme, it is nonetheless a damp and penetrating cold. Long underwear may be needed in the winter months.

Supplies and Services

Procter and Gamble hair care items and detergents are widely available, but not their toothpaste and other toiletries.

Barber and beauty facilities are available in hotels and elsewhere. These are adequate but not quite up to Western standards. Simple and inexpensive shoe repair is available. Personnel have used local tailors/dressmakers with varying results. The major hotels do dry-cleaning.

Religious Activities

Chengdu has two Protestant churches and one Chinese Catholic cathedral. All services are conducted in Chinese. Mass is said in Latin. There are two mosques. There is no synagogue nor are there any informal organized Jewish services.

Education

There are no Western schools in Chengdu.

Touring and Outdoor Activities

Most people ride bicycles both for practical and recreational purposes. Within Chengdu, a bicycle is actually more convenient than a car. Chinese-made bicycles can be purchased locally at reasonable prices. Basic one-speed bikes, tricycles, multispeed bikes, and export-standard mountain bikes are all available.

There are some close-by sights, such as the Du Fu Thatched Cottage, that make for a nice cycling outing. Sights of interest within a several hours' drive are Emei Shan, Le Shan, Dujiangyan Irrigation Works, and the Wolong Panda Reserve.

Entertainment

Occasionally there are visiting Western song or dance troupes brought in under the auspices of cultural exchange programs. There is almost no locally available English-language reading material.

Special Information

Calling cards with your name in English on one side and your Chinese name on the other are a must in both business and social circumstances. They can be obtained in Chengdu within a few days. The quality of those done in Beijing or Hong Kong is much better, but harder to arrange.

Nanjing

Nanjing (Nanking), the provincial capital of Jiangsu (Kiangsu) Province in eastern China, is a city of ancient culture that has several times, during 10 dynasties, been the capital of the country. Its history spans 2,400 years. The Treaty of Nanking, signed here in 1842, was the pact that opened China to foreign trade.

Industry has developed considerably since 1950, and Nanjing is now a production center for iron, steel, chemicals, machine building, optical instruments, textiles, and foodstuffs. The city is one of China's intellectual centers, having 18 universities and several other institutions of higher learning. Nanjing's population is over 2.4 million.

The Nanjing Bridge over the Chang Jiang (Yangtze) River is one of China's most spectacular spans. It is a double-deck bridge handling both rail and motor vehicles, making Nanjing a major transportation center for north-south traffic.

Scenic and historic spots abound throughout Nanjing. On the Purple Mountains east of the city is the Zijin Shab Observatory of the China Academy of Sciences, with its extensive collection of ancient astronomical instruments. Also here are the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum and Ming Xaio Tombs, both national historical monuments, and the Linggu Si (Soul Valley Temple). The Lantern Festival in the central marketplace and the zoo near the city gates are popular attractions. Lovely lakes and luxuriant greenery add to the charm of this famous tourist city.

Chongqing

Chongqing (Chungking), built on a rock promontory at the confluence of the Yangtze and Chia-ling Rivers, was once the headquarters of the Chinese National Armies and the political capital of the nation. In 1937, shortly before the capture of Nanking in the Second Sino-Japanese War, national administrative offices were moved here, where they remained until 1945. The city was also an American air base during World War II (1944-1945).

Chongqing is a misty, mountain city, encircled by rivers on three sides. Natives call it "fog city" because there are about 200 foggy days a year. It was opened in 1890 as a treaty port, and is the trade center for much of western China. It has textile mills, chemical plants, steel and cement factories, and several other smaller industries. Chongqing's population is 2.83 million.

Two of the city's interesting natural features are its north and south hot springs parks, Beiwenquan and Nanwenquan. The zoo, with its exhibits of rare animals and birds, and the beautifully landscaped Goose Peak Park are popular tourist spots. The Research Institute of Traditional Chinese Painting, where the area's top artists work and reside, is also located here.

Harbin

Harbin (Ha-erh-pin) is one of the great trade marts and communication centers of the Far East. Located on the Sung-hua, or Sungari, River, almost at the exact midpoint of Manchuria, it is the capital of Heilungkiang (Black Dragon) Province, and has an estimated population of 2.9 million. Food processing, tractor and ball bearing manufacture, and wire and cable factories are its main industries.

Harbin was only a village until 1896, when the Russians contracted to build the Chinese Eastern Railway branch of the Trans-Siberian Railroad. Wide avenues and European-style architecture are evidence of the strong Russian influence on the town in the years between the start of rail construction and the surrender of the Russian concession in 1924. A major influx of White Russian refugees after 1917 gave Harbin the largest European population in the Far East, but most of those who had fled the revolution left after the Chinese Communists rose to power.

The town was captured in 1932 by Japanese forces invading Manchuria, and fell again, in August 1945, to the Soviets. The Chinese Communists eventually took possession, and developed Harbin into a major industrial city.

Wuhan

Wuhan is a consolidation of three Han cities in Hubei (Hupei) Province of east central China. Wuchang, Hankou, and Hanyang came under one administration in 1950 and these cities, as a unit, now flourish as a commercial and industrial center and the transportation hub of central China. The city lies on the spot where the Han and Yangtze rivers meet, and is home to 5.2 million people.

It was in the place that is now Wuhan that the revolution against imperialist China took form in 1911.

Many industrial enterprises and commercial ventures have helped to build Wuhan into one of China's most important cities. Tea, silk, cotton, rice, oils, soap, timber, and steel are among the diverse products that are transferred through the bustling city port. Also, tourists are attracted to Wuhan to view the temples, the scenic landscape, and the ancient musical terrace called Guqintai.

OTHER CITIES

ANSHAN is an industrial center of about 1,450,000 residents, situated 350 miles northeast of Beijing. The site of some of China's main iron and steel facilities, the city also relies on cement and chemical production. Iron smelting here dates to 100 B.C. and progressed until Manchu emperors shut down the operations. The Japanese, who occupied the vicinity early in the 20th century, resumed production. The steel works were founded here in 1918. Anshan was the scene of intense fighting in the Chinese civil war (1946-1949), with both sides taking control of the district 11 times. The city was rebuilt following the war and is now twice as large in area as it was sixty years ago. Two parks are noteworthy in Anshan. Tang-gangzi Park, a few miles south of the city limits, has two historic homesone that belonged to a Manchu warlord, and another to the last Qing emperor. The park's hot springs and sanitarium attract visitors from many parts of the country. The other park, Eryijiu Park, boasts three huge lakes and several walk-ways.

CHENG-CHOU (formerly spelled Zhengzhou and Chengchow), located about 40 miles southwest of Beijing in the east-central region, is the capital of Honan Province. This is a crucial railroad junction for both north-south and east-west lines. Cheng-chou has been inhabited since about 1500 B.C., and flourished as the terminus of the New Pien Canal from the seventh through the 10th centuries. The railway has been important to the city from the arrival of the Peking-Han-k'ou line 80 years ago. A tower in the center of town commemorates a 1923 workers' strike that began in Cheng-chou and extended along the rail line. The Communists changed the area from a strictly commercial and administrative center to an industrial hub when they took over in 1949. Today there are textile and flour mills, tobacco factories, locomotive repair plants, and a thermal generating station. Nearby countryside is irrigated by a pumping station erected in 1972. A major improvement project saw the planting of thousands of trees to cut down on the sand that was blown through the city by strong gusts. Cheng-chou's population is an estimated 2.1 million.

CHENGDU (also spelled Ch'engtu) is one of China's ancient cities. It dates back to the Han Dynasty (206 B.C.-A.D. 220), and in early times was an imperial capital. Chengdu is the administrative seat of China's most populous province, Szechwan (Sichuan), where the beautiful Shu embroidery is produced. Noted for its famous cuisine, and for its annual flower fair, the city is also the transportation and cultural center of southwest China. Chengdu was the site of an American air base in 1944-1945, during the Second World War. The city is located on the irrigation system of the Min River and is the center of a fertile region. It is the site of a university and technical college, and has a population of approximately 5.3 million. No western schools exist in Chengdu; preschoolers attend local Chinese kindergartens. Older children use Calvert correspondence courses. Martial arts and painting classes are available for children.

FUZHOU (also spelled Foochow), the capital of Fujien Province in southeast China, is a seaport on the Minjiang River midway between Hong Kong and Shanghai. This city of 1.4 million residents is known for its handicraft industries which produce horn combs, umbrellas, and lacquers. It became famous also for the export of black (Bohea) tea, named for the Chinese hills where it is grown. Fuzhou dates back to 202 B.C., in the Han Dynasty. The early city walls remain, and in the adjacent hills are many beautiful examples of architecture, among them the spectacular White and Black Pagodas. Fuzhou was one of the first ports opened to trade in 1842 by the Treaty of Nanking.

GUILIN (also spelled Kweilin), a city of spectacular scenic beauty, lies on the Lijiang River in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous province. The Chinese call it a "city of culture" because of the great numbers of celebrated artists and intellectuals who congregated here during the Japanese aggression. It is an ancient community, founded during the Qin Dynasty of the third century B.C. Silk is a major export of Guilin. During World War II, an American air base was established here, first in 1944 and, after a devastating attack by the Japanese, again in 1945. Today, Guilin is a city of more than 400,000. It has light industry as well as all of the byproducts of urban lifedust, noise, and traffic congestion.

GUIYANG (formerly spelled Kueiyang) lies on the Nan-ming Ho River, 200 miles south of Chongqing. With a population nearing 2,500,000, it is a provincial capital and industrial center. Industries here include iron, coal, and bauxite production, as well as the manufacture of mining equipment and automobile tires. Guiyang experienced great economic progress during the Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945), when highway, railroad, and communications construction began. The city has a teacher-training college, medical school, and university.

HANGZHOU (also spelled Hang-chou and Hangchow) is located on the north bank of the lower reaches of Qiantang River. One of China's scenic spots and a major tourist center, it is said to have been called "the world's most beautiful and splendid city" by Marco Polo. Hangzhou is particularly famous for Xi Hu (West Lake), a mirrorlike body of water encircled by hills, and surrounded by terraces with flowers, trees, and pavilions. In addition to being the capital of Zhejiang Province, it is one of China's major silk-producing centers. Hangzhou silk is internationally famous. Light industry has also developed considerably in recent years. The city has 1.78 million residents.

LÜDA (also spelled Lüta, formerly called Dalian) is a leading port in the northeast, located on the south coast of Liao-tung Peninsula, about 300 miles from Beijing. The Russians first developed the region in 1898, calling it Dalny, but lost the city to the Japanese after the Russo-Japanese War of 1904. Shipbuilding and other industries were introduced by the Japanese and have been growing since. The industrial base of Lüda is varied, including oil refining, paper and fertilizer production plants, and steel factories. Tourism here has a great economic impact. This is one of China's foremost summer resorts, known for its beaches and many hotels. The city has an engineering college. Lüda's population is an estimated 1,630,000.

SUZHOU (also spelled Soochow) is China's historic garden city and one of the oldest towns in the Chang Jiang River basin. It is a center for tourism, and many of its historic parks have been restored and reopened to the public. The Great Pagoda was built here in the year 1131. Suzhou is also famous for its silks and embroidery, a centuries-old tradition. Since 1950, the city has expanded its textiles and chemical industries, but its most famous products remain handicrafts. Sash has a current population of over 1.2 million.

TIANJIN (also spelled Tientsin) is a river port about 75 miles southeast of Beijing, and a major commercial and industrial city. It also is an educational center of long standing, and the site of the more recently inaugurated (1960) Hupei University. For centuries Tianjin was a military post, having become a garrison town in the second year of the Ming Dynasty. It was occupied for a few years by the British and French in the middle of the 19th century, and was seized during the Boxer Rebellion in 1900. The city then came under direct control of the central government, and is one of only three Chinese cities which are thus administered. Tianjin has a metropolitan population of over 9 million.

XI'AN (also spelled Hsi'an and Sian), one of the most historically interesting of all of China's cities, is situated in the center of the Guanzhong Plain in east-central China. It is a significant origin of Chinese civilization and, as early as the third century B.C., was a focal point for international exchange between China and other countries. It was the starting point of the famous "Silk Road," the overland trade route to the West. Xi'an served as the capital of 10 dynasties over a period of 1,000 years. Many notable tombs and other ancient relics are preserved here and at Pei-lin, south of the city. In Xi'an's more recent history, it is also remembered as the scene of the communist kidnapping of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek in 1936. The population of Xi'an is approximately 3.1 million.

YANGSHUO , a southern suburb of Guilin, is a market center and county seat on the Li River. It is known for its mountain scenery; tourists come to this small town regularly on the noted Li River boat tours. Four mountain peaks assure a dramatic setting for photographers: Dragon Head Hill, Crab Hill, House Hill, and Green Lotus Peak. Shopping and hotel accommodations are limited but the government tourist office here has been called the country's most helpful. There are boat and bus connections to Guilin; bicycles can be rented in Yangshuo.

The industrial city of ZIBO (also called Chang-tien) is located in a rich coal field, 175 miles south of Tianjin in the eastern region. As it is known today, Zibo was formed in 1949, when the counties of Tzuch'eng and Poshan merged. Historically, the city can be traced to the second century B.C.; the extensive mid-20th-century development started with completion of an important railway passing just north of town. Textile manufacturing and food processing are growing in significance. Zibo has an estimated population of 2,775,000.

REGIONS

Since 1999, MACAU has been officially designated as a Special Administrative Region (SAR) of China, an agreement which allows the region a high degree of autonomy in just about every aspect of government except in foreign affairs and defense. The region is made up of two islands and a peninsula reaching off the Guangdong mainland into the South China Sea. The population is about 440,000 (2000 est.) Since it is a separate government entity, you will need a separate passport to enter and you should make certain that your China passport allows multiple entries for your return trip. The extra effort could be well worth it, since there is much to see and do in Macau.

One of the most famous historic sites is the Ruinas de São Paulo, the ruins of St. Paul's Cathedral, originally built in 1602 and rebuilt after major destruction from an 1835 typhoon. A museum in the former nave of the cathedral reportedly holds the tomb of the Cathedral's builder, Jesuit Father Alessandro Valignano, and an arm bone of St. Francis Xavier. On the hill overlooking the cathedral there are ruins of the fort that once protected the settlement of the cathedral, as well as a second museum and a metrological observatory.

There are seven major temple complexes in Macau. The oldest, A-Ma, is dedicated to the seafarers' goddess and dates from the early 16th century. The Kun Iam Tong complex is dedicated to the Goddess of Mercy. It was founded in the 13th century, but some of the present structure was built around 1627. It is the largest and wealthiest of the temples and contains several special halls dedicated to the Three Precious Buddhas, the Buddha of Longevity and Kun Iam herself.

Macau has several modern attractions as well. One of newest is the Macau Tower, a 338m tower which houses an entertainment and convention center. Located on the coast of the Nam Van Lakes, the tower is the 10th largest in the world. There are a total of ten casinos in Macau, mostly located in the Lisboa tourist complex. The Macau Cultural Center, opened in 1999, consists of two auditoriums for seminars, lectures and other cultural events and a second building housing three museum areas with exhibits on Macau culture, history and arts. There are ten other museums throughout Macau.

For nature lovers, Macau offers a variety of hiking trails and walking tours throughout the area. There are also 15 showcase gardens, the oldest one being the St. Francisco Garde, which was started in 1580 by the Castilian friars of the Franciscan order which founded a convent at the area.

Getting around is fairly easy, since there are buses throughout the region as well as plenty of taxis. If you'd like, you can try one of the three wheeled pedicabs along the waterfront.

Known as the "rooftop of the world," TIBET has long been considered a place of great beauty and mystery. Some of the mystery developed as China periodically restricted or prohibited travel to the area. There are an estimated 2.6 million people in Tibet (2000 est.). Since 1965, Tibet has been designated as an Autonomous Region linked to China, and though travel is still somewhat complicated, the scenery and culture are worth the trouble.

Lhasa, the "city of the gods," is the capital of Tibet and sits at an altitude of about 12,000 ft. The Potala, home to several past Dalai Lamas, is a main attraction. Built in the 7th century, this UNESCO World Heritage site now houses a unique museum which includes underground labyrinths and dungeons, large decorative statues of Buddha, and chapels decorated with human skulls and thigh bones. The tombs of past Dalai Lamas are also located in Lhasa, as is the Jokhang Temple.

Tibetan monasteries are located in Gyantse and Sakya. The one in Sakya contains a collection of religious relics that may be viewed by visitors with some restrictions by the monks.

Naturally, one of the most popular sites in Tibet is Mt. Everest. At 29,035 ft, it is the world's highest peak. In Tibet, the name of the mountain is Qoomolangma, which means "mother goddess of the universe." Its European name was given to honor Sir George Everest, the British surveyor-general of India who first accurately recorded the height and location of the mountain in 1865. Before then, it was known to the Western world as Peak 15. The Qoomolangma Nature Preserve surrounds the Tibetan base of the mountain and offers a variety of programs to protect and preserve the local environment and culture. A hike to the Everest Base Camp, the most famous starting point for trekkers, will take more than a few days of strenuous climbing. Or, you can find a tour with a 4-wheel-drive vehicle that takes you there for a visit.

It is possible to make travel arrangements to Tibet from outside of China. Once in China, travelers wishing to visit Tibet must join a group, which can be arranged by almost any Chinese travel agency. The travel agency will arrange for the necessary permits and collect any fees. The Chinese government requires foreigners (including U.S. citizens) wishing to visit Tibet to apply in advance for approval from the tourist administration of the Tibetan Autonomous Region. More information is available from the Chinese Embassy or one of the Chinese consulates in the United States, or, while in China, from the U.S. Embassy or nearest U.S. consulate general. (Please see the above section on Entry Requirements.) Recently, some Americans with long-term Chinese visas have experienced difficulty obtaining permits to visit Tibet

COUNTRY PROFILE

Geography and Climate

Occupying an area of about 3.7 million square miles, the People's Republic of China (PRC) is the third-largest country in the world, after Canada and Russia. It shares borders with North Korea, Russia, Mongolia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bhutan, Burma, Laos, and Vietnam. Hong Kong and Macau are situated on China's southern coast. Two-thirds of China's area is mountainous or semidesert; only about one-tenth is cultivated. Ninety percent of its people live on one-sixth of the land, primarily in the fertile plains and deltas of the east. The country lies almost entirely in the Temperate Zone. Only the southernmost portions of the Provinces of Yunnan and Guangdong, and the Shuang Autonomous Region of Guangxi, lie within the tropics. A monsoon climate is a major influence in the south, but the north and west have a typical continental climate, except that winters are extremely dry and summers quite rainy.

During summer, warm, moist, maritime airmasses bring heavy rains to eastern China, and hot, humid, summer weather is typical. Winter offers a sharp contrast when cold, dry Siberian air-masses dominate and often penetrate to the southern provinces. Little precipitation falls during the colder months; clear days with low humidity and low temperatures are the norm. During late winter and early spring, strong north winds sweep across northern China, and hazy days, caused by dust storms, are common.

Population

A little more than 21% of all the world's people live in China. The Chinese Government estimates that the Chinese population has reached 1.26 billion. Population density varies strikingly, the greatest contrast being between the country's eastern and western halves. The high mountains, plateaus, and arid basins of the Tibetan Highlands and the Xinjiang-Mongolia Region comprise slightly more than half of China's area but contain only about 5% of the total population. In the eastern half of China, population density generally ranges upward from 130 people per square mile. Major heavily populated areasthose in excess of 520 people per square milecoincide with level-to-rolling alluvial plains on which intensive agriculture is centered.

Most Chinese inhabitants are of Mongoloid descent, and ethnic distinctions are largely linguistic and religious rather than racial. The Han people comprise about 92% of the population; the remaining 8%about 50 groupsare termed "minority nationalities" by Beijing. Although non-Han peoples are relatively few in number, they are politically significant. Most inhabit strategic frontier territory, and some in the southwest, Tibet, Xinjiang, and Inner Mongolia have religious or ethnic ties with groups in adjoining nations. However, the preponderance of non-Han groups in many parts of western China is lessening, because Han Chinese have entered these regions in increasing numbers since 1950.

Although unified by tradition, written language, and many cultural traits, Han Chinese speak a score of mutually unintelligible tongues.

Most Han Chinese use the northern dialect, commonly called Mandarin, or one of its variants; a national vernacular based on the Beijing variant of this dialect ("putonghua") is in general use.

Religion plays a more significant role in daily life in southern China than it does in the north, but many mosques, temples, Daoist shrines, and churches have been reopened since the Cultural Revolution, and a great deal of restoration work is being done on ancient Buddhist temples. Ideology guides artistic expression and social behavior less than it used to, but despite artistic experiments with modern themes and techniques, China remains an austere and authoritarian state.

The dress of the average Chinese is increasingly colorful and stylish, particularly in urban areas. Chinese cuisine can be among the best and most varied in the world. The number of good restaurants is growing, and Western food is available in Beijing, Guangzhou, and Shanghai, where private restaurants have sprung up to compete with those in the major hotels.

Public Institutions

The 48-million-member Communist Party of China (CCP) dominates or influences virtually all sectors of national society. Party policy guidance is implemented through utilizing the party structure present in all important government, economic, and cultural institutions. Nearly 70 percent of government employees are party members, and the percentage is even higher in the more senior ranks. Party control is the tightest in government offices and in urban settings; it is considerably looser in the rural and national minority areas where 80 percent of the Chinese people live and work.

The party is headed by a Politburo, which currently has 21 members. The Politburo itself is headed by a seven-member Standing Committee. The General Secretary, a member of the Politburo Standing Committee, heads the Secretariat, which is responsible to the Politburo and helps handle the day-to-day work of the party center and its relations with regional and local party committees. The Politburo, aided by the Secretariat, also oversees the work of the Organization, International Liaison, Propaganda, and United Work Front Departments.

The Politburo is chosen by the Party Central Committee, which is elected every 5 years at a Party Congress. The Central Committee meets twice a year in formal plenary session and at other times holds informal work conferences on important topics. In addition to the Central Committee, the Party Congress also elects a Central Discipline Inspection Commission and a Central Advisory Commission. Provincial and local party groups are patterned on the central model.

A Party Central Military Commission, consisting of about a dozen top-level members, oversees the People's Liberation Army (PLA). The direct subordination of the PLA to the party underlines the special status and political importance of the PLA.

The party also uses such mass organizations as the Young Communist League, the Women's Federation, and the labor unions as conduits for policy directives. Disrupted by the Cultural Revolution, these organizations have been rebuilt and revitalized.

The National People's Congress (NPC) is formally the state's highest organ of power. A new NPC is elected every 5 years and meets in plenary session for about 2 weeks once a year to review and adopt major new policy directions, laws, the budget, and major personnel changes. The NPC Standing Committee and the deputies who participate in the NPC's specialized committees meet every 2 months for 10-day sessions to review and approve the lion's share (90%) of Chinese legislation. The State Council, an executive body corresponding to a cabinet, is nominally subordinate to the NPC, but in reality is the key player in the government structure and is charged with policy implementation. Members of the State Council include the premier, vice-premiers, state councilors, ministers, and heads of various commissions and special agencies. A court and a procuratorial system are also subordinate to the NPC.

The Chinese Constitution promulgated in 1982 guarantees freedom of speech, press, and assembly, but the government interprets the Communist Party's "leading role" as circumscribing those rights. Outright opposition to the government is not tolerated. Self-censorship is common. Nevertheless, criticism of official corruption and even ad hoc, small-scale protests against petty grievances have been allowed to take place. Foreign books and periodicalsand Chinese translations of those materialsare available in libraries and bookstores. Commercial Internet service has also been available since mid-1995, but the government has pledged to monitor and censor content.

Arts, Science, and Education

The Chinese Government's modernization-drive and its policy of "kaifang" (opening to the outside world) have combined to create a period of tremendous cultural ferment. Not since the early years of this century has China tried to assimilate such a rapid influx of foreign ideas. At the same time, conservative members of the old guard and bureaucratsthose wary of the onset of modernity, who cling to the paststill occupy key positions of power, thus creating a continuing tension between the new and the old, between the urge to rejoin the international community and the wish to protect China from its dangerous influences.

The impetus to modernize China culturally and economically stems, in part, from the desire to see China regain the position of influence it once held in Asia. The civilization and culture that developed in the Yellow River Valley of North China in the second millennium B.C. eventually came to dominate virtually all of East Asia, including Japan and Korea. Since 1949, however, many aspects of traditional Chinese culture have disappeared from the land of their origin or have been severely altered by the socialist transformation of China.

Prior to the violent suppression of the Democracy Movement in June 1989, China's international cultural exchanges had been flourishing. The PRC has signed formal cultural agreements with many nations, including the U.S. Private sector exchanges, such as those carried out by People to People, Sister City and Sister State programs, and U.S. universities, are too numerous to count. Hundreds of performing and visual artists; scholars of politics, economics, law, and literature; and interested citizens representing a full spectrum of professions came to China from the U.S. every month. Thousands of Chinese, too, traveled to the U.S. under government and private auspices to enhance their expertise and make contacts in the international cultural community. Since the Tiananmen incident Western cultural influence has been viewed skeptically by Chinese officials, and they have been very selective in their support for international exchange.

The cultural life of China takes place under the watchful eye of a variety of organizations, including the Propaganda Department of the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee, the Ministry of Culture, the All-China Federation of Literary and Art Circles, and the local offices of these national organizations. During the past 10 years, China has restored many cultural institutions damaged by the Cultural Revolution and rehabilitated many artists and writers. However, the government's once-substantial support for the arts has been sharply reduced in the last few years because of budget constraints and a policy of decentralization. Many cultural organizations, art schools, and performing arts groups have been told to become self-supporting. The full effect of the new policies is not yet apparent as cultural institutions must now grapple with financial and artistic problems they have not faced since before 1949.

Under the policy of opening to the outside world, international cultural exchanges are flourishing. Many countries, including the U.S., have signed formal cultural agreements with China, but it is the private sector that has shown the most rapid growth. Privately arranged cultural exchange activities are now too numerous to count. Through them, numerous foreign performers and teachers of art, music, dance, and drama visit China; art exhibits are exchanged; and many Chinese artists go abroad. This has had a profound impact on Chinese arts, but this Western influence is not without controversy. The interest of Chinese artists in Western literature and art is upsetting to those with traditional ideas. Some avantgarde or politically sensitive works continue to be banned and their authors silenced.

The Chinese cultural scene also includes a large number of art and history museums throughout the country. The museums include many important and exceptionally beautiful pieces. Particularly noteworthy are the museums in Liaoning, Xian, and Shanghai, along with the Beijing Historical Museum and the Palace Museum, which houses art treasures of the Qing Dynasty.

The Chinese film industry is at the forefront of Chinese creative arts. Mawkish socialist dramas have given way to serious films examining and questioning the political and ideological basis of Chinese society. A prominent group of young directors, known as the "5th Generation," has won international awards for its work.

For those who like to purchase artwork and handicrafts, China offers a wide variety. Antique ceramics, scrolls, carvings and hardwood furniture are available, but prices are high, and objects predating the 19th century cannot be taken out of the country. Export of antiques is subject to close scrutiny by the Cultural Relics Department, which must approve any item before packers are permitted to pack it. Modern copies are widely sold, though the quality varies. Contemporary Chinese paintingboth traditional watercolors and oilsis receiving increasing international recognition. The handicraft industry has flourished under the economic reforms and offers many regional specialties: Guizhou batik, Suzhou embroidery, carved chops, paper cuts, porcelain figurines, cloisonné, cinnabar, carved lacquer, wicker work, basketware, and others.

In an effort to overcome the ravages of the Cultural Revolution, China has made a large and continuing investment in science. Most scientific efforts are devoted to immediate developmental needs: defense, industrial technology, agriculture, and public health, but important advances are being made in basic science research. From 1949 to 1960, PRC science was heavily dependent on support from the Soviet Union, where many Chinese scientists and technicians were trained. In 1978, China decided to adopt Western technology and expertise for its modernization effort and sent thousands of scientists and teachers to Japan and the West (to the U.S. in particular) for training in science and technology specialties. Despite the ideological break with the U.S.S.R., science in China continues to be organized largely along Soviet lines, with research concentrated at the various institutes of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Chinese scientists now participate actively at international conferences, and thousands of Chinese scientific periodicals are published. The largest U.S. bilateral science and technology exchange program, by far, is with China, and the largest Chinese program is with the U.S.

Compulsory education is mandated in China for the first 10 years of schooling, although many students drop out of every grade, particularly in rural areas. The literacy in China is about 82%. The current emphasis in Chinese educational policy is on improving secondary, technical, and vocational education and on extending educational opportunities to remote areas and undereducated populations. China is investing in teacher training to address a shortage of qualified secondary school educators. An educational television network and a TV university are broadcast throughout the country.

To develop a highly educated elite with the technological and managerial skills necessary for modernization, China has sent thousands of students abroadtwo-thirds of them to the U.S. Chinese-Foreign/Foreign-Chinese publishers have embarked on a massive book translation program. The study of English is booming in China, and interest in the U.S. is intense. The Voice of America has 150 million listeners in China.

Commerce and Industry

China's economy has grown at an average annual rate of about 9 percent since 1978. In that year, about 270 million Chinese lived in conditions of absolute poverty, while official PRC figures stated that the number had dropped to 70 million people by the end of 1994. Although growth has accelerated into double digits in recent years, the Chinese economy is marked by significant regional disparities. Heavy state-owned industries are concentrated in the northeast and Shanghai. Once poor agricultural regions in southern China, particularly Guangdong and Fujian Provinces, have emerged as dynamic light industry and trade bases. While rural areas near the coast and urban centers have in many cases joined in the country's rapid industrial growth, interior and western provinces lack the infrastructure to support rapid growth. The low tax base of the central government has constrained needed investment in the interior for roads, railways, electric power, and other infrastructure.

Agriculture remains key to China's economy, with roughly 80% of the population living in rural areas. China is the world's leading producer of many food crops, including rice, wheat, and sweet potatoes, and is also a major producer of many other crops such as soybeans and peanuts. Major cash crops include cotton, tobacco, and oil seeds. Reform policies encouraging peasants to diversify into vegetable farming, poultry and fish breeding, and animal husbandry have boosted the variety and quality of the Chinese diet.

The need to provide food for over a billion people, as well as industrial crops like cotton for rapidly expanding industries, is an unrelenting challenge. China has already achieved relatively high per-acre yields, but only about 10 percent of China's land is arable and is frequently ravaged by droughts and floods. After a series of record harvests in the early 1980s briefly propelled China into the ranks of net food exporters, grain production dipped slightly. Rising domestic demand has forced China to again increase grain imports from the U.S., Canada, and Australia. Beijing hopes to boost grain production through increased investment, wider dissemination of scientific techniques, and some added incentives to peasants, but limited government financial resources will constrain these options.

China's modernization drive has benefited from a rich natural resource base. China's coal reserves are virtually inexhaustible, but transportation bottlenecks and air pollution are major drawbacks to China's dependency on this fuel. China is the world's sixth-largest oil producer, but production at some of the largest oil fields has peaked and is beginning to decline. Offshore drilling by Western oil companies has so far produced mixed results. China probably has large untapped oil reserves in the far west, but developing these fields and transporting the oil to markets will require large investments.

China's other mineral resources include iron, tin, tungsten, and many rare earths. China produces a full range of industrial products, from light industrial consumer goods to satellite launch systems. Chinese products lag behind Western standards in quality and design, however, and there is considerable demand for imported consumer durables as well as high-technology products. The policy of "reform and opening" has promoted the growth of joint ventures, which produce a variety of products for both the domestic market and export.

While growth has been both rapid and impressive, it has also outstripped supplies of energy and raw materials. Efficiency has suffered from bottlenecks in transportation and telecommunications. Energy and transport bottlenecks in particular will persist through the 1990s, with electricity supplies likely to be an important concern for many enterprises.

Foreign trade has grown rapidly since China opened to the outside world. At the end of the last decade, textiles overtook oil and coal as the main foreign exchange earner. In 1995, exports of mechanical and electrical products exceeded textile exports for the first time. Other leading exports include footwear, toys, travel goods, plastic articles, and steel products. China imports grain, timber, essential raw materials, high-technology goods, petroleum, aircraft, and machinery.

While reforms have brought about tremendous growth and societal changes, concerns about social stability have inhibited the implementation of potentially painful reforms needed to sustain China's rapid economic growth. China will face enormous social and economic challenges during the remaining years of this century.

Transportation

Local

A well-developed rail system exists in the densely populated eastern half of the country. Passenger service, including sleeping car accommodations, is available between all major cities. Domestic air service is extensive, and routes are now serviced almost entirely by jets, many of them American made. On less important routes, one finds a mixture of Russian-built turboprops and Chinese or Russian propeller planes. Transportation costs are high.

Taxi stands with English-speaking dispatchers are widely available in Beijing, and taxis of all shapes and sizes congregate in areas frequented by Westerners in the hopes of getting a fare or can be hailed on the street.

In Beijing, most taxis are metered and charge about $1.45 at flag-down and $0.36 per kilometer. The fares are set, and passengers need not worry about being overcharged unless they enter a taxi without a meter in it. Receipts may be requested for payment. Taxi drivers normally do not expect tips, since tipping technically is illegal in China.

Regional

China follows a right-hand drive pattern, but a number of unique practices can make driving confusing for foreigners. Main roads are wide and in good repair, but the numerous pedestrians and bicycles make driving hazardous and often stressful. It snows in Beijing and Shenyang, but the streets are quickly cleared.

Nonstop international air service links Beijing with Japan and many cities in Europe, Southeast Asia, and Australia. Northwest has recently begun nonstop service to Detroit.

Communications

Telephone and Telegraph

Many improvements in telephone service have been made in recent years. The Chinese telephone system is quickly becoming a system meeting U.S. standards. An example of this is the addition of IDD lines. However, the new arrival may experience some frustration when dealing with the Chinese system. The monthly rate for basic service is comparable to that in the U.S.

International calls may be made to most parts of the world and English-speaking operators are on duty 24 hours daily. Connections to the U.S. and other countries are good, and the cost is comparable to that in the U.S. Both AT&T and Sprint offer access to the U.S. telephone system via a direct-dial number that can be accessed from apartment telephones and many public telephones in Beijing.

Domestic and international telex and telegraphic service is quick and reliable but can be expensive.

Computer Telecommunications

Beijing is undergoing a telecommunications revolution. In June 1995, commercial vendors began offering full Internet access at 9,600 baud data rates. Service providers are user unfriendly, but with perseverance, it is possible to establish an electronic mail link through the Internet. Lines, however, are unreliable, and frequent interruptions are common. Despite these problems, given the current rate of development, it is likely that Internet connections from other parts of China will soon be available as well.

Radio and Television

In addition to Chinese-language programming, local AM and FM radio stations now have daily news and feature programs in English, and regularly broadcast Western classical and pop music. A short-wave radio will provide you with the opportunity to listen to VOA, BBC, Radio Australia, and other English-language broadcasts.

Two to five TV channels can be received in most cities, with virtually all programs in color. While most programs are in Chinese, the national network, CCTV, and municipal stations in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou broadcast English-language news programs six evenings a week. Popular American television programs are occasionally broadcast in Chinese.

Newspapers, Magazines, and Technical Journals

Since 1981, the Chinese authorities have been publishing the English-language China Daily, which appears 6 days a week. This newspaper contains local and international news, business reports, a sports page with scores from around the world, and several local features.

The International Herald Tribune, the Asian Wall Street Journal, Time, Newsweek, and some other American and European periodicals can be purchased in some hotels and bookstores in many major cities.

Health and Medicine

Medical Facilities

While there are no expatriate hospitals, there are two expatriate clinics. The International Medical Center is a joint venture with a tie to the International SOS Assistance. There are several expatriate physicians at this clinic, which is open 24 hours. The Asia Emergency Assistance evacuation company also has a clinic near the Ta Yuan diplomatic compound. Like everything imported into China, the care at these clinics is expensive. They have had problems importing vaccines and medicines, and only time will tell if these problems will be solved.

The dental facilities in Beijing are adequate for minor procedures such as routine fillings. There are two small expatriate dental clinics in Beijing, but their capabilities are limited. Individuals should have their routine dental work done before coming to Beijing. While there are several U.S.-trained orthodontists in Beijing, there are some concerns about infection control, and customer satisfaction has been mixed at best.

Most hospitals in China will not accept medical insurance from the United States. Travelers will be asked to post a deposit prior to admission to cover the expected cost of treatment. Many hospitals in major cities may accept credit cards for payment. Even in the VIP/Foreigner wards of major hospitals, however, American patients have frequently encountered difficulty due to cultural and regulatory differences. Physicians and hospitals have sometimes refused to supply American patients with complete copies of their Chinese hospital medical records, including laboratory test results, scans, and x-rays. All Americans traveling to China are strongly encouraged to buy foreign medical care and medical evacuation insurance prior to arrival. Travelers who want a list of modern medical facilities in China can e-mail the United States Embassy's American Citizen Services unit at [email protected] and request a list by return e-mail.

Ambulances do not carry sophisticated medical equipment, and ambulance personnel generally have little or no medical training. Therefore, injured or seriously ill Americans may be required to take taxis or other immediately available vehicles to the nearest major hospital rather than waiting for ambulances to arrive. In rural areas, only rudimentary medical facilities are generally available. Medical personnel in rural areas are often poorly trained, have little medical equipment or availability to medications. Rural clinics are often reluctant to accept responsibility for treating foreigners, even in emergency situations.

Preventive Measures

Everyone should be current in their basic immunizations. In addition, the following are recommended for China: hepatitis B, Japanese B encephalitis (if staying more than 30 days), hepatitis A or gamma globulin, rabies for posts other than Beijing, and typhoid vaccines.

Overall, China is a healthier place than most countries in South Asia or Africa. Cholera, typhoid fever, and dysentery are not common, and most childhood diseases like measles and diphtheria are rare. Malaria prophylaxis is not needed except in Hainan Island and in areas near the Vietnam border.

Hepatitis is a major problem in China (types A, B, and E). Japanese encephalitis is still a threat during mosquito season. Since vaccines for these diseases require several series to provide full protection, please start them as soon as possible. Air pollution is bad in China and especially so in Beijing and Shenyang. Anyone with a chronic respiratory problem like asthma should not come to China. In the winter, severe dryness aggravates mucous membranes, and colds are common. Travelers should consult their doctor prior to travel and consider the impact seasonal smog and heavy particulate pollution may have on them. Humidifiers are essential for winters in Beijing and Shenyang. Because of the high population density of people, pigs, and water-fowl, China is a breeding ground for influenza. Annual influenza vaccination is recommended, especially for those with chronic illnesses. Upper respiratory infection is the most common disease seen at the Medical Unit.

Most roads and towns in Tibet, Qinghai, parts of Xinjiang, and western Sichuan are situated at altitudes over 10,000 feet. Travelers should seek medical advice in advance of travel, allow time for acclimatization to the high altitude, and remain alert to signs of altitude sickness. HIV has become a significant concern in China. Travelers should always ask doctors and dentists to use sterilized equipment and be prepared to pay for new syringe needles in hospitals or clinics.

Water must be boiled for drinking, and it is full of sediments and minerals. A water distiller is highly recommended for Beijing and Chengdu. Night soil is still used for vegetables, and all vegetables should be soaked in a chlorine solution. The fluoride level in China is low, and a supplement is necessary for young children.

Please bring plenty of over-the-counter medicines like acetaminophen (Tylenol), cold medicines, and skin lotions or creams. These items are available locally but are more expensive. An extra pair of eyeglasses or contact lenses is recommended. The dusty atmosphere is especially hard on contact lenses.

Families with small children are advised to bring a cold mist vaporizer, which is helpful in dealing with the winter respiratory illnesses of the young. A heating pad may also be useful.

NOTES FOR TRAVELERS

Passage, Customs & Duties

A valid passport and visa are required to enter China. Americans arriving without valid passports and the appropriate Chinese visa are not permitted to enter and will be subject to a fine and immediate deportation at the traveler's expense. Travelers should not rely on Chinese host organizations claiming to be able to arrange a visa upon arrival.

Visas are required to transit China. Persons transiting China on the way to and from Mongolia or North Korea or who plan to re-enter from the Hong Kong or Macau Special Administrative Regions should be sure to obtain visas allowing multiple entries. Permits are required to visit Tibet as well as many remote areas not normally open to foreigners.

For information about entry requirements and restricted areas, travelers may consult the Embassy of the People's Republic of China (PRC) at 2300 Connecticut Avenue N.W., Washington. D.C. 20008, or telephone (1-202) 328-2500, 2501 or 2502. For a list of services and frequently asked visa questions and answers, travelers can view the Chinese Embassy's web sites at http://www.china-embassy.org, or [email protected]. There are Chinese Consulates General in Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco. Americans traveling in Asia have been able to obtain visas to enter China from the Chinese visa office in Hong Kong and the Embassy of the People's Republic of China in Seoul, South Korea.

Americans who overstay or otherwise violate the terms of their Chinese visas will be subject to fines and departure delays and may be subject to detention. Travelers should note that international flights departing China are routinely overbooked, making reconfirmation of departure reservations and early airport check-in essential. Passengers must pay a RMB 100 airport user fee (approximately $12 US) when departing China on international flights and RMB 60 airport fee (approximately US $7.20) for all domestic flights.

Chinese customs authorities enforce strict regulations concerning temporary importation into or export from China of items such as antiquities, banned publications or vehicles not conforming to Chinese standards. Information concerning regulations and procedures governing items that may be brought into China is available through the Chinese Embassy and Consulates in the United States. Students may bring into China only a limited number of items that are considered necessary for study and daily life. Some U.S. citizens residing in China have been required to pay customs duty on certain high-value items when departing China because procedures were not followed when the items were originally brought into China.

Americans in China who are not staying at hotels, including Americans who are staying with friends or relatives, must register with local police. Americans who are questioned by police should immediately notify the U.S. Embassy or the nearest consulate. Foreigners detained for questioning may not be allowed to contact their national authorities until the questioning is concluded. Foreigners detained pending trial have often waited over a year for their trial to begin. Americans are rarely granted bail. Criminal punishments, especially prison terms, are more severe than in the United States. Persons violating the law, even unknowingly, may be expelled, arrested or imprisoned. Criminal penalties for possession, use, or trafficking of illegal drugs are strict, and convicted offenders can expect severe jail sentences and fines. Non-American foreigners have been executed for drug offenses. Several Americans currently incarcerated in China have been implicated in financial fraud schemes involving falsified banking or business documents, tax evasion schemes and assisting alien smuggling, including selling passports.

In the past, protesters detained for engaging in pro-Falun Gong activities have been deported quickly from China. Several of these protesters alleged they were physically abused during their detention. In addition, they alleged that personal property including clothing, cameras and computers had not always been returned to them upon their deportation. Chinese authorities report while they have deported these foreigners quickly after public demonstrations in favor of the Falun Gong, future adherents who intentionally arrive in China to protest against Chinese policy may receive longer terms of detention and possibly face prison sentences.

Chinese authorities have seized documents, literature, and letters that they deem to be pornographic, political in nature, or intended for religious proselytism. Persons seeking to enter China with religious materials in a quantity deemed to be greater than that needed for personal use may be detained and fined. Chinese customs authorities may seize books, films, records, tapes, and compact disks to determine if they violate Chinese prohibitions. Individuals believed to be engaged in religious proselytism or in conduct Chinese officials consider immoral or inappropriate have been detained and expelled.

PRC authorities occasionally confiscate passports and levy exit bans against persons involved in commercial or other disputes. The U.S. Embassy or Consulate General will make inquiries with local authorities to ensure that the U.S. citizen's rights under the U.S.-China Bilateral Consular Convention are honored. The individual usually is not taken into custody, but is sometimes confined to a hotel or other facility until the dispute is resolved. The U.S. Embassy or Consulate General will issue another passport to any U.S. citizen who applies for one under these circumstances; however, even with a new U.S. passport, Chinese authorities will often block departure by refusing to provide a visa for exit purposes.

U.S. citizens other than tourists at major hotels are encouraged to register at the U.S. Embassy or at one of the U.S. Consulates General in China. They may also obtain updated information on travel and security within the country at the Embassy or Consulates General. It is possible to register from the United States via the Internet through the U.S. Embassy's home page at http://www.usembassychina.org.cn.

Beijing: The U.S. Embassy in China is located at 2 Xiu Shui Dong Jie, Beijing 100600, telephone: (86-10) 6532-3431, 6532-3831, and after-hours: (86-10) 6532-1910; fax (86-10) 6532-4153. The U.S. Embassy web site address is http://www.usembassy-china.org.cn and the e-mail address is [email protected]. The Embassy consular district includes the following provinces/regions of China: Beijing, Tianjin, Shandong, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, Ningxia, Shaanxi, Qinghai, Xinjiang, Hebei, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, and Jiangxi.

Chengdu: The U.S. Consulate General in Chengdu is located at Number 4, Lingshiguan Road, Section 4, Renmin Nanlu, Chengdu 610041, telephone: (86-28) 558-3992, 555-3119; fax (86-28) 558-3520; after-hours (86-0) 1370016002102. This consular district includes the following provinces/regions of China: Guizhou, Sichuan Xizang (Tibet), and Yunnan, as well as the municipality of Chongqing.

Guangzhou: The U.S. Consulate General in Guangzhou is located at Number 1 South Shamian Street, Shamian Island 200S1, Guangzhou 510133; telephone: (86-20) 8121-8418; after-hours: (86-)139-0229-3169; fax: (86-20) 8121-8428. This consular district includes the following provinces/regions of China: Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan, and Fujian.

Shanghai: The U.S. Consulate General in Shanghai is located at 1469 Huaihai Zhonglu, Shanghai 200031 telephone: (86-21) 6433-6880, after-hours: (86-21) 6433-3936; fax: (86-21) 6433-4122, 6471-1148. This consular district includes the following provinces/regions of China: Shanghai, Anhui, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang.

Shenyang: The U.S. Consulate General in Shenyang is located at No. 52, 14th Wei Road, Heping District, Shenyang 110003, telephone: (86-24) 2322-1198, 2322-0368; after-hours: (86-0) 1370016002110; fax (86-24) 2322-2374. This consular district includes the following provinces/regions of China: Liaoning, Heilongjiang, and Jilin.

Currency, Banking and Weights and Measures

Chinese currency (yuan) may not be brought into or taken out of China. Travelers checks, Hong Kong dollars, and U.S. currency may be exchanged at international airports, hotels, and government shops operating exclusively for foreigners.

Most exchange points require an official exchange certificate to reconvert RMB to U.S. dollars. Be sure to save all receipts, therefore, when you change money upon arrival.

China's weights and measures are based on the metric system. However, a common unit of weight is the "jin," which is equivalent to one-half kilo.

Pets

Beijing: Starting May 1, 1995, the Beijing Municipal Government has implemented new regulations strictly controlling the registration of dogs in urban areas (limitations on size and breeds).

There are no similar restrictions against cats; however, there is a 1,000 RMB fee ($118) payable at customs, and a general rule holding that only one pet per employee may be imported. Cats also need proof of a rabies shot (within the last year) and a certificate of good health dated no more than 30 days before arrival. While Chinese regulations call for a 1-month quarantine for cats in Chinese-designated facilities, health officials at the airport so far are allowing owners to "quarantine" the cat at home, but admonish owners to keep the cat indoors at all times and inform owners that during the month health officials have the right to come to the apartment to "inspect" the cat. No cat owner so far has reported such inspection visits.

The China Travel Service will not send unaccompanied pets from Hong Kong. You must make arrangements to ship your pet on a direct air route to Beijing.

Guangzhou: Official Chinese policy varies by locality. Most hotels will not accept dogs or cats.

Shanghai: Dogs cannot be let out on the streets of Shanghai and are limited to the grounds of your house or apartment complex. Dogs and cats must have valid rabies and health certificates accompanying them and will be inspected on arrival by local health officials. Authorities currently do not impose a quarantine. After arrival, dogs must be registered with the Public Security Bureau, which will then issue individual identification cards. Cats are legal and do not have to be registered but are governed by the same regulations outlined for dogs. No facilities are available in Shanghai for boarding your pets. Pets should be shipped to Shanghai as check-in baggage.

Shenyang: Dogs and cats are available in the marketplace.

Chengdu: Pets are prohibited in Chengdu. There are no local kennels or veterinarians.

Disaster Preparedness

Some areas of China frequented by Americans, notably Yunnan Province, are prone to earthquakes. Coastal areas of Hainan, Guangdong, Fujian, and Zhejiang provinces are subject to typhoons during the summer rainy season. General information about natural disaster preparedness is available via the Internet from the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) at http://www.fema.gov. Travelers should check weather conditions for cities and areas in China prior to departure. Winter weather and summer typhoons often cause the closure of airports in some parts of the country.

LOCAL HOLIDAYS

Jan.1 & 2 New Year's Day

Feb. Chinese New Year*

Feb. Spring Festival*

Apr. Qing Ming*

Mar. 8 Women's Day

May 1 Labor Day

May 4 Youth Day

May/June Dragon Boat Festival*

July 1 Communist Party Foundation

Aug. 1 People's Liberation Army Day

Aug. 25The Daughter's Festival (Chinese Valentines Day)

Sept/Oct. Mid-Autumn Festival

Oct. 1 P.R. China's Birthday

Oct. 2 National Day

*variable

RECOMMENDED READING

These titles are provided as a general indication of the material published on this country. The Department of State does not endorse unofficial publications.

Bao, Betty. Spring Moon. New York:Avon Books, 1981.

Barme, Geremie and John Minford. Seeds of Fire: Chinese Voices of Conscience. New York: Hill and Wang, 1988.

Behr, Edward. The Last Emperor. Futura, 1987.

Bernstein, Richard. From the Center of the Earth: The Search for the Truth about China. Boston: Little, Brown, 1982.

Biennendijk, Hans, ed. National Negotiating Styles. Washington, D.C.: Department of State. 1987.

Butterfield, Fox. China: Alive in the Bitter Sea. New York: Times Books, 1982.

Cheng, Nien. Life and Death in Shanghai. New York: State Books, 1986.

Fairbank, John K. The Great Chinese Revolution, 1800-1985. New York: Harper and Row, 1987.

Fraser, John. The Chinese: Portrait of a People. New York: Summit Books, 1980.

Garside, Roger. Coming Alive: China After Mao. New York: McGraw Hill, 1981.

Harding, Harry. China's Foreign Relations in the 1980s. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984.

. China's Second RevolutionReform After Mao. Washington, D.C.: Brookings, 1987.

Kane, Anthony J., ed. China Briefing, 1988. New York: The Asia Society, 1988.

Kao, Mayching, ed. 20th Century Chinese Painting. Hong Kong/New York: Oxford University Press, 1988.

Kaplan, Frederick M., et al. Encyclopedia of China Today. New York: Harper and Row, 1981.

MacFarquar, Roderick. The Origins of the Cultural RevolutionThe Great Leap Forward. Vols. 1 and 2. Columbia University Press, 1983.

Nagel's Encyclopedia Guide. China. Geneva: Nagel Publishers, 1987.

Orleans, Leo A. Chinese Students in America: Policies, Issues and Numbers. Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1988.

Saltzman, Mark. Iron and Silk. New York: Random House, 1987.

Schell, Orville. Discos and Democracy: China in the Throes of Reform. New York: Pantheon Books, 1988.

Sivin, Nathan, ed. The Contemporary Atlas of China. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1988.

Spence, Jonathan D. The Search for Modern China. W.W. Norton & Co., 1990.

. To Change China: Western Advisors in China 1620-1960. New York: Penguin, 1980.

Theroux, Paul. Riding the Iron Rooster: By Train Through China. New York: Putnam, 1988.

Thubron, Colin. Behind the Wall: A Journey Through China. Atlantic Monthly Press, 1988.

Tiziano, Terzani. Behind the Forbidden Door: Travels in Unknown China. New York: H. Holt & Co., 1988.

Tuchman, Barbara. Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1911-45. New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1971.

U.S. Government (DA pamphlet: 550-60). China: A Country Study. Washington, D.C.: for sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1981.

Recommended Reading for Hong Kong

These titles are provided as a general indication of the material published on Hong Kong.

Books

American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong. Living In Hong Kong. (9th edition).

American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong and The Institute of International Education. Returning to Hong Kong: The Hong Kong Employment Guide for Graduates of Overseas Universities. (annual editions)

Baker, Hugh. Hong Kong Images: People & Animals. Hong Kong University Press, 1990.

Cameron, Nigel. An Illustrated History of Hong Kong. Oxford University Press, 1991.

Cresswell, Colin M. The Taipans: Hong Kong's Merchant Princes. Oxford University Press, 1991.

Coates, Austin. Myself a Mandarin: Memoirs of a Special Magistrate. Oxford University Press, 1991.

Endacott, G.B. A History of Hong Kong. Oxford University Press, 1987.

Enright, M., Scott, E. & Dodwell, D. The Hong Kong Advantage. Oxford University Press, 1997.

Gershman, Suzy. Born to Shop: Hong Kong. MacMillan, 1997.

Hoe, Susana. Private Life of Old Hong Kong. Oxford University Press, 1991.

Hong Kong Government Information Services. Hong Kong 1997. Hong Kong Government Printing Department, 1997 (last in annual series under British administration).

Insight Guide to Hong Kong. APAProductions, 1998.

Lau Siukai and Kuan Hsinchi. The Ethos of the Hong Kong Chinese. Coronet Books, 1989.

Mo, Timothy. An Insular Possession. Random House, 1987.

Mo, Timothy. Monkey King. William Morrow, 1987.

Miners, Norman. The Government and Politics of Hong Kong. (5th ed. revised) Oxford University Press, 1996.

Morris, Jan. Hong Kong: Epilogue to an Empire (Vintage Departures). Vintage Books, 1997.

O'Reilly & Habegger, Travelers'Tales of Hong Kong. O'Reilly & Assts, Inc., 1996.

Rodwell, Sally. Historic Hong Kong. The Guidebook Co., 1991.

Schepel, Kaarlo. Magic Walks (vols. 1,2, &3). The Alternate Press, 1992.

Storey, Robert. Lonely Planet Hong Kong, Macau and Guangzhou Travel Survival Kit. Lonely Planet Publishing, 1997.

Wei, Betty Peh-Ti & Li, Elizabeth. Culture Shock! Hong Kong. Graphic Arts Center Publishing Co., 1994.

Welsh, Frank. A Borrowed Place: The History of Hong Kong. Kodansha, 1993.

Recommended Web Sites

Department of State
http://www.state.gov

Consulate General Home Page
http://www.usia.gov/posts/hong_kong.html

Hong Kong Government Official Information Site
http://www.info.gov.hk

Hong Kong Tourism Association
http://www.hkta.org

American Chamber of Commerce Hong Kong
http://www.amcham.org.hk

Hong Kong Telecom
http://www.netvigator.com

Hong Kong International School
http://www.hkis.edu.hk

English Schools Foundation
http://www.esf.edu.hk

German Swiss International School
http://home.netvigator.com/-gsis

Chinese International School
http://www.hk.super.net/-cis

Parkview International Pre-school
http://www.hk.super.net/pips

Carmel School Hong Kong
http://www.carmel.edu.hk Canadian Academy
http://canada.canacad.acjp/canacad/welcome.html

Morrison Academy-Taichung
http://www.xc.org/mk/schools/morrison

Brent School
http://www.wco.com/brent

University of the Sacred Heart
http://www.u-sacred-heart.acjp

Chinese University of Hong Kong
http://www.cuhk.edu.hk

City University of Hong Kong
http://www.cityu.edu.hk

Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts
http://www.hkapa.edu.hk

Hong Kong Baptist University
http://www.hkbu.edu.hk Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
http://www.ust.hk

Lingnan College
http://www.1n.edu.hk

Open University of Hong Kong
http://www.ouhk.edu.hk

University of Hong Kong
http://www.hku.hk

South China Morning Post
http://www.scmp.com

Hong Kong Standard
http://www.hkstandard.com

Far East Economic Review
http://www.feer.com

Asia Television (ATV)
http://www.hkstar.com/atv/home.html

Television Video Broadcasting (TVB)
http://www.tvb.com.hk

China

views updated May 11 2018

China

PROFILE
PEOPLE
HISTORY
GOVERNMENT
POLITICAL CONDITIONS
ECONOMY
FOREIGN RELATIONS
DEFENSE
U.S.-CHINA RELATIONS
TRAVEL

Compiled from the October 2007 Background Note and supplemented with additional information from the State Department and the editors of this volume. See the introduction to this set for explanatory notes.

Official Name:

People's Republic of China

PROFILE

Geography

Total area: 9,596,960 sq. km. (about 3.7 million sq. mi.).

Cities: Capital—Beijing. Other major cities—Shanghai, Tianjin, Shenyang, Wuhan, Guangzhou, Chongqing, Harbin, Chengdu.

Terrain: Plains, deltas, and hills in east; mountains, high plateaus, deserts in west.

Climate: Tropical in south to subarctic in north.

People

Nationality: Noun and adjective—Chinese (singular and plural).

Population: (July 2007 est.) 1,321,851,888.

Population growth rate: (2006 est.) 0.6%.

Health: (2007 est.) Infant mortality rate—22.12/1,000. Life expectancy—72.88 years (overall); 71.13 years for males, 74.82 years for females.

Ethnic groups: Han Chinese—91.9%; Zhuang, Manchu, Hui, Miao, Uygur, Yi, Mongolian, Tibetan, Buyi, Korean, and other—8.1%.

Religions: Officially atheist; Taoism, Buddhism, Islam, Christianity.

Languages: Mandarin (Putong-hua), plus many local dialects.

Education: Years compulsory—9. Literacy—90.9%.

Work force: (2006 est., 798 million) Agriculture and forestry—45%; industry—24%; services—31%.

Government

Type: Communist party-led state.

Constitution: December 4, 1982.

Independence: Unification under the Qin (Ch′in) Dynasty 221 BC; Qing (Ch’ing or Manchu) Dynasty replaced by a republic on February 12, 1912; People's Republic established October 1, 1949.

Government branches: Executive—president, vice president, State Council, premier. Legislative—unicameral National People's Congress. Judicial—Supreme People's Court.

Political subdivisions: 23 provinces (the P.R.C. considers Taiwan to be its 23rd province); 5 autonomous regions, including Tibet; 4 municipalities directly under the State Council.

Political parties: Chinese Communist Party, 70.8 million members; 8 minor parties under communist supervision.

Suffrage: Universal at 18.

Economy

GDP: (2006) $2.68 trillion (exchange rate based).

Per capita GDP: (2006) $2,034 (exchange rate based).

GDP real growth rate: (2006) 10.7%.

Natural resources: Coal, iron ore, crude oil, mercury, tin, tungsten, antimony, manganese, molybdenum, vanadium, magnetite, aluminum, lead, zinc, uranium, hydropower potential (world's largest).

Agriculture: Products—Among the world's largest producers of rice, wheat, potatoes, corn, peanuts, tea, millet, barley; commercial crops include cotton, other fibers, apples, oilseeds, pork and fish; produces variety of livestock products.

Industry: Types—mining and ore processing; iron; steel; aluminum; coal, machinery; textiles and apparel; armaments; petroleum; cement; chemicals; fertilizers; consumer products including footwear, toys, and electronics; automobiles and other transportation equipment including rail cars and locomotives, ships, and aircraft; and telecommunications.

Trade: (2006) Exports—$969.3 billion: electronics; machinery; apparel; optical, photographic, and medical equipment; and furniture. Main partners—United States, Hong Kong, Japan, EU, South Korea, Singapore. Imports—$791.8 billion: electronics, machinery, mineral fuel and oil, chemicals, plastic. Main partners—Japan, EU, Taiwan, South Korea, United States, Malaysia, Australia.

PEOPLE

Ethnic Groups

The largest ethnic group is the Han Chinese, who constitute about 91.9% of the total population. The remaining 8.1% are Zhuang (16 million), Manchu (10 million), Hui (9 million), Miao (8 million), Uygur (7 million), Yi (7 million), Mongolian (5 million), Tibetan (5 million), Buyi (3 million), Korean (2 million), and other ethnic minorities.

Language

There are seven major Chinese dialects and many subdialects. Mandarin (or Putonghua), the predominant dialect, is spoken by over 70% of the population. It is taught in all schools and is the medium of government. About two-thirds of the Han ethnic group are native speakers of Mandarin; the rest, concentrated in southwest and southeast China, speak one of the six other major Chinese dialects. Non-Chinese languages spoken widely by ethnic minorities include Mongolian, Tibetan, Uygur and other Turkic languages (in Xinjiang), and Korean (in the northeast).

The Pinyin System of Romanization

On January 1, 1979, the Chinese Government officially adopted the pinyin system for spelling Chinese names and places in Roman letters. A system of Romanization invented by the Chinese, pinyin has long been widely used in China on street and commercial signs as well as in elementary Chinese textbooks as an aid in learning Chinese characters. Variations of pinyin also are used as the written forms of several minority languages.

Pinyin has now replaced other conventional spellings in China's English-language publications. The U.S. Government also has adopted the pinyin system for all names and places in China. For example, the capital of China is now spelled “Beijing” rather than “Peking.”

Religion

Religion plays a significant part in the life of many Chinese. Buddhism is most widely practiced, with an estimated 100 million adherents. Traditional Taoism also is practiced. Official figures indicate there are 20 million Muslims, 5 million Catholics, and 15 million Protestants; unofficial estimates are much higher.

While the Chinese constitution affirms religious toleration, the Chinese Government places restrictions on religious practice outside officially recognized organizations. Only two Christian organizations—a Catholic church without official ties to Rome and the “Three-Self-Patriotic” Protestant church—are sanctioned by the Chinese Government. Unauthorized churches have sprung up in many parts of the country and unofficial religious practice is flourishing. In some regions authorities have tried to control activities of these unregistered churches. In other regions, registered and unregistered groups are treated similarly by authorities and congregations worship in both types of churches. Most Chinese Catholic bishops are recognized by the Pope, and official priests have Vatican approval to administer all the sacraments.

Population Policy

With a population officially just over 1.3 billion and an estimated growth rate of about 0.6%, China is very concerned about its population growth and has attempted with mixed results to implement a strict birth limitation policy. China's 2002 Population and Family Planning Law and policy permit one child per family, with allowance for a second child under certain circumstances, especially in rural areas, and with guidelines looser for ethnic minorities with small populations. Enforcement varies, and relies largely on “social compensation fees” to discourage extra births.

Official government policy opposes forced abortion or sterilization, but in some localities there are instances of forced abortion. The government's goal is to stabilize the population in the first half of the 21st century, and current projections are that the population will peak at around 1.6 billion by 2050.

HISTORY

Dynastic Period

China is the oldest continuous major world civilization, with records dating back about 3,500 years. Successive dynasties developed a system of bureaucratic control that gave the agrarian-based Chinese an advantage over neighboring nomadic and hill cultures. Chinese civilization was further strengthened by the development of a Confucian state ideology and a common written language that bridged the gaps among the country's many local languages and dialects. Whenever China was conquered by nomadic tribes, as it was by the Mongols in the 13th century, the conquerors sooner or later adopted the ways of the “higher” Chinese civilization and staffed the bureaucracy with Chinese.

The last dynasty was established in 1644, when the Manchus overthrew the native Ming dynasty and established the Qing (Ch’ing) dynasty with Beijing as its capital. At great expense in blood and treasure, the Manchus over the next half century gained control of many border areas, including Xinjiang, Yunnan, Tibet, Mongolia, and Taiwan. The success of the early Qing period was based on the combination of Manchu martial prowess and traditional Chinese bureaucratic skills.

During the 19th century, Qing control weakened, and prosperity diminished. China suffered massive social strife, economic stagnation, explosive population growth, and Western penetration and influence. The Taiping and Nian rebellions, along with a Russian-supported Muslim separatist movement in Xinjiang, drained Chinese resources and almost toppled the dynasty. Britain's desire to continue its illegal opium trade with China collided with imperial edicts

prohibiting the addictive drug, and the First Opium War erupted in 1840. China lost the war; subsequently, Britain and other Western powers, including the United States, forcibly occupied “concessions” and gained special commercial privileges. Hong Kong was ceded to Britain in 1842 under the Treaty of Nanking, and in 1898, when the Opium Wars finally ended, Britain executed a 99-year lease of the New Territories, significantly expanding the size of the Hong Kong colony.

As time went on, the Western powers, wielding superior military technology, gained more economic and political privileges. Reformist Chinese officials argued for the adoption of Western technology to strengthen the dynasty and counter Western advances, but the Qing court played down both the Western threat and the benefits of Western technology.

Early 20th Century China

Frustrated by the Qing court's resistance to reform, young officials, military officers, and students—inspired by the revolutionary ideas of Sun Yat-sen—began to advocate the over-throw of the Qing dynasty and creation of a republic. A revolutionary military uprising on October 10, 1911, led to the abdication of the last Qing monarch. As part of a compromise to overthrow the dynasty without a civil war, the revolutionaries and reformers allowed high Qing officials to retain prominent positions in the new republic. One of these figures, Gen. Yuan Shikai, was chosen as the republic's first president. Before his death in 1916, Yuan unsuccessfully attempted to name himself emperor. His death left the republican government all but shattered, ushering in the era of the “warlords” during which China was ruled and ravaged by shifting coalitions of competing provincial military leaders. In the 1920s, Sun Yat-sen established a revolutionary base in south China and set out to unite the fragmented nation. With Soviet assistance, he organized the Kuomintang (KMT or “Chinese Nationalist People's Party”), and entered into an alliance with the fledgling Chinese Communist Party (CCP). After Sun's death in 1925, one of his proteges, Chiang Kai-shek, seized control of the KMT and succeeded in bringing most of south and central China under its rule.

In 1927, Chiang turned on the CCP and executed many of its leaders. The remnants fled into the mountains of eastern China. In 1934, driven out of their mountain bases, the CCP's forces embarked on a “Long March” across some of China's most desolate terrain to the northwestern province of Shaanxi, where they established a guerrilla base at Yan’an.

During the “Long March,” the communists reorganized under a new leader, Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-tung). The bitter struggle between the KMT and the CCP continued openly or clandestinely through the 14-year long Japanese invasion (1931-45), even though the two parties nominally formed a united front to oppose the Japanese invaders in 1937. The war between the two parties resumed after the Japanese defeat in 1945. By 1949, the CCP occupied most of the country.

Chiang Kai-shek fled with the remnants of his KMT government and military forces to Taiwan, where he proclaimed Taipei to be China's “provisional capital” and vowed to re-conquer the Chinese mainland. Taiwan still calls itself the “Republic of China.”

The People's Republic of China

In Beijing, on October 1, 1949, Mao Zedong proclaimed the founding of the People's Republic of China (P.R.C.). The new government assumed control of a people exhausted by two generations of war and social conflict, and an economy ravaged by high inflation and disrupted transportation links. A new political and economic order modeled on the Soviet example was quickly installed.

In the early 1950s, China undertook a massive economic and social reconstruction program. The new leaders gained popular support by curbing inflation, restoring the economy, and rebuilding many war-damaged industrial plants. The CCP's authority reached into almost every aspect of Chinese life. Party control was assured by large, politically loyal security and military forces; a government apparatus responsive to party direction; and the placement of party members into leadership positions in labor, women's, and other mass organizations.

The “Great Leap Forward” and the Sino-Soviet Split

In 1958, Mao broke with the Soviet model and announced a new economic program, the “Great Leap Forward,” aimed at rapidly raising industrial and agricultural production. Giant cooperatives (communes) were formed, and “backyard factories” dotted the Chinese landscape. The results were disastrous. Normal market mechanisms were disrupted, agricultural production fell behind, and China's people exhausted themselves producing what turned out to be shoddy, un-salable goods. Within a year, starvation appeared even in fertile agricultural areas. From 1960 to 1961, the combination of poor planning during the Great Leap Forward and bad weather resulted in one of the deadliest famines in human history.

The already strained Sino-Soviet relationship deteriorated sharply in 1959, when the Soviets started to restrict the flow of scientific and technological information to China. The dispute escalated, and the Soviets withdrew all of their personnel from China in August 1960. In 1960, the Soviets and the Chinese began to have disputes openly in international forums.

The Cultural Revolution

In the early 1960s, State President Liu Shaoqi and his protege, Party General Secretary Deng Xiaoping, took over direction of the party and adopted pragmatic economic policies at odds with Mao's revolutionary vision. Dissatisfied with China's new direction and his own reduced authority, Party Chairman Mao launched a massive political attack on Liu, Deng, and other pragmatists in the spring of 1966. The new movement, the “Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution,” was unprecedented in communist history. For the first time, a section of the Chinese communist leadership sought to rally popular opposition against another leadership group. China was set on a course of political and social anarchy that lasted the better part of a decade.

In the early stages of the Cultural Revolution, Mao and his “closest comrade in arms,” National Defense Minister Lin Biao, charged Liu, Deng, and other top party leaders with dragging China back toward capitalism. Radical youth organizations, called Red Guards, attacked party and state organizations at all levels, seeking out leaders who would not bend to the radical wind. In reaction to this turmoil, some local People's Liberation Army (PLA) commanders and other officials maneuvered to outwardly back Mao and the radicals while actually taking steps to rein in local radical activity.

Gradually, Red Guard and other radical activity subsided, and the Chinese political situation stabilized along complex factional lines. The leadership conflict came to a head in September 1971, when Party Vice Chairman and Defense Minister Lin Biao reportedly tried to stage a coup against Mao; Lin Biao allegedly later died in a plane crash in Mongolia.

In the aftermath of the Lin Biao incident, many officials criticized and dismissed during 1966-69 were reinstated. Chief among these was Deng Xiaoping, who reemerged in 1973 and was confirmed in 1975 in the concurrent posts of Politburo Standing Committee member, PLA Chief of Staff, and Vice Premier. The ideological struggle between more pragmatic, veteran party officials and the radicals re-emerged with a vengeance in late 1975. Mao's wife, Jiang Qing, and three close Cultural Revolution associates (later dubbed the “Gang of Four”) launched a media campaign against Deng. In January 1976, Premier Zhou Enlai, a popular political figure, died of cancer. On April 5, Beijing citizens staged a spontaneous demonstration in Tiananmen Square in Zhou's memory, with strong political overtones of support for Deng. The authorities forcibly suppressed the demonstration. Deng was blamed for the disorder and stripped of all official positions, although he retained his party membership.

The Post-Mao Era

Mao's death in September 1976 removed a towering figure from Chinese politics and set off a scramble for succession. Former Minister of Public Security Hua Guofeng was quickly confirmed as Party Chairman and Premier. A month after Mao's death, Hua, backed by the PLA, arrested Jiang Qing and other members of the “Gang of Four.” After extensive deliberations, the Chinese Communist Party leadership reinstated Deng Xiaoping to all of his previous posts at the 11th Party Congress in August 1977. Deng then led the effort to place government control in the hands of veteran party officials opposed to the radical excesses of the previous two decades.

The new, pragmatic leadership emphasized economic development and renounced mass political movements. At the pivotal December 1978 Third Plenum (of the 11th Party Congress Central Committee), the leadership adopted economic reform policies aimed at expanding rural income and incentives, encouraging experiments in enterprise autonomy, reducing central planning, and attracting foreign direct investment into China. The plenum also decided to accelerate the pace of legal reform, culminating in the passage of several new legal codes by the National People's Congress in June 1979.

After 1979, the Chinese leadership moved toward more pragmatic positions in almost all fields. The party encouraged artists, writers, and journalists to adopt more critical approaches, although open attacks on party authority were not permitted. In late 1980, Mao's Cultural Revolution was officially proclaimed a catastrophe. Hua Guofeng, a protege of Mao, was replaced as premier in 1980 by reformist Sichuan party chief Zhao Ziyang and as party General Secretary in 1981 by the even more reformist Communist Youth League chairman Hu Yaobang.

Reform policies brought great improvements in the standard of living, especially for urban workers and for farmers who took advantage of opportunities to diversify crops and establish village industries. Literature and the arts blossomed, and Chinese intellectuals established extensive links with scholars in other countries.

At the same time, however, political dissent as well as social problems such as inflation, urban migration, and prostitution emerged. Although students and intellectuals urged greater reforms, some party elders increasingly questioned the pace and the ultimate goals of the reform program. In December 1986, student demonstrators, taking advantage of the loosening political atmosphere, staged protests against the slow pace of reform, confirming party elders’ fear that the current reform program was leading to social instability. Hu Yaobang, a protege of Deng and a leading advocate of reform, was blamed for the protests and forced to resign as CCP General Secretary in January 1987. Premier Zhao Ziyang was made General Secretary and Li Peng, former Vice Premier and Minister of Electric Power and Water Conservancy, was made Premier.

1989 Student Movement and Tiananmen Square

After Zhao became the party General Secretary, the economic and political reforms he had championed came under increasing attack. His proposal in May 1988 to accelerate price reform led to widespread popular complaints about rampant inflation and gave opponents of rapid reform the opening to call for greater centralization of economic controls and stricter prohibitions against Western influence. This precipitated a political debate, which grew more heated through the winter of 1988-89.

The death of Hu Yaobang on April 15, 1989, coupled with growing economic hardship caused by high inflation, provided the backdrop for a large-scale protest movement by students, intellectuals, and other parts of a disaffected urban population. University students and other citizens camped out in Beijing's Tiananmen Square to mourn Hu's death and to protest against those who would slow reform. Their protests, which grew despite government efforts to contain them, called for an end to official corruption and for defense of freedoms guaranteed by the Chinese constitution. Protests also spread to many other cities, including Shanghai, Chengdu, and Guangzhou.

Martial law was declared on May 20, 1989. Late on June 3 and early on the morning of June 4, military units were brought into Beijing. They used armed force to clear demonstrators from the streets. There are no official estimates of deaths in Beijing, but most observers believe that casualties numbered in the hundreds.

After June 4, while foreign governments expressed horror at the brutal suppression of the demonstrators, the central government eliminated remaining sources of organized opposition, detained large numbers of protesters, and required political reeducation not only for students but also for large numbers of party cadre and government officials.

Following the resurgence of conservatives in the aftermath of June 4, economic reform slowed until given new impetus by Deng Xiaoping's dramatic visit to southern China in early 1992. Deng's renewed push for a market-oriented economy received official sanction at the 14th Party Congress later in the year as a number of younger, reform-minded leaders began their rise to top positions. Deng and his supporters argued that managing the economy in a way that increased living standards should be China's primary policy objective, even if “capitalist” measures were adopted. Subsequent to the visit, the Communist Party Politburo publicly issued an endorsement of Deng's policies of economic openness. Though not completely eschewing political reform, China has consistently placed overwhelming priority on the opening of its economy.

Third Generation of Leaders

Deng's health deteriorated in the years prior to his death in 1997. During that time, President Jiang Zemin and other members of his generation gradually assumed control of the day-to-day functions of government. This “third generation” leadership governed collectively with President Jiang at the center. In March 1998, Jiang was re-elected President during the 9th National People's Congress. Premier Li Peng was constitutionally required to step down from that post. He was elected to the chairmanship of the National People's Congress. Zhu Rongji was selected to replace Li as Premier.

Fourth Generation of Leaders

In November 2002, the 16th Communist Party Congress elected Hu Jintao, who in 1992 was designated by Deng Xiaoping as the “core” of the fourth generation leaders, the new General Secretary. A new Politburo and Politburo Standing Committee was also elected in November. In March 2003, General Secretary Hu Jintao was elected President at the 10th National People's Congress. Jiang Zemin retained the chairmanship of the Central Military Commission. At the Fourth Party Plenum in September 2004, Jiang Zemin retired from the Central Military Commission, passing the Chairmanship and control of the People's Liberation Army to President Hu Jintao.

China is firmly committed to economic reform and opening to the outside world. The Chinese leadership has identified reform of state industries and the establishment of a social safety net as government priorities. Government strategies for achieving these goals include large-scale privatization of unprofitable state-owned enterprises and development of a pension system for workers. The leadership has also downsized the government bureaucracy.

The Next 5 Years

The next 5 years represent a critical period in China's development. To investors and firms, especially following China's accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, China represents a vast market that has yet to be fully tapped and a low-cost base for export-oriented production. Educationally, China is forging ahead as partnerships and exchanges with foreign universities have helped create new research opportunities for its students. China will host the Summer Olympics in 2008 and views this as an opportunity to showcase to the world China's development gains of the past two decades. The new leadership is committed to generating greater economic development in the interior and providing more services to those who do not live in China's coastal areas, goals that form the core of President Hu's concepts of a “harmonious society” and a “spiritual civilization.” However, there is still much that needs to change in China. Human rights issues remain a major concern, as does China's lack of effective controls to prevent proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD)-related materials and technology. Abatement of pollution and improvements in systems to ensure food, drug, and product safety are issues on which the United States has begun work with China.

GOVERNMENT

Chinese Communist Party

The 70.8 million member CCP, authoritarian in structure and ideology, continues to dominate government. Nevertheless, China's population, geographical vastness, and social diversity frustrate attempts to rule by fiat from Beijing. Central leaders must increasingly build consensus for new policies among party members, local and regional leaders, influential non-party members, and the population at large. In periods of greater openness, the influence of people and organizations outside the formal party structure has tended to increase, particularly in the economic realm. This phenomenon is most apparent today in the rapidly developing coastal region. Nevertheless, in all important government, economic, and cultural institutions in China, party committees work to see that party and state policy guidance is followed and that non-party members do not create autonomous organizations that could challenge party rule. Party control is tightest in government offices and in urban economic, industrial, and cultural settings; it is considerably looser in the rural areas, where the majority of the people live.

Theoretically, the party's highest body is the Party Congress, which traditionally meets at least once every 5 years. The 17th Party Congress took place in fall 2007. The primary organs of power in the Communist Party include:

  • The Politburo Standing Committee, which currently consists of nine members;
  • The Politburo, consisting of 24 full members, including the members of the Politburo Standing Committee;
  • The Secretariat, the principal administrative mechanism of the CCP, headed by the General Secretary;
  • The Central Military Commission;
  • The Discipline Inspection Commission, which is charged with rooting out corruption and malfeasance among party cadres.

State Structure

The Chinese Government has always been subordinate to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP); its role is to implement party policies. The primary organs of state power are the National People's Congress (NPC), the President (the head of state), and the State Council. Members of the State Council include Premier Wen Jiabao (the head of government), a variable number of vice premiers (now four), five state councilors (protocol equivalents of vice premiers but with narrower portfolios), and 22 ministers and four State Council commission directors.

Under the Chinese constitution, the NPC is the highest organ of state power in China. It meets annually for about 2 weeks to review and approve major new policy directions, laws, the budget, and major personnel changes. These initiatives are presented to the NPC for consideration by the State Council after previous endorsement by the Communist Party's Central Committee. Although the NPC generally approves State Council policy and personnel recommendations, various NPC committees hold active debate in closed sessions, and changes may be made to accommodate alternate views.

When the NPC is not in session, its permanent organ, the Standing Committee, exercises state power.

Principal Government Officials

Last Updated: 2/1/2008

Pres.: HU Jintao

Vice Pres.: ZENG Qinghong

Premier, State Council: WEN Jiabao

Executive Vice Premier, State Council:

Vice Premier, State Council: WU Yi

Vice Premier, State Council: ZENG Peiyan

Vice Premier, State Council: HUI Liangyu

State Councilor, State Council: ZHOU Yongkang

State Councilor, State Council: CAO Gangchuan

State Councilor, State Council: TANG Jiaxuan

State Councilor, State Council: HUA Jianmin

State Councilor, State Council: CHEN Zhili

Sec. Gen., State Council: HUA Jianmin

Chmn., Central Military Commission: HU Jintao

Min. in Charge of the National Defense Science, Technology, & Industry Commission: ZHANG Qingwei

Min. in Charge of the State Development Reform Commission: MA Kai

Min. in Charge of the State Population & Family Planning Commission: ZHANG Weiqing

Min. in Charge of the State Ethnic Affairs Commission: LI Dek Su (also known as LI Dezhu)

Min. of Agriculture: SUN Zhengcai

Min. of Civil Affairs: LI Xueju

Min. of Commerce: BO Xilai

Min. of Communications: LI Shenglin

Min. of Construction: WANG Guangtao

Min. of Culture: SUN Jiazheng

Min. of Education: ZHOU Ji

Min. of Finance: XIE Xuren

Min. of Foreign Affairs: YANG Jiechi

Min. of Health: CHEN Zhu

Min. of Information Industry: WANG Xudong

Min. of Justice: WU Aiying

Min. of Labor & Social Security: TIAN Chengping

Min. of Land & Natural Resources: XU Shaoshi

Min. of National Defense: CAO Gangchuan

Min. of Personnel: YIN Weimin

Min. of Public Security: MENG Jianzhu

Min. of Railways: LIU Zhijun

Min. of Science & Technology: WAN Gang

Min. of State Security: GENG Huichang

Min. of Supervision: MA Wen

Min. of Water Resources: CHEN Lei

Min., State Admin. of Work Safety: LI Yizhong

Governor, People's Bank of China: ZHOU Xiaochuan

Ambassador to the US: ZHOU Wenzhong

Permanent Representative to the UN, New York: WANG Guangya

POLITICAL CONDITIONS

Legal System

The government's efforts to promote rule of law are significant and ongoing. After the Cultural Revolution, China's leaders aimed to develop a legal system to restrain abuses of official authority and revolutionary excesses. In 1982, the National People's Congress adopted a new state constitution that emphasized the rule of law under which even party leaders are theoretically held accountable.

Since 1979, when the drive to establish a functioning legal system began, more than 300 laws and regulations, most of them in the economic area, have been promulgated. The use of mediation committees—informed groups of citizens who resolve about 90% of China's civil disputes and some minor criminal cases at no cost to the parties—is one innovative device. There are more than 800,000 such committees in both rural and urban areas.

Legal reform became a government priority in the 1990s. Legislation designed to modernize and professionalize the nation's lawyers, judges, and prisons was enacted. The 1994 Administrative Procedure Law allows citizens to sue officials for abuse of authority or malfeasance. In addition, the criminal law and the criminal procedures laws were amended to introduce significant reforms. The criminal law amendments abolished the crime of “counter-revolutionary” activity, although many persons are still incarcerated for that crime. Criminal procedures reforms also encouraged establishment of a more transparent, adversarial trial process. The Chinese constitution and laws provide for fundamental human rights, including due process, but these are often ignored in practice. In addition to other judicial reforms, the Constitution was amended in 2004 to include the protection of individual human rights and legally-obtained private property, but it is unclear how those provisions will be implemented. Although new criminal and civil laws have provided additional safeguards to citizens, previously debated political reforms, including expanding elections to the township level, and other legal reforms, including the reform of the reeducation through labor system, have been put on hold.

Human Rights

The State Department's 2006 China human rights and religious freedom reports noted China's well-documented and continuing abuses of human rights in violation of internationally recognized norms, stemming both from the authorities’ intolerance of dissent and the inadequacy of legal safeguards for basic freedoms. Reported abuses have included arbitrary and lengthy incommunicado detention, forced confessions, torture, and mistreatment of prisoners as well as severe restrictions on freedom of speech, the press, assembly, association, religion, privacy, worker rights, and coercive birth limitation.

In 2006, China continued the monitoring, harassment, intimidation, and arrest of journalists, Internet writers, defense lawyers, religious activists, and political dissidents. The activities of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), especially those relating to the rule of law and expansion of judicial review, continue to be restricted. The Chinese Government recognizes five official religions—Buddhism, Islam, Taoism, Catholicism, and Protestantism—and seeks to regulate religious groups and worship.

Religious believers who seek to practice their faith outside of state-controlled religious venues and unregistered religious groups and spiritual movements are subject to intimidation, harassment, and detention. In 2006, the Secretary of State again designated China as a “Country of Particular Concern” under the International Religious Freedom Act for particularly severe violations of religious freedom.

At the same time, China's economic growth and reform since 1978 has improved dramatically the lives of hundreds of millions of Chinese, increased social mobility, and expanded the scope of personal freedom. This has meant substantially greater freedom of travel, employment opportunity, educational and cultural pursuits, job and housing choices, and access to information. In recent years, China has also passed new criminal and civil laws that provide additional safeguards to citizens. Village elections have been carried out in over 90% of China's one million villages.

We have conducted 12 rounds of human rights dialogue with China since Tiananmen. During 2003 and 2004, no progress was made on the commitments China made at the 2002 dialogue, and we declined to schedule another round. The United States is prepared to resume our formal human rights dialogue with China, provided that the discussions are constructive. Although the formal human rights dialogue has not been resumed, the U.S. Government regularly raises human rights concerns with Chinese officials at all levels of government. In his April 2006 meeting with President Hu and in subsequent discussions, President Bush has emphasized U.S. interest in human rights and religious freedom in China.

ECONOMY

Economic Reforms

Since 1979, China has reformed and opened its economy. The Chinese leadership has adopted a more pragmatic perspective on many political and socioeconomic problems, and has reduced the role of ideology in economic policy. China's ongoing economic transformation has had a profound impact not only on China but on the world. The market-oriented reforms China has implemented over the past two decades have unleashed individual initiative and entrepreneurship. The result has been the largest reduction of poverty and one of the fastest increases in income levels ever seen. China today is the fourth-largest economy in the world. It has sustained average economic growth of over 9.5% for the past 26 years. In 2006 its $2.68 trillion economy was about one-fifth the size of the U.S. economy.

In the 1980s, China tried to combine central planning with market-oriented reforms to increase productivity, living standards, and technological quality without exacerbating inflation, unemployment, and budget deficits. China pursued agricultural reforms, dismantling the commune system and introducing a household-based system that provided peasants greater decision-making in agricultural activities. The government also encouraged nonagricultural activities such as village enterprises in rural areas, and promoted more self-management for state-owned enterprises, increased competition in the marketplace, and facilitated direct contact between Chinese and foreign trading enterprises. China also relied more upon foreign financing and imports.

During the 1980s, these reforms led to average annual rates of growth of 10% in agricultural and industrial output. Rural per capita real income doubled. China became self-sufficient in grain production; rural industries accounted for 23% of agricultural out-put, helping absorb surplus labor in the countryside. The variety of light industrial and consumer goods increased. Reforms began in the fiscal, financial, banking, price-setting, and labor systems.

By the late 1980s, however, the economy had become overheated with increasing rates of inflation. At the end of 1988, in reaction to a surge of inflation caused by accelerated price reforms, the leadership introduced an austerity program.

China's economy regained momentum in the early 1990s. During a visit to southern China in early 1992, China's paramount leader at the time, Deng Xiaoping, made a series of political pronouncements designed to reinvigorate the process of economic reform. The 14th Party Congress later in the year backed Deng's renewed push for market reforms, stating that China's key task in the 1990s was to create a “socialist market economy.” The 10-year development plan for the 1990s stressed continuity in the political system with bolder reform of the economic system.

Following the Chinese Communist Party's Third Plenum, held in October 2003, Chinese legislators unveiled several proposed amendments to the state constitution. One of the most significant was a proposal to provide protection for private property rights. Legislators also indicated there would be a new emphasis on certain aspects of overall government economic policy, including efforts to reduce unemployment (now in the 8-10% range in urban areas), to rebalance income distribution between urban and rural regions, and to maintain economic growth while protecting the environment and improving social equity. The National People's Congress approved the amendments when it met in March 2004. The Fifth Plenum in October 2005 approved the 11th Five-Year Economic Program aimed at building a “harmonious society” through more balanced wealth distribution and improved education, medical care, and social security.

Agriculture

China is the world's most populous country and one of the largest producers and consumers of agricultural products. Roughly half of China's labor force is engaged in agriculture, even though only 10% of the land is suitable for cultivation and agriculture contributes only 13% of China's GDP. China's cropland area is only 75% of the U.S. total, but China still produces about 30% more crops and livestock than the United States because of intensive cultivation, China is among the world's largest producers of rice, corn, wheat, soybeans, vegetables, tea, and pork. Major non-food crops include cotton, other fibers, and oilseeds. China hopes to further increase agricultural production through improved plant stocks, fertilizers, and technology. Incomes for Chinese farmers are stagnating, leading to an increasing wealth gap between the cities and countryside. Government policies that continue to emphasize grain self-sufficiency and the fact that farmers do not own—and cannot buy or sell—the land they work have contributed to this situation. In addition, inadequate port facilities and lack of warehousing and cold storage facilities impede both domestic and international agricultural trade.

Industry

Industry and construction account for about 46% of China's GDP. Major industries are mining and ore processing; iron; steel; aluminum; coal, machinery; textiles and apparel; armaments; petroleum; cement; chemicals; fertilizers; consumer products including footwear, toys, and electronics; automobiles and other transportation equipment including rail cars and locomotives, ships, and aircraft; and telecommunications.

China has become a preferred destination for the relocation of global manufacturing facilities. Its strength as an export platform has contributed to incomes and employment in China. The state-owned sector still accounts for about 40% of GDP. In recent years, authorities have been giving greater attention to the management of state assets—both in the financial market as well as among state-owned-enterprises—and progress has been noteworthy.

Regulatory Environment

Though China's economy has expanded rapidly, its regulatory environment has not kept pace. Since Deng Xiaoping's open market reforms, the growth of new businesses has outpaced the government's ability to regulate them. This has created a situation where businesses, faced with mounting competition and poor oversight, will be willing to take drastic measures to increase profit margins, often at the expense of consumer safety. This issue acquired more prominence in 2007, with a number of restrictions being placed on problematic Chinese exports by the United States. The Chinese Government recognizes the severity of the problem, recently concluding that up to 20% of the country's products are substandard or tainted.

Energy

Together with strong economic growth, China's demand for energy is surging rapidly. In 2003, China surpassed Japan to become the second-largest consumer of primary energy, after the United States. China is the world's second-largest consumer of oil, after the United States, and for 2006, China's increase in oil demand represented 38% of the world total increase in oil demand. China is also the third-largest energy producer in the world, after the United States and Russia. China's electricity consumption is expected to grow by over 4% a year through 2030, which will require more than $2 trillion in electricity infrastructure investment to meet the demand. China expects to add approximately 15,000 megawatts of generating capacity a year, with 20% of that coming from foreign suppliers.

Coal makes up the bulk of China's energy consumption (70% in 2005), and China is the largest producer and consumer of coal in the world. As China's economy continues to grow, China's coal demand is projected to rise significantly. Although coal's share of China's overall energy consumption will decrease, coal consumption will continue to rise in absolute terms. China's continued and increasing reliance on coal as a power source has contributed significantly to putting China on the path to becoming the world's largest emitter of acid rain-causing sulfur dioxide and green house gases, including carbon dioxide.

The 11th Five-Year Program, announced in 2005, calls for greater energy conservation measures, including development of renewable energy sources and increased attention to environmental protection. Moving away from coal towards cleaner energy sources including oil, natural gas, renewable energy, and nuclear power is an important component of China's development program. China has abundant hydroelectric resources; the Three Gorges Dam, for example, will have a total capacity of 18 gigawatts when fully on-line (projected for 2009). In addition, the share of electricity generated by nuclear power is projected to grow from 1% in 2000 to 5% in 2030. China's renewable energy law, which went into effect in 2006, calls for 10% of its energy to come from renewable energy sources by 2020.

Since 1993, China has been a net importer of oil, a large portion of which comes from the Middle East. Net imports are expected to rise to 3.5 million barrels per day by 2010. China is interested in diversifying the sources of its oil imports and has invested in oil fields around the world. Beijing also plans to increase China's natural gas production, which currently accounts for only 3% of China's total energy consumption. Analysts expect China's consumption of natural gas to more than double by 2010.

In May 2004, then-Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with China's National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) that launched the U.S.-China Energy Policy Dialogue. The Dialogue has strengthened energy-related interactions between China and the United States, the world's two largest energy consumers. The U.S.-China Energy Policy Dialogue builds upon the two countries’ existing cooperative ventures in high energy nuclear physics, fossil energy, energy efficiency and renewable energy and energy information exchanges. The NDRC and the Department of Energy also exchange views and expertise on Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Technologies, and we convene an annual Oil and Gas Industry Forum with China.

Environment

One of the serious negative consequences of China's rapid industrial development has been increased pollution and degradation of natural resources. China is widely expected to surpass the United States as the world's largest emitter of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases sometime in 2007 or 2008. A World Health Organization report on air quality in 272 cities worldwide concluded that seven of the world's 10 most polluted cities were in China. According to China's own evaluation, two-thirds of the 338 cities for which air-quality data are available are considered polluted—two-thirds of them moderately or severely so. Respiratory and heart diseases related to air pollution are the leading cause of death in China. Almost all of the nation's rivers are considered polluted to some degree, and half of the population lacks access to clean water. By some estimates, every day approximately 300 million residents drink contaminated water. Ninety percent of urban water bodies are severely polluted. Water scarcity also is an issue; for example, severe water scarcity in Northern China is a serious threat to sustained economic growth and the government has begun working on a project for a large-scale diversion of water from the Yangtze River to northern cities, including Beijing and Tianjin. Acid rain falls on 30% of the country. Various studies estimate pollution costs the Chinese economy 7%-10% of GDP each year.

China's leaders are increasingly paying attention to the country's severe environmental problems. In 1998, the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) was officially upgraded to a ministry-level agency, reflecting the growing importance the Chinese Government places on environmental protection. In recent years, China has strengthened its environmental legislation and made some progress in stemming environmental deterioration. In 2005, China joined the Asia Pacific Partnership on Clean Development, which brings industries and governments together to implement strategies that reduce pollution and address climate change.

During the 10th Five-Year Plan, China plans to reduce total emissions by 10%. Beijing in particular is investing heavily in pollution control as part of its campaign to host a successful Olympiad in 2008. Some cities have seen improvement in air quality in recent years.

China is an active participant in climate change talks and other multilateral environmental negotiations, taking environmental challenges seriously but pushing for the developed world to help developing countries to a greater extent. It is a signatory to the Basel Convention governing the transport and disposal of hazardous waste and the Montreal Protocol for the Protection of the Ozone Layer, as well as the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species and other major environmental agreements.

The question of environmental impacts associated with the Three Gorges Dam project has generated controversy among environmentalists inside and outside China. Critics claim that erosion and silting of the Yangtze River threaten several endangered species, while Chinese officials say the dam will help prevent devastating floods and generate clean hydroelectric power that will enable the region to lower its dependence on coal, thus lessening air pollution.

The United States and China are members of the Asia Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate (APP). The APP is a public-private partnership of six nations—Australia, China, India, Japan, the Republic of Korea, and the United States—committed to explore new mechanisms to meet national pollution reduction, energy security and climate change goals in ways that reduce poverty and promote economic development. APP members have undertaken cooperative activities involving deployment of clean technology in partner countries in eight areas: cleaner fossil energy, renewable energy and distributed generation, power generation and transmission, steel, aluminum, cement, coal mining, and buildings and appliances.

The United States and China have been engaged in an active program of bilateral environmental cooperation since the mid-1990s, with an emphasis on clean energy technology and the design of effective environmental policy. While both governments view this cooperation positively, China has often compared the U.S. program, which lacks a foreign assistance component, with those of Japan and several European Union (EU) countries that include generous levels of aid.

Science and Technology

Science and technology have always preoccupied China's leaders; indeed, China's political leadership comes almost exclusively from technical backgrounds and has a high regard for science. Deng called it “the first productive force.” Distortions in the economy and society created by party rule have severely hurt Chinese science, according to some Chinese science policy experts. The Chinese Academy of Sciences, modeled on the Soviet system, puts much of China's greatest scientific talent in a large, under-funded apparatus that remains largely isolated from industry, although the reforms of the past decade have begun to address this problem.

Chinese science strategists see China's greatest opportunities in newly emerging fields such as biotechnology and computers, where there is still a chance for China to become a significant player. Most Chinese students who went abroad have not returned, but they have built a dense network of trans-Pacific contacts that will greatly facilitate U.S.-China scientific cooperation in coming years. The U.S. space program is often held up as the standard of scientific modernity in China. China's small but growing space program, which successfully completed their second manned orbit in October 2005, is a focus of national pride.

The U.S.-China Science and Technology Agreement remains the frame-work for bilateral cooperation in this field. A 5-year agreement to extend the Science and Technology Agreement was signed in April 2006. The Agreement is among the longest-standing U.S.-China accords, and includes over eleven U.S. Federal agencies and numerous branches that participate in cooperative exchanges under the S&T Agreement and its nearly 60 protocols, memoranda of understanding, agreements and annexes. The Agreement covers cooperation in areas such as marine conservation, renewable energy, and health. Biennial Joint Commission Meetings on Science and Technology bring together policymakers from both sides to coordinate joint science and technology cooperation. Executive Secretaries meetings are held biennially to implement specific cooperation programs. Japan and the European Union also have high profile science and technology cooperative relationships with China.

Trade

The U.S. trade deficit with China reached $232.5 billion in 2006, as imports grew 18%. China's share of total U.S. imports has grown from 7% to 15% since 1996. At the same time, the share of many other Asian countries’ imports to the United States fell, from 39% in 1996 to 21.1% in 2005. The share of overall Asian imports (including China) to the United States actually declined from 38.8% in 1996 to 35.7% in 2005. The U.S. global trade deficit with the Asia-Pacific region as a whole also has fallen from 75% in 1995 to 49% in 2005.

U.S. merchandise exports to China in 2006 accounted for 5.3% of total U.S. exports, up from 3.9% in 2003. The top five U.S. exports to China in 2006 (based on January-November data) were semiconductors and electronic components (up 79% over 2005 levels), aircraft and parts (up 40%), and waste and scrap (up 64%).

In May 2007, Treasury Secretary Paulson met with P.R.C. Vice Premier Wu Yi in Washington for the second round of the Strategic Economic Dialogue (SED), which addresses bilateral issues such as trade, currency, and foreign investment. In November 1991, China joined the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) group, which promotes free trade and cooperation in the economic, trade, investment, and technology spheres. China served as APEC chair in 2001, and Shanghai hosted the annual APEC leaders meeting in October of that year.

China formally joined the WTO in December 2001. As part of this far-reaching trade liberalization agreement, China agreed to lower tariffs and abolish market impediments. Chinese and foreign businessmen, for example, gained the right to import and export on their own, and to sell their products without going through a government middleman. By 2005, average tariff rates on key U.S. agricultural exports dropped from 31% to 14% and on industrial products from 25% to 9%. The agreement also opens up new opportunities for U.S. providers of services like banking, insurance, and telecommunications. China has made significant progress implementing its WTO commitments, but serious concerns remain, particularly in the realm of intellectual property rights protection.

China is now one of the most important markets for U.S. exports: in 2006, U.S. exports to China totaled $55.2 billion, nearly triple the $19 billion when China joined the WTO in 2001. U.S. agricultural exports have increased dramatically, making China our fourth-largest agricultural export market (after Canada, Japan, and Mexico). Over the same period (2001-2006), U.S. imports from China rose from $102 billion to $287.8 billion.

Export growth continues to be a major driver of China's rapid economic growth. To increase exports, China has pursued policies such as fostering the rapid development of foreign-invested factories, which assemble imported components into consumer goods for export, and liberalizing trading rights. In its eleventh Five-Year Program, adopted in 2005, China placed greater emphasis on developing a consumer demand-driven economy to sustain economic growth and address global imbalances.

The United States is one of China's primary suppliers of power generating equipment, aircraft and parts, computers and industrial machinery, raw materials, and chemical and agricultural products. However, U.S. exporters continue to have concerns about fair market access due to strict testing and standards requirements for some imported products. In addition, a lack of transparency in the regulatory process makes it difficult for businesses to plan for changes in the domestic market structure. The April 11, 2006 U.S.China Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade (JCCT) produced agreements on key U.S. trade concerns ranging from market access to U.S. beef, medical devices, and telecommunications; to the enforcement of intellectual property rights, including, significantly, software. The JCCT also produced an agreement to establish a U.S.-China High Technology and Strategic Trade Working Group to review export control cooperation and facilitate high technology trade.

Foreign Investment

China's investment climate has changed dramatically in 24 years of reform. In the early 1980s, China restricted foreign investments to export-oriented operations and required foreign investors to form joint-venture partnerships with Chinese firms. Foreign direct investment (FDI) grew quickly during the 1980s, but slowed in late 1989 in the after-math of Tiananmen. In response, the government introduced legislation and regulations designed to encourage foreigners to invest in high-priority sectors and regions. Since the early 1990s, China has allowed foreign investors to manufacture and sell a wide range of goods on the domestic market, and authorized the establishment of wholly foreign-owned enterprises, now the preferred form of FDI. However, the Chinese Government's emphasis on guiding FDI into manufacturing has led to market saturation in some industries, while leaving China's services sectors underdeveloped. China is now one of the leading FDI recipients in the world, receiving almost $80 billion in 2005 according to World Bank statistics. As part of its WTO accession, China undertook to eliminate certain trade-related investment measures and to open up specified sectors that had previously been closed to foreign investment. New laws, regulations, and administrative measures to implement these commitments are being issued. Major remaining barriers to foreign investment include opaque and inconsistently enforced laws and regulations and the lack of a rules-based legal infrastructure.

Opening to the outside remains central to China's development. Foreign-invested enterprises produce about half of China's exports, and China continues to attract large investment inflows. Foreign exchange reserves were $1.066 trillion at the end of 2006, and have now surpassed those of Japan, making China's foreign exchange reserves the largest in the world.

FOREIGN RELATIONS

Since its establishment, the People's Republic has worked vigorously to win international support for its position that it is the sole legitimate government of all China, including Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. In the early 1970s, Beijing was recognized diplomatically by most world powers. Beijing assumed the China seat in the United Nations in 1971 and has since become increasingly active in multilateral organizations. Japan established diplomatic relations with China in 1972, and the United States did so in 1979. As of July 2007, the number of countries that had diplomatic relations with Beijing had risen to 167, while 24 maintained diplomatic relations with Taiwan.

After the founding of the P.R.C., China's foreign policy initially focused on solidarity with the Soviet Union and other communist countries. In 1950, China sent the People's Liberation Army into North Korea to help North Korea halt the UN offen-sive that was approaching the Yalu River. After the conclusion of the Korean conflict, China sought to balance its identification as a member of the Soviet bloc by establishing friendly relations with Pakistan and other Third World countries, particularly in Southeast Asia.

In the 1960s, Beijing competed with Moscow for political influence among communist parties and in the developing world generally. Following the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia and clashes in 1969 on the Sino-Soviet border, Chinese competition with the Soviet Union increasingly reflected concern over China's own strategic position.

In late 1978, the Chinese also became concerned over Vietnam's efforts to establish open control over Laos and Cambodia. In response to the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia, China fought a brief border war with Vietnam (February-March 1979) with the stated purpose of “teaching Vietnam a lesson.”

Chinese anxiety about Soviet strategic advances was heightened following the Soviet Union's December 1979 invasion of Afghanistan. Sharp differences between China and the Soviet Union persisted over Soviet support for Vietnam's continued occupation of Cambodia, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and Soviet troops along the Sino-Soviet border and in Mongolia—the so-called “three obstacles” to improved Sino-Soviet relations.

In the 1970s and 1980s China sought to create a secure regional and global environment for itself and to foster good relations with countries that could aid its economic development. To this end, China looked to the West for assistance with its modernization drive and for help in countering Soviet expansionism, which it characterized as the greatest threat to its national security and to world peace.

China maintained its consistent opposition to “superpower hegemony,” focusing almost exclusively on the expansionist actions of the Soviet Union and Soviet proxies such as Vietnam and Cuba, but it also placed growing emphasis on a foreign policy independent of both the United States and the Soviet Union. While improving ties with the West, China continued to follow closely economic and other positions of the Third World nonaligned movement, although China was not a formal member.

In the immediate aftermath of Tiananmen crackdown in June 1989, many countries reduced their diplomatic contacts with China as well as their economic assistance programs. In response, China worked vigorously to expand its relations with foreign countries, and by late 1990, had reestablished normal relations with almost all nations. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in late 1991, China also opened diplomatic relations with the republics of the former Soviet Union.

In recent years, Chinese leaders have been regular travelers to all parts of the globe, and China has sought a higher profile in the UN through its permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council and other multilateral organizations. Closer to home, China has made efforts to reduce tensions in Asia, hosting the Six-Party Talks on North Korea's nuclear weapons program, cultivating a more cooperative relationship with members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and participating in the ASEAN Regional Forum. China has also taken steps to improve relations with countries in South Asia, including India.

Following Premier Wen's 2005 visit to India, the two sides moved to increase commercial and cultural ties, as well as to resolve longstanding border disputes. The November 2006 visit of President Hu was the first state visit by a Chinese head of state to India in 10 years.

China has likewise improved ties with Russia, with Presidents Putin and Hu exchanging visits to Beijing and Moscow in April 2006 and March 2007. A second round of Russia-China joint military exercises is scheduled for fall 2007. China has played a prominent role in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a regional grouping that includes Russia and the Central Asian nations of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Beijing has resolved many of its border and maritime disputes, notably including a November 1997 agreement with Russia that resolved almost all outstanding border issues and a 2000 agreement with Vietnam to resolve differences over their maritime border, though disagreements remain over islands in the South China Sea. Relations with Japan improved following Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's October 2006 visit to Beijing, although longstanding and emotionally charged disputes over history and competing claims to portions of the East China Sea remain sources of tension.

While in many ways Sudan's primary diplomatic patron, China has played a constructive role in support of peacekeeping operations in Southern Sudan and pledged to contribute an engineering unit in support of UN operations in Darfur. China has stated publicly that it shares the international community's concern over Iran's nuclear program and has voted in support of UN sanctions resolutions on Iran. Set against this has been an effort on the part of China to maintain close ties to countries such as Iran, Sudan, Zimbabwe, and Venezuela, which are sources of oil and other resources and which welcome China's non-conditional assistance and investment.

DEFENSE

Establishment of a professional military force equipped with modern weapons and doctrine was the last of the “Four Modernizations” announced by Zhou Enlai and supported by Deng Xiaoping. In keeping with Deng's mandate to reform, the People's Liberation Army (PLA), which includes the strategic nuclear forces, army, navy, and air force, has demobilized millions of men and women since 1978 and introduced modern methods in such areas as recruitment and manpower, strategy, and education and training. Following the June 1989 Tiananmen crackdown, ideological correctness was temporarily revived as the dominant theme in Chinese military affairs. Reform and modernization appear to have since resumed their position as the PLA's priority objectives, although the armed forces’ political loyalty to the CCP remains a leading concern.

The Chinese military is in the process of transforming itself from a land-based power, centered on a vast ground force, to a smaller, mobile, high-tech military eventually capable of mounting limited operations beyond its coastal borders.

China's power-projection capability is limited but has grown over recent years. China has acquired some advanced weapons systems from abroad, including Sovremmeny destroyers, SU-27 and SU-30 aircraft, and Kilo-class diesel submarines from Russia, and continued to develop domestic production capabilities, such as for the domestically-developed J-10 fighter aircraft. However, much of its air and naval forces continues to be based on 1960s-era technology. As the Defense Department's Quadrennial Defense Review, released February 2006, noted, the United States shares with other countries a concern about the pace, scope, and direction of China's military modernization. We view military exchanges, visits, and other forms of engagement are useful tools in promoting transparency, provided they have substance and are fully reciprocal. Regularized exchanges and contact also have the significant benefit of building confidence, reducing the possibility of accidents, and providing the lines of communication that are essential in ensuring that episodes such as the April 2001 EP-3 aircraft incident do not escalate into major crises. During their April 2006 meeting, President Bush and President Hu agreed to increase officer exchanges and to begin a strategic nuclear dialogue between STRAT-COM and the Chinese military's strategic missile command. U.S. and Chinese militaries are also considering ways in which we might cooperate on disaster assistance relief.

Nuclear Weapons. In 1955, Mao Zedong's Chinese Communist Party decided to proceed with a nuclear weapons program; it was developed with Soviet assistance until 1960. After its first nuclear test in October 1964, Beijing deployed a modest but potent ballistic missile force, including land-and sea-based intermediate-range and intercontinental ballistic missiles.

China became a major international arms exporter during the 1980s. Beijing joined the Middle East arms control talks, which began in July 1991 to establish global guidelines for conventional arms transfers, but announced in September 1992 that it would no longer participate because of the U.S. decision to sell F-16A/B aircraft to Taiwan.

China was the first state to pledge “no first use” of nuclear weapons. It joined the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in 1984 and pledged to abstain from further atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons in 1986. China acceded to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1992 and supported its indefinite and unconditional extension in 1995. In 1996, it signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and agreed to seek an international ban on the production of fissile nuclear weapons material. To date, China has not ratified the CTBT.

In 1996, China committed not to provide assistance to un-safeguarded nuclear facilities. China became a full member of the NPT Exporters (Zang-ger) Committee, a group that determines items subject to IAEA inspections if exported by NPT signatories.

In September 1997, China issued detailed nuclear export control regulations. China began implementing regulations establishing controls over nuclear-related dual-use items in 1998. China also has committed not to engage in new nuclear cooperation with Iran (even under safeguards), and will complete existing cooperation, which is not of proliferation concern, within a relatively short period. In May 2004, with the support of the United States, China became a member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group. Based on significant, tangible progress with China on nuclear non-proliferation, President Clinton in 1998 took steps to bring into force the 1985 U.S.-China Agreement on Peaceful Nuclear Cooperation.

Chemical Weapons. China is not a member of the Australia Group, an informal and voluntary arrangement made in 1985 to monitor developments in the proliferation of dual-use chemicals and to coordinate export controls on key dual-use chemicals and equipment with weapons applications. In April 1997, however, China ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) and, in September 1997, promulgated a new chemical weapons export control directive. In October 2002, China promulgated updated regulations on dual-use chemical agents, and now controls all the major items on the Australia Group control list.

Missiles. Although it is not a member of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), the multinational effort to restrict the proliferation of missiles, in March 1992 China under-took to abide by MTCR guidelines and parameters. China reaffirmed this commitment in 1994, and pledged not to transfer MTCR-class ground-to-ground missiles. In November 2000, China committed not to assist in any way the development by other countries of MTCR-class missiles.

However, in August 29, 2003, the U.S. Government imposed missile proliferation sanctions lasting two years on the Chinese company China North Industries Corporation (NORINCO) after determining that it was knowingly involved in the transfer of equipment and technology controlled under Category II of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) Annex that contributed to MTCR-class missiles in a non-MTCR country. In December 2003, the P.R.C. promulgated comprehensive new export control regulations governing exports of all categories of sensitive technologies.

U.S.-CHINA RELATIONS

From Revolution to the Shanghai Communique

As the PLA armies moved south to complete the communist conquest of China in 1949, the American Embassy followed the Nationalist government headed by Chiang Kai-shek, finally moving to Taipei later that year. U.S. consular officials remained in mainland China. The new P.R.C. Government was hostile to this official American presence, and all U.S. personnel were with-drawn from the mainland in early 1950. Any remaining hope of normalizing relations ended when U.S. and Chinese communist forces fought on opposing sides in the Korean conflict.

Beginning in 1954 and continuing until 1970, the United States and China held 136 meetings at the ambassadorial level, first at Geneva and later at Warsaw. In the late 1960s, U.S. and Chinese political leaders decided that improved bilateral relations were in their common interest. In 1969, the United States initiated measures to relax trade restrictions and other impediments to bilateral contact. On July 15, 1971, President Nixon announced that his Assistant for National Security Affairs, Dr. Henry Kissinger, had made a secret trip to Beijing to initiate direct contact with the Chinese leadership and that he, the President, had been invited to visit China.

In February 1972, President Nixon traveled to Beijing, Hangzhou, and Shanghai. At the conclusion of his trip, the U.S. and Chinese Governments issued the “Shanghai Communique,” a statement of their foreign policy views. (For the complete text of the Shanghai Communique, see the Department of State Bulletin, March 20, 1972.)

In the Communique, both nations pledged to work toward the full normalization of diplomatic relations. The United States acknowledged the Chinese position that all Chinese on both sides of the Taiwan Strait maintain that there is only one China and that Taiwan is part of China. The statement enabled the United States and China to temporarily set aside the “crucial question obstructing the normalization of relations”—Taiwan—and to open trade and other contacts.

Liaison Office, 1973-78

In May 1973, in an effort to build toward the establishment of formal diplomatic relations, the United States and China established the United States Liaison Office (USLO) in Beijing and a counterpart Chinese office in Washington, DC. In the years between 1973 and 1978, such distinguished Americans as David Bruce, George H.W. Bush, Thomas Gates, and Leonard Woodcock served as chiefs of the USLO with the personal rank of Ambassador.

President Ford visited China in 1975 and reaffirmed the U.S. interest in normalizing relations with Beijing. Shortly after taking office in 1977, President Carter again reaffirmed the interest expressed in the Shanghai Communique. The United States and China announced on December 15, 1978, that the two governments would establish diplomatic relations on January 1, 1979.

Normalization

In the Joint Communique on the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations dated January 1, 1979, the United States transferred diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing. The United States reiterated the Shanghai Communique's acknowledgment of the Chinese position that there is only one China and that Taiwan is a part of China; Beijing acknowledged that the American people would continue to carry on commercial, cultural, and other unofficial contacts with the people of Taiwan. The Taiwan Relations Act made the necessary changes in U.S. domestic law to permit such unofficial relations with Taiwan to flourish.

U.S.-China Relations Since Normalization

Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping's January 1979 visit to Washington, DC, initiated a series of important, high-level exchanges, which continued until the spring of 1989. This resulted in many bilateral agreements—especially in the fields of scientific, technological, and cultural interchange and trade relations. Since early 1979, the United States and China have initiated hundreds of joint research projects and cooperative programs under the Agreement on Cooperation in Science and Technology, the largest bilateral program.

On March 1, 1979, the United States and China formally established embassies in Beijing and Washington, DC. During 1979, outstanding private claims were resolved, and a bilateral trade agreement was concluded. Vice President Walter Mon-dale reciprocated Vice Premier Deng's visit with an August 1979 trip to China. This visit led to agreements in September 1980 on maritime affairs, civil aviation links, and textile matters, as well as a bilateral consular convention.

As a consequence of high-level and working-level contacts initiated in 1980, U.S. dialogue with China broadened to cover a wide range of issues, including global and regional strategic problems, political-military questions, including arms control, UN and other multilateral organization affairs, and international narcotics matters.

The expanding relationship that followed normalization was threatened in 1981 by Chinese objections to the level of U.S. arms sales to Taiwan. Secretary of State Alexander Haig visited China in June 1981 in an effort to resolve Chinese questions about America's unofficial relations with Taiwan. Eight months of negotiations produced the U.S.-China joint communique of August 17, 1982. In this third communique, the United States stated its intention to reduce gradually the level of arms sales to Taiwan, and the Chinese described as a fundamental policy their effort to strive for a peaceful resolution to the Taiwan question. Meanwhile, Vice President Bush visited China in May 1982.

High-level exchanges continued to be a significant means for developing U.S.-China relations in the 1980s. President Reagan and Premier Zhao Ziyang made reciprocal visits in 1984. In July 1985, President Li Xiannian traveled to the United States, the first such visit by a Chinese head of state. Vice President Bush visited China in October 1985 and opened the U.S. Consulate General in Chengdu, the fourth U.S. consular post in China. Further exchanges of cabinet-level officials occurred between 1985-89, capped by President Bush's visit to Beijing in February 1989.

In the period before the June 3-4, 1989 crackdown, a large and growing number of cultural exchange activities undertaken at all levels gave the American and Chinese peoples broad exposure to each other's cultural, artistic, and educational achievements. Numerous Chinese professional and official delegations visited the United States each month. Many of these exchanges continued after Tiananmen.

Bilateral Relations After Tiananmen

Following the Chinese authorities’ brutal suppression of demonstrators in June 1989, the United States and other governments enacted a number of measures to express their condemnation of China's blatant violation of the basic human rights of its citizens. The United States suspended high-level official exchanges with China and weapons exports from the United States to China. The United States also imposed a number of economic sanctions. In the summer of 1990, at the G-7 Houston summit, Western nations called for renewed political and economic reforms in China, particularly in the field of human rights.

Tiananmen disrupted the U.S.-China trade relationship, and U.S. investors’ interest in China dropped dramatically. The U.S. Government also responded to the political repression by suspending certain trade and investment programs on June 5 and 20, 1989. Some sanctions were legislated; others were executive actions. Examples include:

  • The U.S. Trade and Development Agency (TDA)—new activities in China were suspended from June 1989 until January 2001, when then-President Clinton lifted this suspension.
  • Overseas Private Insurance Corporation (OPIC)—new activities suspended since June 1989.
  • Development Bank Lending/IMF Credits—the United States does not support development bank lending and will not support IMF credits to China except for projects that address basic human needs.
  • Munitions List Exports—subject to certain exceptions, no licenses may be issued for the export of any defense article on the U.S. Munitions List. This restriction may be waived upon a presidential national interest determination.
  • Arms Imports—import of defense articles from China was banned after the imposition of the ban on arms exports to China. The import ban was subsequently waived by the Administration and re-imposed on May 26, 1994. It covers all items on the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives’ Munitions Import List.

In 1996, the P.R.C. conducted military exercises in waters close to Taiwan in an apparent effort at intimidation, after Taiwan's former President, Lee Teng-huei made a private visit to the United States. The United States dispatched two aircraft carrier battle groups to the region. Subsequently, tensions in the Taiwan Strait diminished, and relations between the United States and China have improved, with increased high-level exchanges and progress on numerous bilateral issues, including human rights, nonproliferation, and trade. Former Chinese president Jiang Zemin visited the United States in the fall of 1997, the first state visit to the United States by a Chinese president since 1985. In connection with that visit, the two sides reached agreement on implementation of their 1985 agreement on peaceful nuclear cooperation, as well as a number of other issues. Former President Clinton visited China in June 1998. He traveled extensively in China, and direct interaction with the Chinese people included live speeches, press conference and a radio show, allowing the President to convey first-hand to the Chinese people a sense of American ideals and values.

Relations between the United States and China were severely strained by the tragic accidental bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade in May 1999. By the end of 1999, relations began to gradually improve. In October 1999, the two sides reached agreement on humanitarian payments for families of those who died and those who were injured as well as payments for damages to respective diplomatic properties in Belgrade and China. Relations further cooled when, in April 2001, a Chinese F-8 fighter collided with a U.S. EP-3 reconnaissance aircraft flying over international waters south of China. The EP-3 was able to make an emergency landing on China's Hainan Island despite extensive damage; the P.R.C. aircraft crashed with the loss of its pilot. Following extensive negotiations, the crew of the EP-3 was allowed to leave China 11 days later, but the U.S. aircraft was not permitted to depart for another 3 months.

Subsequently, the relationship gradually improved. President George W. Bush visited China in February 2002 and met with President Jiang Zemin in Crawford, Texas in October. President Bush hosted Premier Wen Jiabao in Washington in December 2003. President Bush first met Hu Jintao in his new capacity as P.R.C. President on the margins of the G-8 Summit in Evian in June 2003, and at subsequent international fora, such as the September 2004 APEC meeting in Chile, the July 2005 G-8 summit in Scotland, and the September 2005 UN General Assembly meetings in New York. President Bush traveled to China in November 2005, an official visit that was reciprocated in April 2006 when President Hu met with President Bush in Washington.

U.S. China policy has been consistent. For seven consecutive administrations, U.S. policy has been to encourage China's opening and integration into the global system. As a result, China has moved from being a relatively isolated and poor country to one that is a key participant in international institutions and a major trading nation. The United States encourages China to play an active role as a responsible stakeholder in the international community, working with the United States and other countries to support and strengthen the international system that has enabled China's success. As Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has noted, “America has reason to welcome a confident, peaceful, and prosperous China. We want China as a global partner, able and willing to match its growing capabilities to its international responsibilities.” Deputy Secretary John D. Negroponte and other senior State Department officials engage in regular and intensive discussions with their P.R.C. counter-parts through the U.S.-China Senior Dialogue. The Senior Dialogue covers the entire range of issues in the bilateral relationship.

China has an important role to play in global, regional, and bilateral counterterrorism efforts, and has supported coalition efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq. Following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks (9-11) in New York City and Washington, DC, China offered strong public support for the war on terrorism and has been an important partner in U.S. counterterrorism efforts. Shortly after 9-11, the United States and China also commenced a counterterrorism dialogue, the most recent round of which was held in Washington in November 2005 and focused on the threat of WMD falling into the hands of terrorists. Inspections under the Container Security Initiative (CSI) are now underway at the major ports of Shenzhen, Shanghai, and Hong Kong. China has also agreed to participate in the Department of Energy's Megaports Initiative, a critical part of our efforts to detect the flow of nuclear materials. China voted in favor of UN Security Council Resolution 1373, publicly supported the coalition campaign in Afghanistan, and contributed $150 million of bilateral assistance to Afghan reconstruction following the defeat of the Taliban. China participated in both the Iraq Neighbors and International Compact with Iraq meetings in 2007 and has voiced strong support for the Government of Iraq following the country's December 2005 parliamentary elections. China has pledged $25 million to Iraqi reconstruction and taken measures to forgive Iraq's sovereign debt to China.

The United States and China have cooperated with growing effectiveness on various aspects of law enforcement, including computer crime, intellectual property rights enforcement, human smuggling, and corruption. The most recent meeting of the U.S.-China Joint Liaison Group on law enforcement cooperation took place in Washington in June 2007.

China and the United States have also been working closely with the international community to address threats to global security, such as those posed by North Korea and Iran's nuclear programs. China has played a constructive role in hosting the Six-Party Talks and in brokering the February 2007 agreement on Initial Actions. The United States looks to Beijing to use its unique influence with Pyongyang to ensure that North Korea implements fully its commitments under the September 2005 Statement of Principles. China has publicly stated that it does not want Iran to acquire nuclear weapons and has voted in support of sanctions resolutions on Iran at UN Security Council. On these and other important issues, such as the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Darfur, the United States expects China to join with the international community in finding solutions. China's participation is critical to efforts to combat transnational health threats such as avian influenza and HIV/AIDS, and both the United States and China play an important role in new multilateral energy initiatives, such as the Asia-Pacific Partnership.

While the United States looks forward to a constructive and broad-based relationship with China—a message reiterated by President Bush when he met with President Hu in April 2006 in Washington—there remain areas of potential disagreement. The United States does not support Taiwan independence and opposes unilateral steps, by either side, to change the status quo. At the same time, the United States has made it clear that cross-strait differences should be resolved peacefully and in a manner acceptable to people on both sides of the Strait.

At various points in the past several years, China's has expressed concern about the United States making statements on the political evolution of Hong Kong and has stressed that political stability there is paramount for economic growth. The NPC’ passage of an Anti-Secession law in March 2005 was viewed as unhelpful to the cause of promoting cross-Strait and regional stability by the United States and precipitated critical high-level statements by both sides.

U.S.-China Economic Relations

U.S. direct investment in China covers a wide range of manufacturing sectors, several large hotel projects, restaurant chains, and petrochemicals. U.S. companies have entered agreements establishing more than 20,000 equity joint ventures, contractual joint ventures, and wholly foreign-owned enterprises in China. More than 100 U.S.-based multinationals have projects in China, some with multiple investments. Cumulative U.S. investment in China is estimated at $54 billion, through the end of 2005, making the United States the second-largest foreign investor in China.

Total two-way trade between China and the United States grew from $33 billion in 1992 to over $347 billion in 2006. The United States is China's second-largest trading partner, and China is now the third-largest trading partner for the United States (after Canada and Mexico). U.S. exports to China have been growing more rapidly than to any other market (up 20% in 2004, 20% in 2005, and 32% in 2006). U.S. imports from China grew 18.5% in 2006, bringing the U.S. trade deficit with China to $233 billion. Some of the factors that influence the U.S. trade deficit with China include:

  • A shift of low-end assembly industries to China from the newly industrialized economies (NIEs) in Asia. China has increasingly become the last link in a long chain of value-added production. Because U.S. trade data attributes the full value of a product to the final assembler, Chinese value-added gets over-counted.
  • Strong U.S. demand for Chinese goods.
  • China's restrictive trade practices, which have included an array of barriers to foreign goods and services, often aimed at protecting state-owned enterprises. Under its WTO accession agreement, China is reducing tariffs and eliminating import licensing requirements, as well as addressing other trade barriers.

The U.S. approach to its economic relations with China has two main elements:

First, the United States seeks to fully integrate China into the global, rules-based economic and trading system. China's participation in the global economy will nurture the process of economic reform, encourage China to take on responsibilities commensurate with its growing influence, and increase China's stake in the stability and prosperity of East Asia.

Second, the United States seeks to expand U.S. exporters’ and investors’ access to the Chinese market. As China grows and develops, its needs for imported goods and services will grow even more rapidly. The U.S. Government will continue to work with China's leadership to ensure full and timely conformity with China's WTO commitments—including effective protection of intellectual property rights—and to encourage China to move to a flexible, market-based exchange rate in order to further increase U.S. exports of goods, agricultural products, and services to the P.R.C.

In order to achieve these objectives, the United States has engaged with China in the Strategic Economic Dialogue (SED). The SED is a biannual event, focusing on three major themes:

  • Maintaining sustainable growth without large trade imbalances;
  • Continued opening of markets to trade, competition, and investment;
  • Cooperation on energy security, energy efficiency, and the environmental and health impacts.

The SED is based on recognition by both China and the United States of our mutual interest in strengthening the global economy, addressing global imbalances, and promoting energy security and environmentally sustainable growth. Secretary of the Treasury Hank Paulson led the U.S. delegation during both previous SEDs, while Vice Premier Wu Yi led the Chinese delegation. The third SED is expected to take place in Beijing in December 2007.

Principal U.S. Embassy Officials

Last Updated: 2/19/2008

CHENGDU (CG) No. 4 Lingshiguan Lu, Chengdu, Sichuan 610041, PRC, APO/FPO PSC 461 Box 85, FPO AP 96521, 86-28-8558-3992, Fax 86-28-8558-3520, Workweek: 8:30–5:30, Website: http://chengdu.usconsulate.gov.

GUANGZHOU (CG) #1 Shamian South St., Guangzhou CHINA 510133, APO/FPO PSC 461, Box 100. FPO AP 96521-0002, (86) (20) 8121-8000, Fax (86) (20) 8121-6296, Work-week: 8:30 AM-5:30 PM, Website: http://guangzhou.usconsulate.gov.

CG OMS:Stephanie Hutchins
FCS:Eric Wolff
FM:Walter R. Obanion
MGT:Jeannette Juricic
OMS:Carol Grisham
POL ECO:John Hill
CG:James A. Boughner
PO:James A. Boughner
CON:Tina Onufer
PAO:Nancy Corbett
GSO:Jennifer Crow
RSO:Monica Byler
ATO:Kevin Latner
CLO:Vacant
EEO:Tina Onufer
EST:Vacant
IPO:Wenyi Shu
POL:David Cowhig
State ICASS:Teannette Juricic
CG OMS:Shelby Martin
DHS/CIS:Jackie Wong
DHS/ICE:Michael Tsang
ECO:Stephan Lang
MGT:John Stremel
CG:Robert Goldberg
CON:Michael Jacobson
PAO:Darcy Zotter
COM:Ireas Cook
GSO:Vacant
RSO:Gary Watson
AGR:Joani Dong
CLO:Sarah Boyke
IPO:Thomas Martin

SHANGHAI (CG) 1469 Huai Hai Zhong Lu, Shanghai 200031 PRC, APO/FPO PSC 461, Box 200, FPO AP 96521-0200, 86-21-6433-3936, Fax 86-21-6433-4122, INMARSAT Tel 881676310550, Workweek: 8:00 am-5:00 pm, Website: http://shanghai.usconsulate.gov.

CG OMS:Josephine Schaefer
DPO:Simon Schuchat
ECO:Mary Tarnowka
FM:Paul Schaeffer
MGT:Julia Harlan
CG:Kenneth Jarrett
PO:Kenneth Jarrett, CG:
CON:Charles Jess
PAO:Jennifer Galt
COM:Ira Kasoff
GSO:ErnEST:o Escoto
RSO:Steven Chalupsky
ATO:Wayne Batwin
CLO:Liz Rawlings
EEO:Jessica Megill
FIN:Julia Harlan
ICASS:Chair Sub Group Only
IPO:William Iglhaut
ISO:Thomas Lacy
ISSO:Matthew McDowell
POL:Mary Tarnowka
State ICASS:Julia Harlan

SHENYANG (CG) US CONSULATE-SHENYANG, APO/FPO PSC 461, Box 45; FPO AP 96521-0002, 86-24-2322-1198, Fax 86-24-2322-1942, Workweek: 0830-1730, Website: http://shenyang.usconsulate.gov.

CG OMS:Kathy Kong
ECO:William B. Johnson
MGT:Jonathan B. Korach
POL ECO:Dana L. Candell
CG:COL Steve Wickman
CON:David N. Brizzee
PAO:Joseph P Kruzich
GSO:Seth L Patch
RSO:Julia Hawley
EEO:Seth Patch
IPO:John Meradith
ISO:Robert Weber
ISSO:John Meradith
POL:Adam J. Hantman

BEIJING (M) No. 3 Xiu Shui Bei Jie, APO/FPO PSC 461 Box 50 FPO AP 96521, 8610-6532-3831, Fax 8610-6532-6929, Workweek: 0800-1700, Website: http://beijing.usembassy.gov.

DCM OMS:Cecilia Wylie
AMB OMS:Grace McDermott
COM/ADB:Craig Allen
DHS/CIS:Joseph Martin
DHS/ICE:Steve Thomas
ECO:Robert Luke
FCS:Barry Friedman
FM:Gregory Larson
MGT:James B. Lane
AMB:Clark T. Randt, Jr..
CON:Michael Regan
DCM:Dan Piccuta
PAO:Don Q. Washingto
GSO:Downer, Dale
RSO:Barry Moore
AGR:Vacant
APHIS:Theresa Boyle
ATO:Laverne Brabant
CLO:Kristy Murphy
DAO:BG Charles Hooper
DEA:Mike McCormick
EEO:Katherine Lawson
EST:W. Brent Christensen
FAA:Chris Metts
FMO:Mazhar Ahson
ICASS:Chair Brad Fribley
IMO:Heywood Miller
ISO:Larry Roberts
ISSO:Larry Roberts

LAB:
Bruce Levine
LEGATT:William Liu
POL:Aubrey Carlson

TRAVEL

Consular Information Sheet

December 10, 2007

Country Description: The People's Republic of China was established on October 1, 1949, with Beijing as its capital city. With well over 1.3 billion citizens, China is the world's most populous country and the third largest country in the world in terms of territory. China is undergoing rapid, profound economic and social change and development. Political power remains centralized in the Chinese Communist Party. Modern tourist facilities are available in major cities, but many facilities in smaller provincial cities and rural areas are frequently below international standards.

Entry Requirements : A valid passport and visa are required to enter China and must be obtained from Chinese Embassies and Consulates before traveling to China. Americans arriving without valid passports and the appropriate Chinese visa are not permitted to enter and will be subject to a fine and immediate deportation at the traveler's expense. Travelers should not rely on Chinese host organizations claiming to be able to arrange a visa upon arrival. Chinese authorities have recently tightened their visa issuance policy, in some cases requiring personal interviews of American citizens. Although a bilateral United States-China agreement provides for issuance of multiple entry visas with validity of up to one year for tourists and business visitors, Chinese consulates often limit visas to only one-entry. Visit the Embassy of China web site at http://www.china-embassy.org/eng/ for the most current visa information.

Visas are required to transit China. Persons transiting China on the way to and from Mongolia or North Korea or who plan to re-enter from the Hong Kong or Macau Special Administrative Regions should be sure to obtain visas allowing multiple entries. Permits are required to visit Tibet as well as many remote areas not normally open to foreigners. Every foreigner going to Tibet needs to get a travel permit which can be done through local travel agents. Permits cost approximately RMB 100, are single-entry and valid for at most three months. Most areas in Tibet are not open for foreigners except Lhasa City and part of Shan Nan. Foreigners can be fined up to RMB 500, taken into custody, and removed for visiting restricted areas. For information about entry requirements and restricted areas, travelers may consult the Visa Office of the Embassy of China (PRC) at Room 110, 2201 Wisconsin Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20007, or telephone (202) 338-6688 and (202) 588-9760. For a list of services and frequently asked visa questions and answers, travelers can view the Chinese Embassy's web sites at: http://www.china-embassy.org/eng. There are Chinese consulates general in Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco. Americans traveling in Asia have been able to obtain visas to enter China from the Chinese visa office in Hong Kong and the Embassy of China in Seoul, South Korea.

In July 2007, the Chinese government tightened its regulations for altering or renewing visas for foreigners already in China. Visitors can no longer change tourist (L) and exchange (F) -type visas to other types and many applications must now be completed in person. There have also been reports that entry and exit violations are being more strictly enforced, with recent reports of police, school administrators and hotel staff checking to ensure that foreigners have not overstayed their visas.

Americans who overstay or otherwise violate the terms of their Chinese visas will be subject to a maximum fine of 5,000 RMB and departure delays and may be subject to detention. Travelers should note that international flights departing China are routinely overbooked, making reconfirmation of departure reservations and early airport check-in essential. An airport user fee for both international and domestic flights are now included in the cost of the ticket price.

In an effort to prevent international child abduction, many governments have initiated new procedures at entry / exit points. These often include requiring documentary evidence of relationship and permission for the child's travel from the parent(s) or legal guardian if they are not present. Having such documentation on hand, even if not required, may facilitate entry/departure.

Dual national Americans, particularly those with dual Chinese and American nationality, should realize that entering China using their non-U.S. passport could mean that the Chinese Government may not afford them the consular protections to which they are entitled. While the U.S. Government will offer consular services to all U.S. citizens regardless of dual nationality, use of other than a U.S. passport to enter China can make it difficult for U.S. Consuls to assist dual national Americans who have been arrested or who have other concerns with the Chinese Government.

China does not recognize dual citizenship. U.S. Embassy and Consulate officials are often denied access to arrested or detained Americans who do not enter China using their U.S. passport. Lawful Permanent Residents of the United States who do not carry unexpired or otherwise clear evidence that they may re-enter the United States will encounter delays departing from China. Lawful Permanent Residents should renew and update U.S. residence documentation prior to their departure from the United States.

Safety and Security: Americans visiting or residing in China are advised to take routine safety precautions; that is, travelers should remain aware of their surroundings and of events happening around them. Travelers should respect local police requirements to avoid travel in some areas. In light of the greatly increased numbers of older Americans traveling to China, U.S. tour operators should check that local guides are familiar with medical facilities and emergency medical evacuation procedures.

American citizens who rent apartments with gas appliances should be aware that, in some areas, natural gas is not scented to warn occupants of gas leaks or concentrations. In addition, heaters may not always be well vented, thereby allowing excess carbon monoxide to build up in living spaces. Due to fatal accidents involving American citizens, travelers are advised to ensure all gas appliances are properly vented or to install gas and carbon monoxide detectors in their residences. These devices are not widely available in China and should be purchased prior to arrival.

Security personnel may at times place foreign visitors under surveillance. Hotel rooms, telephones, and fax machines may be monitored, and personal possessions in hotel rooms, including computers, may be searched without the consent or knowledge of the traveler. Taking photographs of anything that could be perceived as being of military or security interest may result in problems with authorities. Foreign government officials, journalists, and business people with access to advanced proprietary technology are particularly likely to be under surveillance.

Terrorism is rare in China, although a small number of bombings have occurred in areas throughout China. Recent bombings have largely been criminal activity, frequently the result of commercial disputes. The vast majority of these local incidents related to disputes over land seizures, social issues or environmental problems. While some incidents have grown to larger scales and involved some violence, these demonstrations have not been directed against foreigners.

Business disputes in China are not always handled through the courts. Sometimes the foreign partner has been held hostage, threatened with violence, or beaten up. Anyone entering into a contract in China should have it thoroughly examined, both in the United States and in China.

Contracts entered into in the United States are not enforced by Chinese courts. Care should also be taken when entering into a lease for an apartment or house. There have been instances of foreigners being ejected from their apartments because of lease disputes, and being prevented from re-entering, even to retrieve their belongings.

Americans doing business in China should be aware that if they become involved in a business and/or civil dispute, the Chinese government may prohibit them from leaving China until the matter is resolved. Civil cases may sometimes be regarded as criminal cases and the defendant may be placed in custody. Civil law disputes may take years to resolve. There are many cases of American citizens being prevented from leaving China for months and even years while their civil cases are resolved.

U.S. citizens and business owners should be aware that many intending migrants from China will try to enlist their assistance to secure a U.S. visa. In one common scheme, a PRC national will contact a U.S. business feigning interest in a particular product or service. The PRC national then asks for a formal letter from the U.S. company inviting him or her (alone or with colleagues) to come to the United States to discuss or finalize a purchase, or establish formal cooperation between the two companies. The PRC national(s) will then use these invitation letters when they apply for U.S. visas to show they have a legitimate purpose of travel. While many such requests may be legitimate, some are not. Oftentimes, the PRC national initiating the contact has no relationship to his/her claimed Chinese employer. In fact, it is not unusual for these individuals to be part of elaborate human smuggling syndicates. Visa Sections at the U.S. Embassy and Consulates in China are regularly contacted by U.S. businesses that unwittingly have been used to facilitate illicit migration schemes.

For the latest security information, Americans traveling abroad should regularly monitor the Department's web site, where the current World-wide Caution Travel Alert, Middle East and North Africa Travel Alert, Travel Warnings and other Travel Alerts can be found. Up-to-date information on safety and security can also be obtained by calling 1-888-407-4747 toll free in the U.S. and Canada, or for callers outside the U.S. and Canada, a regular toll-line at 1-202-501-4444.

Crime: China has a low crime rate. Pickpockets target tourists at sight-seeing destinations, open-air markets, airports, and in stores, often with the complicity of low-paid security guards. Americans are perceived as wealthy and may be specifically targeted by petty criminals. Violence against foreigners, while rare, is on the increase. Over the past year, incidents of violence against foreigners, including sexual assaults, have taken place, usually in urban areas where bars and nightclubs are located. Robberies, sometimes at gunpoint, have occurred in western China and more recently in Beijing. There have been some reports of robberies and assaults along remote mountain highways near China's border with Nepal. Travelers are sometimes asked by locals to exchange money at a preferential rate. It is illegal to exchange dollars for RMB except at banks, hotels, and official exchange offices. Due to the large volume of counterfeit currency in China, unofficial exchanges usually result in travelers losing their money and possibly left to face charges of breaking foreign exchange laws. If detained by police under suspicion of committing an economic crime involving currency, travelers may be delayed for weeks or months while police investigate the allegations.

Recently, there have been instances in Beijing and elsewhere of mobs in bar districts attacking foreigners. Nationalism is on the rise and disputes among Chinese citizens or between Chinese and foreigners can quickly escalate. Caution should be exercised when visiting bar districts late at night, especially on weekends. There have been reports of bar fights in which Americans have been specifically targeted due their nationality. Simple arguments can turn into mob scenes and many times have resulted in the American being detained for hours for questioning with no right to an attorney or consular officer at that stage.

Travelers should have small bills (RMB 10, 20 and 50 notes) for travel by taxi. Reports of taxi drivers using counterfeit money to make change for large bills are increasingly common, especially in Guangzhou. Arguments with taxi drivers over fares or over choice of route usually are not easily resolved on the scene. In some cases, Americans who instigate such arguments have been detained for questioning and are not usually released until the fare is paid or a settlement is reached and the American offers an apology. There has been an increase in the number of Americans falling victim to scams involving the inflation of tea and drink prices. Normally, the scam involves young people who approach English speaking tourists and ask to have a cup of tea with them to practice their English. When the bill comes for the tea, the charge has been inflated to an exorbitant amount. When the tourist complains, enforcers arrive to collect the money. A similar scam involves buying drinks for young women at local bars.

Throughout China, women outside hotels in tourist districts frequently use the prospect of companionship or sex to lure foreign men to isolated locations where accomplices are waiting for the purpose of robbery. Travelers should not allow themselves to be driven to bars or an individual's home unless they know the person making the offer. Hotel guests should refuse to open their room doors to anyone they do not know personally.

Recently, American visitors have encountered scams at the international airports in China whereby individuals appearing to work for the airport offer to take American tourists’ bags to the departure area, but instead they carry the bags to another area and insist that the visitor pay an airport tax. Travelers should be advised that the airport tax is now included in the price of the airline ticket. The airport police or security officers should be contacted if this happens.

The U.S. Embassy is aware of reports that airport thefts and robberies of travelers in China are on the rise, specifically in the domestic airports of Beijing, Zhengzhou, Shenyang, Dalian, Qingdao and Taiyuan. Additionally, some Americans report that they have been the victims of robberies while in their hotel rooms in tourist areas and some have been assaulted during these robberies.

American visitors to China should carry their passports with them out of reach of pickpockets. Americans with Chinese residence permits (juliuzheng) should carry these documents, and leave their passports in a secure location except when traveling. All Americans are encouraged to make photocopies of their passport bio-data pages and Chinese visas and to keep these in a separate, secure location, and to register with the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate General

In many countries around the world, counterfeit and pirated goods are widely available. Transactions involving such products may be illegal under local law. In addition, bringing them back to the United States may result in forfeitures and/ or fines. More information on this serious problem is available at http://www.cybercrime.gov/18usc2320.htm.

Information for Victims of Crime: The loss or theft abroad of a U.S. passport should be reported immediately to the local police and the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate. If you are the victim of a crime while overseas, in addition to reporting to local police, please contact the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate for assistance. The Embassy/Consulate staff can, for example, assist you to find appropriate medical care, contact family members or friends and explain how funds could be transferred. Although the investigation and prosecution of the crime is solely the responsibility of local authorities, consular officers can help you to understand the local criminal justice process and to find an attorney if needed.

English Teachers/Secondary School Teachers: Many Americans have enjoyed their teaching experience in China; others have encountered significant problems. Prospective teachers are encouraged to read the Teaching in China Guide on Embassy Beijing's American Citizen Services web site at http://beijing.usembassy-china.org.cn/teach.html. To assist the embassy in providing up to date information to prospective teachers, Americans experiencing problems should inform the Embassy by contacting the American Citizens Services Unit at telephone (86) (10) 6532-3431 or via e-mail at [email protected].

Medical Facilities and Health Information: The standards of medical care in China are not equivalent to those in the United States. Medical facilities with international staffs are available in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and a few other large cities. Many other hospitals in major Chinese cities have so-called VIP wards (gaogan bingfang). These feature reasonably up-to-date laboratory and imaging facilities. The physicians in these centers are generally well-trained. Most VIP wards also provide medical services to foreigners and have English-speaking doctors and nurses. Most hospitals in China will not accept medical insurance from the United States, with the exception of the following hospitals, which are on the BlueCross BlueShield's worldwide network providers—overseas network hospitals’ list (http://www.bcbs.com/bluecard-worldwide/index.html): Hong Kong Adventist Hospital, Beijing United Family Hospital, Beijing Friendship Hospital, International Medical Center in Beijing, and Peking Union Medical Center. Travelers will be asked to post a deposit prior to admission to cover the expected cost of treatment. Hospitals in major cities may accept credit cards for payment. Even in the VIP/foreigner wards of major hospitals, however, American patients have frequently encountered difficulty due to cultural, language, and regulatory differences. Physicians and hospitals have sometimes refused to supply American patients with complete copies of their Chinese hospital medical records, including laboratory test results, scans, and x-rays.

Note: Travelers should note that commonly used American medication is generally not available in China. Medications that bear the same or similar name to prescription medication from the United States are not always the same.

Ambulances do not carry sophisticated medical equipment. Injured or seriously ill Americans may be required to take taxis or other immediately available vehicles to the nearest major hospital rather than waiting for ambulances to arrive. Generally, in rural areas, only rudimentary medical facilities are available, often with poorly trained medical personnel who have little medical equipment and medications. Rural clinics are often reluctant to accept responsibility for treating foreigners, even in emergency situations.

SOS International, Ltd., operates modern medical and dental clinics and provides medical evacuation and medical escort services in Beijing, Nanjing, Tianjin and Shekou, as well as 24hr Alarm Centers in Beijing and Shanghai. Through clinics in Beijing (24 hours), Tianjin, Nanjing and Shekou, SOS offers international standard family practice services, emergency medical services and a range of clinical services.

For medical emergencies anywhere in mainland China, Americans can call the SOS International, Ltd., 24-hour “Alarm Center” in Beijing at telephone: (86)(10) 6462-9100 or in Shanghai at: (86)(21) 5298-9538 for advice and referrals to local facilities. SOS International “Alarm Centers” can also be contacted in Hong Kong at telephone: (852) 2428-9900 and in the United States at: (215) 245-4707. For a full list of SOS locations and phone numbers, consult the SOS web site at http://www.internationalsos.com.

Bayley & Jackson Beijing
Medical Center
#7 Ritan Dong Lu,
Chaoyang District, Beijing 100020
(86) (10) 8562-9998
Fax: (86) (10) 8561-4866
email: [email protected]
Web site: www.bjhealthcare.com

Beijing United Family
Hospital and Clinics
#2 Jiang Tai Lu, Chaoyang District,
Beijing 100016
(86) (10) 6433-3960
Fax: (86) (10) 6433-3963
Emergency Hotline: (86) (10) 6433-2345
Web site: www.unitedfamilyhospitals.com

Beijing United Family Clinic-Shunyi Pinnacle Plaza, Unit # 818, Tian Zhu Real Estate Development Zone, Shunyi District, 101312 (86) (10) 8046-5432 Fax: (86) (10) 8046-4383

Peking Union Medical Hospital 1 Shuai Fu Yuan, Dong Cheng District, Beijing 100730 Tel: (86) (10) 6529-5269 (registration and information); (86) (10) 6529-5284 (24 hours); (86) (10) 6529 6114 (operator) Modern Facilities with English speaking staff. Separate ward for foreign patients.

World Link Shanghai Clinics: Expatriate doctors and imported vaccines. Hotline: (86) (21) 6385-9990 www.worldlink-shanghai.com. World Link Medical Centers located at:

Shanghai Center Medical Center
1376 Nanjing Xi Lu Suite 203
Telephone: (86) (21) 6279-7688

Hong Qiao Medical Center
2258 Hong Qiao Lu
Telephone: (86) (21) 6242-0909

Specialty Clinic
Lu Wan Hospital, 3rd Floor
170 Dan Shui Lu
Telephone: (86) (21) 6445-5999

Jin Qiao Medical & Dental Center
51 Hong Feng Lu
Pudong
Tel: (86) (21) 5032-8288

Shanghai Kerry Center
Room 301
1515 Nanjing West Rd
Tel: (86) (21) 5298-6339

Fudan Vision
Managed by VisionHealthOne a Singapore health care company and affiliated to Fudan Medical University. Fudan Vision is staffed by Singapore and western physicians.
Silver Tower 3 rd
Floor 228 South Xizang Rd
Tel: (86) (21) 6334-3668

Shanghai United Family Hospital
1139 Xianxia Lu
Tel: (86) (21) 5133-1900
Emergency hotline: (86) (21) 5133-1999
www.unitedfamilyhospitals.com

Shanghai East International Medical Center
551 South Pudong Rd
Telephone: (86) (21) 5879-999
Shanghai Mental Health Center
600 Wanping Nan Lu
Shanghai, China
Telephone (86) (21) 64387250

GlobalDoctor, Ltd., has opened clinics staffed by English-speaking doctors within the VIP wards of government-run hospitals in Chengdu, Nanjing, and Beijing. There is also a clinic in Shenyang with a 24- hour emergency assistance hotline at (86)(24) 2433-0678. GlobalDoctor can be reached by telephone from China at (86) (10) 8456-9191 or on the Internet at www.eglobaldoctor.com.

Clinics in Guangzhou with English-Speaking Staff:

Guangzhou Can Am
International Medical Center
5/F Garden Hotel 368 Huanshi Dong
Lu, Guangzhou
Tel: (020) 8386-6988 (24-hour)

Global Doctor Medical Center
C1 2nd Annex, Tianyu Garden
136 Lin He Zhong Lu
Guangzhou, Guangdong, 510180 Tel: (020) 3884-1452
Mobile: 13500014119
(emergency only)

Eur Am International
Medical Center
1/F North Tower,
Ocean Pearl Building,
19 Huali Lu, Zhu Jiang New City,
Guangzhou 510623
Tel: (020) 3759-1168;
3758-5328 (appointment)
Fax: (020) 3758-5531
Web site: www.kcimc.com
Email: [email protected]

Additional information on medical providers specializing in treating foreigners for general medical, dental and orthodontic problems are available at http://beijing.usembassy-china.org.cn.

Information on vaccinations and other health precautions, such as safe food and water precautions and insect bite protection, may be obtained from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's hotline for international travelers at 1-877-FYI-TRIP (1-877-394-8747) or via the CDC's website at http://wwwn.cdc.gov/travel. For information about outbreaks of infectious diseases abroad consult the World Health Organization's (WHO) web site at http://www.who.int/en. Further health information for travelers is available at http://www.who.int/ith/en.

Alternative Medical Treatments: There have been increasing numbers of foreigners coming to China to receive alternative medical treatments or procedures prohibited in the United States relating specifically to stem-cell research. Any person contemplating these treatments should be fully aware of the risks of such procedures.

The treatments can be dangerous and untested. The results are not guaranteed. In many instances, patients going for treatment develop secondary infections that cannot be handled by these facilities.

They are transferred to hospitals for treatment and are responsible for all additional costs, including repatriation back to the United States. In some cases, these treatments have resulted in death.

Medical Insurance: China has no public healthcare system to provide for people without insurance or money. If you become sick or injured, you will be expected to pay for your bills, sometimes even before treatment is offered. The Department of State strongly urges Americans to consult with their medical insurance company prior to traveling abroad to confirm whether their policy applies overseas and whether it will cover emergency expenses such as a medical evacuation.

The rate of traffic accidents in China, including fatal accidents, is among the highest in the world. Driving etiquette in China is developing. As a result, traffic is often chaotic, and right-of-way and other courtesies are often ignored. Travelers should note that cars and buses in the wrong lanes frequently hit pedestrians and bicyclists. Pedestrians should always be careful while walking near traffic. Road/traffic conditions are generally safe if occupants of modern passenger vehicles wear seatbelts. Most traffic accident injuries involve pedestrians or cyclists who are involved in collisions or who encounter unexpected road hazards (e.g., unmarked open manholes). Foreigners with resident permits can apply for PRC driver licenses; however, liability issues often make it preferable to employ a local driver. Child safety seats are not widely available in China. Americans who wish to ride bicycles in China are urged to wear safety helmets meeting U.S. standards.

Traffic Safety and Road Conditions: While in a foreign country, U.S. citizens may encounter road conditions that differ significantly from those in the United States. The information below concerning China is provided for general reference only, and may not be totally accurate in a particular location or circumstance.

The number of American citizens involved in serious and deadly traffic accidents in Beijing is increasing. The Embassy strongly encourages travelers to exercise special caution when crossing streets in China's cities as pedestrians do not have the right-of-way. Please note that many taxi cabs do not have functioning seatbelts for passengers.

All drivers should be aware of the Chinese regulations regarding traffic accidents. These include the requirement that drivers:

  • Not move their vehicles or disturb the scene of the accident unless and until ordered to by the traffic police (in Shanghai and Beijing, the police now prefer that if the parties can reach agreement as to who was at fault they move the vehicles out of the flow of traffic)
  • Summon the traffic police and wait at the scene until the police arrive and complete their investigation.

If called to an accident, the police may take 20 minutes or longer to arrive. Once the police arrive, they will complete a preliminary investigation and arrange a time for you to report to the police station responsible for the accident scene. The police will prepare a written report, in Chinese, describing the circumstances of the accident. They will present the report to you either at the scene, or more likely at the police station, and ask you to sign it verifying the details of the accident. Do not sign the report as is unless your Chinese is good enough to completely understand the report and you find it totally accurate. If you either do not understand it or believe it is partly or wholly inaccurate, you may either:

  • Write a disclaimer on the report to the effect that you cannot read and understand the report and cannot attest to the accuracy thereof, but are signing it because of the police requirement that you do so, and then sign, or
  • Write your own version of the accident, in English, on the police form and indicate that your signature only attests to the accuracy of the English version.

Most incidents (such as an accident) will draw a crowd. Drivers should remain calm. A crowd will usually move in very close to the accident and participants. In many cases the bystanders consider themselves to be an ad hoc jury. They may call for money, usually from RMB 100 to 1,000, to be paid by the party they consider at fault. The amount is not necessarily relevant to the amount of damage. A certain amount of bargaining is normal, even at accidents involving two Chinese parties.

Though a crowd may seem threatening, crowd assaults on foreigners at accidents have not been reported. If a traffic police booth is nearby, you may wish to leave the vehicle and walk there to await the arrival of the police accident team. Alternatively, you may walk to a shop, restaurant, or other location nearby in the immediate vicinity and wait for police.

Your vehicle should not leave the scene of an accident. Your actions may serve to further incite the crowd if they perceive that you are fleeing to evade responsibility for your share of blame or payment of damages. The crowd may attempt to keep your vehicle at the accident scene by standing in the way or blocking the roadway with vehicles, bicycles and other objects.

Visit the web site of the China National Tourist Bureau, the Chinese authority responsible for road safety, at http://www.cnta.com/index.asp.

Aviation Safety Oversight: The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has assessed the Government ofChina's Civil Aviation Authority as being in compliance with International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) aviation safety standards for oversight of China's air carrier operations. For more information, travelers may visit the FAA's web site at http://www.faa.gov.

Special Circumstances: Chinese customs authorities may enforce strict regulations concerning temporary importation into or export from China of items such as antiquities, banned publications, some religious literature, or vehicles not conforming to Chinese standards. It is advisable to contact the Embassy of China in Washington or one of China's consulates in the United States for specific information regarding customs requirements.

Some Americans report that items purchased in China and believed to be antiques or genuine gems are often later determined to be reproductions. Some travelers report that this occurs even at state-owned stores and museum stores. Travel agencies and tour guides will often escort tour groups to particular shops at which the travel agency or tour guide will share in the profit, and may claim to guarantee the “authenticity” of items sold in those shops. Travelers are warned to be vigilant when purchasing items in China.

China's customs authorities encourage the use of an ATA (Admission Temporaire/Temporary Admission) Carnet for the temporary admission of professional equipment, commercial samples, and/or goods for exhibitions and fair purposes. ATA Carnet Headquarters, located at the U.S. Council for International Business, 1212 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10036, issues and guarantees the ATA Carnet in the United States. For additional information call (212) 354-4480, send an e-mail to [email protected], or visit www.uscib.org for details.

Disaster Preparedness: The southeast coast of China is vulnerable to strong typhoons, usually from July to September. Travelers planning a trip to China can obtain general information about natural disaster preparedness on the Internet from the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) at http://www.fema.gov. Additional information about currently active typhoons can be obtained on the University of Hawaii tropical storm page at http://www.solar.ifa.hawaii.edu/Tropical/tropical.html.

Criminal Penalties: While in a foreign country, a U.S. citizen is subject to that country's laws and regulations, which, in China, differ significantly from those in the United States and do not afford the protections available to the individual under U.S. law. Penalties for breaking the law can be more severe than in the United States for similar offenses. Persons violating China's laws, even unknowingly, may be expelled, arrested or imprisoned. Penalties for possession of, use of, or trafficking in illegal drugs in China are severe, and convicted offenders can expect long jail sentences and heavy fines. Engaging in sexual conduct with children or using or disseminating child pornography in a foreign country is a crime, prosecutable in the United States.

On March 1, 2006, a new Public Security Law went into effect that gives police new powers relating to the commission of a wide range of offenses, including the authority to detain and deport foreigners. The list of offenses has been expanded to include certain religious activities and prostitution-related crimes.

Americans in China, who are not staying at hotels, including Americans who are staying with friends or relatives, must register with local police as soon as they arrive. Other-wise, they may be fined up to 500 RMB per day.

Americans who are questioned by police should immediately notify the U.S. Embassy or the nearest consulate. Foreigners detained for questioning may not be allowed to contact their national authorities until the questioning is concluded. Foreigners who are detained pending trial have often waited over a year for their trial to begin. Foreigners suspected of committing a crime are rarely granted bail. Criminal punishments, especially prison terms, are much more severe than in the United States. Persons violating the law, even unknowingly, may be expelled, arrested or imprisoned. Criminal penalties for possession, use, or trafficking of illegal drugs are strict, and convicted offenders can expect severe jail sentences and fines. Non-American foreigners have been executed for drug offenses. Several Americans currently incarcerated in China have been implicated in financial fraud schemes involving falsified bank or business documents, tax evasion schemes and assisting alien smuggling, including selling passports to provide aliens with travel documents.

In the past, protesters detained for engaging in pro-Falun Gong activities have been quickly deported from China after being questioned. Several of these protesters alleged they were physically abused during their detention. In addition, they allege that personal property, including clothing, cameras, and computers have not always been returned to them upon their deportation.

Chinese authorities report that while they have deported these foreigners quickly after public demonstrations in favor of the Falun Gong, future adherents who intentionally arrive in China to protest against Chinese policy may receive longer terms of detention and possibly face prison sentences. In one instance, an American Falun Gong practitioner who was traveling in China on personal business was detained and asked to provide information on other Falun Gong sympathizers in the United States.

Several Americans have been detained and expelled for passing out non-authorized Christian literature. Sentences for distributing this material may range from three to five years imprisonment, if convicted.

Children's Issues: Americans involved in child custody disputes with Chinese national spouses should be aware that Chinese courts may give preference to the Chinese citizen spouse and that Americans may encounter limited appeal opportunities under the current legal system. For information on international adoption of children and international parental child abduction, see the Office of Children's Issues web-site at http://travel.state.gov/family.

Registration and Embassy Locations: Americans living or traveling in China are encouraged to register with the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate through the State Department's travel registration web site so that they can obtain updated information on travel and security within China. Americans without Internet access may register directly with the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate. By registering, American citizens make it easier for the Embassy or Consulate to contact them in case of emergency.

Beijing: The U.S. Embassy is located at No. 2 Xiu Shui Dong Jie, Chaoyang District, Beijing. The American Citizen Services section can be reached at (86)(10) 6532-3431 (8:30-12:00 a.m. and 2:00-4:00 p.m., Mon-Fri) or after hours at (86)(10) 6532-1910. For detailed information please visit the U.S. Embassy's web site at http://beijing.usembassy-china.org.cn. The Embassy consular district includes the following provinces/regions of China: Beijing, Tianjin, Shandong, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, Ningxia, Shaanxi, Qinghai, Xinjiang, Hebei, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, and Jiangxi.

Chengdu: The U.S. Consulate General in Chengdu is located at Number 4, Lingshiguan Road, Section 4, Ren-min Nanlu, Chengdu 610041, tel. (86)(28) 8558-3992, 8555-3119, after hours (86)(28) 1370 8001 422, and email at [email protected]. This consular district includes the following provinces/regions of China: Guizhou, Sichuan Xizang (Tibet), and Yunnan, as well as the municipality of Chongqing.

Guangzhou: The main office of the U.S. Consulate General in Guangzhou is located at Number 1 South Shamian Street, Shamian Island 200S1, Guangzhou 510133The Consular Section, including the American Citizens Services Unit, is now located at 5th Floor, Tianyu Garden (II phase), 136-146 Lin He Zhong Lu, Tianhe District, tel. (86) (20) 8518-7605; after hours (86) (20) 8121-6077, and email [email protected]. This consular district includes the following provinces/regions of China: Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan, and Fujian.

Shanghai: The Consular Section of the U.S. Consulate General in Shanghai is located in the Westgate Mall, 8 th Floor, 1038 Nanjing Xi Lu, Shanghai 200031; tel. (86)(21) 3217-4650, ext. 2102, 2013, or 2134, after hours (86)(21) 6433-3936; email [email protected] This consular district includes the following provinces/ regions of China: Shanghai, Anhui, Jiangsu and Zhejiang.

Shenyang: The U.S. Consulate General in Shenyang is located at No. 52, 14 th Wei Road, Heping District, Shenyang 110003; tel. (86)(24) 2322-2374; email [email protected]. This consular district includes the following provinces/regions of China: Liaoning, Heilongjiang, and Jilin.

International Adoption

February 2006

The information in this section has been edited from a report of the State Department Bureau of Consular Affairs, Office of Overseas Citizens Services. For more information, please read the International Adoption section of this book and review current reports online at http://travel.state.gov/family.

Disclaimer: The information in this flyer relating to the legal requirements of specific foreign countries is based on public sources and current understanding. Questions involving foreign and U.S. immigration laws and legal interpretation should be addressed respectively to qualified foreign or U.S. legal counsel. Prospective adoptive parents are advised to fully research any adoption agency or facilitator they plan to use for adoption services.

Please Note: Chinese authorities are extremely sensitive about the operation of foreign entities in China. Moreover, adoption is also a sensitive subject in China.It is therefore advisable for any person interested in adopting a child from China to act with discretion and decorum. High-profile attention to adoption in China could curtail or eliminate altogether adoption of Chinese children by persons from countries, including the United States, that have caused adoption to become the subject of public attention.

General Overview: Chinese adoption law is very clear on which categories of children are eligible for adoption and what types of prospective adoptive parents China deems acceptable. These issues are discussed in further detail elsewhere in this flyer.

Only adoptions fully completed in China are permitted. It is not possible under Chinese law to obtain guardianship of a Chinese child for later adoption in the United States.

The Chinese and U.S. authorities involved in the adoption and immigration process review each case individually to ensure that the child and the prospective adoptive family have met all of both countries’ legal requirements. U.S. citizens considering adopting from China are strongly encouraged to contact U.S. consular officials in Guangzhou before formalizing an adoption agreement. This will help to ensure that appropriate procedures have been followed, thus increasing the likelihood that the child will be eligible for a U.S. immigrant visa.

In September 2005, China ratified the Hague Convention on intercountry adoption. The U.S. has signed the Convention and is working towards ratification and implementation. The Chinese government has assured the U.S. Government that adoptions between China and the United States will continue uninterrupted despite the fact that China has ratified and the U.S. has not.

Availability of Children for Adoption: To be eligible for adoption, Chinese children must first be identified and approved by the China Centre of Adoption Affairs (CCAA). The CCAA matches individual children with prospective adoptive parent(s) whose completed applications have been submitted to the CCAA by a CCAA-licensed U.S. adoption agency whose credentials are on file at the CCAA.

Adoption Authority: The government office with overall responsibility for adoptions in China is the Ministry of Civil Affairs, and specifically the China Centre of Adoption Affairs (CCAA). In addition, Child Welfare Institutes (roughly the equivalent of orphanages), the Civil Affairs Bureau, Chinese government notar-ial offices, and the Public Security Bureau are also involved.

The China Centre of Adoption Affairs (CCAA)
103 Beiheyan St.
Dongcheng District
Beijing 100006
Phone: 86-10-6522-3102
86-10-6513-0607
Website: www.china-ccaa.org
Email: [email protected]

Department of Civil Affairs
No. 147 Beiheyan St.
Beijing, 100032

Notarial Offices: The provincial Notarial Offices, which are administered by the Ministry of Justice, Department of Notarization Division (No. 10 Chaoyangmen Nandajie, Beijing 100020 China) issue the final adoption certificate.

Public Security Bureau: The Public Security Bureau in the locality where the adoption takes place is responsible for issuing Chinese passports and exit permits to children adopted by U.S. citizens and other foreigners.

Age of Children: Chinese law allows for the adoption of children up to and including age 13; children ages 14 and up may not be adopted.

Civil Status of Prospective Adoptive Parents: Chinese law permits adoption by married couples (one man, one woman) and single heterosexual persons. Chinese law prohibits homosexual individuals or couples from adopting Chinese children.

Residency: China does not require that prospective adoptive parents reside in China for a specified period prior to completing an adoption. However, in order to finalize the adoption, at least one adopting parent must travel to China to execute the required documents in person before the appropriate Chinese authorities. If the prospective adoptive parents are married, they must adopt the child jointly. If only one member of an adopting married couple travels to China, that person must have in his/her possession a power of attorney from the other spouse, notarized and authenticated by the Chinese Embassy in Washington or one of the Chinese Consulates General elsewhere in the United States.http://www.china-embassy.org/eng/hzqz/t84229.htm.

Time Frame: It is hard to predict with certainty how much time is required to complete an adoption in China. The time frames provided in this flyer are intended as guidelines only, and the specific circumstances of each case could affect significantly how long it takes.

As of February 2006, adoptions were taking approximately ten to twelve months from the time the U.S. adoption agency submitted the paperwork of the prospective adopter to CCAA to the time the CCAA gave the prospective adoptive parent(s) their initial referral. Cases involving children with special needs may take longer.

After the referral is sent and the prospective parent(s) accept the child, four to eight more weeks are likely to elapse before the CCAA gives the prospective adoptive parents final approval to travel to China.

With regard to time required in China, the CCAA has advised local officials to try to complete the process within 15 days after the arrival of the prospective parent(s) in China. The Chinese passport, exit permits, and U.S. visa process can take another 7-10 days after the adoption is finalized. Some U.S. families have been able to complete the in-country process, including obtaining the U.S. immigrant visa for the adoptive child, in approximately two weeks.

Adoption Fees: Fees charged by Chinese authorities in connection with foreign adoptions may vary depending on the province where the child is adopted. However, for each adoption, there are standard fees that adoptive parents must pay.

The authentication/legalization of documents by the Chinese Embassy or Consulate in the United States costs US$10 per document, whether the document is one or multiple pages. (The fee is for authentication of the seal.) The initial CCAA fee is US$365, plus US$200 for translation of the documents submitted in the dossier. (The translations can be done in the United States or China; however, the CCAA advises that the translations must be “correct” and that CCAA will “rectify,” and charge for the rectification of, any errors.) Fees for the issuance of the registration of the adoption by the Civil Affairs Bureau: US $30 (charge for expedited issuance differs in different provinces). Fees for issuance of the Chinese-notarized certificate approving the adoption, birth certificate and abandonment certificate may vary based on province. Additional documents such as death certificates (for the orphan's parents) or additional investigation is not included in this fee.

Chinese passports cost US$25 for normal 15-working-day issuance. Individual Children's Welfare Institutes (where the child has been living prior to being adopted) may charge from US$3000 to $5000 as a combined donation to the institution and a fee for having raised and cared for the child. It is the experience of the U.S. Consulate General in Guangzhou that the assessed fees are reasonable based on the local economy and the costs associated with raising a child in China. Some U.S. families who have adopted in China have reported being required to pay additional charges of up to US$500 for transportation (if the orphanage staff travels to the capital with the child) or expedited processing of documents.

U.S. adoptive parent(s) who believe that they were compelled at any point during the adoption process to pay exorbitant fees out of keeping with the general outline provided in this flyer should notify the U.S. Consulate General in Guangzhou.

Adoption Procedures: A CCAA-licensed agency may submit adoption applications directly to the CCAA for consideration. A listing of CCAA-licensed agencies can be found on http://www.china-ccaa.org. The CCAA reviews the documents and advises the prospective adoptive parent(s)—either directly or through their adoption agency—whether additional documents or authentications are required.

Once the CCAA approves the application, it matches the application with a specific child. The CCAA then sends the prospective adoptive parent(s) a letter of introduction about the child, including photographs and the child's health record. This document is commonly called a ‘referral.’ Prospective adoptive parents who still have questions about the child after reviewing this information may follow up with the CCAA either directly or via their adoption agency.

Prospective adoptive parent(s) then either accept or refuse the referral and send the document to their agency, which forwards it to CCAA. CCAA requires a response on a referral within 45 days of sending a referral to a family. If prospective adoptive parent(s) are considering refusing a referral they should discuss with their agency the possibility of getting a second referral. (Please note that all communications with CCAA must be done via the adoption agency.) CCAA will only accept referral rejections if there is a justified explanation provided. If the reason for the rejection is considered justifiable (such as a medical problem), then CCAA will refer the second child within a month's time. If CCAA regards the rejection as unreasonable, the prospective parents will have difficulty obtaining a second referral and CCAA is more likely to suggest that the parents withdraw their application for adoption in China.

Prospective adoptive parents who have accepted a specific referred child will receive an approval notice from the CCAA Prospective parents must have this approval notice in hand before departing for China to finalize the adoption.

Prior to traveling to China, prospective adoptive parents must also already have been in contact with the Department of Homeland Security's U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) and must have an approved I-600A form.

Americans adopting in China will usually meet with a notary in the provincial capital for an informal interview before they notarize documents such as birth certificates or abandonment certificates. Chinese Adoption law does not require notarization of the adoption documents (birth certificate, and abandonment), but the U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou does.

In all cases an interview at a registry office is conducted. According to Chinese Adoption Law, adoptive parents must meet with the adoption registry office to finalize the adoption. Sometimes prospective adoptive parent(s) are asked to write a paragraph or a page on the reasons for the adoption and their plans for the child. Sometimes the local notary in the city where the Children's Welfare Institute is located meets with the parents and conducts a final interview in which questions similar to those posed at the provincial level are asked.

Prospective adoptive parents may request to see the child before completing the adoption. If such a visit with the child leads them to have additional questions about the child's health, background, etc., it is important to resolve these before finalizing the adoption.

The next step, after the prospective adoptive parents have completed their interviews with the various Chinese government offices, is to complete the adoption. At this point, the adopting parents will be required to make a fixed “donation” of US$3000 to $5000 to the Children's Welfare Institute where the child was being raised prior to the adoption. This is not a bribe, and U.S. prospective adoptive parents should not consider it such. It is the experience of the U.S. Consulate General in Guangzhou that the assessed fees are reasonable based on the local economy and the costs associated with raising a child in China. As part of finalizing the adoption, prospective adoptive parents will have to sign agreements with the Child Welfare Institute, register the adoption at the provincial Civil Affairs Bureau, and pay all of the remaining required fees. When the notarial office in the child's place of residence approves the adoption, that office issues a notarized certificate of adoption, a notarized birth certificate and either notarized death certificate(s) for the child's biological parent(s) or a statement of abandonment from the welfare institute. The adoptive relationship goes into effect on the day of the notarization. Once the adoption is final, the adoptive parents are fully and legally responsible for the child.

Please see the International Adoption section of this book for more details and review current reports online at http://travel.state.gov/family.

Documentary Requirements: Pre-adoption documents to be submitted in the initial CCAA dossier:

  • Adoption application letter.
  • Birth certificate(s) of the prospective adoptive parent(s).
  • Marital status statement—Either a marriage certificate, divorce or death certificate (if applicable) or statement of single status is required.
  • Certificates of profession, income and property including; verification of employment and salary notarized and authenticated; a certified and authenticated copy of your property trust deeds, if applicable; bank statements notarized/certified and authenticated.
  • Health examination certificate(s) of the prospective adoptive parent(s).
  • Certificate(s) of criminal or no-criminal record–A certificate of good conduct for the adoptive parent(s) from a local police department notarized or bearing the police department seal and authenticated. An FBI report is acceptable in lieu of a local police record.
  • Homestudy report.
  • Certificate of child adoption approval by the competent department of the adopter's country of residence, also known as the Department of Homeland Security Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services I-171H Notice of Approval of an I-600A petition) along with copies of the U.S. passport(s) of the prospective adoptive parent(s).
  • Each applicant parent should also submit two front-view photos and several other photos reflecting the family's life in the United States.

Additional documents the prospective parents should bring to China:

  • Power of attorney notarized and authenticated (if only one spouse will travel to China). In case of married couples, if only one adopting parent comes to China, Chinese law requires that the spouse traveling bring a power of attorney from his/her spouse, notarized and properly authenticated by Chinese Embassy or one of the Chinese Consulates General in the United States.
  • A copy of the I-171H form (I-600A approval notice from USCIS).

Translation Requirements: All documents must be accompanied by a certified Mandarin Chinese translation. For a $200 fee, the CCAA will provide the translation service. If a translated copy is submitted with the application, the translator must execute a statement before a notary public as to the validity of the translation. The notary's seal must be authenticated.

U.S. Immigration Requirements: A Chinese child adopted by an American citizen must obtain an immigrant visa before he or she can enter the United States as a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident. Please see the International Adoption section of this book for more details and review current reports online at http://travel.state.gov/family.

Embassy of the People's Republic of China
Consular Section
2300 Connecticut Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20008
Tel: 202-328-2500

China also has Consulates in Los Angeles, CA; San Francisco, CA; Chicago, IL; New York, NY, and Houston, TX.

What to Take with You for the Child: It is difficult to predict how long it may be necessary for you to remain in China with your adopted child. There are small grocery and sundry stores in major hotels in China. Nevertheless, not all western-style baby products are readily available in China. You may wish to consider bringing certain items with you. These might include:

  • Plastic or cloth baby carrier
  • Bottle nipples
  • Disposable paper diapers
  • Baby wipes
  • Baby blankets
  • Infant wear
  • Thermos bottle, for hot water to prepare dry formula
  • Milk bottles (plastic, glass, and disposable)
  • Disposable plastic bags for milk bottles

Medical Needs: A list of available hospitals in the Guangzhou area and medical evacuation services can be found at www.usembassy-china.org.cn/guangzhou. Anyone who needs emergency medical service can call the city Emergency Center (in Guangzhou: 020-120), which will inform the hospital nearest the patient to arrange an ambulance and a medical team to the patient's location as soon as possible.

Other Assistance While in China: The mailing address and contact information for the Consulate General of the United States in Guangzhou is:

Adopted Children Immigrant Visa Unit
#1 Shamian South Street
Guangzhou, P. R. C. 51033
PHONE: 011-86-20-8121 8000
DIRECT LINE: 011-86-20-8518 7653
FAX: 011-86-20-3884 4420
EMAIL: [email protected]

The U.S. Embassy is located in Beijing. The U.S. also has Consulates General in Shanghai, Shenyang, and Chengdu.

Additional Information: Specific questions about adoption in China may be addressed to the U.S. Consulate General in Guangzhou at the address, phone and fax numbers provided earlier in this flyer. General questions regarding intercountry adoption may be addressed to the Office of Children's Issues, U.S. Department of State, CA/OCS/CI, SA-29, 4th Floor, 2201 C Street, NW, Washington, D.C. 20520-4818, toll-free Tel: 1-888-407-4747.

International Parental Child Abduction

February 2008

The information in this section has been edited from a report of the State Department Bureau of Consular Affairs, Office of Overseas Citizens Services. For more information, please read the International Child Abduction section of this book and review current reports online at http://travel.state.gov/family.

Disclaimer: The information in this flyer relating to the legal requirements of specific foreign countries is provided for general information only. Questions involving interpretation of specific foreign laws should be addressed to foreign legal counsel.

General Information: The Peoples Republic of China (PRC) is not a party to the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, nor are there any international or bilateral treaties in force between China and the United States dealing with international parental child abduction. American citizens who travel to China place themselves under the jurisdiction of local courts. American citizens planning a trip to China with dual national children should bear this in mind.

Custody Disputes: In China, parents who are legally married share the custody of their children. If they are not married and the parents cannot reach an agreement, custody is granted by the courts in the best interests of the child.

Enforcement of Foreign Judgments: Custody orders and judgments of foreign courts are not enforceable in China. Such judgments must be presented to a Chinese court for that courts consideration and decision. In China, there is a limited process to appeal a lower court's decision.

Visitation Rights: In cases where legal custody has been granted and the judgment has been rendered, the non-custodial parent's visitation rights are normally incorporated within the court ordered decision.

Dual Nationality: Dual nationality is not recognized under Chinese law. Some U.S. citizens who are also Chinese nationals (mostly U.S. -born children of Chinese nationals or Legal permanent Permanent Residents) have experienced difficulty entering and departing China on U.S. passports. In some cases, such dual nationals are required to use Chinese travel documents to depart China. Normally this causes inconvenience but no significant problems for affected persons; however, in child custody disputes, the ability of dual national children to depart from China could be affected. Generally, children who are Chinese nationals according to Chinese law are not permitted to depart China if one parent refuses to allow the travel requested by one parent, even if that parent is considered an abducting parent by United States courts. In those cases, children abducted to China are only permitted to return to the United States if both parents agree to their return, or if a Chinese court upholds a United States Court's decision to allow the left-behind parent sole custody.

For more information, please read the International Parental Child Abduction section of this book and review current reports online at http://travel.state.gov/family.

Travel Restrictions: While no exit visas are required to leave China, persons who replace passports are required to get an exit permit from the entry and exit police. The U.S. Embassy and Consulates will assist a traveler with a new passport in obtaining this document.

Criminal Remedies: For information on possible criminal remedies, please contact your local law enforcement authorities or the nearest office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Information is also available on the Internet at the web site of the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) at http://www.ojjdp.ncjrs.org.

For further information on international parental child abduction, contact the Office of Children's Issues, U.S. Department of State at 1-888-407-4747 or visit its web site on the Internet at http://travel.state.gov/family. You may also direct inquiries to: Office of Children's Issues, U.S. Department of State, Washington, DC 20520-4811; Phone: (202) 736-9090; Fax: (202) 312-9743.

China

views updated May 29 2018

China

Compiled from the January 2007 Background Note and supplemented with additional information from the State Department and the editors of this volume. See the introduction to this set for explanatory notes.

Official Name:
People’s Republic of China

PROFILE

PEOPLE

HISTORY

GOVERNMENT

POLITICAL CONDITIONS

ECONOMY

FOREIGN RELATIONS

DEFENSE

U.S.-CHINA RELATIONS

TRAVEL

PROFILE

Geography

Area: 9,596,960 sq. km. (about 3.7 million sq. mi.).

Cities: Capital—Beijing. Other major cities—Shanghai, Tianjin, Shenyang, Wuhan, Guangzhou, Chongqing, Harbin, Chengdu.

Terrain: Plains, deltas, and hills in east; mountains, high plateaus, deserts in west.

Climate: Tropical in south to subarctic in north.

People

Nationality: Noun and adjective—Chinese (singular and plural).

Population: (2006 est.) 1.3 billion.

Population growth rate: (2006 est.) 0.6%.

Health: (2006 est.) Infant mortality rate—23.12/1,000. Life expectancy—72.58 years (overall); 70.89 years for males, 74.46 years for females.

Ethnic groups: Han Chinese—91.9%; Zhuang, Manchu, Hui, Miao, Uygur, Yi, Mongolian, Tibetan, Buyi, Korean, and other nationalities—8.1%.

Religions: Officially atheist; Taoism, Buddhism, Islam, Christianity.

Language: Mandarin (Putonghua), plus many local dialects.

Education: Years compulsory—9. Literacy—89%.

Work force: (2001 est., 711 million) Agriculture and forestry—50%; industry and commerce—23%; other—27%.

Government

Type: Communist party-led state.

Constitution: December 4, 1982.

Independence: Unification under the Qin (Ch’in) Dynasty 221 BC; Qing (Ch’ing or Manchu) Dynasty replaced by a republic on February 12, 1912; People’s Republic established October 1, 1949.

Government branches: Executive—president, vice president, State Council, premier. Legislative—unicameral National People’s Congress. Judicial—Supreme People’s Court.

Political subdivisions: 23 provinces (the P.R.C. considers Taiwan to be its 23rd province); 5 autonomous regions, including Tibet; 4 municipalities directly under the State Council.

Political parties: Chinese Communist Party, 70.8 million members; 8 minor parties under communist supervision.

Suffrage: Universal at 18.

Economy

GDP: (2005) $2.26 trillion (exchange rate based).

Per capita GDP: (2005) $1,700 (exchange rate based).

GDP real growth rate: (2005) 9.9%.

Natural resources: Coal, iron ore, crude oil, mercury, tin, tungsten, antimony, manganese, molybdenum, vanadium, magnetite, aluminum, lead, zinc, uranium, hydropower potential (world’s largest).

Agriculture: Products—Among the world’s largest producers of rice, wheat, potatoes, corn, peanuts, tea, millet, barley; commercial crops include cotton, other fibers, apples, oilseeds, pork and fish; produces variety of livestock products.

Industry: Types—mining and ore processing; iron; steel; aluminum; coal, machinery; textiles and apparel; armaments; petroleum; cement; chemicals; fertilizers; consumer products including footwear, toys, and electronics; automobiles and other transportation equipment including rail cars and locomotives, ships, and aircraft; and telecommunications.

Trade: (2005) Exports—$762.3 billion: electronics; machinery; apparel; optical, photographic, and medical equipment; and furniture. Main part-ners—U.S., Hong Kong, Japan, EU, South Korea, Singapore. Imports—$660.2 billion: electronics, machinery, petroleum products, chemicals, steel. Main partners—Japan, EU, Taiwan, South Korea, U.S., Hong Kong.

PEOPLE

Ethnic Groups

The largest ethnic group is the Han Chinese, who constitute about 91.9% of the total population. The remaining 8.1% are Zhuang (16 million), Manchu (10 million), Hui (9 million), Miao (8 million), Uygur (7 million), Yi (7 million), Mongolian (5 million), Tibetan (5 million), Buyi (3 million), Korean (2 million), and other ethnic minorities.

Language

There are seven major Chinese dialects and many subdialects. Mandarin (or Putonghua), the predominant dialect, is spoken by over 70% of the population. It is taught in all schools and is the medium of government. About two-thirds of the Han ethnic group are native speakers of Mandarin; the rest, concentrated in southwest and southeast China, speak one of the six other major Chinese dialects. Non-Chinese languages spoken widely by ethnic minorities include Mongolian, Tibetan, Uygur and other Turkic languages (in Xinjiang), and Korean (in the northeast).

The Pinyin System of Romanization

On January 1, 1979, the Chinese Government officially adopted the pinyin system for spelling Chinese names and places in Roman letters. A system of Romanization invented by the Chinese, pinyin has long been widely used in China on street and commercial signs as well as in elementary Chinese textbooks as an aid in learning Chinese characters. Variations of pinyin also are used as the written forms of several minority languages.

Pinyin has now replaced other conventional spellings in China’s English-language publications. The U.S. Government also has adopted the pinyin system for all names and places in China. For example, the capital of China is now spelled “Beijing” rather than “Peking.”

Religion

Religion plays a significant part in the life of many Chinese. Buddhism is most widely practiced, with an estimated 100 million adherents. Traditional Taoism also is practiced. Official figures indicate there are 20 million Muslims, 5 million Catholics, and 15 million Protestants; unofficial estimates are much higher.

While the Chinese constitution affirms religious toleration, the Chinese Government places restrictions on religious practice outside officially recognized organizations. Only two Christian organizations—a Catholic church without official ties to Rome and the “Three-Self-Patriotic” Protestant church—are sanctioned by the Chinese Government. Unauthorized churches have sprung up in many parts of the country and unofficial religious practice is flourishing. In some regions authorities have tried to control activities of these unregistered churches. In other regions, registered and unregistered groups are treated similarly by authorities and congregations worship in both types of churches. Most Chinese Catholic bishops are recognized by the Pope, and official priests have Vatican approval to administer all the sacraments.

Population Policy

With a population officially just over 1.3 billion and an estimated growth rate of about 0.6%, China is very concerned about its population growth and has attempted with mixed results to implement a strict birth limitation policy. China’s 2002 Population and Family Planning Law and policy permit one child per family, with allowance for a second child under certain circumstances, especially in rural areas, and with guidelines looser for ethnic minorities with small populations. Enforcement varies, and relies largely on “social compensation fees” to discourage extra births.

Official government policy opposes forced abortion or sterilization, but in some localities there are instances of forced abortion. The government’s goal is to stabilize the population in the first half of the 21st century, and current projections are that the population will peak at around 1.6 billion by 2050.

HISTORY

Dynastic Period

China is the oldest continuous major world civilization, with records dating back about 3,500 years. Successive dynasties developed a system of bureaucratic control that gave the agrarian-based Chinese an advantage over neighboring nomadic and hill cultures. Chinese civilization was further strengthened by the development of a Confucian state ideology and a common written language that bridged the gaps among the country’s many local languages and dialects. Whenever China was conquered by nomadic tribes, as it was by the Mongols in the 13th century, the conquerors sooner or later adopted the ways of the “higher” Chinese civilization and staffed the bureaucracy with Chinese.

The last dynasty was established in 1644, when the Manchus overthrew the native Ming dynasty and established the Qing (Ch’ing) dynasty with Beijing as its capital. At great expense in blood and treasure, the Manchus over the next half century gained control of many border areas, including Xinjiang, Yunnan, Tibet, Mongolia, and Taiwan. The success of the early Qing period was based on the combination of Manchu martial prowess and traditional Chinese bureaucratic skills.

During the 19th century, Qing control weakened, and prosperity diminished. China suffered massive social strife, economic stagnation, explosive population growth, and Western penetration and influence. The Taiping and Nian rebellions, along with a Russian-supported Muslim separatist movement in Xinjiang, drained Chinese resources and almost toppled the dynasty. Britain’s desire to continue its illegal opium trade with China collided with imperial edicts

prohibiting the addictive drug, and the First Opium War erupted in 1840. China lost the war; subsequently, Britain and other Western powers, including the United States, forcibly occupied “concessions” and gained special commercial privileges. Hong Kong was ceded to Britain in 1842 under the Treaty of Nanking, and in 1898, when the Opium Wars finally ended, Britain executed a 99-year lease of the New Territories, significantly expanding the size of the Hong Kong colony. As time went on, the Western powers, wielding superior military technology, gained more economic and political privileges. Reformist Chinese officials argued for the adoption of Western technology to strengthen the dynasty and counter Western advances, but the Qing court played down both the Western threat and the benefits of Western technology.

Early 20th Century China

Frustrated by the Qing court’s resistance to reform, young officials, military officers, and students—inspired by the revolutionary ideas of Sun Yatsen—began to advocate the overthrow of the Qing dynasty and creation of a republic. A revolutionary military uprising on October 10, 1911, led to the abdication of the last Qing monarch. As part of a compromise to overthrow the dynasty without a civil war, the revolutionaries and reformers allowed high Qing officials to retain prominent positions in the new republic. One of these figures, Gen. Yuan Shikai, was chosen as the republic’s first president. Before his death in 1916, Yuan unsuccessfully attempted to name himself emperor. His death left the republican government all but shattered, ushering in the era of the “warlords” during which China was ruled and ravaged by shifting coalitions of competing provincial military leaders.

In the 1920s, Sun Yat-sen established a revolutionary base in south China and set out to unite the fragmented nation. With Soviet assistance, he organized the Kuomintang (KMT or “Chinese Nationalist People’s Party”), and entered into an alliance with the fledgling Chinese Communist Party (CCP). After Sun’s death in 1925, one of his proteges, Chiang Kai-shek, seized control of the KMT and succeeded in bringing most of south and central China under its rule. In 1927, Chiang turned on the CCP and executed many of its leaders. The remnants fled into the mountains of eastern China. In 1934, driven out of their mountain bases, the CCP’s forces embarked on a “Long March” across some of China’s most desolate terrain to the northwestern province of Shaanxi, where they established a guerrilla base at Yan’an.

During the “Long March,” the communists reorganized under a new leader, Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-tung). The bitter struggle between the KMT and the CCP continued openly or clandestinely through the 14-year long Japanese invasion (1931-45), even though the two parties nominally formed a united front to oppose the Japanese invaders in 1937. The war between the two parties resumed after the Japanese defeat in 1945. By 1949, the CCP occupied most of the country. Chiang Kai-shek fled with the remnants of his KMT government and military forces to Taiwan, where he proclaimed Taipei to be China’s “provisional capital” and vowed to reconquer the Chinese mainland. Taiwan still calls itself the “Republic of China.”

The People’s Republic of China

In Beijing, on October 1, 1949, Mao Zedong proclaimed the founding of the People’s Republic of China (P.R.C.). The new government assumed control of a people exhausted by two generations of war and social conflict, and an economy ravaged by high inflation and disrupted transportation links. A new political and economic order modeled on the Soviet example was quickly installed.

In the early 1950s, China undertook a massive economic and social reconstruction program. The new leaders gained popular support by curbing inflation, restoring the economy, and rebuilding many war-damaged industrial plants. The CCP’s authority reached into almost every aspect of Chinese life. Party control was assured by large, politically loyal security and military forces; a government apparatus responsive to party direction; and the placement of party members into leadership positions in labor, women’s, and other mass organizations.

The “Great Leap Forward” and the Sino-Soviet Split

In 1958, Mao broke with the Soviet model and announced a new economic program, the “Great Leap Forward,” aimed at rapidly raising industrial and agricultural production. Giant cooperatives (communes) were formed, and “backyard factories” dotted the Chinese landscape. The results were disastrous. Normal market mechanisms were disrupted, agricultural production fell behind, and China’s people exhausted themselves producing what turned out to be shoddy, un-salable goods. Within a year, starvation appeared even in fertile agricultural areas. From 1960 to 1961, the combination of poor planning during the Great Leap Forward and bad weather resulted in one of the deadliest famines in human history.

The already strained Sino-Soviet relationship deteriorated sharply in 1959, when the Soviets started to restrict the flow of scientific and technological information to China. The dispute escalated, and the Soviets withdrew all of their personnel from China in August 1960. In 1960, the Soviets and the Chinese began to have disputes openly in international forums.

The Cultural Revolution

In the early 1960s, State President Liu Shaoqi and his protege, Party General Secretary Deng Xiaoping, took over direction of the party and adopted pragmatic economic policies at odds with Mao’s revolutionary vision. Dissatisfied with China’s new direction and his own reduced authority, Party Chairman Mao launched a massive political attack on Liu, Deng, and other pragmatists in the spring of 1966. The new movement, the “Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution,” was unprecedented in communist history. For the first time, a section of the Chinese communist leadership sought to rally popular opposition against another leadership group. China was set on a course of political and social anarchy that lasted the better part of a decade.

In the early stages of the Cultural Revolution, Mao and his “closest comrade in arms,” National Defense Minister Lin Biao, charged Liu, Deng, and other top party leaders with dragging China back toward capitalism. Radical youth organizations, called Red Guards, attacked party and state organizations at all levels, seeking out leaders who would not bend to the radical wind. In reaction to this turmoil, some local People’s Liberation Army (PLA) commanders and other officials maneuvered to outwardly back Mao and the radicals while actually taking steps to rein in local radical activity.

Gradually, Red Guard and other radical activity subsided, and the Chinese political situation stabilized along complex factional lines. The leadership conflict came to a head in September 1971, when Party Vice Chairman and Defense Minister Lin Biao reportedly tried to stage a coup against Mao; Lin Biao allegedly later died in a plane crash in Mongolia.

In the aftermath of the Lin Biao incident, many officials criticized and dismissed during 1966-69 were reinstated. Chief among these was Deng Xiaoping, who reemerged in 1973 and was confirmed in 1975 in the concurrent posts of Politburo Standing Committee member, PLA Chief of Staff, and Vice Premier.

The ideological struggle between more pragmatic, veteran party officials and the radicals re-emerged with a vengeance in late 1975. Mao’s wife, Jiang Qing, and three close Cultural Revolution associates (later dubbed the “Gang of Four”) launched a media campaign against Deng. In January 1976, Premier Zhou Enlai, a popular political figure, died of cancer. On April 5, Beijing citizens staged a spontaneous demonstration in Tiananmen Square in Zhou’s memory, with strong political overtones of support for Deng. The authorities forcibly suppressed the demonstration. Deng was blamed for the disorder and stripped of all official positions, although he retained his party membership.

The Post-Mao Era

Mao’s death in September 1976 removed a towering figure from Chinese politics and set off a scramble for succession. Former Minister of Public Security Hua Guofeng was quickly confirmed as Party Chairman and Premier. A month after Mao’s death, Hua, backed by the PLA, arrested Jiang Qing and other members of the “Gang of Four.” After extensive deliberations, the Chinese Communist Party leadership reinstated Deng Xiaoping to all of his previous posts at the 11th Party Congress in August 1977. Deng then led the effort to place government control in the hands of veteran party officials opposed to the radical excesses of the previous two decades.

The new, pragmatic leadership emphasized economic development and renounced mass political movements. At the pivotal December 1978 Third Plenum (of the 11th Party Congress Central Committee), the leadership adopted economic reform policies aimed at expanding rural income and incentives, encouraging experiments in enterprise autonomy, reducing central planning, and attracting foreign direct investment into China. The plenum also decided to accelerate the pace of legal reform, culminating in the passage of several new legal codes by the National People’s Congress in June 1979.

After 1979, the Chinese leadership moved toward more pragmatic positions in almost all fields. The party encouraged artists, writers, and journalists to adopt more critical approaches, although open attacks on party authority were not permitted. In late 1980, Mao’s Cultural Revolution was officially proclaimed a catastrophe. Hua Guofeng, a protege of Mao, was replaced as premier in 1980 by reformist Sichuan party chief Zhao Ziyang and as party General Secretary in 1981 by the even more reformist Communist Youth League chairman Hu Yaobang.

Reform policies brought great improvements in the standard of living, especially for urban workers and for farmers who took advantage of opportunities to diversify crops and establish village industries. Literature and the arts blossomed, and Chinese intellectuals established extensive links with scholars in other countries.

At the same time, however, political dissent as well as social problems such as inflation, urban migration, and prostitution emerged. Although students and intellectuals urged greater reforms, some party elders increasingly questioned the pace and the ultimate goals of the reform program. In December 1986, student demonstrators, taking advantage of the loosening political atmosphere, staged protests against the slow pace of reform, confirming party elders’ fear that the current reform program was leading to social instability. Hu Yaobang, a protege of Deng and a leading advocate of reform, was blamed for the protests and forced to resign as CCP General Secretary in January 1987. Premier Zhao Ziyang was made General Secretary and Li Peng, former Vice Premier and Minister of Electric Power and Water Conservancy, was made Premier.

1989 Student Movement and Tiananmen Square

After Zhao became the party General Secretary, the economic and political reforms he had championed came under increasing attack. His proposal in May 1988 to accelerate price reform led to widespread popular complaints about rampant inflation and gave opponents of rapid reform the opening to call for greater centralization of economic controls and stricter prohibitions against Western influence. This precipitated a political debate, which grew more heated through the winter of 1988-89.

The death of Hu Yaobang on April 15, 1989, coupled with growing economic hardship caused by high inflation, provided the backdrop for a large-scale protest movement by students, intellectuals, and other parts of a disaffected urban population. University students and other citizens camped out in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square to mourn Hu’s death and to protest against those who would slow reform. Their protests, which grew despite government efforts to contain them, called for an end to official corruption and for defense of freedoms guaranteed by the Chinese constitution. Protests also spread to many other cities, including Shanghai, Chengdu, and Guangzhou.

Martial law was declared on May 20, 1989. Late on June 3 and early on the morning of June 4, military units were brought into Beijing. They used armed force to clear demonstrators from the streets. There are no official estimates of deaths in Beijing, but most observers believe that casualties numbered in the hundreds.

After June 4, while foreign governments expressed horror at the brutal suppression of the demonstrators, the central government eliminated remaining sources of organized opposition, detained large numbers of protesters, and required political reeducation not only for students but also for large numbers of party cadre and government officials.

Following the resurgence of conservatives in the aftermath of June 4, economic reform slowed until given new impetus by Deng Xiaoping’s dramatic visit to southern China in early 1992. Deng’s renewed push for a market-oriented economy received official sanction at the 14th Party Congress later in the year as a number of younger, reform-minded leaders began their rise to top positions. Deng and his supporters argued that managing the economy in a way that increased living standards should be China’s primary policy objective, even if “capitalist” measures were adopted. Subsequent to the visit, the Communist Party Politburo publicly issued an endorsement of Deng’s policies of economic openness. Though not completely eschewing political reform, China has consistently placed overwhelming priority on the opening of its economy.

Third Generation of Leaders

Deng’s health deteriorated in the years prior to his death in 1997. During that time, President Jiang Zemin and other members of his generation gradually assumed control of the day-to-day functions of government. This “third generation” leadership governed collectively with President Jiang at the center.

In March 1998, Jiang was re-elected President during the 9th National People’s Congress. Premier Li Peng was constitutionally required to step down from that post. He was elected to the chairmanship of the National People’s Congress. Zhu Rongji was selected to replace Li as Premier.

Fourth Generation of Leaders

In November 2002, the 16th Communist Party Congress elected Hu Jintao, who in 1992 was designated by Deng Xiaoping as the “core” of the fourth generation leaders, the new General Secretary. A new Politburo and Politburo Standing Committee was also elected in November.

In March 2003, General Secretary Hu Jintao was elected President at the 10th National People’s Congress. Jiang Zemin retained the chairmanship of the Central Military Commission. At the Fourth Party Plenum in September 2004, Jiang Zemin retired from the Central Military Commission, passing the Chairmanship and control of the People’s Liberation Army to President Hu Jintao.

China is firmly committed to economic reform and opening to the outside world. The Chinese leadership has identified reform of state industries and the establishment of a social safety network as government priorities. Government strategies for achieving these goals include large-scale privatization of unprofitable state-owned enterprises and development of a pension system for workers. The leadership has also downsized the government bureaucracy.

The Next 5 Years

The next 5 years represent a critical period in China’s development. To investors and firms, especially following China’s accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, China represents a vast market that has yet to be fully tapped and a low-cost base for export-oriented production. Educationally, China is forging ahead as partnerships and exchanges with foreign universities have helped create new research opportunities for its students. China will host the Summer Olympics in 2008 and views this as an opportunity to showcase to the world China’s development gains of the past two decades. The new leadership is committed to generating greater economic development in the interior and providing more services to those who do not live in China’s coastal areas, goals that form the core of President Hu’s concepts of a “harmonious society” and a “spiritual civilization.” However, there is still much that needs to change in China. Human rights issues remain a major concern, as does China’s lack of effective controls to prevent proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD)-related materials and technology.

GOVERNMENT

Chinese Communist Party

The 70.8 million member CCP, authoritarian in structure and ideology, continues to dominate government. Nevertheless, China’s population, geographical vastness, and social diversity frustrate attempts to rule by fiat from Beijing.

Central leaders must increasingly build consensus for new policies among party members, local and regional leaders, influential non-party members, and the population at large.

In periods of greater openness, the influence of people and organizations outside the formal party structure has tended to increase, particularly in the economic realm. This phenomenon is most apparent today in the rapidly developing coastal region. Nevertheless, in all important government, economic, and cultural institutions in China, party committees work to see that party and state policy guidance is followed and that non-party members do not create autonomous organizations that could challenge party rule. Party control is tightest in government offices and in urban economic, industrial, and cultural settings; it is considerably looser in the rural areas, where the majority of the people live.

Theoretically, the party’s highest body is the Party Congress, which is supposed to meet at least once every 5 years. The primary organs of power in the Communist Party include:

  • The Politburo Standing Committee, which currently consists of nine members;
  • The Politburo, consisting of 24 full members, including the members of the Politburo Standing Committee;
  • The Secretariat, the principal administrative mechanism of the CCP, headed by the General Secretary;
  • The Central Military Commission;
  • The Discipline Inspection Commission, which is charged with rooting out corruption and malfeasance among party cadres.

State Structure

The Chinese Government has always been subordinate to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP); its role is to implement party policies. The primary organs of state power are the National People’s Congress (NPC), the President (the head of state), and the State Council. Members of the State Council include Premier Wen Jiabao (the head of government), a variable number of vice premiers (now four), five state councilors (protocol equivalents of vice premiers but with narrower portfolios), and 22 ministers and four State Council commission directors.

Under the Chinese constitution, the NPC is the highest organ of state power in China. It meets annually for about 2 weeks to review and approve major new policy directions, laws, the budget, and major personnel changes. These initiatives are presented to the NPC for consideration by the State Council after previous endorsement by the Communist Party’s Central Committee. Although the NPC generally approves State Council policy and personnel recommendations, various NPC committees hold active debate in closed sessions, and changes may be made to accommodate alternate views.

When the NPC is not in session, its permanent organ, the Standing Committee, exercises state power.

Principal Government Officials

Last Updated: 1/18/2007

President: HU Jintao

Vice President: ZENG Qinghong

Premier, State Council: WEN Jiabao

Executive Vice Premier, State Council: HUANG Ju

Vice Premier, State Council: WU Yi

Vice Premier, State Council: ZENG Peiyan

Vice Premier, State Council: HUI Liangyu

State Councilor, State Council: ZHOU Yongkang

State Councilor, State Council: CAO Gangchuan

State Councilor, State Council: TANG Jiaxuan

State Councilor, State Council: HUA Jianmin

State Councilor, State Council: CHEN Zhili

Sec. Gen., State Council: HUA Jianmin

Chmn., Central Military Commission: HU Jintao

Min. in Charge of National Defense Science, Technology, & Industry Commission: ZHANG Yunchuan

Min. in Charge of State Development Reform Commission: MA Kai

Min. in Charge of State Population & Family Planning Commission: ZHANG Weiqing

Min. in Charge of State Nationalities Affairs Commission: LI Dezhu (a.k.a. LI Dek Su)

Min. of Agriculture: SUN Zhengcai

Min. of Civil Affairs: LI Xueju

Min. of Commerce: BO Xilai

Min. of Communications: ZHANG Chunxian

Min. of Construction: WANG Guangtao

Min. of Culture: SUN Jiazheng

Min. of Education: ZHOU Ji

Min. of Finance: JIN Renqing

Min. of Foreign Affairs: LI Zhaoxing

Min. of Health: GAO Qiang

Min. of Information Industry: WANG Xudong

Min. of Justice: WU Aiying

Min. of Labor & Social Security: TIAN Chengping

Min. of Land & Natural Resources: SUN Wensheng

Min. of National Defense: CAO Gangchuan

Min. of Personnel: ZHANG Bolin

Min. of Public Security: ZHOU Yongkang

Min. of Railways: LIU Zhijun

Min. of Science & Technology: XU Guanhua

Min. of State Security: XU Yongyue

Min. of Supervision: LI Zhilun

Min. of Water Resources: WANG Shucheng

Min., State Admin. of Work Safety: LI Yizhong

Governor, People’s Bank of China: ZHOU Xiaochuan

Ambassador to the US: ZHOU Wenzhong

Permanent Representative to the UN, New York: WANG Guangya

POLITICAL CONDITIONS

Legal System

The government’s efforts to promote rule of law are significant and ongoing. After the Cultural Revolution, China’s leaders aimed to develop a legal system to restrain abuses of official authority and revolutionary excesses. In 1982, the National People’s Congress adopted a new state constitution that emphasized the rule of law under which even party leaders are theoretically held accountable.

Since 1979, when the drive to establish a functioning legal system began, more than 300 laws and regulations, most of them in the economic area, have been promulgated. The use of mediation committees—informed groups of citizens who resolve about 90% of China’s civil disputes and some minor criminal cases at no cost to the parties—is one innovative device. There are more than 800,000 such committees in both rural and urban areas.

Legal reform became a government priority in the 1990s. Legislation designed to modernize and professionalize the nation’s lawyers, judges, and prisons was enacted. The 1994 Administrative Procedure Law allows citizens to sue officials for abuse of authority or malfeasance. In addition, the criminal law and the criminal procedures laws were amended to introduce significant reforms. The criminal law amendments abolished the crime of “counter-revolutionary” activity, although many persons are still incarcerated for that crime. Criminal procedures reforms also encouraged establishment of a more transparent, adversarial trial process. The Chinese constitution and laws provide for fundamental human rights, including due process, but these are often ignored in practice. In addition to other judicial reforms, the Constitution was amended in 2004 to include the protection of individual human rights and legally-obtained private property, but it is unclear how those provisions will be implemented. Although new criminal and civil laws have provided additional safeguards to citizens, previously debated political reforms, including expanding elections to the township level, and other legal reforms, including the reform of the reeducation through labor system, have been put on hold.

Human Rights

The State Department’s annual China human rights and religious freedom reports have noted China’s well-documented abuses of human rights in violation of internationally recognized norms, stemming both from the authorities’ intolerance of dissent and the inadequacy of legal safeguards for basic freedoms. Reported abuses have included arbitrary and lengthy incommunicado detention, forced confessions, torture, and mistreatment of prisoners as well as severe restrictions on freedom of speech, the press, assembly, association, religion, privacy, worker rights, and coercive birth limitation. In 2005, China stepped up monitoring, harassment, intimidation, and arrest of journalists, Internet writers, defense lawyers, religious activists, and political dissidents. The activities of NGOs, especially those relating to the rule of law and expansion of judicial review, have been curtailed. The Chinese Government recognizes five official religions—Buddhism, Islam, Taoism, Catholicism, and Protestantism—and seeks to regulate religious groups and worship. Religious believers who seek to practice their faith outside of state-controlled religious venues and unregistered religious groups and spiritual movements are subject to intimidation, harassment, and detention. In 2004, the Secretary of State again designated China as a “Country of Particular Concern” under the International Religious Freedom Act for particularly severe violations of religious freedom.

At the same time, China’s economic growth and reform since 1978 has improved dramatically the lives of hundreds of millions of Chinese, increased social mobility, and expanded the scope of personal freedom. This has meant substantially greater freedom of travel, employment opportunity, educational and cultural pursuits, job and housing choices, and access to information. In recent years, China has also passed new criminal and civil laws that provide additional safeguards to citizens. Village elections have been carried out in over 90% of China’s one million villages.

We have conducted 12 rounds of human rights dialogue with China since Tiananmen. During 2003 and 2004, no progress was made on the commitments China made at the 2002 Dialogue and we declined to schedule another round. In November 2004 we initiated negotiations on outstanding commitments with China and these commitments have been met. We are now, in principle, prepared to resume our formal human rights dialogue with China. Although we have not yet engaged in discussions about a date for such a dialogue, during his February 2006 trip to Beijing, Assistant Secretary of State Barry Lowenkron urged progress on specific human rights concerns that President Bush raised with President Hu in September and November 2005, and outlined areas on which we would like to focus in future dialogue.

ECONOMY

Economic Reforms

Since 1979, China has reformed and opened its economy. The Chinese leadership has adopted a more pragmatic perspective on many political and socioeconomic problems, and has reduced the role of ideology in economic policy. China’s ongoing economic transformation has had a profound impact not only on China but on the world. The market-oriented reforms China has implemented over the past two decades have unleashed individual initiative and entrepreneurship. The result has been the largest reduction of poverty and one of the fastest increases in income levels ever seen. China today is the fourth-largest economy in the world. It has sustained average economic growth of over 9.5% for the past 26 years. In 2005 its $2.26 trillion economy was about 1/7 the size of the U.S. economy.

In the 1980s, China tried to combine central planning with market-oriented reforms to increase productivity, living standards, and technological quality without exacerbating inflation, unemployment, and budget deficits. China pursued agricultural reforms, dismantling the commune system and introducing a household-based system that provided peasants greater decision-making in agricultural activities. The government also encouraged nonagri-cultural activities such as village enterprises in rural areas, and promoted more self-management for state-owned enterprises, increased competition in the marketplace, and facilitated direct contact between Chinese and foreign trading enterprises. China also relied more upon foreign financing and imports.

During the 1980s, these reforms led to average annual rates of growth of 10% in agricultural and industrial output. Rural per capita real income doubled. China became self-sufficient in grain production; rural industries accounted for 23% of agricultural output, helping absorb surplus labor in the countryside. The variety of light industrial and consumer goods increased. Reforms began in the fiscal, financial, banking, price-setting, and labor systems.

By the late 1980s, however, the economy had become overheated with increasing rates of inflation. At the end of 1988, in reaction to a surge of inflation caused by accelerated price reforms, the leadership introduced an austerity program.

China’s economy regained momentum in the early 1990s. During a visit to southern China in early 1992, China’s paramount leader at the time, Deng Xiaoping, made a series of political pronouncements designed to reinvigorate the process of economic reform. The 14th Party Congress later in the year backed Deng’s renewed push for market reforms, stating that China’s key task in the 1990s was to create a “socialist market economy.” The 10-year development plan for the 1990s stressed continuity in the political system with bolder reform of the economic system.

China’s economy grew at an average rate of 10% per year during the period 1990–2004, the highest growth rate in the world. China’s gross domestic product (GDP) grew 10.0% in 2003, and even faster, 10.1%, in 2004, and 9.9% in 2005 despite attempts by the government to cool the economy. China’s total trade in 2005 surpassed $1.4 trillion, making China the world’s third-largest trading nation after the U.S. and Germany. Such high growth is necessary if China is to generate the 15 million jobs needed annually—roughly the size of Ecuador or Cambodia—for new entrants into the job market.

Nevertheless, serious imbalances exist behind the spectacular trade performance, high investment flows, and high GDP growth. High numbers of non-performing loans weigh down the state-run banking system. Inefficient state-owned enterprises (SOEs) are still a drag on growth, despite announced efforts to sell, merge, or close the vast majority of SOEs.

Social and economic indicators have improved since reforms were launched, but rising inequality is evident between the more highly developed coastal provinces and the less developed, poorer inland regions. According to World Bank estimates, more than 152 million people in China in 2003—mostly in rural areas of the lagging inland provinces—still live in poverty, on consumption of less than U.S. $1 a day.

Following the Chinese Communist Party’s Third Plenum, held in October 2003, Chinese legislators unveiled several proposed amendments to the state constitution. One of the most significant was a proposal to provide protection for private property rights. Legislators also indicated there would be a new emphasis on certain aspects of overall government economic policy, including efforts to reduce unemployment (now in the 8-10% range in urban areas), to rebalance income distribution between urban and rural regions, and to maintain economic growth while protecting the environment and improving social equity. The National People’s Congress approved the amendments when it met in March 2004. The Fifth Plenum in October 2005 approved the 11th Five-Year Economic Program aimed at building a “harmonious society” through more balanced wealth distribution and improved education, medical care, and social security.

Agriculture

China is the world’s most populous country and one of the largest producers and consumers of agricultural products. Roughly half of China’s labor force is engaged in agriculture, even though only 10% of the land is suitable for cultivation and agriculture contributes only 13% of China’s GDP. China’s cropland area is only 75% of the U.S. total, but China still produces about 30% more crops and livestock than the U.S. because of intensive cultivation, China is among the world’s largest producers of rice, corn, wheat, soybeans, vegetables, tea, and pork. Major non-food crops include cotton, other fibers, and oilseeds. China hopes to further increase agricultural production through improved plant stocks, fertilizers, and technology. Incomes for Chinese farmers are stagnating, leading to an increasing wealth gap between the cities and countryside. Government policies that continue to emphasize grain self-sufficiency and the fact that farmers do not own—and cannot buy or sell—the land they work have contributed to this situation. In addition, inadequate port facilities and lack of warehousing and cold storage facilities impede both domestic and international agricultural trade.

Industry

Industry and construction account for about 46% of China’s GDP. Major industries are mining and ore processing; iron; steel; aluminum; coal, machinery; textiles and apparel; armaments; petroleum; cement; chemicals; fertilizers; consumer products including footwear, toys, and electronics; automobiles and other transportation equipment including rail cars and locomotives, ships, and aircraft; and telecommunications.

China has become a preferred destination for the relocation of global manufacturing facilities. Its strength as an export platform has contributed to incomes and employment in China. The state-owned sector still accounts for about 40% of GDP. In recent years, authorities have been giving greater attention to the management of state assets—both in the financial market as well as among state-owned-enterprises—and progress has been noteworthy.

Energy

In 2003, China surpassed Japan to become the second-largest consumer of primary energy, after the United States. China is also the third-largest energy producer in the world, after the United States and Russia. China’s electricity consumption is expected to grow by over 4% a year through 2030, which will require more than $2 trillion in electricity infrastructure investment to meet the demand. China expects to add approximately 15,000 megawatts of generating capacity a year, with 20% of that coming from foreign suppliers.

Coal makes up the bulk of China’s energy consumption (64% in 2002), and China is the largest producer and consumer of coal in the world. As China’s economy continues to grow, China’s coal demand is projected to rise significantly. Although coal’s share of China’s overall energy consumption will decrease, coal consumption will continue to rise in absolute terms.

The 11th Five-Year Program, announced in 2005, calls for greater energy conservation measures, including development of renewable energy sources and increased attention to environmental protection. Moving away from coal towards cleaner energy sources including oil, natural gas, renewable energy, and nuclear power is an important component of China’s development program. China has abundant hydroelectric resources; the Three Gorges Dam, for example, will have a total capacity of 18 gigawatts when fully on-line (projected for 2009). In addition, the share of electricity generated by nuclear power is projected to grow from 1% in 2000 to 5% in 2030. China’s renewable energy law, which went into effect in 2006, calls for 10% of its energy to come from renewable energy sources by 2020.

Since 1993, China has been a net importer of oil, a large portion of which comes from the Middle East. Net imports are expected to rise to 3.5 million barrels per day by 2010. China is interested in diversifying the sources of its oil imports and has invested in oil fields around the world. Beijing also plans to increase China’s natural gas production, which currently accounts for only 3% of China’s total energy consumption. Analysts expect China’s consumption of natural gas to more than double by 2010.

In May 2004, then-Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) that launched the U.S.-China Energy Policy Dialogue. The Dialogue has strengthened energy-related interactions between China and the United States, the world’s two largest energy consumers. The U.S.-China Energy Policy Dialogue builds upon the two countries’ existing cooperative ventures in high energy nuclear physics, fossil energy, energy efficiency and renewable energy and energy information exchanges. The NDRC and the Department of Energy also exchange views and expertise on Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Technologies, and we convene an annual Oil and Gas Industry Forum with China.

Environment

One of the serious negative consequences of China’s rapid industrial development has been increased pollution and degradation of natural resources. A World Health Organization report on air quality in 272 cities worldwide concluded that seven of the world’s 10 most polluted cities were in China. According to China’s own evaluation, two-thirds of the 338 cities for which air-quality data are available are considered polluted—two-thirds of them moderately or severely so. Respiratory and heart diseases related to air pollution are the leading cause of death in China. Almost all of the nation’s rivers are considered polluted to some degree, and half of the population lacks access to clean water. By some estimates, every day approximately 300 million residents drink contaminated water. Ninety percent of urban water bodies are severely polluted. Water scarcity also is an issue; for example, severe water scarcity in Northern China is a serious threat to sustained economic growth and the government has begun working on a project for a large-scale diversion of water from the Yangtze River to northern cities, including Beijing and Tianjin. Acid rain falls on 30% of the country. Various studies estimate pollution costs the Chinese economy 7-10% of GDP each year.

China’s leaders are increasingly paying attention to the country’s severe environmental problems. In 1998, the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) was officially upgraded to a ministry-level agency, reflecting the growing importance the Chinese Government places on environmental protection. In recent years, China has strengthened its environmental legislation and made some progress in stemming environmental deterioration. In 2005, China joined the Asia Pacific Partnership on Clean Development, which brings industries and governments together to implement strategies that reduce pollution and address climate change. During the 10th Five-Year Plan, China plans to reduce total emissions by 10%. Beijing in particular is investing heavily in pollution control as part of its campaign to host a successful Olympiad in 2008. Some cities have seen improvement in air quality in recent years.

China is an active participant in climate change talks and other multilateral environmental negotiations, taking environmental challenges seriously but pushing for the developed world to help developing countries to a greater extent. It is a signatory to the Basel Convention governing the transport and disposal of hazardous waste and the Montreal Protocol for the Protection of the Ozone Layer, as well as the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species and other major environmental agreements.

The question of environmental impacts associated with the Three Gorges Dam project has generated controversy among environmentalists inside and outside China. Critics claim that erosion and silting of the Yangtze River threaten several endangered species, while Chinese officials say the dam will help prevent devastating floods and generate clean hydroelectric power that will enable the region to lower its dependence on coal, thus lessening air pollution.

The United States and China are members of the Asia Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate (APP). The APP is a public-private partnership of six nations—Australia, China, India, Japan, the Republic of Korea, and the United States—committed to explore new mechanisms to meet national pollution reduction, energy security and climate change goals in ways that reduce poverty and promote economic development. APP members have undertaken cooperative activities involving deployment of clean technology in partner countries in eight areas: cleaner fossil energy, renewable energy and distributed generation, power generation and transmission, steel, aluminum, cement, coal mining, and buildings and appliances.

The United States and China have been engaged in an active program of bilateral environmental cooperation since the mid-1990s, with an emphasis on clean energy technology and the design of effective environmental policy. While both governments view this cooperation positively, China has often compared the U.S. program, which lacks a foreign assistance component, with those of Japan and several European Union (EU) countries that include generous levels of aid.

Science and Technology

Science and technology have always preoccupied China’s leaders; indeed, China’s political leadership comes almost exclusively from technical backgrounds and has a high regard for science. Deng called it “the first productive force.” Distortions in the economy and society created by party rule have severely hurt Chinese science, according to some Chinese science policy experts. The Chinese Academy of Sciences, modeled on the Soviet system, puts much of China’s greatest scientific talent in a large, under-funded apparatus that remains largely isolated from industry, although the reforms of the past decade have begun to address this problem.

Chinese science strategists see China’s greatest opportunities in newly emerging fields such as bio-technology and computers, where there is still a chance for China to become a significant player. Most Chinese students who went abroad have not returned, but they have built a dense network of trans-Pacific contacts that will greatly facilitate U.S.-China scientific cooperation in coming years. The U.S. space program is often held up as the standard of scientific modernity in China. China’s small but growing space program, which successfully completed their second manned orbit in October 2005, is a focus of national pride.

The U.S.-China Science and Technology Agreement remains the framework for bilateral cooperation in this field. A 5-year agreement to extend the Science and Technology Agreement was signed in April 2006. The Agreement is among the longest-standing U.S.-China accords, and includes over eleven U.S. Federal agencies and numerous branches that participate in cooperative exchanges under the S&T Agreement and its nearly 60 protocols, memoranda of understanding, agreements and annexes. The Agreement covers cooperation in areas such as marine conservation, renewable energy, and health. Biennial Joint Commission Meetings on Science and Technology bring together policymakers from both sides to coordinate joint science and technology cooperation. Executive Secretaries meetings are held biennially to implement specific cooperation programs. Japan and the European Union also have high profile science and technology cooperative relationships with China.

Trade

China’s merchandise exports totaled $762.3 billion and imports totaled $660.2 billion in 2004. Its global trade surplus surged from $32 billion in 2004 to $102 billion in 2005. China’s primary trading partners include Japan, the EU, the United States, South Korea, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. According to U.S. statistics, China had a trade surplus with the U.S. of $201.6 billion in 2005.

China has taken important steps to open its foreign trading system and integrate itself into the world trading system. In November 1991, China joined the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) group, which promotes free trade and cooperation in the economic, trade, investment, and technology spheres. China served as APEC chair in 2001, and Shanghai hosted the annual APEC leaders meeting in October of that year.

China formally joined the WTO in December 2001. As part of this far-reaching trade liberalization agreement, China agreed to lower tariffs and abolish market impediments. Chinese and foreign businessmen, for example, gained the right to import and export on their own, and to sell their products without going through a government middleman. By 2005, average tariff rates on key U.S. agricultural exports dropped from 31% to 14% and on industrial products from 25% to 9%. The agreement also opens up new opportunities for U.S. providers of services like banking, insurance, and telecommunications. China has made significant progress implementing its WTO commitments, but serious concerns remain, particularly in the realm of intellectual property rights protection.

While accession does not guarantee smaller trade deficits, full implementation of all WTO commitments would further open China’s markets to—and help level the playing field for—U.S. exports. China is now one of the most important markets for U.S. exports: in 2005, U.S. exports to China totaled $41.8 billion, more than double the $19 billion when China joined the WTO in 2001 and up 20% over 2004. U.S. agricultural exports have increased dramatically, making China our fourth-largest agricultural export market (after Canada, Japan, and Mexico). Over the same period (2001-1005), U.S. imports from China have risen from $102 billion to $243.5 billion.

Export growth continues to be a major driver of China’s rapid economic growth. To increase exports, China has pursued policies such as fostering the rapid development of foreign-invested factories, which assemble imported components into consumer goods for export, and liberalizing trading rights. In its eleventh Five-Year Program, adopted in 2005, China placed greater emphasis on developing a consumer demand-driven economy to sustain economic growth and address global imbalances.

The United States is one of China’s primary suppliers of power generating equipment, aircraft and parts, computers and industrial machinery, raw materials, and chemical and agricultural products. However, U.S. exporters continue to have concerns about fair market access due to strict testing and standards requirements for some imported products. In addition, a lack of transparency in the regulatory process makes it difficult for businesses to plan for changes in the domestic market structure. The April 11, 2006 U.S.-China Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade (JCCT) produced agreements on key U.S. trade concerns ranging from market access to U.S. beef, medical devices, and telecommunications; to the enforcement of intellectual property rights, including, significantly, software. The JCCT also produced an agreement to establish a U.S.-China High Technology and Strategic Trade Working Group to review export control cooperation and facilitate high technology trade.

Foreign Investment

China’s investment climate has changed dramatically in 24 years of reform. In the early 1980s, China restricted foreign investments to export-oriented operations and required foreign investors to form joint-venture partnerships with Chinese firms. Foreign direct investment (FDI) grew quickly during the 1980s, but stalled in late 1989 in the aftermath of Tiananmen. In response, the government introduced legislation and regulations designed to encourage foreigners to invest in high-priority sectors and regions. Since the early 1990s, China has allowed foreign investors to manufacture and sell a wide range of goods on the domestic market, and authorized the establishment of wholly foreign-owned enterprises, now the preferred form of FDI. However, the Chinese Government’s emphasis on guiding FDI into manufacturing has led to market saturation in some industries, while leaving China’s services sectors underdeveloped. China is now one of the leading recipients of FDI in the world, receiving $60 billion in 2005, for a cumulative total of $623.8 billion.

As part of its WTO accession, China undertook to eliminate certain trade-related investment measures and to open up specified sectors that had previously been closed to foreign investment. New laws, regulations, and administrative measures to implement these commitments are being issued. Major remaining barriers to foreign investment include opaque and inconsistently enforced laws and regulations and the lack of a rules-based legal infrastructure.

Opening to the outside remains central to China’s development. Foreign-invested enterprises produce about half of China’s exports, and China continues to attract large investment inflows. Foreign exchange reserves were $819 billion at the end of 2005, and have now surpassed those of Japan, making China’s foreign exchange reserves the largest in the world.

FOREIGN RELATIONS

Since its establishment, the People’s Republic has worked vigorously to win international support for its position that it is the sole legitimate government of all China, including Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. In the early 1970s, Beijing was recognized diplomatically by most world powers. Beijing assumed the China seat in the United Nations in 1971 and became increasingly active in multilateral organizations. Japan established diplomatic relations with China in 1972, and the U.S. did so in 1979. The number of countries that have established diplomatic relations with Beijing has risen to 159, while 25 have diplomatic relations with Taiwan.

After the founding of the P.R.C., China’s foreign policy initially focused on solidarity with the Soviet Union and other communist countries. In 1950, China sent the People’s Liberation Army into North Korea to help North Korea halt the UN offensive that was approaching the Yalu River. After the conclusion of the Korean conflict, China sought to balance its identification as a member of the Soviet bloc by establishing friendly relations with Pakistan and other Third World countries, particularly in Southeast Asia.

In the 1960s, Beijing competed with Moscow for political influence among communist parties and in the developing world generally. Following the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia and clashes in 1969 on the Sino-Soviet border, Chinese competition with the Soviet Union increasingly reflected concern over China’s own strategic position.

In late 1978, the Chinese also became concerned over Vietnam’s efforts to establish open control over Laos and Cambodia. In response to the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia, China fought a brief border war with Vietnam (February-March 1979) with the stated purpose of “teaching Vietnam a lesson.”

Chinese anxiety about Soviet strategic advances was heightened following the Soviet Union’s December 1979 invasion of Afghanistan. Sharp differences between China and the Soviet Union persisted over Soviet support for Vietnam’s continued occupation of Cambodia, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and Soviet troops along the Sino-Soviet border and in Mongolia—the so-called “three obstacles” to improved Sino-Soviet relations.

In the 1970s and 1980s China sought to create a secure regional and global environment for itself and to foster good relations with countries that could aid its economic development. To this end, China looked to the West for assistance with its modernization drive and for help in countering Soviet expansionism, which it characterized as the greatest threat to its national security and to world peace.

China maintained its consistent opposition to “superpower hegemony,” focusing almost exclusively on the expansionist actions of the Soviet Union and Soviet proxies such as Vietnam and Cuba, but it also placed growing emphasis on a foreign policy independent of both the U.S. and the Soviet Union. While improving ties with the West, China continued to follow closely economic and other positions of the Third World nonaligned movement, although China was not a formal member.

In the immediate aftermath of Tiananmen crackdown in June 1989, many countries reduced their diplomatic contacts with China as well as their economic assistance programs. In response, China worked vigorously to expand its relations with foreign countries, and by late 1990, had reestablished normal relations with almost all nations. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in late 1991, China also opened diplomatic relations with the republics of the former Soviet Union.

In recent years, Chinese leaders have been regular travelers to all parts of the globe, and China has sought a higher profile in the UN through its permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council and other multilateral organizations. Closer to home, China has made efforts to reduce tensions in Asia, hosting the Six-Party Talks on North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, cultivating a more cooperative relationship with members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and participating in the ASEAN Regional Forum. Its moves to play a greater regional leadership role in Asia and, especially, the success of its “charm offensive” in Southeast Asia are examples of a new, more mature diplomacy. China is also working hard to strengthen ties with countries in South Asia, including India. Following Premier Wen’s 2005 visit to India, the two sides have moved to increase commercial and cultural ties, as well as to resolve longstanding border disputes. China has likewise improved ties with Russia, with President Putin visiting Beijing in April 2006. A second round of Russia-China joint military exercises is scheduled for 2007. China has played a prominent role in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a regional grouping that also includes Russia and the Central Asian nations of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Beijing has resolved many of its border and maritime disputes, notably including a November 1997 agreement with Russia that resolved almost all outstanding border issues and a 2000 agreement with Vietnam to resolve some differences over their maritime border, though disagreements remain over islands in the South China Sea. Tensions with Japan continue, fueled by longstanding and emotionally charged disputes over history and competing claims to portions of the East China Sea. China has played a constructive role in support of peace-keeping operations in Sudan and has stated publicly that it shares the international community’s concern over Iran’s nuclear program. Set against this has been an effort on the part of China to improve ties to countries such as Iran, Sudan, Zimbabwe, and Venezuela, which are sources of oil and other resources and which welcome China’s non-conditional assistance and investment.

DEFENSE

Establishment of a professional military force equipped with modern weapons and doctrine was the last of the “Four Modernizations” announced by Zhou Enlai and supported by Deng Xiaoping. In keeping with Deng’s mandate to reform, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), which includes the strategic nuclear forces, army, navy, and air force, has demobilized millions of men and women since 1978 and introduced modern methods in such areas as recruitment and manpower, strategy, and education and training.

Following the June 1989 Tiananmen crackdown, ideological correctness was temporarily revived as the dominant theme in Chinese military affairs. Reform and modernization appear to have since resumed their position as the PLA’s priority objectives, although the armed forces’ political loyalty to the CCP remains a leading concern.

The Chinese military is in the process of transforming itself from a land-based power, centered on a vast ground force, to a smaller, mobile, high-tech military eventually capable of mounting limited defensive operations beyond its coastal borders.

China’s power-projection capability is limited but has grown over recent years. China has acquired some advanced weapons systems, including Sovremmeny destroyers, SU-27 and SU-30 aircraft, and Kilo-class diesel submarines from Russia. However, much of its air and naval forces continues to be based on 1960s-era technology. As the Defense Department’s Quadrennial Defense Review, released February 2006, noted, the U.S. shares with other countries a concern about the pace, scope, and direction of China’s military modernization. We view military exchanges, visits, and other forms of engagement are useful tools in promoting transparency, provided they have substance and are fully reciprocal. Regularized exchanges and contact also have the significant benefit of building confidence, reducing the possibility of accidents, and providing the lines of communication that are essential in ensuring that episodes such as the April 2001 EP-3 aircraft incident do not escalate into major crises. During their April 2006 meeting, President Bush and President Hu agreed to increase officer exchanges and to begin a strategic nuclear dialogue between STRATCOM and the Chinese military’s strategic missile command. U.S. and Chinese militaries are also considering ways in which we might cooperate on disaster assistance relief.

Nuclear Weapons and Arms Control Policy

Nuclear Weapons. In 1955, Mao Zedong’s Chinese Communist Party decided to proceed with a nuclear weapons program; it was developed with Soviet assistance until 1960. After its first nuclear test in October 1964, Beijing deployed a modest but potent ballistic missile force, including land- and sea-based intermediate-range and intercontinental ballistic missiles.

China became a major international arms exporter during the 1980s. Beijing joined the Middle East arms control talks, which began in July 1991 to establish global guidelines for conventional arms transfers, but announced in September 1992 that it would no longer participate because of the U.S. decision to sell F-16A/B aircraft to Taiwan.

China was the first state to pledge “no first use” of nuclear weapons. It joined the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in 1984 and pledged to abstain from further atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons in 1986. China acceded to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1992 and supported its indefinite and unconditional extension in 1995. In 1996, it signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and agreed to seek an international ban on the production of fissile nuclear weapons material. To date, China has not ratified the CTBT.

In 1996, China committed not to provide assistance to un-safeguarded nuclear facilities. China became a full member of the NPT Exporters (Zangger) Committee, a group that determines items subject to IAEA inspections if exported by NPT signatories. In September 1997, China issued detailed nuclear export control regulations. China began implementing regulations establishing controls over nuclear-related dual-use items in 1998. China also has committed not to engage in new nuclear cooperation with Iran (even under safeguards), and will complete existing cooperation, which is not of proliferation concern, within a relatively short period. In May 2004, with the support of the United States, China became a member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group.

Based on significant, tangible progress with China on nuclear non-proliferation, President Clinton in 1998 took steps to bring into force the 1985 U.S.-China Agreement on Peaceful Nuclear Cooperation.

Chemical Weapons. China is not a member of the Australia Group, an informal and voluntary arrangement made in 1985 to monitor developments in the proliferation of dual-use chemicals and to coordinate export controls on key dual-use chemicals and equipment with weapons applications. In April 1997, however, China ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) and, in September 1997, promulgated a new chemical weapons export control directive. In October 2002, China promulgated updated regulations on dual-use chemical agents, and now controls all the major items on the Australia Group control list.

Missiles. Although it is not a member of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), the multinational effort to restrict the proliferation of missiles, in March 1992 China undertook to abide by MTCR guidelines and parameters. China reaffirmed this commitment in 1994, and pledged not to transfer MTCR-class ground-to-ground missiles. In November 2000, China committed not to assist in any way the development by other countries of MTCR-class missiles. However, in August 29, 2003, the U.S. Government imposed missile proliferation sanctions lasting two years on the Chinese company China North Industries Corporation (NORINCO) after determining that it was knowingly involved in the transfer of equipment and technology controlled under Category II of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) Annex that contributed to MTCR-class missiles in a non-MTCR country.

In December 2003, the P.R.C. promulgated comprehensive new export control regulations governing exports of all categories of sensitive technologies.

U.S.-CHINA RELATIONS

From Revolution to the Shanghai Communique

As the PLA armies moved south to complete the communist conquest of China in 1949, the American Embassy followed the Nationalist government headed by Chiang Kaishek, finally moving to Taipei later that year. U.S. consular officials remained in mainland China. The new P.R.C. Government was hostile to this official American presence, and all U.S. personnel were withdrawn from the mainland in early 1950. Any remaining hope of normalizing relations ended when U.S. and Chinese communist forces fought on opposing sides in the Korean conflict.

Beginning in 1954 and continuing until 1970, the United States and China held 136 meetings at the ambassadorial level, first at Geneva and later at Warsaw. In the late 1960s, U.S. and Chinese political leaders decided that improved bilateral relations were in their common interest. In 1969, the United States initiated measures to relax trade restrictions and other impediments to bilateral contact. On July 15, 1971, President Nixon announced that his Assistant for National Security Affairs, Dr. Henry Kissinger, had made a secret trip to Beijing to initiate direct contact with the Chinese leadership and that he, the President, had been invited to visit China.

In February 1972, President Nixon traveled to Beijing, Hangzhou, and Shanghai. At the conclusion of his trip, the U.S. and Chinese Governments issued the “Shanghai Communique,” a statement of their foreign policy views. (For the complete text of the Shanghai Communique, see the Department of State Bulletin, March 20, 1972).

In the Communique, both nations pledged to work toward the full normalization of diplomatic relations. The U.S. acknowledged the Chinese position that all Chinese on both sides of the Taiwan Strait maintain that there is only one China and that Taiwan is part of China. The statement enabled the U.S. and China to temporarily set aside the “crucial question obstructing the normalization of relations”—Taiwan—and to open trade and other contacts.

Liaison Office, 1973–78

In May 1973, in an effort to build toward the establishment of formal diplomatic relations, the U.S. and China established the United States Liaison Office (USLO) in Beijing and a counterpart Chinese office in Washington, DC. In the years between 1973 and 1978, such distinguished Americans as David Bruce, George H.W. Bush, Thomas Gates, and Leonard Woodcock served as chiefs of the USLO with the personal rank of Ambassador.

President Ford visited China in 1975 and reaffirmed the U.S. interest in normalizing relations with Beijing. Shortly after taking office in 1977, President Carter again reaffirmed the interest expressed in the Shanghai Communique. The United States and China announced on December 15, 1978, that the two governments would establish diplomatic relations on January 1, 1979.

Normalization

In the Joint Communique on the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations dated January 1, 1979, the United States transferred diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing. The U.S. reiterated the Shanghai Communique’s acknowledgment of the Chinese position that there is only one China and that Taiwan is a part of China; Beijing acknowledged that the American people would continue to carry on commercial, cultural, and other unofficial contacts with the people of Taiwan. The Taiwan Relations Act made the necessary changes in U.S. domestic law to permit such unofficial relations with Taiwan to flourish.

U.S.-China Relations Since Normalization

Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping’s January 1979 visit to Washington, DC, initiated a series of important, high-level exchanges, which continued until the spring of 1989. This resulted in many bilateral agreements—especially in the fields of scientific, technological, and cultural interchange and trade relations. Since early 1979, the United States and China have initiated hundreds of joint research projects and cooperative programs under the Agreement on Cooperation in Science and Technology, the largest bilateral program.

On March 1, 1979, the United States and China formally established embassies in Beijing and Washington, DC. During 1979, outstanding private claims were resolved, and a bilateral trade agreement was concluded. Vice President Walter Mondale reciprocated Vice Premier Deng’s visit with an August 1979 trip to China. This visit led to agreements in September 1980 on maritime affairs, civil aviation links, and textile matters, as well as a bilateral consular convention.

As a consequence of high-level and working-level contacts initiated in 1980, U.S. dialogue with China broadened to cover a wide range of issues, including global and regional strategic problems, political-military questions, including arms control, UN and other multilateral organization affairs, and international narcotics matters.

The expanding relationship that followed normalization was threatened in 1981 by Chinese objections to the level of U.S. arms sales to Taiwan. Secretary of State Alexander Haig visited China in June 1981 in an effort to resolve Chinese questions about America’s unofficial relations with Taiwan. Eight months of negotiations produced the U.S.-China joint communique of August 17, 1982. In this third communique, the U.S. stated its intention to reduce gradually the level of arms sales to Taiwan, and the Chinese described as a fundamental policy their effort to strive for a peaceful resolution to the Taiwan question. Meanwhile, Vice President Bush visited China in May 1982.

High-level exchanges continued to be a significant means for developing U.S.-China relations in the 1980s. President Reagan and Premier Zhao Ziyang made reciprocal visits in 1984. In July 1985, President Li Xiannian traveled to the United States, the first such visit by a Chinese head of state. Vice President Bush visited China in October 1985 and opened the U.S. Consulate General in Chengdu, the U.S.’s fourth consular post in China. Further exchanges of cabinet-level officials occurred between 1985-89, capped by President Bush’s visit to Beijing in February 1989.

In the period before the June 3-4, 1989 crackdown, a large and growing number of cultural exchange activities undertaken at all levels gave the American and Chinese peoples broad exposure to each other’s cultural, artistic, and educational achievements. Numerous Chinese professional and official delegations visited the United States each month. Many of these exchanges continued after Tiananmen.

Bilateral Relations After Tiananmen

Following the Chinese authorities’ brutal suppression of demonstrators in June 1989, the U.S. and other governments enacted a number of measures to express their condemnation of China’s blatant violation of the basic human rights of its citizens. The U.S. suspended high-level official exchanges with China and weapons exports from the U.S. to China. The U.S. also imposed a number of economic sanctions. In the summer of 1990, at the G-7 Houston summit, Western nations called for renewed political and economic reforms in China, particularly in the field of human rights.

Tiananmen disrupted the U.S.-China trade relationship, and U.S. investors’ interest in China dropped dramatically. The U.S. Government also responded to the political repression by suspending certain trade and investment programs on June 5 and 20, 1989. Some sanctions were legislated; others were executive actions. Examples include:

  • The U.S. Trade and Development Agency (TDA)—new activities in China were suspended from June 1989 until January 2001, when then-President Clinton lifted this suspension.
  • Overseas Private Insurance Corporation (OPIC)—new activities suspended since June 1989.
  • Development Bank Lending/IMF Credits—the United States does not support development bank lending and will not support IMF credits to China except for projects that address basic human needs.
  • Munitions List Exports—subject to certain exceptions, no licenses may be issued for the export of any defense article on the U.S. Munitions List. This restriction may be waived upon a presidential national interest determination.
  • Arms Imports—import of defense articles from China was banned after the imposition of the ban on arms exports to China. The import ban was subsequently waived by the Administration and re-imposed on May 26, 1994. It covers all items on the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives’ Munitions Import List.

In 1996, the P.R.C. conducted military exercises in waters close to Taiwan in an apparent effort at intimidation, after Taiwan’s former President, Lee Teng-huei made a private visit to the U.S. The United States dispatched two aircraft carrier battle groups to the region. Subsequently, tensions in the Taiwan Strait diminished, and relations between the U.S. and China have improved, with increased high-level exchanges and progress on numerous bilateral issues, including human rights, non-proliferation, and trade. Former Chinese president Jiang Zemin visited the United States in the fall of 1997, the first state visit to the U.S. by a Chinese president since 1985. In connection with that visit, the two sides reached agreement on implementation of their 1985 agreement on peaceful nuclear cooperation, as well as a number of other issues. Former President Clinton visited China in June 1998. He traveled extensively in China, and direct interaction with the Chinese people included live speeches, press conference and a radio show, allowing the President to convey first-hand to the Chinese people a sense of American ideals and values.

Relations between the U.S. and China were severely strained by the tragic accidental bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade in May 1999. By the end of 1999, relations began to gradually improve. In October 1999, the two sides reached agreement on humanitarian payments for families of those who died and those who were injured as well as payments for damages to respective diplomatic properties in Belgrade and China.

In April 2001, a Chinese F-8 fighter collided with a U.S. EP-3 reconnaissance aircraft flying over international waters south of China. The EP-3 was able to make an emergency landing on China’s Hainan Island despite extensive damage; the P.R.C. aircraft crashed with the loss of its pilot. Following extensive negotiations, the crew of the EP-3 was allowed to leave China 11 days later, but the U.S. aircraft was not permitted to depart for another 3 months. Subsequently, the relationship, which had cooled following the incident, gradually improved. President George W. Bush visited China in February 2002 and met with President Jiang Zemin in Crawford, Texas in October. President Bush hosted Premier Wen Jiabao in Washington in December 2003. President Bush first met Hu Jintao in his new capacity as P.R.C. President on the margins of the G-8 Summit in Evian in June 2003, and at subsequent international fora, such as the September 2004 APEC meeting in Chile, the July 2005 G-8 summit in Scotland, and the September 2005 UN General Assembly meetings in New York. President Bush traveled to China in November 2005, an official visit that was reciprocated in April 2006 when President Hu met with President Bush in Washington.

U.S. China policy has been remarkably consistent. For seven consecutive administrations, U.S. policy has been to encourage China’s opening and integration into the global system. As a result, China has moved from being a relatively isolated and poor country to one that is a key participant in international institutions and a major trading nation. The U.S. encourages China to play an active role as a responsible stakeholder in the international community, working with the U.S. and other countries to support and strengthen the international system that has enabled China’s success. As Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has noted, “America has reason to welcome a confident, peaceful, and prosperous China. We want China as a global partner, able and willing to match its growing capabilities to its international responsibilities.” Beginning with former Deputy Secretary Robert Zoellick, senior State Department officials have engaged in regular and intensive discussions with their P.R.C. counterparts through the U.S.-China Senior Dialogue. The Senior Dialogue covers the entire range of issues in the bilateral relationship.

The goal of the Dialogue has been, as former Deputy Secretary Zoellick noted in a September 2005 speech, to encourage China to act as a “responsible stakeholder” in the international community, on issues ranging from UN action on Iran and the Sudan to joint efforts to promote energy security.

China has an important role to play in global, regional, and bilateral counterterrorism efforts, and the U.S. and China have cooperated with growing effectiveness on various aspects of law enforcement. Following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks (9-11) in New York City and Washington, DC, China offered strong public support for the war on terrorism and has been an important partner in U.S. counterterrorism efforts. China voted in favor of UN Security Council Resolution 1373, publicly supported the coalition campaign in Afghanistan, and contributed $150 million of bilateral assistance to Afghan reconstruction following the defeat of the Taliban. China also pledged $25 million to the reconstruction of Iraq and has voiced strong support for the December 2005 Iraqi Parliamentary elections. Shortly after 9-11, the U.S. and China also commenced a counterterrorism dialogue, the most recent round of which was held in Washington in November 2005.

China and the U.S. have also been working closely with the international community to address threats to global security, such as those posed by North Korea and Iran’s nuclear programs. China has played a constructive role in hosting the Six-Party Talks, and the U.S. looks to Beijing to use its unique influence with Pyongyang to help bring North Korea back to the table and to implement fully its commitments under the September 2005 Statement of Principles. China has publicly stated that it does not want Iran to acquire nuclear weapons and supported the International Atomic Energy Agency’s decision to report Iran’s nuclear program to the UN Security Council. On these and other important issues, such as the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Darfur, the U.S. expects China to join with the international community in finding solutions. China’s participation is critical to efforts to combat transnational health threats such as avian influenza and HIV/AIDS, and both the U.S. and China play an important role in new multilateral energy initiatives, such as the Asia-Pacific Partnership.

While the United States looks forward to a constructive and broad-based relationship with China—a message reiterated by President Bush when he met with President Hu in April 2006 in Washington—there remain areas of potential disagreement. U.S.-China relations are sometimes complicated by events in Taiwan and Hong Kong. The United States does not support Taiwan independence and opposes unilateral steps, by either side, to change the status quo. At the same time, the U.S. has made it clear that cross-strait differences should be resolved peacefully and in a manner acceptable to people on both sides of the Strait. At various points in the past several years, China’s has expressed concern about the U.S. making statements on the political evolution of Hong Kong and has stressed that political stability there is paramount for economic growth. The NPC’s passage of an Anti-Secession law in March 2005 was viewed as unhelpful to the cause of promoting cross-Strait and regional stability by the U.S. and precipitated critical high-level statements by both sides.

U.S.-China Economic Relations

U.S. direct investment in China covers a wide range of manufacturing sectors, several large hotel projects, restaurant chains, and petrochemicals. U.S. companies have entered agreements establishing more than 20,000 equity joint ventures, contractual joint ventures, and wholly foreign-owned enterprises in China. More than 100 U.S.-based multinationals have projects in China, some with multiple investments. Cumulative U.S. investment in China is estimated at $54 billion, through the end of 2005, making the U.S. the second-largest foreign investor in China.

Total two-way trade between China and the U.S. grew from $33 billion in 1992 to over $285.3 billion in 2005. The United States is China’s second-largest trading partner, and China is now the third-largest trading partner for the United States (after Canada and Mexico). U.S. exports to China have been growing more rapidly than to any other market (up 28.4% in 2003, 20% in 2004, and 20% in 2005). U.S. imports from China grew 18% in 2005, bringing the U.S. trade deficit with China to more than $200 billion. Some of the factors that influence the U.S. trade deficit with China include:

A shift of low-end assembly industries to China from the newly industrialized economies (NIEs) in Asia. China has increasingly become the last link in a long chain of value-added production. Because U.S. trade data attributes the full value of a product to the final assembler, Chinese value-added gets over-counted.

Strong U.S. demand for Chinese goods. China’s restrictive trade practices, which have included an array of barriers to foreign goods and services, often aimed at protecting state-owned enterprises. Under its WTO accession agreement, China is reducing tariffs and eliminating import licensing requirements, as well as addressing other trade barriers.

The U.S. approach to its economic relations with China has two main elements:

First, the United States seeks to fully integrate China into the global, rules-based economic and trading system. China’s participation in the global economy will nurture the process of economic reform, encourage China to take on responsibilities commensurate with its growing influence, and increase China’s stake in the stability and prosperity of East Asia.

Second, the United States seeks to expand U.S. exporters’ and investors’ access to the Chinese market. As China grows and develops, its needs for imported goods and services will grow even more rapidly. The U.S. Government will continue to work with China’s leadership to ensure full and timely conformity with China’s WTO commitments—including effective protection of intellectual property rights—and to encourage China to move to a flexible, market-based exchange rate in order to further increase U.S. exports of goods, agricultural products, and services to the P.R.C.

Principal U.S. Embassy Officials

CHENGDU (CG) Address: No. 4 Lingshiguan Lu, Chengdu, Sichuan 610041, PRC; APO/FPO: PSC 461 Box 85, FPO AP 96521; Phone: 86-28-8558-3992; Fax: 86-28-8558-3520; Work week: 8:30–5:30; Website: http://www.osis.gov/state/posts/chengdu/.

CG:James A. Boughner
CGOMS: Stephanie Hutchins
PO:James A. Boughner
POL:Kathryn Pongonis
POL/ECO:John Hill
CON:C. David Hillon
MGT:Jeannette Juricic
CLO:Gennie Waters
ECO:vacant
EEO:Kathryn Pongonis
EST:vacant
FCS:vacant
GSO:Edward Waters
IMO:David Foster
IPO:David Foster
ISO:vacant
ISSO:David Foster
OMS:Nomsa Gonzales
PAO:Nancy Corbett
RSO:Monica Byler
State ICASS:Jeannette Juricic

Last Updated: 8/18/2006

GUANGZHOU (CG) Address: #1 Shamian South Road, Guangzhou CHINA 510133; APO/FPO: PSC 461, Box 100. FPO AP 96521-0002; Phone: (86)(20) 8121-8000; Fax: (86) (20) 8184-6296; Workweek: 8:30 AM–5:30 PM.

CG:Robert Goldberg
COM:Robert Murphy
CON:William J. Martin
MGT:Jeffrey Rock
AGR:Joani Dong
CLO:Deborah Turner
ECO:James J. Turner
GSO:Hong-Geok Maerkle
INS:Jackie Wong
IPO:Thomas Martin
PAO:Darcy Zotter
RSO:Gary Watson

Last Updated: 8/4/2006

SHANGHAI (CG) Address: 1469 Huai Hai Zhong Lu, Shanghai 200031 PRC; APO/FPO: PSC 461, Box 200, FPO AP 96521-0200; Phone: 86-21-6433-3936; Fax: 86-21-6433-4122; INMARSAT Tel: 88-16-7631-0550; Work week: 8:00 am–5:00 pm; Website: http://shanghai.usembassychina.org.cn.

CG:Kenneth Jarrett
CG OMS:Josephine Schaefer
PO:Kenneth Jarrett, CG
POL:Mary Tarnowka
COM:Ira Kasoff
CON:Charles Jess
MGT:Julia Harlan
ATO:Wayne Batwin
CLO:Carolyn Norton
ECO:Mary Tarnowka
EEO:Jessica Megill
FIN:Julia Harlan
GSO:Ernesto Escoto
ICASS Chair:Sub Group Only
IPO:William Iglhaut
ISO:Thomas Lacy
ISSO:Matthew McDowell
PAO:Jennifer Galt
RSO:Steven Chalupsky
State ICASS:Julia Harlan

Last Updated: 1/8/2007

SHENYANG (CG) Address: U.S. CONSULATE-SHENYANG; APO/FPO: PSC 461, Box 45; FPO AP 96521-0002; Phone: 86-24-2322-1198; Fax: 86-24-2322-1942; Workweek: 0830-1730; Website: http://www.usembassy-china.org.cn/consulates/shenyang/.

CG:David A. Kornbluth
CG OMS:Kathy Kong
POL:Adam J. Hantman
POL/ECO:Dana L. Candell
COM:Soching Tsai
CON:David N. Brizzee
MGT:Jonathan B. Korach
EEO:Seth Patch
GSO:Seth L Patch
IPO:John Meradith
ISO:Robert Weber
ISSO:John Meradith
PAO:Joseph P Kruzich
RSO:Julia Hawley

Last Updated: 11/29/2006

BEIJING (M) Address: No. 3 Xiu Shui Bei Jie; APO/FPO: PSC 461 Box 50 FPO, AP 96521; Phone: 8610-6532-3831; Fax: 8610-6532-6929; Workweek: 0800-1700; Website: http://www.usembassy-china.org.cn/.

AMB:Clark T. Randt, Jr.
AMB OMS:Joan Bower
DCM:David S. Sedney
DCM OMS:Kim Tesone
CG:Michael Regan
CG OMS:Brian Woody
POL:Daniel L. Shields
MGT:James B. Lane
AGR:Maurice W. House
APHIS:Theresa Boyle
ATO:Laverne Brabant
CLO:Danielle Tymczyszyn
COM/ADB:Craig Allen
CUS:Steve Thomas
DAO:Ralph Jodice
DEA:Mike McCormick
ECO:Robert Luke
EEO:Katherine Lawson
EST:Deborah J. Seligsohn
FAA:Joseph P. Tymczyszyn
FCS:Barry Friedman
FMO:Mazhar Ahson
GSO:Dan Romano
ICASS Chair:Brad Fribley
IMO:Heywood Miller
INS:Joseph Martin
IPO:Jim Wojciechowski
ISO:Larry Roberts
ISSO:Larry Roberts
LAB:Bruce Levine
LEGATT:William Liu
PAO:Don Q. Washingotn
RSO:Bob Eckert

Last Updated: 11/2/2006

TRAVEL

Consular Information Sheet : September 22, 2006

Country Description: The People’s Republic of China was established on October 1, 1949, with Beijing as its capital city. With well over 1.3 billion citizens, China is the world’s most populous country and the third largest country in the world in terms of territory. China is undergoing rapid, profound economic and social change and development. Political power remains centralized in the Chinese Communist Party. Modern tourist facilities are available in major cities, but many facilities in smaller provincial cities and rural areas are frequently below international standards.

Entry/Exit Requirements: A valid passport and visa are required to enter China and must be obtained from Chinese Embassies and Consulates before traveling to China. Americans arriving without valid passports and the appropriate Chinese visa are not permitted to enter and will be subject to a fine and immediate deportation at the traveler’s expense. Travelers should not rely on Chinese host organizations claiming to be able to arrange a visa upon arrival. Chinese authorities have recently tightened their visa issuance policy, in some cases requiring personal interviews of American citizens. Although a bilateral United States-China agreement provides for issuance of multiple entry visas with validity of up to one year for tourists and business visitors, Chinese consulates often limit visas to only one-entry. Visit the Embassy of China web site at http://www.china-embassy.org/eng/ for the most current visa information.

Visas are required to transit China. Persons transiting China on the way to and from Mongolia or North Korea or who plan to re-enter from the Hong Kong or Macau Special Administrative Regions should be sure to obtain visas allowing multiple entries. Permits are required to visit Tibet as well as many remote areas not normally open to foreigners. Every foreigner going to Tibet needs to get a travel permit, which can be done through local travel agents. Permits cost RMB 100, are single-entry and valid for at most three months. Most areas in Tibet are not open for foreigners. Foreigners can be fined, taken into custody and removed for visiting restricted areas.

For information about entry requirements and restricted areas, travelers may consult the Visa Office of the Embassy of China (PRC) at Room 110, 2201 Wisconsin Avenue, N.W., Washington D.C. 20007, or telephone (202) 338-6688 and (202) 588-9760. For a list of services and frequently asked visa questions and answers, travelers can view the Chinese Embassy’s web sites at http://www.china-embassy.org/eng/. There are Chinese consulates general in Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco. Americans traveling in Asia have been able to obtain visas to enter China from the Chinese visa office in Hong Kong and the Embassy of China in Seoul, South Korea.

Americans who overstay or otherwise violate the terms of their Chinese visas will be subject to a maximum fine of 5,000 RMB and departure delays and may be subject to detention. Travelers should note that international flights departing China are routinely overbooked, making reconfirmation of departure reservations and early airport check-in essential. An airport user fee, for both international and domestic flights, is now included in the cost of the ticket price.

In an effort to prevent international child abduction, many governments have initiated new procedures at entry/exit points. These often include requiring documentary evidence of relationship and permission for the child’s travel from the parent(s) or legal guardian if they are not present. Having such documentation on hand, even if not required, may facilitate entry/departure

China does not recognize dual citizenship. U.S. Embassy and Consulate officials are often denied access to arrested or detained Americans who do not enter China using their U.S. passport. Lawful Permanent Residents of the United States who do not carry unexpired or otherwise clear evidence that they may re-enter the United States will encounter delays departing from China. Lawful Permanent Residents should renew and update U.S. residence documentation prior to their departure from the United States.

Safety and Security: Americans visiting or residing in China are advised to take the normal safety precautions travelers take when in any foreign country. Specifically, travelers should remain aware of their surroundings and of events that are happening around them. Travelers should respect local police requirements to avoid travel in some areas. In light of the greatly increased numbers of older Americans traveling to China, U.S. tour operators should check that local guides are familiar with medical facilities and emergency medical evacuation procedures.

American citizens who rent apartments with gas appliances should be aware that, in some areas, natural gas is not scented to warn occupants of gas leaks or concentrations. In addition, heaters may not always be well vented, thereby allowing excess carbon monoxide to build up in living spaces. Due to fatal accidents involving American citizens, travelers are advised to ensure all gas appliances are properly vented or to install gas and carbon monoxide detectors in their residences. These devices are not widely available in China and should be purchased prior to arrival.

Security personnel may at times place foreign visitors under surveillance. Hotel rooms, telephones, and fax machines may be monitored, and personal possessions in hotel rooms, including computers, may be searched without the consent or knowledge of the traveler. Taking photographs of anything that could be perceived as being of military or security interest may result in problems with authorities. Foreign government officials, journalists, and business people with access to advanced proprietary technology are particularly likely to be under surveillance.

Terrorism is rare in China, although a small number of bombings have occurred in areas throughout China. Recent bombings have largely been criminal activity, frequently the result of commercial disputes. Last year there were over 80, 000 incidents of social unrest according to the Chinese government. The vast majority of these local incidents related to disputes over land seizures, social issues or environmental problems. While some incidents have grown to larger scales and involved some violence, these demonstrations have not been directed against foreigners. In April 2005 anti-Japanese demonstrations resulted in property damage and some reports of violence being directed against foreigners of Asian appearance.

Business disputes in China are not always handled through the courts. Sometimes the foreign partner has been held hostage, threatened with violence, or beaten up. Anyone entering into a contract in China should have it thoroughly examined, both in the United States and in China. Contracts entered into in the United States are not enforced by Chinese courts.

U.S. citizens and business owners should be aware that many intending migrants from China will try to enlist their assistance to secure a U.S. visa. In one common scheme, a PRC national will contact a U.S. business feigning interest in a particular product or service. The PRC national then asks for a formal letter from the U.S. company inviting him or her (alone or with colleagues) to come to the United States to discuss or finalize a purchase, or establish formal cooperation between the two companies. The PRC national(s) will then use these invitation letters when they apply for U.S. visas to show they have a legitimate purpose of travel. While many such requests may be legitimate, some are not. Oftentimes, the PRC national initiating the contact has no relationship to his/her claimed Chinese employer. In fact, it is not unusual for these individuals to be part of elaborate human smuggling syndicates. Visa Sections at the U.S. Embassy and Consulates in China are regularly contacted by U.S. businesses that unwittingly have been used to facilitate illicit migration schemes.

For the latest security information, Americans traveling abroad should regularly monitor the Department’s Internet web site where the current Travel Warnings and Public Announcements, including the Worldwide Caution Public Announcement, can be found. Up-to-date information on safety and security can also be obtained by calling (888) 407-4747 toll free in the United States, or for callers outside the United States and Canada, a regular toll-line at (202) 501-4444. These numbers are available from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time, Monday through Friday (except U.S. federal holidays).

Crime: China has a low crime rate. Pickpockets target tourists at sightseeing destinations, open-air markets, airports, and in stores, often with the complicity of low-paid security guards. Violence against foreigners, while rare, is on the increase. Over the past year, incidents of violence against foreigners, including sexual assaults, have taken place, usually in urban areas where bars and nightclubs are located. Robberies, sometimes at gunpoint, have occurred in western China and more recently in Beijing. There have been some reports of robberies and assaults along remote mountain highways near China’s border with Nepal. Travelers are sometimes asked by locals to exchange money at a preferential rate. It is illegal to exchange dollars for RMB except at banks, hotels and official exchange offices. Due to the large volume of counterfeit currency in China, unofficial exchanges usually result in travelers losing their money and possibly left to face charges of breaking foreign exchange laws. If detained by police under suspicion of committing an economic crime involving currency, travelers may be delayed for weeks or months while police investigate the allegations.

Recently, there have been instances in Beijing and elsewhere of mobs in bar districts attacking foreigners. Nationalism is on the rise. Disputes among Chinese citizens or between Chinese and foreigners can quickly turn against foreigners. Caution should be exercised when visiting bar districts late at night, especially on weekends. There have been reports of bar fights in which Americans have been specifically targeted due their nationality. Simple arguments can turn into mob scenes and many times have resulted in the American being detained for hours for questioning with no right to an attorney or consular officer at that stage.

Travelers should have small bills (RMB 10, 20 and 50 notes) for travel by taxi. Reports of taxi drivers using counterfeit money to make change for large bills are increasingly common, especially in Guangzhou. Arguments with taxi drivers over fares or over choice of route usually are not easily resolved on the scene. In some cases, Americans who instigate such arguments have been detained for questioning and are not usually released until the fare is paid or a settlement is reached and the American offers an apology. We have seen an increase in the number of Americans falling victim to scams involving the inflation of tea and drink prices. Normally, the scam involves young people who approach English-speaking tourists and ask to have a cup of tea with them to practice their English. When the bill comes for the tea, the charge has been inflated to an exorbitant amount. When the tourist complains, enforcers arrive to collect the money. A similar scam involves buying drinks for young women at local bars.

Throughout China, women outside hotels in tourist districts frequently use the prospect of companionship or sex to lure foreign men to isolated locations where accomplices are waiting for the purpose of robbery. Travelers should not allow themselves to be driven to bars or an individual’s home unless they know the person making the offer. Hotel guests should refuse to open their room doors to anyone they do not know personally.

Recently, Americans visitors have encountered scams at the international airports in China whereby individuals appearing to work for the airport offer to take American tourists’ bags to the departure area, but instead they carry the bags to another area and insist that the visitor pay an airport tax. Travelers should be advised that the airport tax is now included in the price of the airline ticket. The airport police or security officers should be contacted if this happens.

American visitors to China should carry their passports with them out of reach of pickpockets. Americans with Chinese residence permits (juliuzheng) should carry these documents, and leave their passports in a secure location except when traveling. All Americans are encouraged to make photocopies of their passport bio-data pages and Chinese visas and to keep these in a separate, secure location, and to register with the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate General. Please note the contact information below for registration by e-mail addresses.

Information for Victims of Crime: The loss or theft abroad of a U.S. passport should be reported immediately to the local police and the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate. If you are the victim of a crime while overseas, in addition to reporting to local police, please contact the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate for assistance. The Embassy/Consulate staff can, for example, assist you to find appropriate medical care, contact family members or friends and explain how funds could be transferred. Although the investigation and prosecution of the crime is solely the responsibility of local authorities, consular officers can help you to understand the local criminal justice process and to find an attorney if needed.

English Teachers/Secondary School Teachers: Many Americans have enjoyed their teaching experience in China; others have encountered significant problems. We encourage prospective teachers to read the Teaching in China Guide on Embassy Beijing’s American Citizen Services website at http://beijing.usembassy-china.org.cn. In order for us to provide up to date information to prospective teachers, we request that Americans experiencing problems inform the Embassy by contacting the American Citizens Services Unit at telephone (86)(10) 6532-3431, or via email at [email protected].

Medical Facilities and Health Information: Western-style medical facilities with international staffs are available in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and a few other large cities. Many other hospitals in major Chinese cities have so-called VIP wards (gaogan bingfang). These feature reasonably up-to-date medical technology and physicians who are both knowledgeable and skilled. Most VIP wards also provide medical services to foreigners and have English-speaking doctors and nurses. Most hospitals in China will not accept medical insurance from the United States, with the exception of the following hospitals, which are on the Blue-Cross Blue-Shield’s worldwide network providers—overseas network hospitals’ list (http://www.bcbs.com/bluecardworldwide/index.html): Hong Kong Adventist Hospital, Beijing United Family Hospital, Beijing Friendship Hospital, International Medical Center in Beijing, and Peking Union Medical Center. Travelers will be asked to post a deposit prior to admission to cover the expected cost of treatment. Hospitals in major cities may accept credit cards for payment. Even in the VIP/Foreigner wards of major hospitals, however, American patients have frequently encountered difficulty due to cultural and regulatory differences. Physicians and hospitals have sometimes refused to supply American patients with complete copies of their Chinese hospital medical records, including laboratory test results, scans, and x-rays.

Ambulances do not carry sophisticated medical equipment. Injured or seriously ill Americans may be required to take taxis or other immediately available vehicles to the nearest major hospital rather than waiting for ambulances to arrive. Generally, in rural areas, only rudimentary medical facilities are available, often with poorly trained medical personnel who have little medical equipment and medications. Rural clinics are often reluctant to accept responsibility for treating foreigners, even in emergency situations.

SOS International, Ltd., operates modern medical and dental clinics and provides medical evacuation and medical escort services in Beijing, Nanjing, Tianjin and Shekou, as well as 24hr Alarm Centers in Beijing and Shanghai. Through clinics in Beijing (24 hours), Tianjin, Nanjing and Shekou, SOS offers international standard family practice services, emergency medical services and a range of clinical services.

For medical emergencies anywhere in mainland China, Americans can call the SOS International, Ltd., 24-hour “Alarm Center” in Beijing at telephone (86)(10) 6462-9100 or in Shanghai at (86)(21) 5298-9538 for advice and referrals to local facilities. SOS International Alarm Centers can also be contacted in Hong Kong at telephone (852) 2428-9900 and in the United States at (215) 245-4707. For a full list of SOS locations and phone numbers, consult the SOS website at http://www.internationalsos.com.

BEIJING
Bayley & Jackson Beijing Medical
Center
#7 Ritan Dong Lu, Chaoyang District,
Beijing 100020
(86)(10) 8562-9998
Fax: (86)(10) 8561-4866
email: [email protected]
Website: www.bjhealthcare.com

Beijing United Family Hospital and
Clinics
#2 Jiang Tai Lu, Chaoyang District,
Beijing 100016
(86)(10) 6433-3960
Fax: (86)(10) 6433-3963
Emergency Hotline:
(86)(10) 6433-2345
Website: www.unitedfamilyhospitals.com

Beijing United Family Clinic- Shunyi
Pinnacle Plaza, Unit # 818, Tian Zhu
Real Estate Development Zone, Shunyi
District, 101312
(86)(10) 8046-5432 Fax: (86)(10)
8046-4383

Peking Union Medical Hospital
1 Shuai Fu Yuan, Dong Cheng
District, Beijing 100730
Tel: (86)(10) 6529-5269
(registration and information);
(86)(10) 6529-5284 (24 hours);
(86)(10) 6529 6114 (operator).
Modern Facilities with English
speaking staff. Separate ward for foreign patients.

SHANGHAI
World Link Shanghai Clinics: Expatriate doctors and imported vaccines. Hotline: (86)(21) 6385-9990 www.worldlink-shanghai.com. World Link Medical Centers located at:

Shanghai Center Medical Center
1376 Nanjing Xi Lu Suite 203
Telephone: (86)(21) 6279-7688

Hong Qiao Medical Center
2258 Hong Qiao Lu
Telephone: (86)(21) 6242-0909

Specialty Clinic
Lu Wan Hospital, 3rd Floor
170 Dan Shui Lu
Telephone: (86)(21) 6445-5999

Jin Qiao Medical & Dental Center
51 Hong Feng Lu
Pudong
Tel: (86)(21) 5032-8288

Shanghai Kerry Center
Room 301
1515 Nanjing West Rd
Tel: (86)(21) 5298-6339

Fudan Vision
Managed by Vision-Health-One a Singapore health care company and affiliated to Fudan Medical University.
Staffed by Singapore and western
physicians.
Silver Tower 3rd Floor
228 South Xizang Rd
Tel: (86)(21) 6334-3668

Shanghai United Family Hospital
1139 Xianxia Lu
Tel: (86)(21) 5133-1900
Emergency hotline:
(86)(21) 5133-1999
www.unitedfamilyhospitals.com

Shanghai East International
Medical Center
551 South Pudong Rd
Telephone: (86)(21) 5879-999

GlobalDoctor, Ltd., has opened clinics staffed by English-speaking doctors within the VIP wards of government-run hospitals in Chengdu, Nanjing, and Beijing. There is also a clinic in Shenyang with a 24- hour emergency assistance hotline at (86)(24) 2433-0678. GlobalDoctor can be reached by telephone from China at (86)(10) 8456-9191 or on the Internet at http://www.eglobaldoctor.com.

Additional information on medical providers specializing in treating foreigners for general medical, dental and orthodontic problems are available at http://beijing.usembassychina.org.cn.

Information on vaccinations and other health precautions, such as safe food and water precautions and insect bite protection, may be obtained from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s hotline for international travelers at (877) FYI-TRIP (877-394-8747); fax (888) CDC-FAXX (888-232-3299), or via the CDC’s Internet site at http://www.cdc.gov/travel. For information about outbreaks of infectious diseases abroad consult the World Health Organization’s (WHO) website at http://www.who.int/en. Further health information for travelers is available at http://www.who.int/ith.

Alternative Medical Treatments: There have been increasing numbers of foreigners coming to China to receive alternative medical treatments or procedures prohibited in the United States relating specifically to stem-cell research. Any person contemplating these treatments should be fully aware of the risks of such procedures. The treatments can be dangerous and untested. The results are not guaranteed. In many instances, patients going for treatment develop secondary infections that cannot be handled by these facilities. They are transferred to hospitals for treatment and are responsible for all additional costs, including repatriation back to the United States. In some cases, these treatments have resulted in death.

Medical Insurance: The Department of State strongly urges Americans to consult with their medical insurance company prior to traveling abroad to confirm whether their policy applies overseas and whether it will cover emergency expenses such as a medical evacuation. China has no public healthcare system to provide for people without insurance or money. If you become sick or injured, you will be expected to pay for your bills, sometimes even before treatment is offered.

Traffic Safety and Road Conditions: While in a foreign country, U.S. citizens may encounter road conditions that differ significantly from those in the United States. The information below concerning China is provided for general reference only, and may not be totally accurate in a particular location or circumstance.

The rate of traffic accidents in China, including fatal accidents, is among the highest in the world. Driving etiquette in China is developing. As a result, traffic is often chaotic, and right-of-way and other courtesies are often ignored. Travelers should note that cars and buses in the wrong lanes frequently hit pedestrians and bicyclists. Pedestrians should always be careful while walking near traffic. Road/traffic conditions are generally safe if occupants of modern passenger vehicles wear seatbelts. Most traffic accident injuries involve pedestrians or cyclists who are involved in collisions or who encounter unexpected road hazards (e.g., unmarked open manholes). Foreigners with resident permits can apply for PRC driver licenses; however, liability issues often make it preferable to employ a local driver. Child safety seats are not widely available in China. Americans who wish to ride bicycles in China are urged to wear safety helmets meeting U.S. standards. All drivers should be aware of the Chinese regulations regarding traffic accidents. These include the requirement that drivers:

Not move their vehicles or disturb the scene of the accident unless and until ordered to by the traffic police (in Shanghai, the police now prefer that if the parties can reach agreement as to who was at fault they move the vehicles out of the flow of traffic.)

Summon the traffic police and wait at the scene until the police arrive and complete their investigation.

If called to an accident, the police may take 20 minutes or longer to arrive. Once the police arrive, they will complete a preliminary investigation and arrange a time for you to report to the police station responsible for the accident scene. The police will prepare a written report, in Chinese, describing the circumstances of the accident. They will present the report to you either at the scene, or more likely at the police station, and ask you to sign it verifying the details of the accident. Do not sign the report as is, unless your Chinese is good enough to completely understand the report and you find it totally accurate. If you either do not understand it or believe it is partly or wholly inaccurate, you may either:

  • Write a disclaimer on the report to the effect that you cannot read and understand the report and cannot attest to the accuracy thereof, but are signing it because of the police requirement that you do so, and then sign, or
  • Write your own version of the accident, in English, on the police form and indicate that your signature only attests to the accuracy of the English version.

Most incidents (such as an accident) will draw a crowd. Drivers should remain calm. A crowd will usually move in very close to the accident and participants. In many cases the bystanders consider themselves to be an ad hoc jury. They may call for money, usually from RMB 100 to 1,000, to be paid by the party they consider at fault. The amount is not necessarily relevant to the amount of damage. A certain amount of bargaining is normal, even at accidents involving two Chinese parties. Though a crowd may seem threatening, crowd assaults on foreigners at accidents have not been reported. If a traffic police booth is nearby, you may wish to leave the vehicle and walk there to await the arrival of the police accident team. Alternatively, you may walk to a shop, restaurant, or other location nearby in the immediate vicinity and wait for police. You should not leave the scene of an accident. Your actions may serve to further incite the crowd if they perceive that you are fleeing to evade responsibility for your share of blame or payment of damages. The crowd may attempt to keep your vehicle at the accident scene by standing in the way or blocking the roadway with vehicles, bicycles and other objects.

Visit the website of the country’s national tourist office and national authority responsible for road safety at China National Tourist Bureau—http://www.cnta.com/index.asp.

Aviation Safety Oversight: The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has assessed the Government of China’s Civil Aviation Authority as being in compliance with International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) aviation safety standards for oversight of China’s air carrier operations. For more information, travelers may visit the FAA’s internet web site at http://www.faa.gov.

Special Circumstances: Chinese customs authorities may enforce strict regulations concerning temporary importation into or export from China of items such as antiquities, banned publications, some religious literature, or vehicles not conforming to Chinese standards. It is advisable to contact the Embassy of China in Washington or one of China’s consulates in the United States for specific information regarding customs requirements. In many countries around the world, counterfeit and pirated goods are widely available. Transactions involving such products are illegal and bringing them back to the United States may result in forfeitures and/or fines. A current list of those countries with serious problems in this regard can be found on the website of the Office of the United States Trade Representative.

China’s customs authorities encourage the use of an ATA (Admission Temporaire/Temporary Admission) Carnet for the temporary admission of professional equipment, commercial samples, and/or goods for exhibitions and fair purposes. ATA Carnet Headquarters, located at the U.S. Council for International Business, 1212 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10036, issues and guarantees the ATA Carnet in the United States. For additional information call (212) 354-4480, send an email to [email protected], or visit www.uscib.org for details.

Americans involved in child custody disputes with Chinese national spouses should be aware that Chinese courts may give preference to the Chinese citizen spouse and that Americans may encounter limited appeal opportunities under the current legal system.

Criminal Penalties: While in a foreign country, a U.S. citizen is subject to that country’s laws and regulations, which, in China, differ significantly from those in the United States and do not afford the protections available to the individual under U.S. law. Penalties for breaking the law can be more severe than in the United States for similar offenses. Persons violating China’s laws, even unknowingly, may be expelled, arrested or imprisoned. Penalties for possession of, use of, or trafficking in illegal drugs in China are severe, and convicted offenders can expect long jail sentences and heavy fines. Engaging in sexual conduct with children or using or disseminating child pornography in a foreign country is a crime, prosecutable in the United States.

On March 1, 2006, a new Public Security Law went into effect that gives police new powers, including the authority to detain and deport foreigners, relating to the commission of a wide range of offenses. The list of offenses has been expanded to include certain religious activities and prostitution-related crimes.

Americans in China, who are not staying at hotels, including Americans who are staying with friends or relatives, must register with local police as soon as they arrive. Otherwise, they may be fined up to 500 RMB per day.

Americans who are questioned by police should immediately notify the U.S. Embassy or the nearest consulate. Foreigners detained for questioning may not be allowed to contact their national authorities until the questioning is concluded. Foreigners detained pending trial have often waited over a year for their trial to begin. Foreigners suspected of committing a crime are rarely granted bail. Criminal punishments, especially prison terms, are much more severe than in the United States. Persons violating the law, even unknowingly, may be expelled, arrested or imprisoned. Criminal penalties for possession, use, or trafficking of illegal drugs are strict, and convicted offenders can expect severe jail sentences and fines. Non-American foreigners have been executed for drug offenses. Several Americans currently incarcerated in China have been implicated in financial fraud schemes involving falsified bank or business documents, tax evasion schemes and assisting alien smuggling, including selling passports to provide aliens with travel documents.

In the past, protesters detained for engaging in pro-Falun Gong activities have been quickly deported from China after being questioned. Several of these protesters alleged they were physically abused during their detention. In addition, they allege that personal property, including clothing, cameras and computers, have not always been returned to them upon their deportation. Chinese authorities report while they have deported these foreigners quickly after public demonstrations in favor of the Falun Gong, future adherents who intentionally arrive in China to protest against Chinese policy may receive longer terms of detention and possibly face prison sentences. In one instance, an American Falun Gong practitioner who was traveling in China on personal business was detained and asked to provide information on other Falun Gong sympathizers in the United States.

Several Americans have been detained and expelled for passing out non-authorized Christian literature. Sentences for distributing this material may range from three to five years imprisonment, if convicted.

Children’s Issues: For information on international adoption of children and international parental child abduction, see the Office of Children’s Issues website at http://travel.state.gov/familyfamily_1732.html.

Registration/Embassy Location: Americans living or traveling in China are encouraged to register with the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate through the State Department’s travel registration website so that they can obtain updated information on travel and security within China. Americans without Internet access may register directly with the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate. By registering, American citizens make it easier for the Embassy or Consulate to contact them in case of emergency.

BEIJING: The U.S. Embassy is located at No. 2 Xiu Shui Dong Jie, Chaoyang District, Beijing, the American Citizen Services section can be reached at (86)(10) 6532-3431 (8:30-12:00 a.m. and 2:00-4:00 p.m., Mon-Fri), after hours (86)(10) 6532-1910For detailed information please visit the Embassy’s website at http://beijing.usembassy-china.org.cn. The Embassy consular district includes the following provinces/regions of China: Beijing, Tianjin, Shandong, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, Ningxia, Shaanxi, Qinghai, Xinjiang, Hebei, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, and Jiangxi.

CHENGDU: The U.S. Consulate General in Chengdu is located at Number 4, Lingshiguan Road, Section 4, Renmin Nanlu, Chengdu 610041, tel. (86)(28) 8558-3992, 8555-3119, after hours (86)(28) 1370 8001 422, and email address the [email protected]. This consular district includes the following provinces/regions of China: Guizhou, Sichuan Xizang (Tibet), and Yunnan, as well as the municipality of Chongqing.

GUANGZHOU: The main office of the U.S. Consulate General in Guangzhou is located at Number 1 South Shamian Street, Shamian Island 200S1, Guangzhou 510133The Consular Section, including the American Citizens Services Unit, is now located at 5th Floor, Tianyu Garden (II phase), 136-146 Lin He Zhong Lu, Tianhe District, tel. (86)(20) 8518-7605; after hours (86)(20) 8121-6077, and email [email protected]. This consular district includes the following provinces/regions of China: Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan, and Fujian.

SHANGHAI: The Consular Section of the U.S. Consulate General in Shanghai is located in the Westgate Mall, 8th Floor, 1038 Nanjing Xi Lu, Shanghai 200031; tel. (86)(21) 3217-4650, ext. 2102, 2013, or 2134, after hours (86)(21) 6433-3936; email [email protected] consular district includes the following provinces/regions of China: Shanghai, Anhui, Jiangsu and Zhejiang.

SHENYANG: The U.S. Consulate General in Shenyang is located at No. 52, 14th Wei Road, Heping District, Shenyang 110003; tel. (86)(24) 2322-2374; email [email protected]. This consular district includes the following provinces/regions of China: Liaoning, Heilongjiang, and Jilin.

International Adoption : February 2006

The information below has been edited from a report of the State Department Bureau of Consular Affairs, Office of Overseas Citizens Services. For more information, please read the International Adoption section of this book and review current reports online at www.travel.state.gov/ family.

Disclaimer: The information in this flyer relating to the legal requirements of specific foreign countries is based on public sources and current understanding. Questions involving foreign and U.S. immigration laws and legal interpretation should be addressed respectively to qualified foreign or U.S. legal counsel.

Patterns of Immigration: Please review current reports online at travel.state.gov/family.

Please Note: Chinese authorities are extremely sensitive about the operation of foreign entities in China. Moreover, adoption is also a sensitive subject in China. It is therefore advisable for any person interested in adopting a child from China to act with discretion and decorum. High-profile attention to adoption in China could curtail or eliminate altogether adoption of Chinese children by persons from countries, including the United States, that have caused adoption to become the subject of public attention.

Only adoptions fully completed in China are permitted. It is not possible under Chinese law to obtain guardianship of a Chinese child for later adoption in the United States.

Availablity of Children for Adoption: To be eligible for adoption, Chinese children must first be identified and approved by the China Centre of Adoption Affairs (CCAA). The CCAA matches individual children with prospective adoptive parent(s) whose completed applications have been submitted to the CCAA by a CCAA-licensed U.S. adoption agency whose credentials are on file at the CCAA.

Adoption Authority: The government office with overall responsibility for adoptions in China is the Ministry of Civil Affairs, and specifically the China Centre of Adoption Affairs (CCAA). In addition, Child Welfare Institutes (roughly the equivalent of orphanages), the Civil Affairs Bureau, Chinese government notarial offices, and the Public Security Bureau are also involved.

The China Centre of Adoption Affairs
(CCAA)
103 Beiheyan St.
Dongcheng District
Beijing 100006
Phone: 86-10-6522-3102
86-10-6513-0607
Website: www.china-ccaa.org
Email: [email protected]

Department of Civil Affairs
No. 147 Beiheyan St.
Beijing, 100032

Notarial Offices: The provincial Notarial Offices, which are administered by the Ministry of Justice, Department of Notarization Division (No. 10 Chaoyangmen Nandajie, Beijing 100020 China) issue the final adoption certificate.

Public Security Bureau: The Public Security Bureau in the locality where the adoption takes place is responsible for issuing Chinese passports and exit permits to children adopted by U.S. citizens and other foreigners. [Note: Detailed information about the role of the Notarial Offices may be found further down in this flyer, in the step-by-step analysis of the Chinese adoption process.]

Age of Children: Chinese law allows for the adoption of children up to and including age 13; children ages 14 and up may not be adopted.

Civil Status of Prospective Adoptive Parents: Chinese law permits adoption by married couples (one man, one woman) and single heterosexual persons. Chinese law prohibits homosexual individuals or couples from adopting Chinese children.

Residency: China does not require that prospective adoptive parents reside in China for a specified period prior to completing an adoption. However, in order to finalize the adoption, at least one adopting parent must travel to China to execute the required documents in person before the appropriate Chinese authorities. If the prospective adoptive parents are married, they must adopt the child jointly. If only one member of an adopting married couple travels to China, that person must have in his/her possession a power of attorney from the other spouse, notarized and authenticated by the Chinese Embassy in Washington or one of the Chinese Consulates General elsewhere in the United States. http://www.china-embassy.org/eng/hzqz/t84229.htm.

Time Frame: It is hard to predict with certainty how much time is required to complete an adoption in China. The time frames provided in this flyer are intended as guidelines only, and the specific circumstances of each case could affect significantly how long it takes.

As of February 2006, adoptions were taking approximately ten to twelve months from the time the U.S. adoption agency submitted the paperwork of the prospective adopter to CCAA to the time the CCAA gave the prospective adoptive parent(s) their initial referral. Cases involving children with special needs may take longer.

After the referral is sent and the prospective parent(s) accept the child, four to eight more weeks are likely to elapse before the CCAA gives the prospective adoptive parents final approval to travel to China. With regard to time required in China, the CCAA has advised local officials to try to complete the process within 15 days after the arrival of the prospective parent(s) in China. The Chinese passport, exit permits, and U.S. visa process can take another 7-10 days after the adoption is finalized. Some U.S. families have been able to complete the in-country process, including obtaining the U.S. immigrant visa for the adoptive child, in approximately two weeks.

Adoption Fees: Fees charged by Chinese authorities in connection with foreign adoptions may vary depending on the province where the child is adopted. However, for each adoption, there are standard fees that adoptive parents must pay.

  • The authentication/legalization of documents by the Chinese Embassy or Consulate in the United States costs U.S.$10 per document, whether the document is one or multiple pages.
  • The initial CCAA fee is U.S.$365, plus U.S.$200 for translation of the documents submitted in the dossier.
  • Fees for the issuance of the registration of the adoption by the Civil Affairs Bureau: U.S.$30.
  • Fees for issuance of the Chinese-notarized certificate approving the adoption, birth certificate and abandonment certificate may vary based on province.
  • Chinese passports cost U.S.$25 for normal 15-working-day issuance.
  • Individual Children’s Welfare Institutes may charge from U.S.$3000 to $5000 as a combined donation to the institution and a fee for having raised and cared for the child.
  • Some U.S. families who have adopted in China have reported being required to pay additional charges of up to U.S.$500 for transportation or expedited processing of documents.

U.S. adoptive parent(s) who believe that they were compelled at any point during the adoption process to pay exorbitant fees out of keeping with the general outline provided in this flyer should notify the U.S. Consulate General in Guangzhou.

Adoption Procedures: A CCAA-licensed agency may submit adoption applications directly to the CCAA for consideration. A listing of CCAA-licensed agencies can be found on http://www.china-ccaa.org/. Included with the application should be all the required documents along with authentications and translations.

Once the CCAA approves the application, it matches the application with a specific child. The CCAA then sends the prospective adoptive parent(s) a letter of introduction about the child, including photographs and the child’s health record. This document is commonly called a referral. Prospective adoptive parent(s) then either accept or refuse the referral and send the document to their agency, which forwards it to CCAA.

Prospective adoptive parents who have accepted a specific referred child will receive an approval notice from the CCAA This document will bear the “chops,” or red-inked seals of the CCAA. Prospective parents must have this approval notice in hand before departing for China to finalize the adoption.

Americans adopting in China will usually meet with a notary in the provincial capital for an informal interview before they notarize documents such as birth certificates or abandonment certificates. Chinese Adoption law does not require notarization of the adoption documents (birth certificate, and abandonment), but the U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou does. The notary may conduct a brief interview with the prospective parents prior to notarizing the documents. In all cases an interview at a registry office is conducted. According to Chinese Adoption Law, adoptive parents must meet with the adoption registry office to finalize the adoption.

Prospective adoptive parents may request to see the child before completing the adoption. If such a visit with the child leads them to have additional questions about the child’s health, background, etc., it is important to resolve these before finalizing the adoption.

The next step, after the prospective adoptive parents have completed their interviews with the various Chinese government offices, is to complete the adoption. At this point, the adopting parents will be required to make a fixed “donation” of U.S.$3000 to $5000 to the Children’s Welfare Institute where the child was being raised prior to the adoption. [Note: This is not a bribe, and U.S. prospective adoptive parents should not consider it such. Children’s Welfare Institutes may charge this fee as a combined donation to the institution and as compensation for having raised and cared for the child up to the point of adoption. It is the experience of the U.S. Consulate General in Guangzhou that the assessed fees are reasonable based on the local economy and the costs associated with raising a child in China.]

As part of finalizing the adoption, prospective adoptive parents will have to sign agreements with the Child Welfare Institute, register the adoption at the provincial Civil Affairs Bureau, and pay all of the remaining required fees. When the notarial office in the child’s place of residence approves the adoption, that office issues a notarized certificate of adoption, a notarized birth certificate and either notarized death certificate(s) for the child’s biological parent(s) or a statement of abandonment from the welfare institute. The adoptive relationship goes into effect on the day of the notarization. Once the adoption is final, the adoptive parents are fully and legally responsible for the child.

Please see the International Adoption section of this book for more details and review current reports online at travel.state.gov/family.

Documentary Requirements: Pre-adoption documents to be submitted in the initial CCAA dossier:

  • Adoption application letter
  • Birth certificate(s) of the prospective adoptive parent(s)
  • Marital status statement—Either a marriage certificate, divorce or death certificate (if applicable) or statement of single status is required.
  • Certificates of profession, income and property including; verification of employment and salary notarized and authenticated; a certified and authenticated copy of your property trust deeds, if applicable(not notarized?); Bank statements notarized/certified and authenticated
  • Health examination certificate(s) of the prospective adoptive parent(s)
  • Certificate(s) of criminal or no-criminal record—A certificate of good conduct for the adoptive parent(s) from a local police department notarized or bearing the police department seal and authenticated. An FBI report is acceptable in lieu of a local police record.
  • Homestudy report
  • Certificate of child adoption approval by the competent department of the adopter’s country of residence, along with copies of the U.S. passport(s) of the prospective adoptive parent(s)
  • Each applicant parent should also submit two front-view photos and several other photos reflecting the family’s life in the United States.

Additional documents the prospective parents should bring to China include:

  • Power of attorney notarized and authenticated (if only one spouse will travel to China). In case of married couples, if only one adopting parent comes to China, Chinese law requires that the spouse traveling bring a power of attorney from his/her spouse, notarized and properly authenticated by Chinese Embassy or one of the Chinese Consulates General in the United States.
  • A copy of the I-171H form (I-600A approval notice from USCIS).

Translation Requirements: All documents must be accompanied by a certified Mandarin Chinese translation. For a $200 fee, the CCAA will provide the translation service. If a translated copy is submitted with the application, the translator must execute a statement before a notary public as to the validity of the translation. The notary’s seal must be authenticated.

U.S. Immigration Requirements: A Chinese child adopted by an American citizen must obtain an immigrant visa before he or she can enter the United States as a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident. Please see the International Adoption section of this book for more details and review current reports online at travel.state.gov/family.

Embassy of the People’s Republic of China:
Consular Section
2300 Connecticut Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20008
Tel: 202-328-2500

China also has Consulates in Los Angeles, CA; San Francisco, CA; Chicago, IL; New York, NY, and Houston, TX.

What to Take With You for the Child: It is difficult to predict how long it may be necessary for you to remain in China with your adopted child. There are small grocery and sundry stores in major hotels in China.

Nevertheless, not all western-style baby products are readily available in China. You may wish to consider bringing certain items with you. These might include:

  • Plastic or cloth baby carrier
  • Bottle nipples
  • Disposable paper diapers
  • Baby wipes
  • Baby blankets
  • Infant wear
  • Thermos bottle, for hot water to prepare dry formula
  • Milk bottles (plastic, glass, and disposable)
  • Disposable plastic bags for milk bottles

Medical Needs: A list of available hospitals in the Guangzhou area and medical evacuation services can be found at http://www.usembassychina.org.cn/guangzhou/. Anyone who needs emergency medical service can call the city Emergency Center (in Guangzhou: 020-120), which will inform the hospital nearest the patient to arrange an ambulance and a medical team to the patient’s location as soon as possible.

Other Assistance While in China: The mailing address and contact information for the Consulate General of the United States in Guangzhou is:

Adopted Children Immigrant Visa
Unit
#1 Shamian South Street
Guangzhou, P. R. C. 51033
PHONE: 011-86-20-8121 8000
DIRECT LINE: 011-86-20-8518 7653
FAX: 011-86-20-3884 4420
EMAIL: [email protected]

The U.S. Embassy is located in Beijing. The U.S. also has Consulates General in Shanghai, Shenyang, and Chengdu.

Additional Information: Specific questions about adoption in China may be addressed to the U.S. Consulate General in Guangzhou at the address, phone and fax numbers provided earlier in this flyer. General questions regarding intercountry adoption may be addressed to the Office of Children’s Issues, U.S. Department of State, CA/OCS/CI, SA-29, 4th Floor, 2201 C Street, NW, Washington, D.C. 20520-4818, toll-free Tel: 1-888-407-4747.

International Parental Child Abduction : February 2007

The information below has been edited from the report of the State Department Bureau of Consular Affairs, Office of Overseas Citizens Services. For more information, please read the International Child Abduction section of this book and review current reports online at travel.state.gov.

Disclaimer: The information in this flyer relating to the legal requirements of specific foreign countries is provided for general information only. Questions involving interpretation of specific foreign laws should be addressed to foreign legal counsel.

General Information: The Peoples Republic of China (PRC) is not a party to the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, nor are there any international or bilateral treaties in force between China and the United States dealing with international parental child abduction. American citizens who travel to China place themselves under the jurisdiction of local courts. American citizens planning a trip to China with dual national children should bear this in mind.

Custody Disputes: In China, parents who are legally married share the custody of their children. If they are not married and the parents cannot reach an agreement, custody is granted by the courts in the best interests of the child.

Enforcement of Foreign Judgements: Custody orders and judgments of foreign courts are not enforceable in China. Such judgements must be presented to a Chinese court for that courts consideration and decision. In China, there is a limited process to appeal a lower court’s decision.

Visitation Rights: In cases where legal custody has been granted and the judgment has been rendered, the non-custodial parent’s visitation rights are normally incorporated within the court ordered decision.

Dual Nationality: Dual nationality is not recognized under Chinese law. Some U.S. citizens who are also Chinese nationals (mostly U.S.-born children of Chinese nationals or Legal permanent Permanent Residents) have experienced difficulty entering and departing China on U.S. passports. In some cases, such dual nationals are required to use Chinese travel documents to depart China. Normally this causes inconvenience but no significant problems for affected persons; however, in child custody disputes, the ability of dual national children to depart from China could be affected.

Generally, children who are Chinese nationals according to Chinese law are not permitted to depart China if one parent refuses to allow the travel requested by one parent, even if that parent is considered an abducting parent by United States courts. In those cases, children abducted to China are only permitted to return to the United States if both parents agree to their return, or if a Chinese court upholds a United States Court’s decision to allow the left-behind parent sole custody.

Specific questions on dual nationality may be directed to the Office of Overseas Citizens Services, Department of State, Room 4811A, Washington. D.C. 20520 or to the U.S. Embassy or one of the U.S. Consulates General in China. For additional information, please see the Bureau of Consular Affairs home page on the Internet at http://travel.state.gov for the Dual Nationality flyer. For more information, please read the International Parental Child Abduction section of this book and review current reports online at travel.state.gov.

Travel Restrictions: While no exit visas are required to leave China, persons who replace passports are required to get an exit permit from the entry and exit police. The U.S. Embassy and Consulates will assist a traveler with a new passport in obtaining this document.

Criminal Remedies: For information on possible criminal remedies, please contact your local law enforcement authorities or the nearest office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Information is also available on the Internet at the web site of the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) at http://www.ojjdp.ncjrs.org.

Persons who wish to pursue a child custody claim in a Chinese court should retain an attorney in China. The American Embassy and U.S. Consulates in China maintain lists of attorneys willing to represent American clients. Questions involving Chinese law should be addressed to a Chinese attorney or to the Embassy of China in the United States.

For further information on international parental child abduction, contact the Office of Children’s Issue s, U.S. Department of State at (202) 736-9090 or visit its web site on the Internet at http://travel.state.gov.

China

views updated Jun 08 2018

CHINA

Compiled from the October 2004 Background Note and supplemented with additional information from the State Department and the editors of this volume. See the introduction to this set for explanatory notes.

Official Name:
People's Republic of China


PROFILE

Geography

Total area: 9,596,960 sq. km. (about 3.7 million sq. mi.).

Cities: Capital—Beijing. Other major cities—Shanghai, Tianjin, Shenyang, Wuhan, Guangzhou, Chongqing, Harbin, Chengdu.

Terrain: Plains, deltas, and hills in east; mountains, high plateaus, deserts in west.

Climate: Tropical in south to subarctic in north.

People

Nationality: Noun and adjective—Chinese (singular and plural).

Population: (2003 est.) 1.3 billion.

Population growth rate: (2003 est.) 0.6%.

Health: (2003 est.) Infant mortality rate—25.26/1,000. Life expectancy—72.22 years (overall); 70.33 years for males, 74.28 years for females.

Ethnic groups: Han Chinese—91.9%; Zhuang, Manchu, Hui, Miao, Uygur, Yi, Mongolian, Tibetan, Buyi, Korean, and other nationalities—8.1%.

Religions: Officially atheist; Taoism, Buddhism, Islam, Christianity.

Language: Mandarin (Putonghua), plus many local dialects.

Education: Years compulsory—9. Literacy—86%.

Work force: (2001 est., 711 million) Agriculture and forestry—50%; industry and commerce—23%; other—27%.

Government

Type: Communist party-led state.

Constitution: December 4, 1982.

Independence: Unification under the Qin (Ch'in) Dynasty 221 BC; Qing (Ch'ing or Manchu) Dynasty replaced by a republic on February 12, 1912; People's Republic established October 1, 1949.

Branches: Executive—president, vice president, State Council, premier. Legislative—unicameral National People's Congress. Judicial—Supreme People's Court.

Administrative subdivisions: 23 provinces (the P.R.C. considers Taiwan to be its 23rd province); 5 autonomous regions, including Tibet; 4 municipalities directly under the State Council.

Political parties: Chinese Communist Party, 66.35 million members; 8 minor parties under communist supervision.

Suffrage: Universal at 18.

Economy

GDP: (2003 est.) $1.4 trillion (exchange rate based).

Per capita GDP: (2003 est.) $1,090 (exchange rate based).

GDP real growth rate: (2003) 9.1%.

Natural resources: Coal, iron ore, crude oil, mercury, tin, tungsten, antimony, manganese, molybdenum, vanadium, magnetite, aluminum, lead, zinc, uranium, hydropower potential (world's largest).

Agriculture: Products—Among the world's largest producers of rice, potatoes, sorghum, peanuts, tea, millet, barley; commercial crops include cotton, other fibers, and oilseeds; produces variety of livestock products.

Industry: Types—iron, steel, coal, machinery, light industrial products, armaments, petroleum.

Trade: (2003) Exports—$438.4 billion: mainly electrical machinery and equipment, power generation equipment, apparel, toys, footwear. Main partners—U.S., Hong Kong, Japan, EU, South Korea, Singapore. Imports—$412.8 billion: mainly electrical equipment, power generation equipment, petroleum products, chemicals, steel. Main partners—Japan, EU, Taiwan, South Korea, U.S., Hong Kong.


PEOPLE

Ethnic Groups

The largest ethnic group is the Han Chinese, who constitute about 91.9% of the total population. The remaining 8.1% are Zhuang (16 million), Manchu (10 million), Hui (9 million), Miao (8 million), Uygur (7 million), Yi (7 million), Mongolian (5 million), Tibetan (5 million), Buyi (3 million), Korean (2 million), and other ethnic minorities.

Language

There are seven major Chinese dialects and many subdialects. Mandarin (or Putonghua), the predominant dialect, is spoken by over 70% of the population. It is taught in all schools and is the medium of government. About two-thirds of the Han ethnic group are native speakers of Mandarin; the rest, concentrated in southwest and southeast China, speak one of the six other major Chinese dialects. Non-Chinese languages spoken widely by ethnic minorities include Mongolian, Tibetan, Uygur and other Turkic languages (in Xinjiang), and Korean (in the northeast).

The Pinyin System of Romanization

On January 1, 1979, the Chinese Government officially adopted the pinyin system for spelling Chinese names and places in Roman letters. A system of Romanization invented by the Chinese, pinyin has long been widely used in China on street and commercial signs as well as in elementary Chinese textbooks as an aid in learning Chinese characters. Variations of pinyin also are used as the written forms of several minority languages.

Pinyin has now replaced other conventional spellings in China's English-language publications. The U.S. Government also has adopted the pinyin system for all names and places in China. For example, the capital of China is now spelled "Beijing" rather than "Peking."

Religion

Religion plays a significant part in the life of many Chinese. Buddhism is most widely practiced, with an estimated 100 million adherents. Traditional Taoism also is practiced. Official figures indicate there are 20 million Muslims, 5 million Catholics, and 15 million Protestants; unofficial estimates are much higher.

While the Chinese constitution affirms religious toleration, the Chinese Government places restrictions on religious practice outside officially recognized organizations. Only two Christian organizations—a Catholic church without official ties to Rome and the "Three-Self-Patriotic" Protestant church—are sanctioned by the Chinese Government. Unauthorized churches have sprung up in many parts of the country and unofficial religious practice is flourishing. In some regions authorities have tried to control activities of these unregistered churches. In other regions, registered and unregistered groups are treated similarly by authorities and congregations worship in both types of churches. Most Chinese Catholic bishops are recognized by the Pope, and official priests have Vatican approval to administer all the sacraments.

Population Policy

With a population officially just under 1.3 billion and an estimated growth rate of about 0.6%, China is very concerned about its population growth and has attempted with mixed results to implement a strict family planning policy. The government's goal is one child per urban family, and two children per rural family, with guidelines looser for ethnic minorities with small populations. Enforcement varies widely, and relies upon "social compensation fees" for extra children as a means of keeping families small. Official government policy opposes forced abortion or sterilization, but in some localities there are instances of forced abortion. The government's goal is to stabilize the population in the first half of the 21st century, and current projections are that the population will peak at around 1.6 billion by 2050.


HISTORY

Dynastic Period

China is the oldest continuous major world civilization, with records dating back about 3,500 years. Successive dynasties developed a system of bureaucratic control that gave the agrarian-based Chinese an advantage over neighboring nomadic and hill cultures. Chinese civilization was further strengthened by the development of a Confucian state ideology and a common written language that bridged the gaps among the country's many local languages and dialects. Whenever China was conquered by nomadic tribes, as it was by the Mongols in the 13th century, the conquerors sooner or later adopted the ways of the "higher" Chinese civilization and staffed the bureaucracy with Chinese.

The last dynasty was established in 1644, when the Manchus overthrew the native Ming dynasty and established the Qing (Ch'ing) dynasty with Beijing as its capital. At great expense in blood and treasure, the Manchus over the next half century gained control of many border areas, including Xinjiang, Yunnan, Tibet, Mongolia, and Taiwan. The success of the early Qing period was based on the combination of Manchu martial prowess and traditional Chinese bureaucratic skills.

During the 19th century, Qing control weakened, and prosperity diminished. China suffered massive social strife, economic stagnation, explosive population growth, and Western penetration and influence. The Taiping and Nian rebellions, along with a Russian-supported Muslim separatist movement in Xinjiang, drained Chinese resources and almost toppled the dynasty. Britain's desire to continue its illegal opium trade with China collided with imperial edicts prohibiting the addictive drug, and the First Opium War erupted in 1840. China lost the war; subsequently, Britain and other Western powers, including the United States, forcibly occupied "concessions" and gained special commercial privileges. Hong Kong was ceded to Britain in 1842 under the Treaty of Nanking, and in 1898, when the Opium Wars finally ended, Britain executed a 99-year lease of the New Territories, significantly expanding the size of the Hong Kong colony.

As time went on, the Western powers, wielding superior military technology, gained more economic and political privileges. Reformist Chinese officials argued for the adoption of Western technology to strengthen the dynasty and counter Western advances, but the Qing court played down both the Western threat and the benefits of Western technology.

Early 20th Century China

Frustrated by the Qing court's resistance to reform, young officials, military officers, and students—inspired by the revolutionary ideas of Sun Yatsen–began to advocate the overthrow of the Qing dynasty and creation of a republic. A revolutionary military uprising on October 10, 1911, led to the abdication of the last Qing monarch. As part of a compromise to overthrow the dynasty without a civil war, the revolutionaries and reformers allowed high Qing officials to retain prominent positions in the new republic. One of these figures, Gen. Yuan Shikai, was chosen as the republic's first president. Before his death in 1916, Yuan unsuccessfully attempted to name himself emperor. His death left the republican government all but shattered, ushering in the era of the "warlords" during which China was ruled and ravaged by shifting coalitions of competing provincial military leaders.

In the 1920s, Sun Yat-sen established a revolutionary base in south China and set out to unite the fragmented nation. With Soviet assistance, he organized the Kuomintang (KMT or "Chinese Nationalist People's Party"), and entered into an alliance with the fledgling Chinese Communist Party (CCP). After Sun's death in 1925, one of his protégés, Chiang Kai-shek, seized control of the KMT and succeeded in bringing most of south and central China under its rule. In 1927, Chiang turned on the CCP and executed many of its leaders. The remnants fled into the mountains of eastern China. In 1934, driven out of their mountain bases, the CCP's forces embarked on a "Long March" across some of China's most desolate terrain to the northwestern province of Shaanxi, where they established a guerrilla base at Yan'an.

During the "Long March," the communists reorganized under a new leader, Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-tung). The bitter struggle between the KMT and the CCP continued openly or clandestinely through the 14-year long Japanese invasion (1931-45), even though the two parties nominally formed a united front to oppose the Japanese invaders in 1937. The war between the two parties resumed after the Japanese defeat in 1945. By 1949, the CCP occupied most of the country.

Chiang Kai-shek fled with the remnants of his KMT government and military forces to Taiwan, where he proclaimed Taipei to be China's "provisional capital" and vowed to reconquer the Chinese mainland. The KMT authorities on Taiwan still call themselves the "Republic of China."

The People's Republic of China

In Beijing, on October 1, 1949, Mao Zedong proclaimed the founding of the People's Republic of China (P.R.C.). The new government assumed control of a people exhausted by two generations of war and social conflict, and an economy ravaged by high inflation and disrupted transportation links. A new political and economic order modeled on the Soviet example was quickly installed.

In the early 1950s, China undertook a massive economic and social reconstruction program. The new leaders gained popular support by curbing inflation, restoring the economy, and rebuilding many war-damaged industrial plants. The CCP's authority reached into almost every aspect of Chinese life. Party control was assured by large, politically loyal security and military forces; a government apparatus responsive to party direction; and the placement of party members into leadership positions in labor, women's, and other mass organizations.

The "Great Leap Forward" and the Sino-Soviet Split

In 1958, Mao broke with the Soviet model and announced a new economic program, the "Great Leap Forward," aimed at rapidly raising industrial and agricultural production. Giant cooperatives (communes) were formed, and "backyard factories" dotted the Chinese landscape. The results were disastrous. Normal market mechanisms were disrupted, agricultural production fell behind, and China's people exhausted themselves producing what turned out to be shoddy, unsalable goods. Within a year, starvation appeared even in fertile agricultural areas. From 1960 to 1961, the combination of poor planning during the Great Leap Forward and bad weather resulted in one of the deadliest famines in human history.

The already strained Sino-Soviet relationship deteriorated sharply in 1959, when the Soviets started to restrict the flow of scientific and technological information to China. The dispute escalated, and the Soviets withdrew all of their personnel from China in August 1960. In 1960, the Soviets and the Chinese began to have disputes openly in international forums.

The Cultural Revolution

In the early 1960s, State President Liu Shaoqi and his protégé, Party General Secretary Deng Xiaoping, took over direction of the party and adopted pragmatic economic policies at odds with Mao's revolutionary vision. Dissatisfied with China's new direction and his own reduced authority, Party Chairman Mao launched a massive political attack on Liu, Deng, and other pragmatists in the spring of 1966. The new movement, the "Great Proletarian

Cultural Revolution," was unprecedented in communist history. For the first time, a section of the Chinese communist leadership sought to rally popular opposition against another leadership group. China was set on a course of political and social anarchy that lasted the better part of a decade.

In the early stages of the Cultural Revolution, Mao and his "closest comrade in arms," National Defense Minister Lin Biao, charged Liu, Deng, and other top party leaders with dragging China back toward capitalism. Radical youth organizations, called Red Guards, attacked party and state organizations at all levels, seeking out leaders who would not bend to the radical wind. In reaction to this turmoil, some local People's Liberation Army (PLA) commanders and other officials maneuvered to outwardly back Mao and the radicals while actually taking steps to rein in local radical activity.

Gradually, Red Guard and other radical activity subsided, and the Chinese political situation stabilized along complex factional lines. The leadership conflict came to a head in September 1971, when Party Vice Chairman and Defense Minister Lin Biao reportedly tried to stage a coup against Mao; Lin Biao allegedly later died in a plane crash in Mongolia.

In the aftermath of the Lin Biao incident, many officials criticized and dismissed during 1966-69 were reinstated. Chief among these was Deng Xiaoping, who reemerged in 1973 and was confirmed in 1975 in the concurrent posts of Politburo Standing Committee member, PLA Chief of Staff, and Vice Premier.

The ideological struggle between more pragmatic, veteran party officials and the radicals re-emerged with a vengeance in late 1975. Mao's wife, Jiang Qing, and three close Cultural Revolution associates (later dubbed the "Gang of Four") launched a media campaign against Deng. In January 1976, Premier Zhou Enlai, a popular political figure, died of cancer. On April 5, Beijing citizens staged a spontaneous demonstration in Tiananmen Square in Zhou's memory, with strong political overtones of support for Deng. The authorities forcibly suppressed the demonstration. Deng was blamed for the disorder and stripped of all official positions, although he retained his party membership.

The Post-Mao Era

Mao's death in September 1976 removed a towering figure from Chinese politics and set off a scramble for succession. Former Minister of Public Security Hua Guofeng was quickly confirmed as Party Chairman and Premier. A month after Mao's death, Hua, backed by the PLA, arrested Jiang Qing and other members of the "Gang of Four." After extensive deliberations, the Chinese Communist Party leadership reinstated Deng Xiaoping to all of his previous posts at the 11th Party Congress in August 1977. Deng then led the effort to place government control in the hands of veteran party officials opposed to the radical excesses of the previous two decades.

The new, pragmatic leadership emphasized economic development and renounced mass political movements. At the pivotal December 1978 Third Plenum (of the 11th Party Congress Central Committee), the leadership adopted economic reform policies aimed at expanding rural income and incentives, encouraging experiments in enterprise autonomy, reducing central planning, and attracting foreign direct investment into China. The plenum also decided to accelerate the pace of legal reform, culminating in the passage of several new legal codes by the National People's Congress in June 1979.

After 1979, the Chinese leadership moved toward more pragmatic positions in almost all fields. The party encouraged artists, writers, and journalists to adopt more critical approaches, although open attacks on party authority were not permitted. In late 1980, Mao's Cultural Revolution was officially proclaimed a catastrophe. Hua Guofeng, a protégé of Mao, was replaced as premier in 1980 by reformist Sichuan party chief Zhao Ziyang and as party General Secretary in 1981 by the even more reformist Communist Youth League chairman Hu Yaobang.

Reform policies brought great improvements in the standard of living, especially for urban workers and for farmers who took advantage of opportunities to diversify crops and establish village industries. Literature and the arts blossomed, and Chinese intellectuals established extensive links with scholars in other countries.

At the same time, however, political dissent as well as social problems such as inflation, urban migration, and prostitution emerged. Although students and intellectuals urged greater reforms, some party elders increasingly questioned the pace and the ultimate goals of the reform program. In December 1986, student demonstrators, taking advantage of the loosening political atmosphere, staged protests against the slow pace of reform, confirming party elders' fear that the current reform program was leading to social instability. Hu Yaobang, a protégé of Deng and a leading advocate of reform, was blamed for the protests and forced to resign as CCP General Secretary in January 1987. Premier Zhao Ziyang was made General Secretary and Li Peng, former Vice Premier and Minister of Electric Power and Water Conservancy, was made Premier.

1989 Student Movement and Tiananmen Square

After Zhao became the party General Secretary, the economic and political reforms he had championed came under increasing attack. His proposal in May 1988 to accelerate price reform led to widespread popular complaints about rampant inflation and gave opponents of rapid reform the opening to call for greater centralization of economic controls and stricter prohibitions against Western influence. This precipitated a political debate, which grew more heated through the winter of 1988-89.

The death of Hu Yaobang on April 15, 1989, coupled with growing economic hardship caused by high inflation, provided the backdrop for a large-scale protest movement by students, intellectuals, and other parts of a disaffected urban population. University students and other citizens camped out in Beijing's Tiananmen Square to mourn Hu's death and to protest against those who would slow reform. Their protests, which grew despite government efforts to contain them, called for an end to official corruption and for defense of freedoms guaranteed by the Chinese constitution. Protests also spread to many other cities, including Shanghai, Chengdu, and Guangzhou.

Martial law was declared on May 20, 1989. Late on June 3 and early on the morning of June 4, military units were brought into Beijing. They used armed force to clear demonstrators from the streets. There are no official estimates of deaths in Beijing, but most observers believe that casualties numbered in the hundreds.

After June 4, while foreign governments expressed horror at the brutal suppression of the demonstrators, the central government eliminated remaining sources of organized opposition, detained large numbers of protesters, and required political reeducation not only for students but also for large numbers of party cadre and government officials.

Following the resurgence of conservatives in the aftermath of June 4, economic reform slowed until given new impetus by Deng Xiaoping's dramatic visit to southern China in early 1992. Deng's renewed push for a market-oriented economy received official sanction at the 14th Party Congress later in the year as a number of younger, reform-minded leaders began their rise to top positions. Deng and his supporters argued that managing the economy in a way that increased living standards should be China's primary policy objective, even if "capitalist" measures were adopted. Subsequent to the visit, the Communist Party Politburo publicly issued an endorsement of Deng's policies of economic openness. Though not completely eschewing political reform, China has consistently placed over-whelming priority on the opening of its economy.

Third Generation of Leaders

Deng's health deteriorated in the years prior to his death in 1997. During that time, President Jiang Zemin and other members of his generation gradually assumed control of the day-to-day functions of government. This "third generation" leadership governed collectively with President Jiang at the center.

In March 1998, Jiang was re-elected President during the 9th National People's Congress. Premier Li Peng was constitutionally required to step down from that post. He was elected to the chairmanship of the National People's Congress. Zhu Rongji was selected to replace Li as Premier.

Fourth Generation of Leaders

In November 2002, the 16th Communist Party Congress elected Hu Jintao, who in 1992 was designated by Deng Xiaoping as the "core" of the fourth generation leaders, the new General Secretary. A new Politburo and Politburo Standing Committee was also elected in November.

In March 2003, General Secretary Hu Jintao was elected President at the 10th National People's Congress. Jiang Zemin retained the chairmanship of the Central Military Commission. At the Fourth Party Plenum in September 2004, Jiang Zemin retired from the Central Military Commission, passing the Chairmanship and control of the People's Liberation Army to President Hu Jintao.

China is firmly committed to economic reform and opening to the outside world. The Chinese leadership has identified reform of state industries and the establishment of a social safety network as government priorities. Government strategies for achieving these goals include large-scale privatization of unprofitable state-owned enterprises and development of a pension system for workers. The leadership has also downsized the government bureaucracy.

The Next 5 Years

The next 5 years represent a critical period in China's existence. To investors and firms, especially following China's accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, China represents a vast market that has yet to be fully tapped and a low-cost base for export-oriented production. Educationally, China is forging ahead as partnerships and exchanges with foreign universities have helped create new research opportunities for its students. The new leadership is also committed to generating greater economic development in the interior and providing more services to those who do not live in China's coastal areas. However, there is still much that needs to change in China. Human rights issues remain a concern among members of the world community, as does continuing proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD)-related materials and technology.


GOVERNMENT

Chinese Communist Party

The 66.35 million member CCP, authoritarian in structure and ideology, continues to dominate government. Nevertheless, China's population, geographical vastness, and social diversity frustrate attempts to rule by fiat from Beijing. Central leaders must increasingly build consensus for new policies among party members, local and regional leaders, influential non-party members, and the population at large.

In periods of greater openness, the influence of people and organizations outside the formal party structure has tended to increase, particularly in the economic realm. This phenomenon is most apparent today in the rapidly developing coastal region. Nevertheless, in all important government, economic, and cultural institutions in China, party committees work to see that party and state policy guidance is followed and that non-party members do not create autonomous organizations that could challenge party rule. Party control is tightest in government offices and in urban economic, industrial, and cultural settings; it is considerably looser in the rural areas, where the majority of the people live.

Theoretically, the party's highest body is the Party Congress, which is supposed to meet at least once every 5 years. The primary organs of power in the Communist Party include:

  • The Politburo Standing Committee, which currently consists of nine members;
  • The Politburo, consisting of 24 full members, including the members of the Politburo Standing Committee;
  • The Secretariat, the principal administrative mechanism of the CCP, headed by the General Secretary;
  • The Central Military Commission;
  • The Discipline Inspection Commission, which is charged with rooting out corruption and malfeasance among party cadres.
  • State Structure
  • The Chinese Government has always been subordinate to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP); its role is to implement party policies. The primary organs of state power are the National People's Congress (NPC), the President (the head of state), and the State Council. Members of the State Council include Premier Wen Jiabao (the head of government), a variable number of vice premiers (now four), five state councilors (protocol equivalents of vice premiers but with narrower portfolios), and 22 ministers and four State Council commission directors.

Under the Chinese constitution, the NPC is the highest organ of state power in China. It meets annually for about 2 weeks to review and approve major new policy directions, laws, the budget, and major personnel changes. These initiatives are presented to the NPC for consideration by the State Council after previous endorsement by the Communist Party's Central Committee. Although the NPC generally approves State Council policy and personnel recommendations, various NPC committees hold active debate in closed sessions, and changes may be made to accommodate alternate views.

When the NPC is not in session, its permanent organ, the Standing Committee, exercises state power.

Principal Government Officials

Last Updated: 12/10/04

President: HU Jintao
Vice President: ZENG Qinghong
Premier, State Council: WEN Jiabao
Vice Premier, State Council: HUANG Ju
Vice Premier, State Council: WU Yi
Vice Premier, State Council: ZENG Peiyan
Vice Premier, State Council: HUI Liangyu
State Councilor, State Council: ZHOU Yongkang
State Councilor, State Council: CAO Gangchuan
State Councilor, State Council: TANG Jiaxuan
State Councilor, State Council: HUA Jianmin
State Councilor, State Council: CHEN Zhili
Sec. Gen., State Council: HUA Jianmin
Chmn., Central Military Commission: HU Jintao
Min. in Charge of National Defense Science, Technology, & Industry Commission: ZHANG Yuchuan
Min. in Charge of State Development Reform Commission: MA Kai
Min. in Charge of State Population & Family Planning Commission: ZHANG Weiqing
Min. in Charge of State Nationalities Affairs Commission: LI Dezhu (a.k.a. LI Dek Su)
Min. of Agriculture: DU Qinglin
Min. of Civil Affairs: LI Xueju
Min. of Commerce: BO Xilai
Min. of Communications: ZHANG Chunxian
Min. of Construction: WANG Guangtao
Min. of Culture: SUN Jiazheng
Min. of Education: ZHOU Ji
Min. of Finance: JIN Renqing
Min. of Foreign Affairs: LI Zhaoxing
Min. of Information Industry: WANG Xudong
Min. of Justice: ZHANG Fusen
Min. of Labor & Social Security: ZHENG Silin
Min. of Land & Natural Resources: TIAN Fengshan
Min. of National Defense: CAO Gangchuan
Min. of Personnel: ZHANG Bolin
Min. of Public Health: WU Yi
Min. of Public Security: ZHOU Yongkang
Min. of Railways: LIU Zhijun
Min. of Science & Technology: XU Guanhua
Min. of State Security: XU Yongyue
Min. of Supervision: LI Zhilun
Min. of Water Resources: WANG Shucheng
Pres., People's Bank of China: ZHOU Xiaochuan
Ambassador to the US: YANG Jiechi
Permanent Representative to the UN, New York: WANG Guangya


POLITICAL CONDITIONS

Legal System

The government's efforts to promote rule of law are significant and ongoing. After the Cultural Revolution, China's leaders aimed to develop a legal system to restrain abuses of official authority and revolutionary excesses. In 1982, the National People's Congress adopted a new state constitution that emphasized the rule of law under which even party leaders are theoretically held accountable.

Since 1979, when the drive to establish a functioning legal system began, more than 300 laws and regulations, most of them in the economic area, have been promulgated. The use of mediation committees—informed groups of citizens who resolve about 90% of China's civil disputes and some minor criminal cases at no cost to the parties—is one innovative device. There are more than 800,000 such committees in both rural and urban areas.

Legal reform became a government priority in the 1990s. Legislation designed to modernize and professionalize the nation's lawyers, judges, and prisons was enacted. The 1994 Administrative Procedure Law allows citizens to sue officials for abuse of authority or malfeasance. In addition, the criminal law and the criminal procedures laws were amended to introduce significant reforms. The criminal law amendments abolished the crime of "counter-revolutionary" activity, although many persons are still incarcerated for that crime. Criminal procedures reforms also encouraged establishment of a more transparent, adversarial trial process. The Chinese constitution and laws provide for fundamental human rights, including due process, but these are often ignored in practice.

Human Rights

The State Department's annual China human rights reports have noted China's well-documented abuses of human rights in violation of internationally recognized norms, stemming both from the authorities' intolerance of dissent and the inadequacy of legal safeguards for basic freedoms. Abuses reported have included arbitrary and lengthy incommunicado detention, forced confessions, torture, and mistreatment of prisoners as well as severe restrictions on freedom of speech, the press, assembly, association, religion, privacy, and worker rights.

At the same time, China's economic growth and reform since 1978 has improved dramatically the lives of hundreds of millions of Chinese, increased social mobility, and expanded the scope of personal freedom. This has meant substantially greater freedom of travel, employment opportunity, educational and cultural pursuits, job and housing choices, and access to information. In recent years, China has also passed new criminal and civil laws that provide additional safeguards to citizens. Village elections have been carried out in over 90% of China's one million villages.


ECONOMY

Economic Reforms

Since 1979, China has reformed and opened its economy. The Chinese leadership has adopted a more pragmatic perspective on many political and socioeconomic problems, and has reduced the role of ideology in economic policy. China's ongoing economic transformation has had a profound impact not only on China but on the world. The market-oriented reforms China has implemented over the past two decades have unleashed individual initiative and entrepreneurship. The result has been the largest reduction of poverty and one of the fastest increases in income levels ever seen. China today is the sixth-largest economy in the world. It accounted for about 4% of global gross domestic product (GDP) in 2002.

In the 1980s, China tried to combine central planning with market-oriented reforms to increase productivity, living standards, and technological quality without exacerbating inflation, unemployment, and budget deficits. China pursued agricultural reforms, dismantling the commune system and introducing a household-based system that provided peasants greater decision-making in agricultural activities.

The government also encouraged nonagricultural activities such as village enterprises in rural areas, and promoted more self-management for state-owned enterprises, increased competition in the marketplace, and facilitated direct contact between Chinese and foreign trading enterprises. China also relied more upon foreign financing and imports.

During the 1980s, these reforms led to average annual rates of growth of 10% in agricultural and industrial output. Rural per capita real income doubled. China became self-sufficient in grain production; rural industries accounted for 23% of agricultural output, helping absorb surplus labor in the countryside. The variety of light industrial and consumer goods increased. Reforms began in the fiscal, financial, banking, price-setting, and labor systems.

By the late 1980s, however, the economy had become overheated with increasing rates of inflation. At the end of 1988, in reaction to a surge of inflation caused by accelerated price reforms, the leadership introduced an austerity program.

China's economy regained momentum in the early 1990s. During a visit to southern China in early 1992, China's paramount leader at the time, Deng Xiaoping, made a series of political pronouncements designed to reinvigorate the process of economic reform. The 14th Party Congress later in the year backed Deng's renewed push for market reforms, stating that China's key task in the 1990s was to create a "socialist market economy." The 10-year development plan for the 1990s stressed continuity in the political system with bolder reform of the economic system.

China's economy grew at an average rate of 10% per year during the period 1990-2001, the highest growth rate in the world. China's gross domestic product (GDP) grew 8% in 2002, and even faster, 9.1%, in 2003, despite the setbacks of the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak and a sluggish world economy. China's total trade in 2003 surpassed $852 billion, making China the world's fourth-largest trading nation.

Nevertheless, serious imbalances exist behind the spectacular trade performance, high investment flows, and high GDP growth. High numbers of non-performing loans weigh down the state-run banking system. Inefficient state-owned enterprises (SOEs) are still a drag on growth, despite announced plans to sell, merge, or close the vast majority of SOEs.

Social and economic indicators have improved since reforms were launched, but rising inequality is evident between the more highly developed coastal provinces and the less developed, poorer inland regions. According to the Asian Development Bank, about 10.5% of the urban population and 25.5% of the rural population would be classified as poor in 1999.

Following the Chinese Communist Party's Third Plenum, held in October 2003, Chinese legislators unveiled several proposed amendments to the state constitution. One of the most significant was a proposal to provide protection for private property rights. Legislators also indicated there would be a new emphasis on certain aspects of overall government economic policy, including efforts to reduce unemployment (now in the 8-10% range in urban areas), to rebalance income distribution between urban and rural regions, and to maintain economic growth while protecting the environment and improving social equity. The National People's Congress approved the amendments when it met in March 2004.

Agriculture

Roughly half of China's labor force is engaged in agriculture, even though only 10% of the land is suitable for cultivation. China is among the world's largest producers of rice, potatoes, sorghum, millet, barley, peanuts, tea, and pork. Major nonfood crops include cotton, other fibers, and oilseeds. Yields are high because of intensive cultivation, but China hopes to further increase agricultural production through improved plant stocks, fertilizers, and technology. Incomes for Chinese farmers are stagnating, leading to an increasing wealth gap between the cities and countryside. Government policies that continue to emphasize grain self-sufficiency and the fact that farmers do not own—and cannot buy or sell—the land they work have contributed to this situation. In addition, inadequate port facilities and lack of warehousing and cold storage facilities impede both domestic and international agricultural trade.

Industry

Major state industries are iron, steel, coal, machine building, light industrial products, armaments, and textiles. These industries have resisted significant management change. The 1999 industrial census revealed that there were 7,930,000 industrial enterprises at the end of 1999 (including small-scale town and village enterprises); total employment in state-owned industrial enterprises was approximately 24 million. Hightech industries are well positioned to take advantage of opportunities created by accession to the WTO. Machinery and consumer products have become China's main exports.

Energy

In 2003, China surpassed Japan to become the second-largest consumer of primary energy, after the United States. China is also the third-largest energy producer in the world, after the United States and Russia. China's electricity consumption is expected to grow by over 4% a year through 2030, which will require more than $2 trillion in electricity infrastructure investment to meet the demand. China expects to add approximately 15,000 megawatts of generating capacity a year, with 20% of that coming from foreign suppliers.

Coal makes up the bulk of China's energy consumption (64% in 2002), and China is the largest producer and consumer of coal in the world. As China's economy continues to grow, China's coal demand is projected to rise significantly. Although coal's share of China's overall energy consumption will fall, coal consumption will continue to rise in absolute terms.

Due in large part to environmental concerns, Beijing would like to shift China's current energy mix toward greater reliance on oil, natural gas, renewable energy, and nuclear power. China has abundant hydroelectric resources; the Three Gorges Dam, for example, will have a total capacity of 18 gigawatts when fully on-line (projected for 2009). In addition, the share of electricity generated by nuclear power is projected to grow from 1% in 2000 to 5% in 2030. But while interest in renewable sources of energy is growing, except for hydro-power, their contribution to the overall energy mix is unlikely to rise above 1%-2% in the near future.

Since 1993, China has been a net importer of oil. Net imports are expected to rise to 3.5 million barrels per day by 2010. China is interested in diversifying the sources of its oil imports and has invested in oil fields around the world, particularly in Central Asia. Beijing also plans to increase China's natural gas production, which currently accounts for only 3% of China's total energy consumption. Analysts expect China's consumption of natural gas to more than double by 2010.

Environment

One of the serious negative consequences of China's rapid industrial development has been increased pollution and degradation of natural resources. A 1998 World Health Organization report on air quality in 272 cities worldwide concluded that seven of the world's 10 most polluted cities were in China. According to China's own evaluation, two-thirds of the 338 cities for which air-quality data are available are considered polluted—two-thirds of them moderately or severely so. Respiratory and heart diseases related to air pollution are the leading cause of death in China. Almost all of the nation's rivers are considered polluted to some degree, and half of the population lacks access to clean water. Ninety percent of urban water bodies are severely polluted. Water scarcity also is an issue; for example, severe water scarcity in Northern China is a serious threat to sustained economic growth and has forced the government to begin implementing a large-scale diversion of water from the Yangtze River to northern cities, including Beijing and Tianjin. Acid rain falls on 30% of the country. Various studies estimate pollution costs the Chinese economy 7-10% of GDP each year.

China's leaders are increasingly paying attention to the country's severe environmental problems. In March 1998, the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) was officially upgraded to a ministry-level agency, reflecting the growing importance the Chinese Government places on environmental protection. In recent years, China has strengthened its environmental legislation and made some progress in stemming environmental deterioration.

In 1999, China invested more than 1% of GDP in environmental protection, a proportion that will likely increase in coming years. During the 10th Five-Year Plan, China plans to reduce total emissions by 10%. Beijing in particular is investing heavily in pollution control as part of its campaign to host a successful Olympiad in 2008. Some cities have seen improvement in air quality in recent years.

China is an active participant in the climate change talks and other multilateral environmental negotiations, taking environmental challenges seriously but pushing for the developed world to help developing countries to a greater extent. It is a signatory to the Basel Convention governing the transport and disposal of hazardous waste and the Montreal Protocol for the Protection of the Ozone Layer, as well as the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species and other major environmental agreements.

The question of environmental impacts associated with the Three Gorges Dam project has generated controversy among environmentalists inside and outside China. Critics claim that erosion and silting of the Yangtze River threaten several endangered species, while Chinese officials say the dam will help prevent devastating floods and generate clean hydroelectric power that will enable the region to lower its dependence on coal, thus lessening air pollution.

The United States and China have been engaged in an active program of bilateral environmental cooperation since the mid-1990s, with an emphasis on clean energy technology and the design of effective environmental policy. While both governments view this cooperation positively, China has often compared the U.S. program, which lacks a foreign assistance component, with those of Japan and several European Union (EU) countries that include generous levels of aid.

Science and Technology

Science and technology have always preoccupied Chinas leaders; indeed, China's political leadership comes almost exclusively from technical backgrounds and has a high regard for science. Deng called it "the first productive force." Distortions in the economy and society created by party rule have severely hurt Chinese science, according to some Chinese science policy experts. The Chinese Academy of Sciences, modeled on the Soviet system, puts much of China's greatest scientific talent in a large, under-funded apparatus that remains largely isolated from industry, although the reforms of the past decade have begun to address this problem.

Chinese science strategists see China's greatest opportunities in newly emerging fields such as bio-technology and computers, where there is still a chance for China to become a significant player. Most Chinese students who went abroad have not returned, but they have built a dense network of trans-Pacific contacts that will greatly facilitate U.S.-China scientific cooperation in coming years. The United States is often held up as the standard of modernity in China. Indeed, photos of the Space Shuttle often appear in Chinese advertisements as a symbol of advanced technology. China's small but growing space program, which put an astronaut into orbit in October 2003, is a focus of national pride.

The U.S.-China Science and Technology Agreement remains the framework for bilateral cooperation in this field. A 5-year agreement to extend the Science and Technology Agreement was signed in April 2001. There are currently over 30 active protocols under the Agreement, covering cooperation in areas such as marine conservation, renewable energy, and health. Japan and the European Union also have high profile science and technology cooperative relationships with China. Biennial Joint Commission Meetings on Science and Technology bring together policymakers from both sides to coordinate joint science and technology cooperation. Executive Secretaries meetings are held each year to implement specific cooperation programs.

Trade

China's merchandise exports totaled $438.4 billion and imports totaled $412.8 billion in 2003. Its global trade surplus was down 16%, to $25.6 billion. China's primary trading partners include Japan, the EU, the United States, South Korea, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. According to U.S. statistics, China had a trade surplus with the U.S. of $124 billion in 2003.

China has taken important steps to open its foreign trading system and integrate itself into the world trading system. In November 1991, China joined the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) group, which promotes free trade and cooperation in the economic, trade, investment, and technology spheres. China served as APEC chair in 2001, and Shanghai hosted the annual APEC leaders meeting in October of that year.

China formally joined the WTO in December 2001. As part of this farreaching trade liberalization agreement, China agreed to lower tariffs and abolish market impediments. Chinese and foreign businessmen, for example, gained the right to import and export on their own, and to sell their products without going through a government middleman. By 2005, average tariff rates on key U.S. agricultural exports will drop from 31% to 14% and on industrial products from 25% to 9%. The agreement also opens up new opportunities for U.S. providers of services like banking, insurance, and telecommunications. China has made significant progress implementing its WTO commitments, but serious concerns remain, particularly in the realm of intellectual property rights protection.

Export growth continues to be a major component supporting China's rapid economic growth. To increase exports, China has pursued policies such as fostering the rapid development of foreign-invested factories, which assemble imported components into consumer goods for export, and liberalizing trading rights.

The United States is one of China's primary suppliers of power generating equipment, aircraft and parts, computers and industrial machinery, raw materials, and chemical and agricultural products. However, U.S. exporters continue to have concerns about fair market access due to strict testing and standards requirements for some imported products. In addition, a lack of transparency in the regulatory process makes it difficult for businesses to plan for changes in the domestic market structure.

Foreign Investment

China's investment climate has changed dramatically in 24 years of reform. In the early 1980s, China restricted foreign investments to export-oriented operations and required foreign investors to form joint-venture partnerships with Chinese firms. Foreign direct investment (FDI) grew quickly during the 1980s, but stalled in late 1989 in the aftermath of Tiananmen. In response, the government introduced legislation and regulations designed to encourage foreigners to invest in high-priority sectors and regions. Since the early 1990s, China has allowed foreign investors to manufacture and sell a wide range of goods on the domestic market, and authorized the establishment of wholly foreign-owned enterprises, now the preferred form of FDI. However, the Chinese government's emphasis on guiding FDI into manufacturing has led to market saturation in some industries, while leaving China's services sectors underdeveloped. China is now one of the leading recipients of FDI in the world, receiving over $53 billion in 2003, for a cumulative total of $501 billion.

As part of China's accession to the World Trade Organization in 2001, China undertook to eliminate certain trade-related investment measures and to open up specified sectors that had previously been closed to foreign investment. New laws, regulations, and administrative measures to implement these commitments are being issued. Major remaining barriers to foreign investment include opaque and inconsistently enforced laws and regulations and the lack of a rules-based legal infrastructure.

Opening to the outside remains central to China's development. Foreign-invested enterprises produce about half of China's exports, and China continues to attract large investment inflows. Foreign exchange reserves totaled over $403 billion in 2003.


FOREIGN RELATIONS

Since its establishment, the People's Republic has worked vigorously to win international support for its position that it is the sole legitimate government of all China, including Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. In the early 1970s, Beijing was recognized diplomatically by most world powers. Beijing assumed the China seat in the United Nations in 1971 and became increasingly active in multi-lateral organizations. Japan established diplomatic relations with China in 1972, and the U.S. did so in 1979. The number of countries that have established diplomatic relations with Beijing has risen to 156, while 28 have diplomatic relations with Taiwan.

After the founding of the P.R.C., China's foreign policy initially focused on solidarity with the Soviet Union and other communist countries. In 1950, China sent the People's Liberation Army into North Korea as "volunteers" to help North Korea halt the UN offensive that was approaching the Yalu River. After the conclusion of the Korean conflict, China sought to balance its identification as a member of the Soviet bloc by establishing friendly relations with Pakistan and other Third World countries, particularly in Southeast Asia.

In the 1960s, Beijing competed with Moscow for political influence among communist parties and in the developing world generally. Following the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia and clashes in 1969 on the Sino-Soviet border, Chinese competition with the Soviet Union increasingly reflected concern over China's own strategic position.

In late 1978, the Chinese also became concerned over Vietnam's efforts to establish open control over Laos and Cambodia. In response to the Sovietbacked Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia, China fought a brief border war with Vietnam (February-March 1979) with the stated purpose of "teaching Vietnam a lesson."

Chinese anxiety about Soviet strategic advances was heightened following the Soviet Union's December 1979 invasion of Afghanistan. Sharp differences between China and the Soviet Union persisted over Soviet support for Vietnam's continued occupation of Cambodia, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and Soviet troops along the Sino-Soviet border and in Mongolia—the so-called "three obstacles" to improved Sino-Soviet relations.

In the 1970s and 1980s China sought to create a secure regional and global environment for itself and to foster good relations with countries that could aid its economic development. To this end, China looked to the West for assistance with its modernization drive and for help in countering Soviet expansionism, which it characterized as the greatest threat to its national security and to world peace.

China maintained its consistent opposition to "superpower hegemonism," focusing almost exclusively on the expansionist actions of the Soviet Union and Soviet proxies such as Vietnam and Cuba, but it also placed growing emphasis on a foreign policy independent of both the U.S. and the Soviet Union. While improving ties with the West, China continued to follow closely economic and other positions of the Third World nonaligned movement, although China was not a formal member.

In the immediate aftermath of Tiananmen crackdown in June 1989, many countries reduced their diplomatic contacts with China as well as their economic assistance programs. In response, China worked vigorously to expand its relations with foreign countries, and by late 1990, had reestablished normal relations with almost all nations. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in late 1991, China also opened diplomatic relations with the republics of the former Soviet Union.

In recent years, Chinese leaders have been regular travelers to all parts of the globe, and China has sought a higher profile in the UN through its permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council and other multilateral organizations. Closer to home, China has made efforts to reduce tensions in Asia; it has contributed to stability on the Korean Peninsula, cultivated a more cooperative relationship with members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Brunei, Burma, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam), and participated in the ASEAN Regional Forum. China has improved ties with Russia. President Putin and President Jiang signed a Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation in July 2001. The two also joined with the Central Asian nations of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan to establish the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in June 2001. The SCO is designed to promote regional stability and cooperate to combat terrorism in the region. China has a number of border and maritime disputes, including with Vietnam in the Gulf of Tonkin, with a number of countries in the South China Sea, as well as with Japan and India. Beijing has resolved many of its border and maritime disputes, notably including a November 1997 agreement with Russia that resolved almost all outstanding border issues and a 2000 agreement with Vietnam to resolve some differences over their maritime border, though disagreements remain over islands in the South China Sea. Working with India, China has also stepped up efforts to define a line of control on the Sino-Indian border.


DEFENSE

Establishment of a professional military force equipped with modern weapons and doctrine was the last of the "Four Modernizations" announced by Zhou Enlai and supported by Deng Xiaoping. In keeping with Deng's mandate to reform, the People's Liberation Army (PLA), which includes the strategic nuclear forces, army, navy, and air force, has demobilized millions of men and women since 1978 and introduced modern methods in such areas as recruitment and manpower, strategy, and education and training.

Following the June 1989 Tiananmen crackdown, ideological correctness was temporarily revived as the dominant theme in Chinese military affairs. Reform and modernization appear to have since resumed their position as the PLA's priority objectives, although the armed forces' political loyalty to the CCP remains a leading concern.

The Chinese military is trying to transform itself from a land-based power, centered on a vast ground force, to a smaller, mobile, high-tech military capable of mounting defensive operations beyond its coastal borders.

China's power-projection capability is limited but has grown over recent years. China has acquired some advanced weapons systems, including Sovremmeny destroyers, SU-27 and SU-30 aircraft, and Kilo-class diesel submarines from Russia. However, the mainstay of the air force continues to be the 1960s-vintage F-7, and naval forces still consist primarily of 1960s-era technology.

Nuclear Weapons and Arms Control Policy

Nuclear Weapons. In 1955, Mao Zedong's Chinese Communist Party decided to proceed with a nuclear weapons program; it was developed with Soviet assistance until 1960. After its first nuclear test in October 1964, Beijing deployed a modest but potent ballistic missile force, including land- and sea-based intermediate-range and intercontinental ballistic missiles.

China became a major international arms exporter during the 1980s. Beijing joined the Middle East arms control talks, which began in July 1991 to establish global guidelines for conventional arms transfers, but announced in September 1992 that it would no longer participate because of the U.S. decision to sell F-16A/B aircraft to Taiwan.

China was the first state to pledge "no first use" of nuclear weapons. It joined the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in 1984 and pledged to abstain from further atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons in 1986. China acceded to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1992 and supported its indefinite and unconditional extension in 1995. In 1996, it signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and agreed to seek an international ban on the production of fissile nuclear weapons material. To date, China has not ratified the CTBT.

In 1996, China committed not to provide assistance to unsafeguarded nuclear facilities. China attended the May 1997 meeting of the NPT Exporters (Zangger) Committee as an observer and became a full member in October 1997. The Zangger Committee is a group that meets to list items that should be subject to IAEA inspections if exported by countries that have, as China has, signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty. In September 1997, China issued detailed nuclear export control regulations. China began implementing regulations establishing controls over nuclear-related dual-use items in 1998. China also has decided not to engage in new nuclear cooperation with Iran (even under safeguards), and will complete existing cooperation, which is not of proliferation concern, within a relatively short period. In May 2004, with the support of the United States, China became a member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group.

Based on significant, tangible progress with China on nuclear nonproliferation, President Clinton in 1998 took steps to bring into force the 1985 U.S.-China Agreement on Peaceful Nuclear Cooperation.

Chemical Weapons. China is not a member of the Australia Group, an informal and voluntary arrangement made in 1985 to monitor developments in the proliferation of dual-use chemicals and to coordinate export controls on key dual-use chemicals and equipment with weapons applications. In April 1997, however, China ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) and, in September 1997, promulgated a new chemical weapons export control directive. In October 2002, China promulgated updated regulations on dual-use chemical agents, and now controls all the major items on the Australia Group control list.

Missiles. While not formally joining the regime, in March 1992 China undertook to abide by the guidelines and parameters of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), the multinational effort to restrict the proliferation of missiles capable of delivering weapons of mass destruction. China reaffirmed this commitment in 1994, and pledged not to transfer MTCR-class ground-to-ground missiles. In November 2000, China committed not to assist in any way the development by other countries of MTCR-class missiles. The U.S. Government imposed trade sanctions on the China Metallurgical Equipment Corporation (CMEC) on September 1, 2001. The sanctions were imposed because CMEC transferred items controlled under Category II of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) Annex to a Pakistani entity. This transfer contributed to Pakistan's MTCR Category I missile program. The penalties imposed are: A 2-year ban on all new individual export licenses for Commerce Department- or State Department-controlled MTCR Annex items, and on all new U.S. Government contracts related to MTCR Annex items.

In addition, because a Chinese entity engaged in sanctionable activity, U.S. law also requires a 2-year ban on new licenses for State Department-controlled MTCR exports and on new U.S. Government contracts for MTCR items associated with all activities of the Chinese Government involved in the development or production of MTCR Annex items, electronics, space systems or equipment, and military aircraft.

In August 2002, the P.R.C. promulgated export control regulations on missile equipment and technologies.


U.S.-CHINA RELATIONS

From Liberation to the Shanghai Communiqué

As the PLA armies moved south to complete the communist conquest of China in 1949, the American Embassy followed the Nationalist government headed by Chiang Kaishek, finally moving to Taipei later that year. U.S. consular officials remained in mainland China. The new P.R.C. Government was hostile to this official American presence, and all U.S. personnel were withdrawn from the mainland in early 1950. Any remaining hope of normalizing relations ended when U.S. and Chinese communist forces fought on opposing sides in the Korean conflict.

Beginning in 1954 and continuing until 1970, the United States and China held 136 meetings at the ambassadorial level, first at Geneva and later at Warsaw. In the late 1960s, U.S. and Chinese political leaders decided that improved bilateral relations were in their common interest. In 1969, the United States initiated measures to relax trade restrictions and other impediments to bilateral contact. On July 15, 1971, President Nixon announced that his Assistant for National Security Affairs, Dr. Henry Kissinger, had made a secret trip to Beijing to initiate direct contact with the Chinese leadership and that he, the President, had been invited to visit China.

In February 1972, President Nixon traveled to Beijing, Hangzhou, and Shanghai. At the conclusion of his trip, the U.S. and Chinese Governments issued the "Shanghai Communiqué," a statement of their foreign policy views.

In the Communiqué, both nations pledged to work toward the full normalization of diplomatic relations. The U.S. acknowledged the Chinese position that all Chinese on both sides of the Taiwan Strait maintain that there is only one China and that Taiwan is part of China. The statement enabled the U.S. and China to temporarily set aside the "crucial question obstructing the normalization of relations"—Taiwan—and to open trade and other contacts.

Liaison Office, 1973-78

In May 1973, in an effort to build toward the establishment of formal diplomatic relations, the U.S. and China established the United States Liaison Office (USLO) in Beijing and a counterpart Chinese office in Washington, DC. In the years between 1973 and 1978, such distinguished Americans as David Bruce, George H.W. Bush, Thomas Gates, and Leonard Woodcock served as chiefs of the USLO with the personal rank of Ambassador.

President Ford visited China in 1975 and reaffirmed the U.S. interest in normalizing relations with Beijing. Shortly after taking office in 1977, President Carter again reaffirmed the interest expressed in the Shanghai Communiqué. The United States and China announced on December 15, 1978, that the two governments would establish diplomatic relations on January 1, 1979.

Normalization

In the Joint Communiqué on the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations dated January 1, 1979, the United States transferred diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing. The U.S. reiterated the Shanghai Communiqué's acknowledgment of the Chinese position that there is only one China and that Taiwan is a part of China; Beijing acknowledged that the American people would continue to carry on commercial, cultural, and other unofficial contacts with the people of Taiwan. The Taiwan Relations Act made the necessary changes in U.S. domestic law to permit such unofficial relations with Taiwan to flourish.

U.S.-China Relations Since Normalization

Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping's January 1979 visit to Washington, DC, initiated a series of important, high-level exchanges, which continued until the spring of 1989. This resulted in many bilateral agreements—especially in the fields of scientific, technological, and cultural interchange and trade relations. Since early 1979, the United States and China have initiated hundreds of joint research projects and cooperative programs under the Agreement on Cooperation in Science and Technology, the largest bilateral program.

On March 1, 1979, the United States and China formally established embassies in Beijing and Washington, DC. During 1979, outstanding private claims were resolved, and a bilateral trade agreement was concluded. Vice President Walter Mondale reciprocated Vice Premier Deng's visit with an August 1979 trip to China. This visit led to agreements in September 1980 on maritime affairs, civil aviation links, and textile matters, as well as a bilateral consular convention.

As a consequence of high-level and working-level contacts initiated in 1980, U.S. dialogue with China broadened to cover a wide range of issues, including global and regional strategic problems, political-military questions, including arms control, UN and other multilateral organization affairs, and international narcotics matters.

The expanding relationship that followed normalization was threatened in 1981 by Chinese objections to the level of U.S. arms sales to Taiwan. Secretary of State Alexander Haig visited China in June 1981 in an effort to resolve Chinese questions about America's unofficial relations with Taiwan. Eight months of negotiations produced the U.S.-China joint communiqué of August 17, 1982. In this third communiqué, the U.S. stated its intention to reduce gradually the level of arms sales to Taiwan, and the Chinese described as a fundamental policy their effort to strive for a peaceful resolution to the Taiwan question. Meanwhile, Vice President Bush visited China in May 1982.

High-level exchanges continued to be a significant means for developing U.S.-China relations in the 1980s. President Reagan and Premier Zhao Ziyang made reciprocal visits in 1984. In July 1985, President Li Xiannian traveled to the United States, the first such visit by a Chinese head of state. Vice President Bush visited China in October 1985 and opened the U.S. Consulate General in Chengdu, the U.S.'s fourth consular post in China. Further exchanges of cabinet-level officials occurred between 1985-89, capped by President Bush's visit to Beijing in February 1989.

In the period before the June 3-4, 1989 crackdown, a large and growing number of cultural exchange activities undertaken at all levels gave the American and Chinese peoples broad exposure to each other's cultural, artistic, and educational achievements. Numerous Chinese professional and official delegations visited the United States each month. Many of these exchanges continued after Tiananmen.

Bilateral Relations After Tiananmen

Following the Chinese authorities' brutal suppression of demonstrators in June 1989, the U.S. and other governments enacted a number of measures to express their condemnation of China's blatant violation of the basic human rights of its citizens. The U.S. suspended high-level official exchanges with China and weapons exports from the U.S. to China. The U.S. also imposed a number of economic sanctions. In the summer of 1990, at the G-7 Houston summit, Western nations called for renewed political and economic reforms in China, particularly in the field of human rights.

Tiananmen disrupted the U.S.-China trade relationship, and U.S. investors' interest in China dropped dramatically. The U.S. Government also responded to the political repression by suspending certain trade and investment programs on June 5 and 20, 1989. Some sanctions were legislated; others were executive actions. Examples include:

  • The U.S. Trade and Development Agency (TDA)—new activities in China were suspended from June 1989 until January 2001, when then-President Clinton lifted this suspension.
  • Overseas Private Insurance Corporation (OPIC)—new activities suspended since June 1989.
  • Development Bank Lending/IMF Credits—the United States does not support development bank lending and will not support IMF credits to China except for projects that address basic human needs.
  • Munitions List Exports—subject to certain exceptions, no licenses may be issued for the export of any defense article on the U.S. Munitions List. This restriction may be waived upon a presidential national interest determination.
  • Arms Imports—import of defense articles from China was banned after the imposition of the ban on arms exports to China. The import ban was subsequently waived by the Administration and reimposed on May 26, 1994. It covers all items on the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives' Munitions Import List.

In 1996, the P.R.C. conducted military exercises in waters close to Taiwan in an apparent effort at intimidation. The United States dispatched two aircraft carrier battle groups to the region. Subsequently, tensions in the Taiwan Strait diminished, and relations between the U.S. and China have improved, with increased high-level exchanges and progress on numerous bilateral issues, including human rights, nonproliferation, and trade. Former Chinese president Jiang Zemin visited the United States in the fall of 1997, the first state visit to the U.S. by a Chinese president since 1985. In connection with that visit, the two sides reached agreement on implementation of their 1985 agreement on peaceful nuclear cooperation, as well as a number of other issues. Former President Clinton visited China in June 1998. He traveled extensively in China, and direct interaction with the Chinese people included live speeches and a radio show, allowing the President to convey first-hand to the Chinese people a sense of American ideals and values.

Relations between the U.S. and China were severely strained by the tragic accidental bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade in May 1999. By the end of 1999, relations began to gradually improve. In October 1999, the two sides reached agreement on humanitarian payments for families of those who died and those who were injured as well as payments for damages to respective diplomatic properties in Belgrade and China.

In April 2001, a Chinese F-8 fighter collided with a U.S. EP-3 reconnaissance aircraft flying over international waters south of China. The EP-3 was able to make an emergency landing on China's Hainan Island despite extensive damage; the P.R.C. aircraft crashed with the loss of its pilot. Following extensive negotiations, the crew of the EP-3 was allowed to leave China 11 days later, but the U.S. aircraft was not permitted to depart for another 3 months. Subsequently, the relationship, which had cooled following the incident, gradually improved.

Following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks (9-11) in New York City and Washington, DC, China offered strong public support for the war on terrorism and has been an important partner in U.S. counterterrorism efforts. China voted in favor of UN Security Council Resolution 1373, publicly supported the coalition campaign in Afghanistan, and contributed $150 million of bilateral assistance to Afghan reconstruction following the defeat of the Taliban. Shortly after 9-11, the U.S. and China also commenced a counterterrorism dialogue. The third round of that dialogue was held in Beijing in February 2003.

China and the U.S. have also been working closely on regional issues like North Korea. China has stressed its opposition to the D.P.R.K.'s decision to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, its concerns over North Korea's nuclear capabilities, and its desire for a non-nuclear Korean peninsula. It also voted to refer the D.P.R.K.'s noncompliance with its IAEA obligations to the UN Security Council in New York.

U.S.-China Economic Relations

U.S. direct investment in China covers a wide range of manufacturing sectors, several large hotel projects, restaurant chains, and petrochemicals. U.S. companies have entered agreements establishing more than 20,000 equity joint ventures, contractual joint ventures, and wholly foreign-owned enterprises in China. More than 100 U.S.-based multinationals have projects in China, some with multiple investments. Cumulative U.S. investment in China is valued at $35 billion.

Total two-way trade between China and the U.S. grew from $33 billion in 1992 to over $180 billion in 2003. The United States is China's second-largest trading partner, and China is now the third-largest trading partner for the United States (after Canada and Mexico). U.S. exports to China have been growing more rapidly than to any other market (up 15.3% in 2002 and 28.4% in 2003). U.S. imports from China grew somewhat slower, at 21.7%, but the U.S. trade deficit with China exceeded $124 billion in 2003. Some of the factors that influence the U.S. trade deficit with China include:

  • A shift of low-end assembly industries to China from the newly industrialized economies (NIEs) in Asia. China has increasingly become the last link in a long chain of value-added production. Because U.S. trade data attributes the full value of a product to the final assembler, Chinese value-added gets overcounted.
  • U.S. demand for labor-intensive goods exceeds domestic output.
  • China's restrictive trade practices, which have included an array of barriers to foreign goods and services, often aimed at protecting state-owned enterprises. Under its WTO accession agreement, China is reducing tariffs and eliminating import licensing requirements, as well as addressing other trade barriers.

The U.S. approach to its economic relations with China has two main elements:

First, the United States seeks to fully integrate China into the global, rules-based economic and trading system. China's participation in the global economy will nurture the process of economic reform and increase China's stake in the stability and prosperity of East Asia.

Second, the United States seeks to expand U.S. exporters' and investors' access to the Chinese market. As China grows and develops, its needs for imported goods and services will grow even more rapidly.

At the September 2002 Joint Economic Committee meeting in Washington, the United States and China discussed strengthening cooperation in fighting terrorist finance and money laundering, prospects for foreign direct investment in China's financial services, and the regional reliance on U.S. macroeconomic developments. China's continued strong growth has made it an important regional engine of growth, and China reiterated its commitment to a strategy of market reforms and global economic openness.

Principal U.S. Embassy Officials

BEIJING (E) Address: No. 3 Xiu Shui Bei Jie; APO/FPO: PSC 461 Box 50 FPO, AP 96521; Phone: 8610-6532-3831; Fax: 8610-6532-6929; Work-week: 0800-1700; Website: http://www.usembassy-china.org.cn/

AMB:Clark T. Randt, Jr.
AMB OMS:Patricia Rhodes
DCM:David S. Sedney
DCM OMS:Joan Bower
CG:John Daniel Morris
CG OMS:Bernardo Navarrro
POL:Daniel L. Shields
MGT:James R. VanLaningham
AGR:Maurice W. House
APHIS:Eloisa Jones
ATO:Laverne Brabant
CLO:Pamela T. Ayoung
COM/ADB:Craig Allen
CUS:Andy Yu
DAO:Richard J. Mauldin
DEA:James Tse
ECO:Robert S. Wang
EEO:William S. Laidlaw
EST:Deborah J. Seligsohn
FAA:Joseph P. Tymczyszyn
FMO:Mazhar Ahson
GSO:Charles G. Krips
ICASS Chair:Brad Fribley
IMO:Heywood Miller
INS:Jeanette Chu
IPO:Jim Wojciechowski
ISO:Thomas Martin
ISSO:David Foster
LAB:Helen C. Hudson
LEGATT:William Liu
PAO:Donald M. Bishop
RSO:Bob Eckert
Last Updated: 9/21/2004

CHENGDU (CG) Address: No. 4 Lingshiguan Lu, Chengdu, Sichuan 610041, PRC; APO/FPO: PSC 461 Box 85, FPO AP 96521; Phone: 86-28-8558-3992; Fax: 86-28-8558-3520; Workweek: 8:30-5:30

CG:Jeffrey A. Moon
CG OMS:Deborah Vaughn
PO:Jeffrey A. Moon
POL:Brook Hefright
CON:Benjamin Chiang
MGT:Maureen L. Gabbard
AFSA:Maureen L. Gabbard
CLO:vacant
ECO:G.A. Donovan
EEO:Brook Hefright
GSO:William Coleman
IMO:David W. Gabbard
IPO:David Gabbard
ISO:CJ Baltz
ISSO:David Gabbard
PAO:John Louton
RSO:Anne Brunn
State ICASS:Maureen Gabbard
Last Updated: 8/24/2004

GUANGZHOU (CG) Address: #1 Shamian South Road, Guangzhou CHINA 510133; APO/FPO: PSC 461, Box 100. FPO AP 96521-0002; Phone: (86)(20) 8121-8000; Fax: (86) (20) 8184-6296; Workweek: 8:30 AM-5:30 PM

CG:Edward K.H. Dong
COM:Robert Murphy
CON:William J. Martin
MGT:Jeffrey Rock
AGR:Keith Schneller
CLO:Janya Somers
ECO:Harvey A. Somers
GSO:Kenneth L. Meyer
INS:Thomas Wong
IPO:Frank Landymore
PAO:Wendy Lyle
RSO:Michael Brenn
Last Updated: 10/12/2004

SHANGHAI (CG) Address: 1469 Huai Hai Zhong Lu, Shanghai 200031 PRC; APO/FPO: PSC 461, Box 200, FPO AP 96521-0200; Phone: 86-21-6433-3936; Fax: 86-21-6433-4122; Workweek: 8:00 am-5:00 pm; Website: www.usembassychina.org.cn/shanghai/

CG:Douglas Spelman
PO:Douglas Spelman, CG
POL:Mary Tarnowka
COM:Catherine Houghton
CON:George Hogeman
MGT:Andrea Baker
AFSA:Paul Thomas
ATO:Ross Kreamer
CLO:Richard Romero
ECO:Mary Tarnowka
EEO:Jean-Pierre Louis
EST:Richard Lilly
FIN:Andrea Baker
GSO:Jean Pierre-Louis
ICASS Chair:Sub Group Only
IPO:John Janssen
ISO:Thomas Lacy
ISSO:Troy Jackson
PAO:Jenifer Galt
RSO:Brendan Murray
State ICASS:Andrea Baker
Last Updated: 6/27/2004

SHENYANG (CG) Address: US CONSULATE-SHENYANG; APO/FPO: PSC 461, Box 45; FPO AP 96521-0002; Phone: 86-24-2322-0848; Fax: 86-24-2322-1733; Workweek: 0830-1730; Website: http://www.usembassy-china.org.cn/consulates/shenyang/

CG:David A. Kornbluth
CG OMS:Kathryn L. Ramsay
COM:Soching Tsai
CON:Douglas Kelly
MGT:Joseph E. Zadrozny
CLO:CLO
ECO:Bruce Hudspeth
EEO:Kathryn Ramsay
GSO:Colleen E. Altstock
IPO:Jerry Shepard
ISO:Ronnie Duggers
ISSO:Jerry Shepard
PAO:Cynthia Caples
Last Updated: 10/1/2004

TRAVEL

Consular Information Sheet

January 15, 2005

Country Description: The People's Republic of China was established on October 1, 1949, with Beijing as its capital city. With well over 1.3 billion citizens, China is the world's most populous country and the third largest country in the world in terms of territory. China is undergoing rapid, profound economic and social change and development. Political power remains centralized in the Chinese Communist Party. Modern tourist facilities are available in major cities, but many facilities in smaller provincial cities and rural areas are frequently below international standards.

Entry/Exit Requirements: A valid passport and visa are required to enter China and must be obtained from Chinese Embassies and Consulates before traveling to China. Americans arriving without valid passports and the appropriate Chinese visa are not permitted to enter and will be subject to a fine and immediate deportation at the traveler's expense. Travelers should not rely on Chinese host organizations claiming to be able to arrange a visa upon arrival the Chinese government does not issue visas at ports of entry. Chinese Authorities have recently tightened their visa issuance policy, in some cases requiring personal interviews of American citizens and regularly issuing one or two entry visas valid for short periods only.

Visas are required to transit China. Persons transiting China on the way to and from Mongolia or North Korea or who plan to re-enter from the Hong Kong or Macau Special Administrative Regions should be sure to obtain visas allowing multiple entries. Permits are required to visit Tibet as well as many remote areas not normally open to foreigners.

For information about visa requirements and other entry requirements and restricted areas, travelers may consult the Embassy of the People's Republic of China (PRC) at 2300 Connecticut Avenue N.W., Washington, D.C. 20008, or telephone (1-202) 328-2500, 2501 or 2502. For a list of services and frequently asked visa questions and answers, travelers can view the Chinese Embassy's web sites at http://www.china-embassy.org/. The Chinese Embassy's visa section may be reached by e-mail at [email protected]. There are Chinese Consulates General in Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco. Americans traveling in Asia have been able to obtain visas to enter China from the Chinese visa office in Hong Kong and the Embassy of the People's Republic of China in Seoul, South Korea.

Americans who overstay or otherwise violate the terms of their Chinese visas will be subject to a maximum fine of 5,000 RMB (approximately $600) and departure delays and may be subject to detention. Travelers should note that international flights departing China are routinely over-booked, making reconfirmation of departure reservations and early airport check-in essential. In an effort to prevent international child abduction, many governments have initiated new procedures at entry / exit points. These often include requiring documentary evidence of relationship and permission for the child's travel from the parent(s) or legal guardian if they are not present. Having such documentation on hand, even if not required, may facilitate entry/departure.

For additional information, please see the Bureau of Consular Affairs home page on the Internet at http://travel.state.gov/ for the Dual Nationality flyer.

Customs Regulations: Chinese customs authorities may enforce strict regulations concerning temporary importation into or export from China of items such as antiquities, banned publications, some religious literature, or vehicles not conforming to Chinese standards. It is advisable to contact the Embassy of the People's Republic of China in Washington or one of China's consulates in the United States for specific information regarding customs requirements. In many countries around the world, counterfeit and pirated goods are widely available. Transactions involving such products are illegal and bringing them back to the United States may result in forfeitures and/or fines. A current list of those countries with serious problems in this regard can be found at http://www.ustr.gov/Document_Library/Reports_Publications/2004/2004_Special_301/Section_Index.html. Other information on customs regulations can be found at http://www.ustr.gov.

China's customs authorities encourage the use of an ATA (Admission Temporaire/Temporary Admission) Carnet for the temporary admission of professional equipment, commercial samples, and/or goods for exhibitions and fair purposes. ATA Carnet Headquarters, located at the U.S. Council for International Business, 1212 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10036, issues and guarantees the ATA Carnet in the United States. For additional information call (212) 354-4480, send an e-mail to [email protected], or visit www.uscib.org for details.

Safety and Security: Americans visiting or residing in China are advised to take the normal safety precautions travelers take when in any foreign country. Specifically, travelers should remain aware of their surroundings and of events that are happening around them. Travelers should respect local police requirements to temporarily avoid travel in some areas. In light of the greatly increased numbers of older Americans traveling to China, U.S. tour operators should check that local guides are familiar with medical facilities and emergency medical evacuation procedures.

American citizens who rent apartments with gas appliances should be aware that in some areas, natural gas is not scented to warn occupants of gas leaks or concentrations. In addition, heaters may not always be well vented, thereby allowing excess carbon monoxide to build up in living spaces. Due to fatal accidents involving American citizens, travelers are advised to ensure all gas appliances are properly vented or install gas and carbon monoxide detectors in their residences. These devices are not widely available in China, and they should be purchased prior to arrival.

Chinese security personnel may place foreign government officials, journalists, and business people with access to advanced proprietary technology under surveillance. Hotel rooms and personal computing devices for these categories of visitors may be subject to search without the consent or knowledge of the traveler.

Terrorism is rare in China, although a small number of bombings and incidents of unrest have occurred in areas throughout China. Recent bombings have largely been criminal activity, frequently the result of commercial disputes between Chinese. There is no indication that acts of public violence have been directed against foreigners or that foreign elements in China have carried out terrorist attacks.

Security personnel may at times place foreign visitors under surveillance. Hotel rooms, telephones and fax machines may be monitored, and personal possessions in hotel rooms may be searched. Taking photographs of anything that could be perceived as being of military or security interest may result in problems with authorities.

For the latest security information, Americans traveling abroad should regularly monitor the Department's Internet web site at http://travel.state.gov, where the current Worldwide Caution Public Announcement, Travel Warnings and Public Announcements can be found.

Up-to-date information on security can also be obtained by calling 1-888-407-4747 toll free in the U.S., or, for callers outside the U.S. and Canada, a regular toll line at 1-317-472-2328. These numbers are available from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, Monday through Friday (except U.S. federal holidays).

For the latest security information, Americans traveling abroad should regularly monitor the Department's Internet web site at http://travel.state.gov where the current Worldwide Caution Public Announcement, Travel Warnings and Public Announcements can be found.

Up-to-date information on safety and security can also be obtained by calling 1-888-407-4747 toll free in the U.S., or for callers outside the U.S. and Canada, a regular toll-line at 1-317-472-2328. These numbers are available from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time, Monday through Friday (except U.S. federal holidays).

The Department of State urges American citizens to take responsibility for their own personal security while traveling overseas. For general information about appropriate measures travelers can take to protect themselves in an overseas environment, see the Department of State's pamphlet A Safe Trip Abroad.

Crime: Overall, China is a safe country, with a low but increasing crime rate. Pickpockets target tourists at sightseeing destinations, open-air markets and in stores, often with the complicity of low-paid security guards. Violence against foreigners is rare, but the rate of criminal activities against foreigners is growing, especially in the larger cities. Over the past year incidents of violence against foreigners have usually taken place in these urban areas, in bars and nightclubs. Although it has a crime rate comparable to other cities in China, Shenzhen, because of the large flow of land arrival visitors every day, has reportedly been the scene of criminal acts, mostly petty but occasionally serious, directed at visitors and residents. The border crossings specifically tend to attract pickpockets and other criminals. There have been reported cases of daytime muggings and persons being abducted and forced to withdraw cash from ATM's. Visitors are reminded to use only licensed taxis, avoid carrying large amounts of cash or walking alone and to exercise due caution in public areas.

Robberies, sometimes at gunpoint, have occurred in western China, and there have been reports of robberies and assaults along mountain highways in Yunnan Province and near China's border with Nepal.

Reports of threats of violence against foreigners, including Americans, working privately or with non-governmental organizations attempting to assist North Koreans transiting China for permanent resettlement have been received by the Embassy. While we have not seen any such incidents, we are cautioning Americans who feel they may be threatened to immediately contact the Embassy of nearest consulate for help.

Travelers are sometimes asked by locals to exchange money at a preferential rate. It is illegal to exchange dollars for RMB except at banks, hotels and official exchange offices. Due to the large volume of counterfeit currency in China, unofficial exchanges usually result in travelers losing their money and possibly left to face charges of breaking foreign exchange laws. If detained by police under suspicion of committing an economic crime involving currency, travelers may be delayed for weeks or months while police investigate the allegations.

Travelers should have small bills (RMB 10, 20 and 50 notes) for travel by taxi. Reports of taxi drivers using counterfeit RMB 50 and 100 notes to make change for large bills are increasingly common. Be sure to get a receipt from the taxi driver.

Throughout China, women outside hotels in tourist districts frequently use the prospect of companionship or sex to lure foreign men to isolated locations where accomplices are waiting for the purpose of robbery. Travelers should not allow themselves to be driven to bars or an individual's home unless they know the person making the offer. Hotel guests should refuse to open their room doors to anyone they do not know personally.

American visitors to China should carry their passports with them and out of reach of pickpockets. Americans should not travel in China without their identity documents and residents must have their Chinese residence permits (juliu zheng) with them at all times. All Americans are encouraged to make photocopies of their passport bio-data pages and Chinese visas and to keep these in a separate, secure location, and to register with the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate General. Please note the contact information below for registration by e-mail addresses.

U.S. citizens may refer to the Department of State's pamphlet, A Safe Trip Abroad, for ways to promote a trouble-free journey. The pamphlet is available by mail from the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 20402, via the Internet at http://www.gpoaccess.gov, or via the Bureau of Consular Affairs home page at http://travel.state.gov.

Information for Victims of Crime: The loss or theft abroad of a U.S. passport should be reported immediately to the local police and the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate. If you are the victim of a crime while overseas, in addition to reporting to local police, please contact the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate for assistance. The Embassy/Consulate staff can, for example, assist you to find appropriate medical care, contact family members or friends and explain how funds could be transferred. Although the investigation and prosecution of the crime is solely the responsibility of local authorities, consular officers can help you to understand the local criminal justice process and to find an attorney if needed. See our information on Victims of Crime at http://travel.state.gov/travel/brochure_victim_assistance.html.

Medical Facilities and Health Information: Americans planning to travel to China should read the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) Fact Sheet.

Experimental Medical Procedures: Some hospitals and private practitioners in China are advertising internationally to promote experimental medical procedures to treat diseases' such as ALS, or Lou Gehrig's Disease, AIDs and others. Other practitioners advertise that "new procedures" are available to extend bone structures to make people taller, and to provide other cosmetic procedures. These advertisements state that these procedures are safe, cheap and effective. The Embassy has received numerous complaints from Americans regarding many of these experimental practices, and is aware of fatalities and permanent disfigurements that have followed these treatments. Americans are advised not to enter China for treatment of advanced diseases without first consulting their physician in the United States.

Medical Facilities in China: Western-style medical facilities with international staffs are available in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and a few other large cities. Many other hospitals in major Chinese cities have so-called VIP wards (gaogan bingfang). These feature reasonably up-to-date medical technology and physicians who are both knowledgeable and skilled. Most VIP wards also provide medical services to foreigners and have English-speaking doctors and nurses. Most hospitals in China will not accept medical insurance from the United States, with the exception of the following hospitals, which are on the BlueCross BlueShield's worldwide network providers—overseas network hospitals' list (http://www.fepblue.org/wasite/wabenefits/wabenefitsoverseas04.html) Hong Kong Adventist Hospital, Beijing United Family Hospital, Beijing Friendship Hospital, International Medical Center in Beijing, and Peking Union Medical Center. Travelers will be asked to post a deposit prior to admission to cover the expected cost of treatment. Hospitals in major cities may accept credit cards for payment. Even in the VIP/Foreigner wards of major hospitals, however, American patients have frequently encountered difficulty due to cultural and regulatory differences. Physicians and hospitals have sometimes refused to supply American patients with complete copies of their Chinese hospital medical records, including laboratory test results, scans, and x-rays. All Americans traveling to China are strongly encouraged to buy foreign medical care and medical evacuation insurance prior to arrival. Travelers who want a list of modern medical facilities in China can access that information at the Embassy's website.

Ambulances do not carry sophisticated medical equipment, and ambulance personnel generally have little or no medical training. Therefore, injured or seriously ill Americans may be required to take taxis or other immediately available vehicles to the nearest major hospital rather than waiting for ambulances to arrive. In rural areas, only rudimentary medical facilities are generally available. Medical personnel in rural areas are often poorly trained, have little medical equipment or availability to medications.

Rural clinics are often reluctant to accept responsibility for treating foreigners, even in emergency situations.

Foreign-operated medical providers catering to expatriates and visitors are available in China.

SOS International, Ltd., operates modern medical and dental clinics and provides medical evacuation and medical escort services in Beijing, Nanjing, Tianjin and Shekou, as well as 24hr Alarm Centers in Beijing and Shanghai. Through clinics in Beijing (24 hours), Tianjin, Nanjing and Shekou, SOS offers international standard family practice services, emergency medical services and a range of clinical services.

The emergency assistance services SOS offers through alarm centers in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Beijing compliment their clinics. Each Alarm Center provides 24-hour hotline services to all our global members when they are in China. Any problem from lost luggage to a serious medical condition can be reported to the alarm center, where multilingual coordinators and doctors are on duty to respond to all manners of emergencies.

To provide these services, SOS has developed an external network of hospitals, airlines and local authorities with whom they work to deliver a fast and efficient response. These services also support the many remote site medical staff, equipment and facilities that SOS provides to clients.

For medical emergencies anywhere in mainland China, Americans can call the SOS International, Ltd., 24-hour Alarm Center in Beijing at telephone (86-10) 6462-9100 or in Shanghai at (86-21) 6295-0099 for advice and referrals to local facilities. SOS International Alarm Centers can also be contacted in Hong Kong at telephone (852) 2428-9900 and in the United States at (215) 245-4707.

For a full list of SOS locations and phone numbers, consult the SOS website at http://www.internationalsos.com.

Beijing United Family Hospital and Clinics ("BJU") is the first and remains the only foreign-invested full service international standard 50 bed hospital operating in Beijing, China. BJU was opened in 1997 by Chindex International, an American company, which in 2002 was awarded the US Secretary of State's Award for Corporate Excellence. BJU offers the full range of specialties including Family Practice, Internal Medicine, Surgery, Obstetrics/Gynecology, Pediatrics, Dentistry, Psychiatry and Physiotherapy, in addition to a 24 hour Emergency Room staffed solely by Expatriate Staff Specialists. These Physicians are all board qualified (or equivalent) in their respective fields and include specialties such as Anesthesiology, and Intensive Care Medicine. Additionally, staff are fluent in not only English, but also a wide range of languages including French, German, Japanese, Spanish, Swedish, and Finnish to name a few.

Facilities include 2 Operating Theatres, international standard 5 star LDRP birthing suites, Neonatal ICU, a 4-bed Adult ICU, General Inpatient facilities, and standard support services such as Digital Radiology, Ambulance services, Pharmacy, Laboratory and a 24 hour on-site Blood Bank with emergency blood prescreened to the American Blood Bank standard.

Bayley & Jackson Beijing Medical Center
#7 Ritan Dong Lu, Chaoyang District,
Beijing 100020
(8610) 8562-9998
Fax: (8610) 8562-3497
email: [email protected]
Website: www.bjhealthcare.com

Beijing United Family Hospital and Clinics
#2 Jiang Tai Lu, Chaoyang District,
Beijing 100016
(8610) 6433-3960
Fax: (8610) 6433-3963
Emergency Hotline: (8610) 6433-2345
Website: www.bjunited.com.cn

Peking Union Medical Hospital
1 Shui Fu Yuan, Dong Cheng Distict,
Beijing 100730
Tel: 010-6529-6114 (registration);
010-6529-7292 (information);
010-6529-5284 (24 hours)
Modern Facilities with English speaking staff. Separate ward for foreign patients.

Portman Clinic:
Shanghai Center #203 W,
1376 Nanjing Xi Lu, 200040
Tel: 6279-7688.
For appointments: 6279-8678;
Fax: 6279-7698

Hong Qiao Clinic:
Mandarin City Unit 30,
788 Hong Xu Lu, 201103
Tel: 6405-5788; Fax: 6405-3587

Shanghai United Family Hospital and Clinics – To open in 2004
1111 Xian Xia Xi Lu,
Chang Ning District, Shanghai 200336 PRC
Website: http://www.shanghaiunited.com/

GlobalDoctor, Ltd., has opened clinics staffed by English-speaking doctors within the VIP wards of governmentrun hospitals in Chengdu, Nanjing, and Beijing. GlobalDoctor can be reached by telephone from China at 86-10-8456-9191 or on the Internet at http://www.eglobaldoctor.com/.

Additional information on medical providers specializing in treating foreigners for general medical, dental and orthodontic problems are available at http://www.usembassychina.org.cn/.

Information on vaccinations and other health precautions, such as safe food and water precautions and insect bite protection, may be obtained from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's hotline for international travelers at 1-877-FYI-TRIP (1-877-394-8747); fax 1-888-CDC-FAXX (1-888-232-3299), or via the CDC's Internet site at http://www.cdc.gov/travel. For information about outbreaks of infectious diseases abroad consult the World Health Organization's (WHO) website at http://www.who.int/en.

Further health information for travelers is available at http://www.who.int/ith.

Medical Insurance: The Department of State strongly urges Americans to consult with their medical insurance company prior to traveling abroad to confirm whether their policy applies overseas and whether it will cover emergency expenses such as a medical evacuation.

U.S. medical insurance plans seldom cover health costs incurred outside the United States unless supplemental coverage is purchased. Further, U.S. Medicare and Medicaid programs do not provide payment for medical services outside the United States. However, many travel agents and private companies offer insurance plans that will cover health care expenses incurred overseas, including emergency services such as medical evacuations.

When making a decision regarding health insurance, Americans should consider that many foreign doctors and hospitals require payment in cash prior to providing service and that a medical evacuation to the U.S. may cost well in excess of $50,000. Uninsured travelers who require medical care overseas often face extreme difficulties. When consulting with your insurer prior to your trip, ascertain whether payment will be made to the overseas healthcare provider or if you will be reimbursed later for expenses you incur. Some insurance policies also include coverage for psychiatric treatment and for disposition of remains in the event of death.

Two private emergency medical assistance firms, SOS International, Ltd., and Medex Assistance Corporation, offer medical insurance policies designed for travelers. Both of these companies have staff in China who can assist in the event of a medical emergency.

SOS International, Ltd.
Beijing Clinic address: Building C,
BITIC Leasing Center
No. 1 North Road, Xingfu Sancun,
Sanlitun, Chaoyang District
Beijing 100027
Beijing SOS International Clinic,
telephone: (86-10) 6462-9112,
Fax (86-10) 6462-9111.

For medical emergencies, please telephone the SOS International Alarm Center at (86-10) 6462-9100 from anywhere in Mainland China. From Hong Kong: (852) 2528-9900. From the U.S.: 1-215-245-4707. These phone lines are answered 24 hours by SOS International Alarm Center personnel. For information on purchasing health or travel insurance from SOS International, please telephone (1-800) 523-8930 (8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Eastern Time, Monday through Friday) in the U.S. or visit http://www.intsos.com/ on the Internet or e-mail: [email protected].

SOS members calling with a medical emergency should first telephone the Alarm Center in Beijing at (86-10)6462-9100.

MEDEX Assistance Corporation
871 Poly Plaza
Beijing 100027
Toll Free Number from China to U.S.: 10811-800-527-0218
Email: [email protected] (Baltimore, Maryland)
U.S. telephone: (1-800) 537-2029 or (1-410) 453-6300 (24 hours)
Emergencies (members only) (1-800) 527-0218 or (1-410) 453-6330
Web site: http://www.medexassist.com/

Medex members calling with a medical emergency should call Medex-Emergency in China at telephone (86-10) 6595-8510.

Other Evacuation Insurance Options: Heathrow is an air evacuation service with offices in the United States and England. Travelers can pre-arrange air evacuation insurance and other emergency travel assistance. This service also has a business plan to assist foreigners who lack travel insurance. Heathrow Air Ambulance Service, 15554 FM, Suite 195 Houston, TX. 77095-2704. Office telephone 1-800-513-5192. Office fax 1-832-934-2395. E-mail: [email protected]

Useful information on medical emergencies abroad, including overseas insurance programs, is provided in the Department of State's Bureau of Consular Affairs brochure, Medical Information for Americans Traveling Abroad, available via the Bureau of Consular Affairs home page.

Other Health Information: Most roads and towns in Tibet, Qinghai, parts of Xinjiang, and western Sichuan are situated at altitudes over 10,000 feet. Travelers in these areas should seek medical advice in advance of travel, allow time for acclimatization to the high altitude, and remain alert to signs of altitude sickness. Reuse or poor sterilization practices are problems in China, contributing to transmission of diseases such as Hepatitis, which is endemic in China. In order to protect themselves from blood and other tissue borne disease such as Hepatitis and HIV, travelers should always ask doctors and dentists to use sterilized equipment and be prepared to pay for new syringe needles in hospitals or clinics. Tuberculosis is endemic in China. Air pollution is also a significant problem throughout China. Travelers should consult their doctor prior to travel and consider the impact seasonal smog and heavy particulate pollution may have on them. Travelers are advised to consult the CDC's traveler's health website at: http://www.cdc.gov/travel/eastasia.htm prior to departing for China.

Alcoholics Anonymous can be reached in Beijing at telephone (86-10) 139-1138-9075, e-mail: [email protected]. On the Internet, http://members.cox.net/mppowers1/aa-china3.html lists AA meeting locations and contact information for other cities in China. Visit the U.S. Embassy web page in advance of travel to China for additional contact numbers. There is an Al-Anon chapter in Beijing that can be reached at (86-10) 6940-3935. Information on vaccinations and other health precautions may be obtained from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's hotline for international travelers at 1-877-394-8747; fax-888-232-3299, or via the CDC's Internet site at http://www.cdc.gov/. For information about outbreaks of infectious diseases abroad consult the World Health Organization's website at http://www.who.int/en. Further health information for travelers is available at http://www.who.int/ith.

LifeLine Shanghai is a community-based, confidential hotline providing emotional support and information to Shanghai's expatriate community. HOTLINE: (86 21) 6279-8990

Aviation Safety Oversight: The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has assessed the Government of China as being in compliance with ICAO international aviation safety standards for oversight of China's air carrier operations. For more information, travelers may visit the FAA's internet web site at www.faa.gov/avr/iasa/index.cfm.

Criminal Penalties: While in a foreign country, a U.S. citizen is subject to that country's laws and regulations, which sometimes differ significantly from those in the United States and may not afford the protections available to the individual under U.S. law. Penalties for breaking the law can be more severe than in the United States for similar offences. Persons violating

Chinese laws, even unknowingly, may be expelled, arrested or imprisoned. Penalties for possession, use, or trafficking in illegal drugs in China are severe, and convicted offenders can expect long jail sentences and heavy fines. Engaging in illicit sexual conduct with children or using or disseminating child pornography in a foreign country is a crime, prosecutable in the United States.

Americans in China who are not staying at hotels, including Americans who are staying with friends or relatives, must register with local police. Americans who are questioned by police should immediately notify the U.S. Embassy or the nearest consulate. Foreigners detained for questioning may not be allowed to contact their national authorities until the questioning is concluded. Foreigners detained pending trial have often waited over a year for their trial to begin. Foreigners suspected of committing a crime are rarely granted bail. Criminal punishments, especially prison terms, are much more severe than in the United States. Persons violating the law, even unknowingly, may be expelled, arrested or imprisoned. Criminal penalties for possession, use, or trafficking of illegal drugs are strict, and convicted offenders can expect severe jail sentences and fines. Non-American foreigners have been executed for drug offenses. Several Americans currently incarcerated in China have been implicated in financial fraud schemes involving falsified bank or business documents, tax evasion schemes and assisting alien smuggling, including selling passports to provide aliens with travel documents.

In the past, protesters detained for engaging in pro-Falun Gong activities have been quickly deported from China after being questioned. Several of these protesters alleged they were physically abused during their detention. In addition, they alleged that personal property including clothing, cameras and computers have not always been returned to them upon their deportation. Chinese authorities report while they have deported these foreigners quickly after public demonstrations in favor of the Falun Gong, future adherents who intentionally arrive in China to protest against Chinese policy may receive longer terms of detention and possibly face prison sentences. In one instance, an American Falun Gong practitioner who was traveling in China on personal business was detained and asked to provide information on other Falun Gong sympathizers in the U.S.

Several Americans have been detained and expelled for passing out non-authorized Christian literature. Sentences for distributing this material may range from three to five years imprisonment, if convicted.

Consular Access: The U.S.-PRC Consular Convention of 1980 provides that detained U.S. citizens have the right to contact a U.S. consular officer, that U.S. consular officers shall be notified within four days whenever an American is taken into custody, and that a consular officer may visit detained Americans. Note, however, that U.S. consular officers do not always receive timely notification of the detention or arrest of a U.S. citizen. U.S. citizens who are detained or arrested should request contact with the U.S. Embassy or one of the U.S. Consulates General during their initial detentions. As explained in the section on "Dual Nationality" found earlier in this document, China does not recognize dual nationality. Naturalized U.S. citizens who enter China on Chinese passports or PRC-issued Hong Kong or Taiwan travel documents are routinely denied access to U.S. consular officials. The U.S. Government strongly recommends that all Americans enter China using only American passports containing Chinese visas.

Travel to Tibet: It is possible to make travel arrangements to Tibet from outside of China. Once in China, travelers wishing to visit Tibet must join a group, which can be arranged by almost any Chinese travel agency. The travel agency will arrange for the necessary permits and collect any fees. The Chinese government requires foreigners (including U.S. citizens) wishing to visit Tibet to apply in advance for approval from the tourist administration of the Tibetan Autonomous Region. More information is available from the Chinese Embassy or one of the Chinese consulates in the United States, or, while in China, from the U.S. Embassy or nearest U.S. consulate general. (Please see the above section on Entry Requirements.) Recently, some Americans with long-term Chinese visas have experienced difficulty obtaining permits to visit Tibet.

English Teachers/Secondary School Teachers: Many Americans have enjoyed their teaching experience in China; others have encountered significant problems. Some Americans travel to China under a contract with promises of good salary, bonuses and other amenities, only to find themselves in tenuous situations often lacking funds to return to the United States. The U.S. Embassy cannot act as a legal advisor or negotiate business or personal grievances on behalf of individual citizens. Americans experiencing problems can contact the Embassy's American Citizens Services Unit at telephone (86-10) 6532-3431, extension 5648, 5028, 5609 or 5344, or via e-mail to [email protected] to report problems with school employment contracts.

Americans considering teaching English in China should check that their contracts specify the maximum number of classroom hours per day and per week, maximum workdays per week, and vacation periods. Americans teaching in China, particularly at newly established private secondary schools and private English training centers, have often found their employers unable or unwilling to honor contract terms or to assist in obtaining Chinese employment-based visas and other permits required for foreigners to teach lawfully in China. Prospective teachers should always ask for references from other foreign teachers who have completed a contract teaching term and have returned to their home country. Prospective teachers should never come to China without first receiving the proper "Z" or work visa from the Chinese Embassy. Prospective teachers should not accept a promise by a school or organization to obtain the correct visa after their arrival. Health insurance provided by Chinese employers should be supplemented as described above. (Please see the section on Medical Insurance). Prospective teachers should always demand that they receive a contract from their employer rather than from an agent or intermediary. These agents or intermediaries often receive a large portion of the monthly pay promised to the teacher leaving the teachers without significant financial resources. These "fees" are sometimes not disclosed until after the prospective teacher arrives in China. To date, courts and police in many jurisdictions have refused to intervene in these cases on behalf of foreign teachers.

Disaster Preparedness: Some areas of China frequented by Americans, notably Yunnan and Xinjiang Provinces, are prone to earthquakes, floods and rock falls along popular hiking trails. Coastal areas of Hainan, Guangdong, Fujian, and Zhejiang Provinces are subject to typhoons during the summer rainy season. General information about natural disaster preparedness is available via the Internet from the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) at http://www.fema.gov/. Travelers should check weather conditions for cities and areas in China prior to departure. Winter weather and summer typhoons often cause the closure of airports in some parts of the country.

Document Seizures: Chinese authorities have seized documents, literature, and letters that they deem to be pornographic, political in nature, or intended for religious proselytism. Persons seeking to enter China with religious materials in a quantity deemed to be greater than that needed for personal use may be detained and fined. Chinese customs authorities may seize books, films, records, tapes, and compact disks to determine if they violate Chinese prohibitions. Individuals believed to be engaged in religious proselytism or in conduct Chinese officials consider immoral or inappropriate have been detained and expelled.

Passport Confiscation: PRC authorities occasionally confiscate passports and levy exit bans against persons involved in commercial or other disputes. The U.S. Embassy or Consulate General will make inquiries with local authorities to ensure that the U.S. citizen's rights under the U.S.—China Bilateral Consular Convention are honored. The individual usually is not taken into custody, but is sometimes confined to a hotel or other facility until the dispute is resolved. The U.S. Embassy or Consulate General will issue another passport to any U.S. citizen who applies for one under these circumstances; however, even with a new U.S. passport, Chinese authorities will often block departure by refusing to provide a visa for exit purposes.

Children's Issues: For information on international adoption of children and international parental child abduction, please refer to our Internet site at http://travel.state.gov/children's_issues.html or telephone Overseas Citizens Services at 1-888-407-4747. This number is available from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, Monday through Friday (except U.S. federal holidays). Callers who are unable to use toll-free numbers, such as those calling from overseas, may obtain information and assistance during these hours by calling 1-317-472-2328.

Under the PROTECT Act of April 2003, it is a crime, prosecutable in the U.S., for U.S. citizens or permanent resident aliens to exploit children sexually via pornography, the Internet or other means or to engage in illicit sexual conduct with a person under the age of 18 in a foreign country, regardless of whether there was intent.

Registration/Embassy and Consulate Locations: Americans living in or visiting China are encouraged to register at the Consular Section of the U.S. Embassy in China and obtain updated information on travel and security within China.

Beijing: The U.S. Embassy in China is located at 2 Xiu Shui Dong Jie, Beijing 100600, telephone: (86-10) 6532-3431, 6532-3831; after-hours: (86-10) 6532-1910; fax (86-10) 6532-4153. The U.S. Embassy web site address is http://www.usembassychina.org.cn/ and the e-mail address is [email protected]. The Embassy consular district includes the following provinces/regions of China: Beijing, Tianjin, Shandong, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, Ningxia, Shaanxi, Qinghai, Xinjiang, Hebei, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, and Jiangxi.

Chengdu: The U.S. Consulate General in Chengdu is located at Number 4, Lingshiguan Road, Section 4, Renmin Nanlu, Chengdu 610041, telephone: (86-28) 558-3992, 555-3119, after-hours (86-0) 13708001422; fax (86-28) 8558-3520 and the e-mail address is [email protected]. This consular district includes the following provinces/regions of China: Guizhou, Sichuan Xizang (Tibet), and Yunnan, as well as the municipality of Chongqing.

Guangzhou: The U.S. Consulate General in Guangzhou is located at Number 1 South Shamian Street, Shamian Island 200S1, Guangzhou 510133; telephone: (86-20) 8121-8418; after-hours: (86-)139-0229-3169; fax: (86-20) 8121-8428 and the e-mail address is [email protected]. This consular district includes the following provinces/regions of China: Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan, and Fujian.

Shanghai: The Consular Section of the U.S. Consulate General in Shanghai is located in the Westgate Mall, 8th floor, 1038 Nanjing Xi Lu, Shanghai 200031 telephone: (86-21) 3217-4650, ext. 2102, 2013, or 2134; afterhours: (86-21) 6433-3936; fax: (86-21) 6217-2071; e-mail address: [email protected]. This consular district includes the following provinces/regions of China: Shanghai, Anhui, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang.

Shenyang: The U.S. Consulate General in Shenyang is located at No. 52, 14th Wei Road, Heping District, Shenyang 110003, telephone: (86-24) 2322-1198, 2322-0368; after-hours: (86-0) 13704019790; fax (86-24) 2322-2374 and the e-mail address is [email protected]. This consular district includes the following provinces/regions of China: Liaoning, Heilongjiang, and Jilin.

International Adoption

January 2005

The information below has been edited from a report of the State Department Bureau of Consular Affairs, Office of Overseas Citizens Services. For more information, please read the International Adoption section of this book and review current reports online at www.travel.state.gov/family..

Disclaimer: The information in this circular relating to the legal requirements of specific foreign countries is provided for general information only and may not be totally accurate in a particular case. Questions involving interpretation of specific foreign laws should be addressed to foreign legal counsel. The information is based on the Implementation Measures on the Adoption of Children by Foreigners in the People's Republic of China of November 13, 1993 and the China Adoption Law of April 1, 1992.

Please Note: Chinese authorities are extremely sensitive about the intrusion of foreign entities. Adoption is also a sensitive subject in China. It is therefore advisable for any person interested in adopting a child from China to act with discretion and decorum. High profile attention to adoption in China could curtail or eliminate altogether adoption of Chinese children by persons from countries that have caused adoption to become the subject of public attention.

Only adoptions fully completed in China are permitted. It is not possible to obtain guardianship of a Chinese child for adoption in the United States. The China Adoption Law has specific provisions as to what children are available for adoption and what adoptive parents are acceptable. These variables will be discussed in the flyer.

Availability of Children for Adoption: Only children processed by China's central authority for international adoptions, the Chinese center for Adoption Affairs (CCAA) are available for international adoption. The CCAA matches individual children with prospective adoptive parent(s) whose completed applications have been submitted to the CCAA by a licensed U.S. adoption agency whose credentials are on file at the CCAA.

Recent U.S. immigrant visa statistics reflect the following pattern for visa issuance to orphans:

FY-1996: IR-3 immigrant visas issued to Chinese orphans adopted abroad—2, 901; IR-4 immigrant visas issued to Chinese orphans adopted in the U.S.—432
FY-1997: IR-3 Visas—3, 242, IR-4 Visas – 355
FY-1998: IR-3 Visas—3, 766, IR-4 Visas – 440
FY-1999: IR-3 Visas—3, 688, IR-4 Visas – 413
FY-2000: IR-3 Visas—4, 520, IR-4 Visas—533

China Adoption Authority: The government office responsible for adoptions in China is the Ministry of Civil Affairs, specifically the CCAA.

China Adoption Procedures: An agency may submit adoption applications directly to the CCAA for consideration. Included with the application should be all the required documents (you'll find the list in documentary requirements) with authentications and translations. In addition, each application should indicate any preference for a healthy or handicapped child, preferred age and sex of the child, and, if desired, a specific Welfare Institute or geographic area of China in which you are interested. The CCAA will review the documents and advise the prospective adoptive parent(s) directly or through their U.S. licensed adoption agency, whether additional documents or authentication required.

Once the application for adoption is approved, the CCAA will then match the application with a child whose paperwork has been forwarded to the CCAA by a provincial Civil Affairs Bureau. Once a child is identified, the CCAA will send a letter of introduction about the child, photographs and a health record of the child through the U.S. adoption agency to the prospective adoptive parent(s). Questions about the child not answered in the material provided by the Chinese authorities may be relayed through your U.S. licensed adoption agency or by you directly to the CCAA.

To finalize the adoption, the prospective adoptive parent(s) need to travel to China to complete the process. It is important to contact the U.S. Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services in the Department of Homeland Security early in the process; you must have an approved I-600A before proceeding to China.

After indicating your acceptance of the child, you will then receive a formal notice from the CCAA to proceed to China. When the CCAA issues an approval notice ("Notice of Coming to China for Adoption"), this notice will bear the "chops," or red-inked seals of the CCAA. Prospective parents should have this approval notice in hand before departing for China. Thereafter, a series of interviews of the prospective adoptive parent(s) will occur; a contract will be signed with the Children's Welfare Institute; the contract will be registered with the Civil Affairs Bureau; and a notarized adoption decree will be issued.

Prospective adoptive parents may request to see the child before completing the adoption. Any remaining questions and concerning the child's state of health or personal background after seeing the child should be addressed before completing the adoption. Prospective adoptive parents may wish to have the child examined by a physician on the U.S. Embassy or Consulate's list of physicians before finalizing the adoption. It will probably not be possible under Chinese procedures for the prospective adoptive parents to take the child to a hospital in a city distant from the child's location for examination. Before the adoption is finalized, the prospective adoptive parents have no legal custody or guardianship of the child, and may not be allowed by Chinese authorities to take the child anywhere.

After all interviews are completed, the actual adoption and completion of the contract, which includes making a fixed "donation" of around $3000-$4000 US dollars to the Children's Welfare Institute, take place. This "donation" is NOT a bribe, but is required for the adoption and completion of contract for the institute. Please review current reports online at www.travel.state.gov/family for more detailed information.

Age and Civil Status Requirements: Chinese law differentiates between an abandoned child (with one or both parents living) and an orphan (both parents deceased). The law restricts adoption of healthy abandoned children with one or both parents living to childless person 35 years old or older, and only permits the adoption of one healthy child. There are exceptions if you are adopting a relative's child. Persons who are under 35 years old and/or who already have child (ren) are only permitted to adopt orphans (requiring proof that both biological parents are deceased) or handicapped children. Persons seeking to adopt orphans or handicapped children are permitted by Chinese law to adopt more than one such child. The Chinese law permits adoption by married couples and single persons. The CCAA also has advised that "adoption applications from homosexual families are not acceptable."

Restriction on age of adopting parent(s) and restriction on adopting more than one child may be waived when: 1) the children being adopted are blood relatives of the adopting parent(s), 2) the children being adopted are orphans, or 3) the children are handicapped.

Residency Requirements: The adoptive parent(s) must come to China to execute the required documents in person before the appropriate Chinese authorities to finalize the adoption. If the adoptive parent is married, he or she should adopt the child together with the spouse. In case of married couples, if only one adopting parent comes to China, Chinese law requires that the spouse traveling to China bring a power of attorney from his or her spouse which has been notarized and properly authenticated by the Chinese Embassy or one of the Chinese Consulate Generals in the United States. In addition to documents required by the Chinese Government, the American Consulate in Guangzhou advises that if only one parent is coming to China to adopt a child with a physical or mental disability, a notarized statement from the absent parent indicating that they are aware of the child's disability and intends to finalize the adoption in the United States, is required under U.S. law.

Adoption Agencies and Attorneys: The U.S. Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services in the Department of Homeland Security does not allow the use of powers of attorney for the purpose of signing the I-600 Petition to classify an orphan as an Immediate Relative. Responsibility for various procedures necessary to adopt a child in China in accordance with Chinese law is divided among the following Chinese government authorities:

The China Center for Adoption Affairs (CCAA)
103 Beiheyan St.
Dongcheng District
Beijing 100006
Phone: 86-10-6522-3102, 86-10-6513-0607

Department of Civil Affairs
No. 147 Beiheyan St.
Beijing, 100032

Children's Welfare Institutes are administered by the Ministry of Civil Affairs through provincial Civil Affairs Bureaus. These are government-operated homes for orphaned or abandoned children. Children can only be placed in the welfare institutes if their parents have died or abandoned them. In cases of abandoned children, the authorities attempt to locate the children's biological parents before allowing them to be adopted from the institutes.

The Provincial Notarial Offices, which are administered by the ministry of Justice, Department of Notarization Division (No. 10 Chaoyangmen Nandajie, Beijing 100020 China) issue the final adoption certificate. That process terminates parental rights of the birth parent(s). Each adoption certificate is accompanied by a notarial birth certificate for the child and either a statement explaining the circumstances of abandonment for abandoned children or notarial death certificates of the orphaned child's parents.

The Public Security Bureau in the locality where the adoption takes place is responsible for issuing Chinese passports and exit permits to children adopted by foreigners.

Doctors: The U.S. Embassy in Beijing and the Consulate Generals all maintain current lists of doctors and sources for some western medicines, should either you or your child experience health problems while in China.

China Documentary Requirements: A foreigner interested in adopting a Chinese child must submit the following documents to the China Center of Adoption Affairs. It is advisable to bring several copies of the authenticated documentation with you to China.

  • Adoption application
  • Birth certificate
  • Marital status certificate
  • Certificates of profession, income and property
  • Health examination certificate
  • Certificate of criminal or no-criminal record
  • Home study report
  • Certificate of child adoption approval by the competent department of the adopter's country of residence
  • Copy of applicant's passport

* In addition, each adoption applicant should also submit two full-faced photos and several other photos reflecting the family's life*

In addition to the package of documents forwarded by your adoption agency to the CCAA for approval, you are also required to have a chain of certificates and approval.

  • Certified and authenticated copies of the adoptive parent(s) birth certificate(s)
  • Certified and authenticated copy of the adoptive parents' marriage certificate and proof of termination of any previous marriage (certified copy of spouse's death certificate of divorce decree)
  • Medical certificate(s) for adoptive parent(s) executed by physician before a notary public and authenticated
  • Statement that adoptive parent(s) is/are childless and has/have not adopted other children (notarized and authenticated)
  • A medical certificate of infertility if that condition exist (executed by a physician before a notary public and authenticated). (Note: Infertility is no longer a requirement for adoption in China).
  • A certificate of good conduct for the adoptive parent(s) from a local police department notarized or bearing the police department-seal and authenticated. An FBI report is acceptable in lieu of a local police record. This is separate from the FBI check conducted by BCIS as part of the petition process. You can request an FBI record check by sending two sets of fingerprints, an $18.00 money order, your full name, date and place of birth, social security number and letter of request explaining purpose for clearance to: FBI ID Division, Room 10104, Washington, DC 20537-9700. The FBI certificate should also be authenticated.
  • Verification of employment and salary notarized and authenticated.
  • Two letters of reference notarized and authenticated
  • A certified and authenticated copy of your property trust deeds, if applicable
  • A home study prepared by an authorized and licensed social agency certified and authenticated
  • Bank statements notarized/certified and authenticated
  • Power of attorney notarized and authenticated (if only one spouse will travel to China). In case of married couples, if only one adopting parent comes to china, Chinese law requires that the spouse traveling to China, bring a power of attorney from his or her spouse which has been notarized and properly authenticated by Chinese Embassy or one of the Chinese Consulate General in the United States.
  • Family letter of intent to adopt, describing the child the adoptive parent(s) is/are willing to adopt, notarized and authenticated
  • A copy of the I-171H form (approval notice from BCIS) notarized and authenticated.

Translation Requirements: All documents prepared for each adoption application must be accompanied by a certified Mandarin Chinese translation. For a $200 fee, the CCAA will provide the translation service. If a translated copy is submitted with the application, the translator must execute a statement before a notary public as to the validity of the translation. The notary's seal must be authenticated.

Authentication Requirements: All foreign (U.S.) documents must be authenticated for use in China. Please see the International Adoption section of this book for more details and review current reports online at travel.state.gov/family.

U.S. Immigration Requirements: A Chinese child adopted by an American citizen must obtain an immigrant visa before he or she can enter the U.S. as a lawful permanent resident. Please see the International Adoption section of this book for more details and review current reports online at travel.state.gov/family.

American Embassy/Consulate General Assistance: Upon arrival in China, prospective adoptive parent(s) should register at the Consular Section, American Citizens Services Section of the American Embassy or Consulate General. The Embassy/Consulate general will be able to provide information about any outstanding travel advisories, any recent changes in adoption procedures and to provide other information about China including lists of physicians, attorneys, interpreters and translators.

Chinese Embassy (and Consulates) in the United States:
Embassy of the People's Republic of China
Consular Section
2300 Connecticut Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20008
Tel: 202-328-2500

Applying For a Chinese Passport for the Child: Welfare Institute officials apply for the child's passport and exit permit in the provincial capital. The adopting parent(s) rarely have had to take care of the paperwork or visit the Ministry of Justice offices in this regard. The local Public Security Bureau will normally expedite Chinese passport issuance for a stated fee.

Applying for U.S. Citizenship for an Adopted Child: Contact the BCIS for further proof of U.S. Citizenship and how to adjust the status of the adopted child.

Time Frame: It is hard to predict with certainty how much time is required to complete an adoption in China. As of the publication of this flyer, adoptions were taking approximately ten to twelve months from the time the U.S. adoption agency submitted the paperwork of the prospective adopter to CCAA to the time the initial referral was sent by CCAA to the prospective parent(s) via their adoption agency. Special needs cases were taking longer.

Fees: Fees charged by Chinese and U.S. authorities in connection with foreign adoptions may vary widely. For detailed information, please review current reports online at travel.state.gov/family.

What to Bring for your New Baby: It is difficult to predict how long it may be necessary for you to remain in China with your adopted child. There are small grocery and sundry stores in major hotels in China. Nevertheless, not all western-style baby products are readily available in China. You may wish to consider bringing certain items with you. These might include:

  • Plastic or cloth baby carrier
  • Bottle nipples
  • Disposable paper diapers
  • Baby wipes
  • Baby blankets
  • Infant wear
  • Thermos bottle, for hot water to prepare dry formula
  • Milk bottles (plastic, glass, and disposable)
  • Disposable plastic bags for milk bottles

Questions: Specific questions regarding adoption in China may be addressed to the Consular Section of the U.S. Embassy or Consulate in Beijing. You may also contact the Office of Children's Issues, SA-29, 2201 C Street, NW, U.S. Department of State, Washington, DC 20520-2818, Tel: 1-888-407-4747 with specific questions.

International Parental Child Abduction

January 2005

The information below has been edited from the report of the State Department Bureau of Consular Affairs, Office of Overseas Citizens Services. For more information, please read the International Parental Child Abduction section of this book and review current reports online at travel.state.gov

Disclaimer: The information in this circular relating to the legal requirements of a specific foreign country is provided for general information only. Questions involving interpretation of specific foreign laws should be addressed to foreign legal counsel.

General Information: The Peoples Republic of China (PRC) is not a party to the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, nor are there any international or bilateral treaties in force between China and the United States dealing with international parental child abduction. American citizens who travel to China place themselves under the jurisdiction of local courts. American citizens planning a trip to China with dual national children should bear this in mind.

Custody Disputes: In China, parents who are legally married share the custody of their children. If they are not married and the parents cannot reach an agreement, custody is granted by the courts in the best interests of the child.

Enforcement of Foreign Judgments: Custody orders and judgments of foreign courts are not enforceable in China. Such judgements must be presented to a Chinese court for that courts consideration and decision. In China, there is a limited process to appeal a lower court's decision.

Visitation Rights: In cases where legal custody has been granted and the judgment has been rendered, the non-custodial parent's visitation rights are normally incorporated within the court ordered decision.

Dual Nationality: Dual nationality is not recognized under Chinese law. Some U.S. citizens who are also Chinese nationals (mostly U.S.-born children of Chinese nationals or Legal permanent Permanent Residents) have experienced difficulty entering and departing China on U.S. passports. In some cases, such dual nationals are required to use Chinese travel documents to depart China.

Normally this causes inconvenience but no significant problems for affected persons; however, in child custody disputes, the ability of dual national children to depart from China could be affected.

Generally, children who are Chinese nationals according to Chinese law are not permitted to depart China if one parent refuses to allow the travel requested by one parent, even if that parent is considered an abducting parent by United States courts. In those cases, children abducted to China are only permitted to return to the United States if both parents agree to their return, or if a Chinese court upholds a United States Court's decision to allow the left-behind parent sole custody.

Travel Restrictions: While no exit visas are required to leave China, persons who replace passports are required to get an exit permit from the entry and exit police. The U.S. Embassy and Consulates will assist a traveler with a new passport in obtaining this document.

Criminal Remedies: For information on possible criminal remedies, please contact your local law enforcement authorities or the nearest office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Information is also available on the Internet at the web site of the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) at http://www.ojjdp.ncjrs.org.

Persons who wish to pursue a child custody claim in a Chinese court should retain an attorney in China. The American Embassy and U.S. Consulates in China maintain lists of attorneys willing to represent American clients. A copy of this list may be obtained by requesting one from the U.S. Embassy or Consulates. Questions involving Chinese law should be addressed to a Chinese attorney or to the Embassy of China in the United States at: Embassy of the People's Republic of China; 2201 Wisconsin Avenue, NW; Washington, DC 20007; Telephone: (202) 338-6688.

China

views updated May 23 2018

CHINA

Compiled from the March 2005 Background Note and supplemented with additional information from the State Department and the editors of this volume. See the introduction to this set for explanatory notes.

Official Name:
People's Republic of China


PROFILE

Geography

Total area:

9,596,960 sq. km. (about 3.7 million sq. mi.).

Cities:

Capital—Beijing. Other major cities—Shanghai, Tianjin, Shenyang, Wuhan, Guangzhou, Chongqing, Harbin, Chengdu.

Terrain:

Plains, deltas, and hills in east; mountains, high plateaus, deserts in west.

Climate:

Tropical in south to subarctic in north.

People

Nationality:

Noun and adjective—Chinese (singular and plural).

Population (2003 est.):

1.3 billion.

Population growth rate (2003 est.):

0.6%.

Health (2003 est.):

Infant mortality rate—25.26/1,000. Life expectancy—72.22 years (overall); 70.33 years for males, 74.28 years for females.

Ethnic groups:

Han Chinese—91.9%; Zhuang, Manchu, Hui, Miao, Uygur, Yi, Mongolian, Tibetan, Buyi, Korean, and other nationalities—8.1%.

Religion:

Officially atheist; Taoism, Buddhism, Islam, Christianity.

Language:

Mandarin (Putonghua), plus many local dialects.

Education:

Years compulsory—9. Literacy—86%.

Work force (2001 est., 711 million):

Agriculture and forestry—50%; industry and commerce—23%; other—27%.

Government

Type:

Communist party-led state.

Constitution:

December 4, 1982.

Independence:

Unification under the Qin (Ch'in) Dynasty 221 BC; Qing (Ch'ing or Manchu) Dynasty replaced by a republic on February 12, 1912; People's Republic established October 1, 1949.

Branches:

Executive—president, vice president, State Council, premier. Legislative—unicameral National People's Congress. Judicial—Supreme People's Court.

Administrative divisions:

23 provinces (the P.R.C. considers Taiwan to be its 23rd province); 5 autonomous regions, including Tibet; 4 municipalities directly under the State Council.

Political parties:

Chinese Communist Party, 66.35 million members; 8 minor parties under communist supervision.

Suffrage:

Universal at 18.

Economy

GDP (2004):

$1.65 trillion (exchange rate based).

Per capita GDP (2004):

$1,200 (exchange rate based).

GDP real growth rate (2004 est.):

9.5%.

Natural resources:

Coal, iron ore, crude oil, mercury, tin, tungsten, antimony, manganese, molybdenum, vanadium, magnetite, aluminum, lead, zinc, uranium, hydropower potential (world's largest).

Agriculture:

Products—Among the world's largest producers of rice, potatoes, sorghum, peanuts, tea, millet, barley; commercial crops include cotton, other fibers, oilseeds, pork and fish; produces variety of livestock products.

Industry:

Types—iron, steel, coal, machinery, light industrial products, textiles and apparel, armaments, petroleum, cement, chemical fertilizers, footwear, toys, automobiles, consumer electronics and telecommunications.

Trade (2004):

Exports—$593 billion: mainly electrical machinery and equipment, power generation equipment, apparel, toys, footwear. Main partners—U.S., Hong Kong, Japan, EU, South Korea, Singapore. Imports—$561 billion: mainly electrical equipment, power generation equipment, petroleum products, chemicals, steel. Main partners—Japan, EU, Taiwan, South Korea, U.S., Hong Kong.


PEOPLE

Ethnic Groups

The largest ethnic group is the Han Chinese, who constitute about 91.9% of the total population. The remaining 8.1% are Zhuang (16 million), Manchu (10 million), Hui (9 million), Miao (8 million), Uygur (7 million), Yi (7 million), Mongolian (5 million), Tibetan (5 million), Buyi (3 million), Korean (2 million), and other ethnic minorities.

Language

There are seven major Chinese dialects and many subdialects. Mandarin (or Putonghua), the predominant dialect, is spoken by over 70% of the population. It is taught in all schools and is the medium of government. About two-thirds of the Han ethnic group are native speakers of Mandarin; the rest, concentrated in southwest and southeast China, speak one of the six other major Chinese dialects. Non-Chinese languages spoken widely by ethnic minorities include Mongolian, Tibetan, Uygur and other Turkic languages (in Xinjiang), and Korean (in the northeast).

The Pinyin System of Romanization

On January 1, 1979, the Chinese Government officially adopted the pinyin system for spelling Chinese names and places in Roman letters. A system of Romanization invented by the Chinese, pinyin has long been widely used in China on street and commercial signs as well as in elementary Chinese textbooks as an aid in learning Chinese characters. Variations of pinyin also are used as the written forms of several minority languages.

Pinyin has now replaced other conventional spellings in China's English-language publications. The U.S. Government also has adopted the pinyin system for all names and places in China. For example, the capital of China is now spelled "Beijing" rather than "Peking."

Religion

Religion plays a significant part in the life of many Chinese. Buddhism is most widely practiced, with an estimated 100 million adherents. Traditional Taoism also is practiced. Official figures indicate there are 20 million Muslims, 5 million Catholics, and 15 million Protestants; unofficial estimates are much higher.

While the Chinese constitution affirms religious toleration, the Chinese Government places restrictions on religious practice outside officially recognized organizations. Only two Christian organizations—a Catholic church without official ties to Rome and the "Three-Self-Patriotic" Protestant church—are sanctioned by the Chinese Government. Unauthorized churches have sprung up in many parts of the country and unofficial religious practice is flourishing. In some regions authorities have tried to control activities of these unregistered churches. In other regions, registered and unregistered groups are treated similarly by authorities and congregations worship in both types of churches. Most Chinese Catholic bishops are recognized by the Pope, and official priests have Vatican approval to administer all the sacraments.

Population Policy

With a population officially just over 1.3 billion and an estimated growth rate of about 0.6%, China is very concerned about its population growth and has attempted with mixed results to implement a strict birth limitation policy. China's 2002 Population and Family Planning Law and policy permit one child per family, with allowance for a second child under certain circumstances, especially in rural areas, and with guidelines looser for ethnic minorities with small populations. Enforcement varies, and relies largely on "social compensation fees" to discourage extra births. Official government policy opposes forced abortion or sterilization, but in some localities there are instances of forced abortion. The government's goal is to stabilize the population in the first half of the 21st century, and current projections are that the population will peak at around 1.6 billion by 2050.


HISTORY

Dynastic Period

China is the oldest continuous major world civilization, with records dating back about 3,500 years. Successive dynasties developed a system of bureaucratic control that gave the agrarian-based Chinese an advantage over neighboring nomadic and hill cultures. Chinese civilization was further strengthened by the development of a Confucian state ideology and a common written language that bridged the gaps among the country's many local languages and dialects. Whenever China was conquered by nomadic tribes, as it was by the Mongols in the 13th century, the conquerors sooner or later adopted the ways of the "higher" Chinese civilization and staffed the bureaucracy with Chinese.

The last dynasty was established in 1644, when the Manchus overthrew the native Ming dynasty and established the Qing (Ch'ing) dynasty with Beijing as its capital. At great expense in blood and treasure, the Manchus over the next half century gained control of many border areas, including Xinjiang, Yunnan, Tibet, Mongolia, and Taiwan. The success of the early Qing period was based on the combination of Manchu martial prowess and traditional Chinese bureaucratic skills.

During the 19th century, Qing control weakened, and prosperity diminished. China suffered massive social strife, economic stagnation, explosive population growth, and Western penetration and influence. The Taiping and Nian rebellions, along with a Russian-supported Muslim separatist movement in Xinjiang, drained Chinese resources and almost toppled the dynasty. Britain's desire to continue its illegal opium trade with China collided with imperial edicts prohibiting the addictive drug, and

the First Opium War erupted in 1840. China lost the war; subsequently, Britain and other Western powers, including the United States, forcibly occupied "concessions" and gained special commercial privileges. Hong Kong was ceded to Britain in 1842 under the Treaty of Nanking, and in 1898, when the Opium Wars finally ended, Britain executed a 99-year lease of the New Territories, significantly expanding the size of the Hong Kong colony.

As time went on, the Western powers, wielding superior military technology, gained more economic and political privileges. Reformist Chinese officials argued for the adoption of Western technology to strengthen the dynasty and counter Western advances, but the Qing court played down both the Western threat and the benefits of Western technology.

Early 20th Century China

Frustrated by the Qing court's resistance to reform, young officials, military officers, and students—inspired by the revolutionary ideas of Sun Yatsen–began to advocate the overthrow of the Qing dynasty and creation of a republic. A revolutionary military uprising on October 10, 1911, led to the abdication of the last Qing monarch. As part of a compromise to over-throw the dynasty without a civil war, the revolutionaries and reformers allowed high Qing officials to retain prominent positions in the new republic. One of these figures, Gen. Yuan Shikai, was chosen as the republic's first president. Before his death in 1916, Yuan unsuccessfully attempted to name himself emperor. His death left the republican government all but shattered, ushering in the era of the "warlords" during which China was ruled and ravaged by shifting coalitions of competing provincial military leaders.

In the 1920s, Sun Yat-sen established a revolutionary base in south China and set out to unite the fragmented nation. With Soviet assistance, he organized the Kuomintang (KMT or "Chinese Nationalist People's Party"), and entered into an alliance with the fledgling Chinese Communist Party (CCP). After Sun's death in 1925, one of his protégés, Chiang Kai-shek, seized control of the KMT and succeeded in bringing most of south and central China under its rule. In 1927, Chiang turned on the CCP and executed many of its leaders. The remnants fled into the mountains of eastern China. In 1934, driven out of their mountain bases, the CCP's forces embarked on a "Long March" across some of China's most desolate terrain to the northwestern province of Shaanxi, where they established a guerrilla base at Yan'an.

During the "Long March," the communists reorganized under a new leader, Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-tung). The bitter struggle between the KMT and the CCP continued openly or clandestinely through the 14-year long Japanese invasion (1931-45), even though the two parties nominally formed a united front to oppose the Japanese invaders in 1937. The war between the two parties resumed after the Japanese defeat in 1945. By 1949, the CCP occupied most of the country.

Chiang Kai-shek fled with the remnants of his KMT government and military forces to Taiwan, where he proclaimed Taipei to be China's "provisional capital" and vowed to re-conquer the Chinese mainland. The KMT authorities on Taiwan still call themselves the "Republic of China."

The People's Republic of China

In Beijing, on October 1, 1949, Mao Zedong proclaimed the founding of the People's Republic of China (P.R.C.). The new government assumed control of a people exhausted by two generations of war and social conflict, and an economy ravaged by high inflation and disrupted transportation links. A new political and economic order modeled on the Soviet example was quickly installed.

In the early 1950s, China undertook a massive economic and social reconstruction program. The new leaders gained popular support by curbing inflation, restoring the economy, and rebuilding many war-damaged industrial plants. The CCP's authority reached into almost every aspect of Chinese life. Party control was assured by large, politically loyal security and military forces; a government apparatus responsive to party direction; and the placement of party members into leadership positions in labor, women's, and other mass organizations.

The "Great Leap Forward" and the Sino-Soviet Split

In 1958, Mao broke with the Soviet model and announced a new economic program, the "Great Leap Forward," aimed at rapidly raising industrial and agricultural production. Giant cooperatives (communes) were formed, and "backyard factories" dotted the Chinese landscape. The results were disastrous. Normal market mechanisms were disrupted, agricultural production fell behind, and China's people exhausted themselves producing what turned out to be shoddy, un-salable goods. Within a year, starvation appeared even in fertile agricultural areas. From 1960 to 1961, the combination of poor planning during the Great Leap Forward and bad weather resulted in one of the deadliest famines in human history.

The already strained Sino-Soviet relationship deteriorated sharply in 1959, when the Soviets started to restrict the flow of scientific and technological information to China. The dispute escalated, and the Soviets withdrew all of their personnel from China in August 1960. In 1960, the Soviets and the Chinese began to have disputes openly in international forums.

The Cultural Revolution

In the early 1960s, State President Liu Shaoqi and his protégé, Party General Secretary Deng Xiaoping, took over direction of the party and adopted pragmatic economic policies at odds with Mao's revolutionary vision. Dissatisfied with China's new direction and his own reduced authority, Party Chairman Mao launched a massive political attack on Liu, Deng, and other pragmatists in the spring of 1966. The new movement, the "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution," was unprecedented in communist history. For the first time, a section of the Chinese communist leadership sought to rally popular opposition against another leadership group. China was set on a course of political and social anarchy that lasted the better part of a decade.

In the early stages of the Cultural Revolution, Mao and his "closest comrade in arms," National Defense Minister Lin Biao, charged Liu, Deng, and other top party leaders with dragging China back toward capitalism. Radical youth organizations, called Red Guards, attacked party and state organizations at all levels, seeking out leaders who would not bend to the radical wind. In reaction to this turmoil, some local People's Liberation Army (PLA) commanders and other officials maneuvered to outwardly back Mao and the radicals while actually taking steps to rein in local radical activity.

Gradually, Red Guard and other radical activity subsided, and the Chinese political situation stabilized along complex factional lines. The leader-ship conflict came to a head in September 1971, when Party Vice Chairman and Defense Minister Lin Biao reportedly tried to stage a coup against Mao; Lin Biao allegedly later died in a plane crash in Mongolia.

In the aftermath of the Lin Biao incident, many officials criticized and dismissed during 1966-69 were reinstated. Chief among these was Deng Xiaoping, who reemerged in 1973 and was confirmed in 1975 in the concurrent posts of Politburo Standing Committee member, PLA Chief of Staff, and Vice Premier.

The ideological struggle between more pragmatic, veteran party officials and the radicals re-emerged with a vengeance in late 1975. Mao's wife, Jiang Qing, and three close Cultural Revolution associates (later dubbed the "Gang of Four") launched a media campaign against Deng. In January 1976, Premier Zhou Enlai, a popular political figure, died of cancer. On April 5, Beijing citizens staged a spontaneous demonstration in Tiananmen Square in Zhou's memory, with strong political overtones of support for Deng. The authorities forcibly suppressed the demonstration. Deng was blamed for the disorder and stripped of all official positions, although he retained his party membership.

The Post-Mao Era

Mao's death in September 1976 removed a towering figure from Chinese politics and set off a scramble for succession. Former Minister of Public Security Hua Guofeng was quickly confirmed as Party Chairman and Premier. A month after Mao's death, Hua, backed by the PLA, arrested Jiang Qing and other members of the "Gang of Four." After extensive deliberations, the Chinese Communist Party leadership reinstated Deng Xiaoping to all of his previous posts at the 11th Party Congress in August 1977. Deng then led the effort to place government control in the hands of veteran party officials opposed to the radical excesses of the previous two decades.

The new, pragmatic leadership emphasized economic development and renounced mass political movements. At the pivotal December 1978 Third Plenum (of the 11th Party Congress Central Committee), the lead-ership adopted economic reform policies aimed at expanding rural income and incentives, encouraging experiments in enterprise autonomy, reducing central planning, and attracting foreign direct investment into China. The plenum also decided to accelerate the pace of legal reform, culminating in the passage of several new legal codes by the National People's Congress in June 1979.

After 1979, the Chinese leadership moved toward more pragmatic positions in almost all fields. The party encouraged artists, writers, and journalists to adopt more critical approaches, although open attacks on party authority were not permitted. In late 1980, Mao's Cultural Revolution was officially proclaimed a catastrophe. Hua Guofeng, a protégé of Mao, was replaced as premier in 1980 by reformist Sichuan party chief Zhao Ziyang and as party General Secretary in 1981 by the even more reformist Communist Youth League chairman Hu Yaobang.

Reform policies brought great improvements in the standard of living, especially for urban workers and for farmers who took advantage of opportunities to diversify crops and establish village industries. Literature and the arts blossomed, and Chinese intellectuals established extensive links with scholars in other countries.

At the same time, however, political dissent as well as social problems such as inflation, urban migration, and prostitution emerged. Although students and intellectuals urged greater reforms, some party elders increasingly questioned the pace and the ultimate goals of the reform program. In December 1986, student demonstrators, taking advantage of the loosening political atmosphere, staged protests against the slow pace of reform, confirming party elders' fear that the current reform program was leading to social instability. Hu Yaobang, a protégé of Deng and a leading advocate of reform, was blamed for the protests and forced to resign as CCP General Secretary in January 1987. Premier Zhao Ziyang was made General Secretary and Li Peng, former Vice Premier and Minister of Electric Power and Water Conservancy, was made Premier.

1989 Student Movement and Tiananmen Square

After Zhao became the party General Secretary, the economic and political reforms he had championed came under increasing attack. His proposal in May 1988 to accelerate price reform led to widespread popular complaints about rampant inflation and gave opponents of rapid reform the opening to call for greater centralization of economic controls and stricter prohibitions against Western influence. This precipitated a political debate, which grew more heated through the winter of 1988-89.

The death of Hu Yaobang on April 15, 1989, coupled with growing economic hardship caused by high inflation, provided the backdrop for a large-scale protest movement by students, intellectuals, and other parts of a disaffected urban population. University students and other citizens camped out in Beijing's Tiananmen Square to mourn Hu's death and to protest against those who would slow reform. Their protests, which grew despite government efforts to contain them, called for an end to official corruption and for defense of freedoms guaranteed by the Chinese constitution. Protests also spread to many other cities, including Shanghai, Chengdu, and Guangzhou.

Martial law was declared on May 20, 1989. Late on June 3 and early on the morning of June 4, military units were brought into Beijing. They used armed force to clear demonstrators from the streets. There are no official estimates of deaths in Beijing, but most observers believe that casualties numbered in the hundreds.

After June 4, while foreign governments expressed horror at the brutal suppression of the demonstrators, the central government eliminated remaining sources of organized opposition, detained large numbers of protesters, and required political reeducation not only for students but also for large numbers of party cadre and government officials.

Following the resurgence of conservatives in the aftermath of June 4, economic reform slowed until given new impetus by Deng Xiaoping's dramatic visit to southern China in early 1992. Deng's renewed push for a market-oriented economy received official sanction at the 14th Party Congress later in the year as a number of younger, reform-minded leaders began their rise to top positions. Deng and his supporters argued that managing the economy in a way that increased living standards should be China's primary policy objective, even if "capitalist" measures were adopted. Subsequent to the visit, the Communist Party Politburo publicly issued an endorsement of Deng's policies of economic openness. Though not completely eschewing political reform, China has consistently placed overwhelming priority on the opening of its economy.

Third Generation of Leaders

Deng's health deteriorated in the years prior to his death in 1997. During that time, President Jiang Zemin and other members of his generation gradually assumed control of the dayto-day functions of government. This "third generation" leadership governed collectively with President Jiang at the center.

In March 1998, Jiang was re-elected President during the 9th National People's Congress. Premier Li Peng was constitutionally required to step down from that post. He was elected to the chairmanship of the National People's Congress. Zhu Rongji was selected to replace Li as Premier.

Fourth Generation of Leaders

In November 2002, the 16th Communist Party Congress elected Hu Jintao, who in 1992 was designated by Deng Xiaoping as the "core" of the fourth generation leaders, the new General Secretary. A new Politburo and Politburo Standing Committee was also elected in November.

In March 2003, General Secretary Hu Jintao was elected President at the 10th National People's Congress. Jiang Zemin retained the chairman-ship of the Central Military Commission. At the Fourth Party Plenum in September 2004, Jiang Zemin retired from the Central Military Commission, passing the Chairmanship and control of the People's Liberation Army to President Hu Jintao.

China is firmly committed to economic reform and opening to the out-side world. The Chinese leadership has identified reform of state industries and the establishment of a social safety network as government priori-ties. Government strategies for achieving these goals include large-scale privatization of unprofitable state-owned enterprises and development of a pension system for workers. The leadership has also downsized the government bureaucracy.

The Next 5 Years

The next 5 years represent a critical period in China's existence. To investors and firms, especially following China's accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, China represents a vast market that has yet to be fully tapped and a low-cost base for export-oriented production. Educationally, China is forging ahead as partnerships and exchanges with foreign universities have helped create new research opportunities for its students. The new leadership is also committed to generating greater economic development in the interior and providing more services to those who do not live in China's coastal areas. However, there is still much that needs to change in China. Human rights issues remain a concern among members of the world community, as does continuing proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD)-related materials and technology.


GOVERNMENT

Chinese Communist Party

The 66.35 million member CCP, authoritarian in structure and ideology, continues to dominate government. Nevertheless, China's population, geographical vastness, and social diversity frustrate attempts to rule by fiat from Beijing. Central leaders must increasingly build consensus for new policies among party members, local and regional leaders, influential non-party members, and the population at large.

In periods of greater openness, the influence of people and organizations outside the formal party structure has tended to increase, particularly in the economic realm. This phenomenon is most apparent today in the rapidly developing coastal region. Nevertheless, in all important government, economic, and cultural institutions in China, party commit-tees work to see that party and state policy guidance is followed and that non-party members do not create autonomous organizations that could challenge party rule. Party control is tightest in government offices and in urban economic, industrial, and cultural settings; it is considerably looser in the rural areas, where the majority of the people live.

Theoretically, the party's highest body is the Party Congress, which is supposed to meet at least once every 5 years. The primary organs of power in the Communist Party include:

  • The Politburo Standing Committee, which currently consists of nine members;
  • The Politburo, consisting of 24 full members, including the members of the Politburo Standing Committee;
  • The Secretariat, the principal administrative mechanism of the CCP, headed by the General Secretary;
  • The Central Military Commission;
  • The Discipline Inspection Commission, which is charged with rooting out corruption and malfeasance among party cadres.

State Structure

The Chinese Government has always been subordinate to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP); its role is to implement party policies. The primary organs of state power are the National People's Congress (NPC), the President (the head of state), and the State Council. Members of the State Council include Premier Wen Jiabao (the head of government), a variable number of vice premiers (now four), five state councilors (protocol equivalents of vice premiers but with narrower portfolios), and 22 ministers and four State Council commission directors.

Under the Chinese constitution, the NPC is the highest organ of state power in China. It meets annually for about 2 weeks to review and approve major new policy directions, laws, the budget, and major personnel changes. These initiatives are presented to the NPC for consideration by the State Council after previous endorsement by the Communist Party's Central Committee. Although the NPC generally approves State Council policy and personnel recommendations, various NPC committees hold active debate in closed sessions, and changes may be made to accommodate alternate views.

When the NPC is not in session, its permanent organ, the Standing Committee, exercises state power.

Principal Government and Party Officials

Last Updated: 11/3/2005

President: HU Jintao
Vice President: ZENG Qinghong
Premier, State Council: WEN Jiabao
Vice Premier, State Council: HUANG Ju
Vice Premier, State Council: WU Yi
Vice Premier, State Council: ZENG Peiyan
Vice Premier, State Council: HUI Liangyu
State Councilor, State Council: ZHOU Yongkang
State Councilor, State Council: CAO Gangchuan
State Councilor, State Council: TANG Jiaxuan
State Councilor, State Council: HUA Jianmin
State Councilor, State Council: CHEN Zhili
Sec. Gen., State Council: HUA Jianmin
Chmn., Central Military Commission: HU Jintao
Min. in Charge of National Defense Science, Technology, & Industry Commission: ZHANG Yuchuan
Min. in Charge of State Development Reform Commission: MA Kai
Min. in Charge of State Population & Family Planning Commission: ZHANG Weiqing
Min. in Charge of State Nationalities Affairs Commission: LI Dezhu (a.k.a. LI Dek Su)
Min. of Agriculture: DU Qinglin
Min. of Civil Affairs: LI Xueju
Min. of Commerce: BO Xilai
Min. of Communications: ZHANG Chunxian
Min. of Construction: WANG Guangtao
Min. of Culture: SUN Jiazheng
Min. of Education: ZHOU Ji
Min. of Finance: JIN Renqing
Min. of Foreign Affairs: LI Zhaoxing
Min. of Information Industry: WANG Xudong
Min. of Justice: WU Aiying
Min. of Labor & Social Security: TIAN Chengping
Min. of Land & Natural Resources: SUN Wensheng
Min. of National Defense: CAO Gangchuan
Min. of Personnel: ZHANG Bolin
Min. of Public Health: GAO Qiang
Min. of Public Security: ZHOU Yongkang
Min. of Railways: LIU Zhijun
Min. of Science & Technology: XU Guanhua
Min. of State Security: XU Yongyue
Min. of Supervision: LI Zhilun
Min. of Water Resources: WANG Shucheng
Pres., People's Bank of China: ZHOU Xiaochuan
Ambassador to the US: ZHOU Wenzhong
Permanent Representative to the UN, New York: WANG Guangya


POLITICAL CONDITIONS

Legal System

The government's efforts to promote rule of law are significant and ongoing. After the Cultural Revolution, China's leaders aimed to develop a legal system to restrain abuses of official authority and revolutionary excesses. In 1982, the National People's Congress adopted a new state constitution that emphasized the rule of law under which even party lead-ers are theoretically held accountable.

Since 1979, when the drive to establish a functioning legal system began, more than 300 laws and regulations, most of them in the economic area, have been promulgated. The use of mediation committees—informed groups of citizens who resolve about 90% of China's civil disputes and some minor criminal cases at no cost to the parties—is one innovative device. There are more than 800,000 such committees in both rural and urban areas.

Legal reform became a government priority in the 1990s. Legislation designed to modernize and professionalize the nation's lawyers, judges, and prisons was enacted. The 1994 Administrative Procedure Law allows citizens to sue officials for abuse of authority or malfeasance. In addition, the criminal law and the criminal procedures laws were amended to introduce significant reforms. The criminal law amendments abolished the crime of "counter-revolutionary" activity, although many persons are still incarcerated for that crime. Criminal procedures reforms also encouraged establishment of a more transparent, adversarial trial process. The Chinese constitution and laws provide for fundamental human rights, including due process, but these are often ignored in practice. In addition to other judicial reforms, the Constitution was amended in 2004 to include the protection of individual human rights and legally-obtained private property, but it is unclear how those provisions will be implemented.

Human Rights

The State Department's annual China human rights reports have noted China's well-documented abuses of human rights in violation of internationally recognized norms, stemming both from the authorities' intolerance of dissent and the inadequacy of legal safeguards for basic freedoms. Abuses reported have included arbitrary and lengthy incommunicado detention, forced confessions, torture, and mistreatment of prisoners as well as severe restrictions on freedom of speech, the press, assembly, association, religion, privacy, and worker rights.

At the same time, China's economic growth and reform since 1978 has improved dramatically the lives of hundreds of millions of Chinese, increased social mobility, and expanded the scope of personal freedom. This has meant substantially greater freedom of travel, employment opportunity, educational and cultural pursuits, job and housing choices, and access to information. In recent years, China has also passed new criminal and civil laws that provide additional safeguards to citizens. Village elections have been carried out in over 90% of China's one million villages.


ECONOMY

Economic Reforms

Since 1979, China has reformed and opened its economy. The Chinese leadership has adopted a more pragmatic perspective on many political and socioeconomic problems, and has reduced the role of ideology in economic policy. China's ongoing economic transformation has had a profound impact not only on China but on the world. The market-oriented reforms China has implemented over the past two decades have unleashed individual initiative and entrepreneurship. The result has been the largest reduction of poverty and one of the fastest increases in income levels ever seen. China today is the sixth-largest economy in the world. It is the fastest growing economy, and in 2004 its $1.65 trillion economy was about 1/7 the size of the U.S. economy.

In the 1980s, China tried to combine central planning with market-oriented reforms to increase productivity, living standards, and technological quality without exacerbating inflation, unemployment, and budget deficits. China pursued agricultural reforms, dismantling the commune system and introducing a household-based system that provided peasants greater decision-making in agricultural activities. The government also encouraged nonagri-cultural activities such as village enterprises in rural areas, and promoted more self-management for state-owned enterprises, increased competition in the marketplace, and facilitated direct contact between Chinese and foreign trading enterprises. China also relied more upon foreign financing and imports.

During the 1980s, these reforms led to average annual rates of growth of 10% in agricultural and industrial output. Rural per capita real income doubled. China became self-sufficient in grain production; rural industries accounted for 23% of agricultural output, helping absorb surplus labor in the countryside. The variety of light industrial and consumer goods increased. Reforms began in the fiscal, financial, banking, price-setting, and labor systems.

By the late 1980s, however, the economy had become overheated with increasing rates of inflation. At the end of 1988, in reaction to a surge of inflation caused by accelerated price reforms, the leadership introduced an austerity program.

China's economy regained momentum in the early 1990s. During a visit to southern China in early 1992, China's paramount leader at the time, Deng Xiaoping, made a series of political pronouncements designed to reinvigorate the process of economic reform. The 14th Party Congress later in the year backed Deng's renewed push for market reforms, stating that China's key task in the 1990s was to create a "socialist market economy." The 10-year development plan for the 1990s stressed continuity in the political system with bolder reform of the economic system.

China's economy grew at an average rate of 10% per year during the period 1990-2004, the highest growth rate in the world. China's gross domestic product (GDP) grew 9.3% in 2003, and even faster, 9.5%, in 2004, despite attempts by the government to cool the economy. China's total trade in 2004 surpassed $1.1 trillion, making China the world's third-largest trading nation after the U.S. and Germany.

Nevertheless, serious imbalances exist behind the spectacular trade performance, high investment flows, and high GDP growth. High numbers of non-performing loans weigh down the state-run banking system. Inefficient state-owned enterprises (SOEs) are still a drag on growth, despite announced efforts to sell, merge, or close the vast majority of SOEs.

Social and economic indicators have improved since reforms were launched, but rising inequality is evident between the more highly developed coastal provinces and the less developed, poorer inland regions. According to World Bank estimates, more than 152 million people in China in 2003-mostly in rural areas of the lagging inland provinces-still live in poverty, on consumption of less than US$1 a day.

Following the Chinese Communist Party's Third Plenum, held in October 2003, Chinese legislators unveiled several proposed amendments to the state constitution. One of the most significant was a proposal to provide protection for private property rights. Legislators also indicated there would be a new emphasis on certain aspects of overall government economic policy, including efforts to reduce unemployment (now in the 8-10% range in urban areas), to rebalance income distribution between urban and rural regions, and to maintain economic growth while protecting the environment and improving social equity. The National People's Congress approved the amendments when it met in March 2004.

Agriculture

China is the world's most populous country and one of the largest producers and consumers of agricultural products. Roughly half of China's labor force is engaged in agriculture, even though only 10% of the land is suitable for cultivation. Its cropland area is only 75% of the U.S. total, but China still produces about 30% more crops and livestock than the U.S. because of intensive cultivation, China is among the world's largest producers of rice, potatoes, sorghum, millet, barley, peanuts, tea, and pork. Major non-food crops include cotton, other fibers, and oilseeds. China hopes to further increase agricultural production through improved plant stocks, fertilizers, and technology. Incomes for Chinese farmers are stagnating, leading to an increasing wealth gap between the cities and countryside. Government policies that continue to emphasize grain self-sufficiency and the fact that farmers do not own—and cannot buy or sell—the land they work have contributed to this situation. In addition, inadequate port facilities and lack of ware-housing and cold storage facilities impede both domestic and international agricultural trade.

Industry

Industry and construction account for about 50% of China's GDP. Major industries are iron, steel, coal, machine building, light industrial products, armaments, textiles, shoes, toys, cement, and chemical fertilizers. China has become a preferred destination for the relocation of global manufacturing facilities. Its strength as an export platform has contributed to incomes and employment in China. The state-owned sector still accounts for about 40% of GDP. In recent years, authorities have been giving greater attention to the management of state assets – both in the financial market as well as among state-owned-enterprises – and progress has been noteworthy.

Energy

In 2003, China surpassed Japan to become the second-largest consumer of primary energy, after the United States. China is also the third-largest energy producer in the world, after the United States and Russia. China's electricity consumption is expected to grow by over 4% a year through 2030, which will require more than $2 trillion in electricity infrastructure investment to meet the demand. China expects to add approximately 15,000 megawatts of generating capacity a year, with 20% of that coming from foreign suppliers.

Coal makes up the bulk of China's energy consumption (64% in 2002), and China is the largest producer and consumer of coal in the world. As China's economy continues to grow, China's coal demand is projected to rise significantly. Although coal's share of China's overall energy consumption will decrease, coal consumption will continue to rise in absolute terms.

Due in large part to environmental concerns, Beijing would like to shift China's current energy mix toward greater reliance on oil, natural gas, renewable energy, and nuclear power. China has abundant hydroelectric resources; the Three Gorges Dam, for example, will have a total capacity of 18 gigawatts when fully on-line (projected for 2009). In addition, the share of electricity generated by nuclear power is projected to grow from 1% in 2000 to 5% in 2030. But while interest in renewable sources of energy is growing, except for hydro-power, their contribution to the over-all energy mix is unlikely to rise above 1%-2% in the near future.

Since 1993, China has been a net importer of oil. Net imports are expected to rise to 3.5 million barrels per day by 2010. China is interested in diversifying the sources of its oil imports and has invested in oil fields around the world. Beijing also plans to increase China's natural gas production, which currently accounts for only 3% of China's total energy consumption. Analysts expect China's consumption of natural gas to more than double by 2010.

Environment

One of the serious negative consequences of China's rapid industrial development has been increased pollution and degradation of natural resources. A 1998 World Health Organization report on air quality in 272 cities worldwide concluded that seven of the world's 10 most polluted cities were in China. According to China's own evaluation, two-thirds of the 338 cities for which air-quality data are available are considered polluted—two-thirds of them moderately or severely so. Respiratory and heart diseases related to air pollution are the leading cause of death in China. Almost all of the nation's rivers are considered polluted to some degree, and half of the population lacks access to clean water. Ninety percent of urban water bodies are severely polluted. Water scarcity also is an issue; for example, severe water scarcity in Northern China is a serious threat to sustained economic growth and the government has begun working on a project for a large-scale diversion of water from the Yangtze River to northern cities, including Beijing and Tianjin. Acid rain falls on 30% of the country. Various studies estimate pollution costs the Chinese economy 7-10% of GDP each year.

China's leaders are increasingly paying attention to the country's severe environmental problems. In March 1998, the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) was officially upgraded to a ministry-level agency, reflecting the growing importance the Chinese Government places on environmental protection. In recent years, China has strengthened its environmental legislation and made some progress in stemming environmental deterioration. In 1999, China invested more than 1% of GDP in environmental protection, a proportion that will likely increase in coming years. During the 10th Five-Year Plan, China plans to reduce total emissions by 10%. Beijing in particular is investing heavily in pollution control as part of its campaign to host a successful Olympiad in 2008. Some cities have seen improvement in air quality in recent years.

China is an active participant in climate change talks and other multi-lateral environmental negotiations, taking environmental challenges seriously but pushing for the developed world to help developing countries to a greater extent. It is a signatory to the Basel Convention governing the transport and disposal of hazardous waste and the Montreal Protocol for the Protection of the Ozone Layer, as well as the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species and other major environmental agreements.

The question of environmental impacts associated with the Three Gorges Dam project has generated controversy among environmentalists inside and outside China. Critics claim that erosion and silting of the Yangtze River threaten several endangered species, while Chinese officials say the dam will help prevent devastating floods and generate clean hydroelectric power that will enable the region to lower its dependence on coal, thus lessening air pollution.

The United States and China have been engaged in an active program of bilateral environmental cooperation since the mid-1990s, with an emphasis on clean energy technology and the design of effective environmental policy. While both governments view this cooperation positively, China has often compared the U.S. program, which lacks a foreign assistance component, with those of Japan and several European Union (EU) countries that include generous levels of aid.

Science and Technology

Science and technology have always preoccupied Chinas leaders; indeed, China's political leadership comes almost exclusively from technical backgrounds and has a high regard for science. Deng called it "the first productive force." Distortions in the economy and society created by party rule have severely hurt Chinese science, according to some Chinese science policy experts. The Chinese Academy of Sciences, modeled on the Soviet system, puts much of China's greatest scientific talent in a large, under-funded apparatus that remains largely isolated from industry, although the reforms of the past decade have begun to address this problem.

Chinese science strategists see China's greatest opportunities in newly emerging fields such as bio-technology and computers, where there is still a chance for China to become a significant player. Most Chinese students who went abroad have not returned, but they have built a dense network of trans-Pacific contacts that will greatly facilitate U.S.-China scientific cooperation in coming years. The U.S. space program is often held up as the standard of scientific modernity in China. China's small but growing space program, which put an astronaut into orbit in October 2003, is a focus of national pride.

The U.S.-China Science and Technology Agreement remains the framework for bilateral cooperation in this field. A 5-year agreement to extend the Science and Technology Agreement was signed in April 2001. There are currently over 26 active protocols and 60 annexes under the Agreement, covering cooperation in areas such as marine conservation, renewable energy, and health. Biennial Joint Commission Meetings on Science and Technology bring together policymakers from both sides to coordinate joint science and technology cooperation. Executive Secretaries meetings are held biennially to implement specific cooperation programs. Japan and the European Union also have high profile science and technology cooperative relationships with China.

Trade

China's merchandise exports totaled $593 billion and imports totaled $561 billion in 2004. Its global trade surplus was up by about 25%, to $32 billion. China's primary trading partners include Japan, the EU, the United States, South Korea, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. According to U.S. statistics, China had a trade surplus with the U.S. of $162 billion in 2004.

China has taken important steps to open its foreign trading system and integrate itself into the world trading system. In November 1991, China joined the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) group, which promotes free trade and cooperation in the economic, trade, investment, and technology spheres. China served as APEC chair in 2001, and Shanghai hosted the annual APEC leaders meeting in October of that year.

China formally joined the WTO in December 2001. As part of this farreaching trade liberalization agreement, China agreed to lower tariffs and abolish market impediments. Chinese and foreign businessmen, for example, gained the right to import and export on their own, and to sell their products without going through a government middleman. By 2005, average tariff rates on key U.S. agricultural exports dropped from 31% to 14% and on industrial products from 25% to 9%. The agreement also opens up new opportunities for U.S. providers of services like banking, insurance, and telecommunications. China has made significant progress implementing its WTO commitments, but serious concerns remain, particularly in the realm of intellectual property rights protection.

Export growth continues to be a major component supporting China's rapid economic growth. To increase exports, China has pursued policies such as fostering the rapid development of foreign-invested factories, which assemble imported components into consumer goods for export, and liberalizing trading rights.

The United States is one of China's primary suppliers of power generating equipment, aircraft and parts, computers and industrial machinery, raw materials, and chemical and agricultural products. However, U.S. exporters continue to have concerns about fair market access due to strict testing and standards requirements for some imported products. In addition, a lack of transparency in the regulatory process makes it difficult for businesses to plan for changes in the domestic market structure.

Foreign Investment

China's investment climate has changed dramatically in 24 years of reform. In the early 1980s, China restricted foreign investments to export-oriented operations and required foreign investors to form joint-venture partnerships with Chinese firms. Foreign direct investment (FDI) grew quickly during the 1980s, but stalled in late 1989 in the aftermath of Tiananmen. In response, the government introduced legislation and regulations designed to encourage foreigners to invest in high-priority sectors and regions. Since the early 1990s, China has allowed foreign investors to manufacture and sell a wide range of goods on the domestic market, and authorized the establishment of wholly foreign-owned enterprises, now the preferred form of FDI. However, the Chinese government's emphasis on guiding FDI into manufacturing has led to market saturation in some industries, while leaving China's services sectors underdeveloped. China is now one of the leading recipients of FDI in the world, receiving $64 billion in 2004, for a cumulative total of $563.8 billion.

As part of China's accession to the World Trade Organization in 2001, China undertook to eliminate certain trade-related investment measures and to open up specified sectors that had previously been closed to foreign investment. New laws, regulations, and administrative measures to implement these commitments are being issued. Major remaining barriers to foreign investment include opaque and inconsistently enforced laws and regulations and the lack of a rules-based legal infrastructure.

Opening to the outside remains central to China's development. Foreign-invested enterprises produce about half of China's exports, and China continues to attract large investment inflows. Foreign exchange reserves totaled $610 billion in 2004.


FOREIGN RELATIONS

Since its establishment, the People's Republic has worked vigorously to win international support for its position that it is the sole legitimate government of all China, including Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. In the early 1970s, Beijing was recognized diplomatically by most world powers. Beijing assumed the China seat in the United Nations in 1971 and became increasingly active in multi-lateral organizations. Japan established diplomatic relations with China in 1972, and the U.S. did so in 1979. The number of countries that have established diplomatic relations with Beijing has risen to 159, while 25 have diplomatic relations with Taiwan.

After the founding of the P.R.C., China's foreign policy initially focused on solidarity with the Soviet Union and other communist countries. In 1950, China sent the People's Liberation Army into North Korea as "volunteers" to help North Korea halt the UN offensive that was approaching the Yalu River. After the conclusion of the Korean conflict, China sought to balance its identification as a member of the Soviet bloc by establishing friendly relations with Pakistan and other Third World countries, particularly in Southeast Asia.

In the 1960s, Beijing competed with Moscow for political influence among communist parties and in the developing world generally. Following the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia and clashes in 1969 on the Sino-Soviet border, Chinese competition with the Soviet Union increasingly reflected concern over China's own strategic position.

In late 1978, the Chinese also became concerned over Vietnam's efforts to establish open control over Laos and Cambodia. In response to the Soviet-backed Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia, China fought a brief border war with Vietnam (February-March 1979) with the stated purpose of "teaching Vietnam a lesson."

Chinese anxiety about Soviet strategic advances was heightened following the Soviet Union's December 1979 invasion of Afghanistan. Sharp differences between China and the Soviet Union persisted over Soviet support for Vietnam's continued occupation of Cambodia, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and Soviet troops along the Sino-Soviet border and in Mongolia—the so-called "three obstacles" to improved Sino-Soviet relations.

In the 1970s and 1980s China sought to create a secure regional and global environment for itself and to foster good relations with countries that could aid its economic development. To this end, China looked to the West for assistance with its modernization drive and for help in countering Soviet expansionism, which it characterized as the greatest threat to its national security and to world peace.

China maintained its consistent opposition to "superpower hegemony," focusing almost exclusively on the expansionist actions of the Soviet Union and Soviet proxies such as Vietnam and Cuba, but it also placed growing emphasis on a foreign policy independent of both the U.S. and the Soviet Union. While improving ties with the West, China continued to follow closely economic and other positions of the Third World nonaligned movement, although China was not a formal member.

In the immediate aftermath of Tiananmen crackdown in June 1989, many countries reduced their diplomatic contacts with China as well as their economic assistance programs. In response, China worked vigorously to expand its relations with foreign countries, and by late 1990, had reestablished normal relations with almost all nations. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in late 1991, China also opened diplomatic relations with the republics of the former Soviet Union.

In recent years, Chinese leaders have been regular travelers to all parts of the globe, and China has sought a higher profile in the UN through its permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council and other multilateral organizations. Closer to home, China has made efforts to reduce tensions in Asia; it has contributed to stability on the Korean Peninsula through hosting and participating in the Six-Party Talks, cultivated a more cooperative relationship with members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Brunei, Burma, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam), and participated in the ASEAN Regional Forum. Its moves to play a greater regional leadership role in Asia and, especially, the success of its "charm offensive" in Southeast Asia are examples of a new, more mature diplomacy that China has begun to evince. China is also working hard to strengthen ties with countries in South Asia, including India. Premier Wen recently made a sweeping tour throughout South Asia. China has likewise improved ties with Russia. President Putin and President Jiang signed a Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation in July 2001 and the two countries plan a joint-military exercise in 2005. The two also joined with the Central Asian nations of Kazakh-stan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan to establish the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in June 2001. The SCO is designed to promote regional stability and cooperate to combat terrorism in the region. China has a number of border and maritime disputes, including with Vietnam in the Gulf of Tonkin, with a number of countries in the South China Sea, as well as with Japan and India. Beijing has resolved many of its border and maritime disputes, notably including a November 1997 agreement with Russia that resolved almost all outstanding border issues and a 2000 agreement with Vietnam to resolve some differences over their maritime border, though disagreements remain over islands in the South China Sea. Finally, China's outreach extends to countries in the Middle East and Africa like Iran and Sudan, which are sources of oil and other resources and welcome China's involvement in building their infrastructure.


DEFENSE

Establishment of a professional military force equipped with modern weapons and doctrine was the last of the "Four Modernizations" announced by Zhou Enlai and supported by Deng Xiaoping. In keeping with Deng's mandate to reform, the People's Liberation Army (PLA), which includes the strategic nuclear forces, army, navy, and air force, has demobilized millions of men and women since 1978 and introduced modern methods in such areas as recruitment and manpower, strategy, and education and training.

Following the June 1989 Tiananmen crackdown, ideological correctness was temporarily revived as the dominant theme in Chinese military affairs. Reform and modernization appear to have since resumed their position as the PLA's priority objectives, although the armed forces' political loyalty to the CCP remains a leading concern.

The Chinese military is trying to transform itself from a land-based power, centered on a vast ground force, to a smaller, mobile, high-tech military capable of mounting defensive operations beyond its coastal borders.

China's power-projection capability is limited but has grown over recent years. China has acquired some advanced weapons systems, including Sovremmeny destroyers, SU-27 and SU-30 aircraft, and Kilo-class diesel submarines from Russia. However, the mainstay of the air force continues to be the 1960s-vintage F-7, and naval forces still consist primarily of 1960s-era technology.

Nuclear Weapons and Arms Control Policy

Nuclear Weapons

In 1955, Mao Zedong's Chinese Communist Party decided to proceed with a nuclear weapons program; it was developed with Soviet assistance until 1960. After its first nuclear test in October 1964, Beijing deployed a modest but potent ballistic missile force, including land- and sea-based intermediate-range and intercontinental ballistic missiles.

China became a major international arms exporter during the 1980s. Beijing joined the Middle East arms control talks, which began in July 1991 to establish global guidelines for conventional arms transfers, but announced in September 1992 that it would no longer participate because of the U.S. decision to sell F-16A/B aircraft to Taiwan.

China was the first state to pledge "no first use" of nuclear weapons. It joined the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in 1984 and pledged to abstain from further atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons in 1986. China acceded to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1992 and supported its indefinite and unconditional extension in 1995. In 1996, it signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and agreed to seek an international ban on the production of fissile nuclear weapons material. To date, China has not ratified the CTBT.

In 1996, China committed not to provide assistance to un-safeguarded nuclear facilities. China attended the May 1997 meeting of the NPT Exporters (Zangger) Committee as an observer and became a full member in October 1997. The Zangger Committee is a group that meets to list items that should be subject to IAEA inspections if exported by countries that have, as China has, signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty. In September 1997, China issued detailed nuclear export control regulations. China began implementing regulations establishing controls over nuclear-related dual-use items in 1998. China also has decided not to engage in new nuclear cooperation with Iran (even under safeguards), and will complete existing cooperation, which is not of proliferation concern, within a relatively short period. In May 2004, with the support of the United States, China became a member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group.

Based on significant, tangible progress with China on nuclear nonproliferation, President Clinton in 1998 took steps to bring into force the 1985 U.S.-China Agreement on Peaceful Nuclear Cooperation.

Chemical Weapons

China is not a member of the Australia Group, an informal and voluntary arrangement made in 1985 to monitor developments in the proliferation of dual-use chemicals and to coordinate export controls on key dual-use chemicals and equipment with weapons applications. In April 1997, however, China ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) and, in September 1997, promulgated a new chemical weapons export control directive. In October 2002, China promulgated updated regulations on dual-use chemical agents, and now controls all the major items on the Australia Group control list.

Missiles

While not formally joining the regime, in March 1992 China undertook to abide by the guidelines and parameters of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), the multinational effort to restrict the proliferation of missiles capable of delivering weapons of mass destruction. China reaffirmed this commitment in 1994, and pledged not to transfer MTCR-class ground-to-ground missiles. In November 2000, China committed not to assist in any way the development by other countries of MTCR-class missiles. On August 29, 2003, the U.S. government imposed missile proliferation sanctions on the Chinese company China North Industries Corporation (NORINCO) after determining that it was knowingly involved in the transfer of equipment and technology controlled under Category II of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) Annex that contributed to MTCR-class missiles in a non-MTCR country. The penalties imposed are:

  • A 2-year ban on all new individual export licenses for Commerce Department- or State Department-controlled MTCR Annex items, and on all new U.S. Government contracts related to MTCR Annex items.
  • In addition, because a Chinese entity engaged in sanctionable activity, U.S. law also requires a 2-year ban on new licenses for State Department-controlled MTCR exports and on new U.S. Government contracts for MTCR items associated with all activities of the Chinese Government involved in the development or production of MTCR Annex items, electronics, space systems or equipment, and military aircraft.

In December 2003, the P.R.C. promulgated comprehensive new export control regulations governing exports of all categories of sensitive technologies.


U.S.-CHINA RELATIONS

From Liberation to the Shanghai Communiqué

As the PLA armies moved south to complete the communist conquest of China in 1949, the American Embassy followed the Nationalist government headed by Chiang Kaishek, finally moving to Taipei later that year. U.S. consular officials remained in mainland China. The new P.R.C. Government was hostile to this official American presence, and all U.S. personnel were withdrawn from the mainland in early 1950. Any remaining hope of normalizing relations ended when U.S. and Chinese communist forces fought on opposing sides in the Korean conflict.

Beginning in 1954 and continuing until 1970, the United States and China held 136 meetings at the ambassadorial level, first at Geneva and later at Warsaw. In the late 1960s, U.S. and Chinese political leaders decided that improved bilateral relations were in their common interest. In 1969, the United States initiated measures to relax trade restrictions and other impediments to bilateral contact. On July 15, 1971, President Nixon announced that his Assistant for National Security Affairs, Dr. Henry Kissinger, had made a secret trip to Beijing to initiate direct contact with the Chinese leadership and that he, the President, had been invited to visit China.

In February 1972, President Nixon traveled to Beijing, Hangzhou, and Shanghai. At the conclusion of his trip, the U.S. and Chinese Governments issued the "Shanghai Communiqué," a statement of their foreign policy views. (For the complete text of the Shanghai Communiqué, see the Department of State Bulletin, March 20, 1972).

In the Communiqué, both nations pledged to work toward the full normalization of diplomatic relations. The U.S. acknowledged the Chinese position that all Chinese on both sides of the Taiwan Strait maintain that there is only one China and that Taiwan is part of China. The statement enabled the U.S. and China to temporarily set aside the "crucial question obstructing the normalization of relations"—Taiwan—and to open trade and other contacts.

Liaison Office, 1973-78

In May 1973, in an effort to build toward the establishment of formal diplomatic relations, the U.S. and China established the United States Liaison Office (USLO) in Beijing and a counterpart Chinese office in Washington, DC. In the years between 1973 and 1978, such distinguished Americans as David Bruce, George H.W. Bush, Thomas Gates, and Leonard Woodcock served as chiefs of the USLO with the personal rank of Ambassador.

President Ford visited China in 1975 and reaffirmed the U.S. interest in normalizing relations with Beijing. Shortly after taking office in 1977, President Carter again reaffirmed the interest expressed in the Shanghai Communiqué. The United States and China announced on December 15, 1978, that the two governments would establish diplomatic relations on January 1, 1979.

Normalization

In the Joint Communiqué on the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations dated January 1, 1979, the United States transferred diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing. The U.S. reiterated the Shanghai Communiqué's acknowledgment of the Chinese position that there is only one China and that Taiwan is a part of China; Beijing acknowledged that the American people would continue to carry on commercial, cultural, and other unofficial contacts with the people of Taiwan. The Taiwan Relations Act made the necessary changes in U.S. domestic law to permit such unofficial relations with Taiwan to flourish.

U.S.-China Relations Since Normalization

Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping's January 1979 visit to Washington, DC, initiated a series of important, high-level exchanges, which continued until the spring of 1989. This resulted in many bilateral agreements—especially in the fields of scientific, technological, and cultural interchange and trade relations. Since early 1979, the United States and China have initiated hundreds of joint research projects and cooperative programs under the Agreement on Cooperation in Science and Technology, the largest bilateral program.

On March 1, 1979, the United States and China formally established embassies in Beijing and Washington, DC. During 1979, outstanding private claims were resolved, and a bilateral trade agreement was concluded. Vice President Walter Mon-dale reciprocated Vice Premier Deng's visit with an August 1979 trip to China. This visit led to agreements in September 1980 on maritime affairs, civil aviation links, and textile matters, as well as a bilateral consular convention.

As a consequence of high-level and working-level contacts initiated in 1980, U.S. dialogue with China broadened to cover a wide range of issues, including global and regional strategic problems, political-military questions, including arms control, UN and other multilateral organization affairs, and international narcotics matters.

The expanding relationship that followed normalization was threatened in 1981 by Chinese objections to the level of U.S. arms sales to Taiwan. Secretary of State Alexander Haig visited China in June 1981 in an effort to resolve Chinese questions about America's unofficial relations with Taiwan. Eight months of negotiations produced the U.S.-China joint communiqué of August 17, 1982. In this third communiqué, the U.S. stated its intention to reduce gradually the level of arms sales to Taiwan, and the Chinese described as a fundamental policy their effort to strive for a peaceful resolution to the Taiwan question. Meanwhile, Vice President Bush visited China in May 1982.

High-level exchanges continued to be a significant means for developing U.S.-China relations in the 1980s. President Reagan and Premier Zhao Ziyang made reciprocal visits in 1984. In July 1985, President Li Xiannian traveled to the United States, the first such visit by a Chinese head of state. Vice President Bush visited China in October 1985 and opened the U.S. Consulate General in Chengdu, the U.S.'s fourth consular post in China. Further exchanges of cabinet-level officials occurred between 1985-89, capped by President Bush's visit to Beijing in February 1989.

In the period before the June 3-4, 1989 crackdown, a large and growing number of cultural exchange activities undertaken at all levels gave the American and Chinese peoples broad exposure to each other's cultural, artistic, and educational achievements. Numerous Chinese professional and official delegations visited the United States each month. Many of these exchanges continued after Tiananmen.

Bilateral Relations After Tiananmen

Following the Chinese authorities' brutal suppression of demonstrators in June 1989, the U.S. and other governments enacted a number of measures to express their condemnation of China's blatant violation of the basic human rights of its citizens. The U.S. suspended high-level official exchanges with China and weapons exports from the U.S. to China. The U.S. also imposed a number of economic sanctions. In the summer of 1990, at the G-7 Houston summit, Western nations called for renewed political and economic reforms in China, particularly in the field of human rights.

Tiananmen disrupted the U.S.-China trade relationship, and U.S. investors' interest in China dropped dramatically. The U.S. Government also responded to the political repression by suspending certain trade and investment programs on June 5 and 20, 1989. Some sanctions were legislated; others were executive actions. Examples include:

  • The U.S. Trade and Development Agency (TDA)—new activities in China were suspended from June 1989 until January 2001, when then-President Clinton lifted this suspension.
  • Overseas Private Insurance Corporation (OPIC)—new activities suspended since June 1989.
  • Development Bank Lending/IMF Credits—the United States does not support development bank lending and will not support IMF credits to China except for projects that address basic human needs.
  • Munitions List Exports—subject to certain exceptions, no licenses may be issued for the export of any defense article on the U.S. Munitions List. This restriction may be waived upon a presidential national interest determination.
  • Arms Imports—import of defense articles from China was banned after the imposition of the ban on arms exports to China. The import ban was subsequently waived by the Administration and re-imposed on May 26, 1994. It covers all items on the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives' Munitions Import List.

In 1996, the P.R.C. conducted military exercises in waters close to Taiwan in an apparent effort at intimidation. The United States dispatched two aircraft carrier battle groups to the region. Subsequently, tensions in the Taiwan Strait diminished, and relations between the U.S. and China have improved, with increased high-level exchanges and progress on numerous bilateral issues, including human rights, nonproliferation, and trade. Former Chinese president Jiang Zemin visited the United States in the fall of 1997, the first state visit to the U.S. by a Chinese president since 1985. In connection with that visit, the two sides reached agreement on implementation of their 1985 agreement on peaceful nuclear cooperation, as well as a number of other issues. Former President Clinton visited China in June 1998. He traveled extensively in China, and direct interaction with the Chinese people included live speeches and a radio show, allowing the President to convey first-hand to the Chinese people a sense of American ideals and values.

Relations between the U.S. and China were severely strained by the tragic accidental bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade in May 1999. By the end of 1999, relations began to gradually improve. In October 1999, the two sides reached agreement on humanitarian payments for families of those who died and those who were injured as well as payments for damages to respective diplomatic properties in Belgrade and China.

In April 2001, a Chinese F-8 fighter collided with a U.S. EP-3 reconnaissance aircraft flying over international waters south of China. The EP-3 was able to make an emergency landing on China's Hainan Island despite extensive damage; the P.R.C. aircraft crashed with the loss of its pilot. Following extensive negotiations, the crew of the EP-3 was allowed to leave China 11 days later, but the U.S. aircraft was not permitted to depart for another 3 months.

Subsequently, the relationship, which had cooled following the incident, gradually improved.

Following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks (9-11) in New York City and Washington, DC, China offered strong public support for the war on terrorism and has been an important partner in U.S. counterterrorism efforts. China voted in favor of UN Security Council Resolution 1373, publicly supported the coalition campaign in Afghanistan, and contributed $150 million of bilateral assistance to Afghan reconstruction following the defeat of the Taliban. China also pledged $25 million to the reconstruction of Iraq. Shortly after 9-11, the U.S. and China also commenced a counterterrorism dialogue. The fourth round of that dialogue was held in Washington in June 2004.

China and the U.S. have also been working closely on regional issues, especially North Korea. It has played a vital role in hosting and actively participating in the Six-Party Talks. We have told China that it has unique influence over the D.P.R.K. and asked it to use its leverage to help bring it back to the table and agree to abandon all of its nuclear programs.

U.S.-China relations are sometimes complicated by events in Taiwan and Hong Kong. At various points in the past several years, China has expressed concern about the U.S. making statements on the political evolution of Hong Kong and has stressed that political stability there is paramount for economic growth. The NPC's passage of an Anti-Secession law in March 2005 was viewed as unhelpful to the cause of promoting cross-Strait and regional stability by the U.S. and precipitated critical high-level statements by both sides.

U.S.-China Economic Relations

U.S. direct investment in China covers a wide range of manufacturing sectors, several large hotel projects, restaurant chains, and petrochemicals. U.S. companies have entered agreements establishing more than 20,000 equity joint ventures, contractual joint ventures, and wholly foreign-owned enterprises in China. More than 100 U.S.-based multinationals have projects in China, some with multiple investments. Cumulative U.S. investment in China is valued at $48 billion.

Total two-way trade between China and the U.S. grew from $33 billion in 1992 to over $230 billion in 2004. The United States is China's second-largest trading partner, and China is now the third-largest trading partner for the United States (after Canada and Mexico). U.S. exports to China have been growing more rapidly than to any other market (up 28.4% in 2003 and 20% in 2004). U.S. imports from China grew 29%, with the U.S. trade deficit with China exceeding $162 billion in 2004. Some of the factors that influence the U.S. trade deficit with China include:

  • A shift of low-end assembly industries to China from the newly industrialized economies (NIEs) in Asia. China has increasingly become the last link in a long chain of value-added production. Because U.S. trade data attributes the full value of a product to the final assembler, Chinese value-added gets over-counted.
  • U.S. demand for labor-intensive goods exceeds domestic output.
  • China's restrictive trade practices, which have included an array of barriers to foreign goods and services, often aimed at protecting state-owned enterprises. Under its WTO accession agreement, China is reducing tariffs and eliminating import licensing requirements, as well as addressing other trade barriers.

The U.S. approach to its economic relations with China has two main elements:

First, the United States seeks to fully integrate China into the global, rules-based economic and trading system. China's participation in the global economy will nurture the process of economic reform and increase China's stake in the stability and prosperity of East Asia.

Second, the United States seeks to expand U.S. exporters' and investors' access to the Chinese market. As China grows and develops, its needs for imported goods and services will grow even more rapidly. The U.S. government will continue to work with China's leadership to ensure conformity with China's WTO commitments, in order to increase U.S. exports of goods, agricultural products, and services to the P.R.C.

Principal U.S. Embassy Officials

CHENGDU (CG) Address: No. 4 Lingshiguan Lu, Chengdu, Sichuan 610041, PRC; APO/FPO: PSC 461 Box 85, FPO AP 96521; Phone: 86-28-8558-3992; Fax: 86-28-8558-3520; Workweek: 8:30-5:30; Website: http://www.osis.gov/state/posts/chengdu/

CG:Jeffrey A. Moon
CG OMS:Deborah Vaughn
PO:Jeffrey A. Moon
POL:Kate Pongonis
POL/ECO:Marybeth Krumm
CON:Dave Hillon
MGT:Jeannette Juricic
AFSA:Deborah Vaughn
CLO:vacant
ECO:vacant
EEO:Kate Pongonis
EST:vacant
FCS:vacant
GSO:Ed Waters
IMO:David Foster
IPO:David Foster
ISO:CJ Baltz
ISSO:David Foster
OMS:Nomsa Gonzales
PAO:John Louton
RSO:Monica Byler
State ICASS:Jeannette Juricic
Last Updated: 12/19/2005

GUANGZHOU (CG) Address: #1 Shamian South Road, Guangzhou CHINA 510133; APO/FPO: PSC 461, Box 100. FPO AP 96521-0002; Phone: (86)(20) 8121-8000; Fax: (86) (20) 8184-6296; Workweek: 8:30 AM-5:30 PM

CG:Edward K.H. Dong
COM:Robert Murphy
CON:William J. Martin
MGT:Jeffrey Rock
AGR:Keith Schneller
ECO:James J. Turner
GSO:Hong-Geok Maerkle
INS:Jackie Wong
IPO:Frank Landymore
PAO:Darcy Zotter
RSO:Michael Brenn
Last Updated: 11/3/2005

SHANGHAI (CG) Address: 1469 Huai Hai Zhong Lu, Shanghai 200031 PRC; APO/FPO: PSC 461, Box 200, FPO AP 96521-0200; Phone: 86-21-6433-3936; Fax: 86-21-6433-4122; INMARSAT Tel: 881676310550; Workweek: 8:00 am-5:00 pm; Website: www.usembassychina.org.cn/shanghai/

CG:Kenneth Jarrett
CG OMS:Josephine Schaefer
PO:Kenneth Jarrett, CG
POL:Mary Tarnowka
COM:Ira Kasoff
CON:George Hogeman
MGT:Andrea Baker
AFSA:Paul Thomas
ATO:Ross Kreamer
CLO:Kimberly Albright
ECO:Mary Tarnowka
EEO:Jean Pierre-Louis
FIN:Andrea Baker
GSO:Jean Pierre-Louis
ICASS Chair:Sub Group Only
IPO:William Iglhaut
ISO:Thomas Lacy
ISSO:Troy Jackson
PAO:Jennifer Galt
RSO:Brendan Murray
State ICASS:Andrea Baker
Last Updated: 9/8/2005

SHENYANG (CG) Address: US CONSULATE-SHENYANG; APO/FPO: PSC 461, Box 45; FPO AP 96521-0002; Phone: 86-24-2322-0848; Fax: 86-24-2322-1733; Workweek: 0830-1730; Website: http://www.usembassy-china.org.cn/consulates/shenyang/

CG:David A. Kornbluth
CG OMS:Kathy Kong
COM:Soching Tsai
CON:Douglas Kelly
MGT:Joseph E. Zadrozny
CLO:Robin Young
ECO:Laurel Steele
EEO:Seth Patch
GSO:Seth L Patch
IPO:John Meradith
ISO:Robert Weber
ISSO:John Meradith
PAO:Joseph P Kruzich
RSO:John Young
Last Updated: 12/29/2005

BEIJING (M) Address: No. 3 Xiu Shui Bei Jie; APO/FPO: PSC 461 Box 50 FPO, AP 96521; Phone: 8610-6532-3831; Fax: 8610-6532-6929; Work-week: 0800-1700; Website: http://www.usembassy-china.org.cn/

AMB:Clark T. Randt, Jr.
AMB OMS:Joan Bower
DCM:David S. Sedney
DCM OMS:Kim Tesone
CG:Michael Regan
CG OMS:Barb Szczerpaniak
POL:Daniel L. Shields
MGT:James R. VanLaningham
AGR:Maurice W. House
APHIS:Theresa Boyle
ATO:Laverne Brabant
CLO:Pamela T. Ayoung
COM/ADB:Craig Allen
CUS:Andy Yu
DAO:Ralph Jodice
DEA:James Tse
ECO:Robert S. Wang
EEO:Katherine Lawson
EST:Deborah J. Seligsohn
FAA:Joseph P. Tymczyszyn
FMO:Mazhar Ahson
GSO:Dan Romano
ICASS Chair:Brad Fribley
IMO:Heywood Miller
INS:Carlton Ayoung
IPO:Jim Wojciechowski
ISO:Thomas Martin
ISSO:Nancy Yoas
LAB:Helen C. Hudson
LEGATT:William Liu
PAO:Donald M. Bishop
RSO:Bob Eckert
Last Updated: 10/31/2005

TRAVEL

Consular Information Sheet

September 13, 2005

Country Description:

China was established on October 1, 1949, with Beijing as its capital city. With well over 1.3 billion citizens, China is the world's most populous country and the third largest country in the world in terms of territory. China is under-going rapid, profound economic and social change and development. Political power remains centralized in the Chinese Communist Party. Modern tourist facilities are available in major cities, but many facilities in smaller provincial cities and rural areas are frequently below international standards.

Entry/Exit Requirements:

A valid passport and visa are required to enter China and must be obtained from Chinese Embassies and Consulates before traveling to China. Americans arriving without valid passports and the appropriate Chinese visa are not permitted to enter and will be subject to a fine and immediate deportation at the traveler's expense. Travelers should not rely on Chinese host organizations claiming to be able to arrange a visa upon arrival. Chinese authorities have recently tightened their visa issuance policy, in some cases requiring personal interviews of American citizens and regularly issuing one or two entry visas valid for short periods only.

Visas are required to transit China. Persons transiting China on the way to and from Mongolia or North Korea or who plan to re-enter from the Hong Kong or Macau Special Administrative Regions should be sure to obtain visas allowing multiple entries. Permits are required to visit Tibet as well as many remote areas not normally open to foreigners.

For information about entry requirements and restricted areas, travelers may consult the Visa Office of the Embassy of China (PRC) at Room 110, 2201 Wisconsin Avenue, N.W., Washington D.C. 20007, or telephone (1-202) 338-6688 and (1-202) 588-9760. For a list of services and frequently asked visa questions and answers, travelers can view the Chinese Embassy's web sites at http://www.china-embassy.org/. The Chinese Embassy's visa section may be reached by e-mail at [email protected]. There are Chinese Consulates General in Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco. Americans traveling in Asia have been able to obtain visas to enter China from the Chinese visa office in Hong Kong and the Embassy of China in Seoul, South Korea.

Americans who overstay or otherwise violate the terms of their Chinese visas will be subject to a maximum fine of 5,000 RMB (approximately $600) and departure delays and may be subject to detention. Travelers should note that international flights departing China are routinely over-booked, making reconfirmation of departure reservations and early airport check-in essential. Passengers must pay a RMB 90 airport user fee (approximately $11 US) when departing China on international flights and RMB 50 airport fee (approximately US $6.10) for all domestic flights.

Note:

the airport user fee is now included in your ticket price, so travelers do not have to be prepared to pay separately.

In an effort to prevent international child abduction, many governments have initiated new procedures at entry/exit points. These often include requiring documentary evidence of relationship and permission for the child's travel from the parent(s) or legal guardian if they are not present. Having such documentation on hand, even if not required, may facilitate entry/departure.

Safety and Security:

Americans visiting or residing in China are advised to take the normal safety precautions travelers take when in any foreign country. Specifically, travelers should remain aware of their surroundings and of events that are happening around them. Travelers should respect local police requirements to temporarily avoid travel in some areas. In light of the greatly increased numbers of older Americans traveling to China, U.S. tour operators should check that local guides are familiar with medical facilities and emergency medical evacuation procedures.

American citizens who rent apartments with gas appliances should be aware that, in some areas, natural gas is not scented to warn occupants of gas leaks or concentrations. In addition, heaters may not always be well vented, thereby allowing excess carbon monoxide to build up in living spaces. Due to fatal accidents involving American citizens, travelers are advised to ensure all gas appliances are properly vented or to install gas and carbon monoxide detectors in their residences. These devices are not widely available in China and should be purchased prior to arrival.

Chinese security personnel may place under surveillance foreign government officials, journalists, and business people with access to advanced proprietary technology. Hotel rooms and personal computing devices for these categories of visitors may be subject to search without the consent or knowledge of the traveler.

Terrorism is rare in China, although a small number of bombings occurred in areas throughout China. Recent bombings have largely been criminal activity, frequently the result of commercial disputes. Last year there were over 74,000 incidents of social unrest according to Chinese government figures. The vast majority of these are small-scale local incidents related to disputes over land seizures, social issues or environmental problems. While some incidents have grown to larger scales and involved some violence, these demonstrations have not been directed against foreigners. In April 2005 anti-Japanese demonstrations resulted in property damage and some reports of violence being directed against foreigners of Asian appearance.

Recently, there have been a few instances in Beijing and elsewhere of mobs in bar districts attacking foreigners. Disputes among Chinese citizens or between Chinese and foreigners can quickly turn against foreigners. Caution should be exercised when visiting bar districts late at night, especially on weekends.

Security personnel may at times place foreign visitors under surveillance. Hotel rooms, telephones and fax machines may be monitored, and personal possessions in hotel rooms may be searched. Taking photo-graphs of anything that could be perceived as being of military or security interest may result in problems with authorities.

For the latest security information, Americans traveling abroad should regularly monitor the Department's Internet web site at http://travel.state.gov where the current Travel Warnings and Public Announcements, including the Worldwide Caution Public Announcement, can be found. Up-to-date information on safety and security can also be obtained by calling 1-888-407-4747 toll free in the U.S., or for callers outside the U.S. and Canada, a regular toll-line at 1-202-501-4444. These numbers are available from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time, Monday through Friday (except U.S. federal holidays).

Crime:

Overall, China is generally a safe country, with a fairly low but increasing crime rate. Pickpockets target tourists at sightseeing destinations, open-air markets, airports, and in stores, often with the complicity of low-paid security guards. Violence against foreigners, while rare, is on the increase. Over the past year incidents of violence against foreigners, including sexual assaults, have taken place, usually in urban areas where bars and nightclubs are located. Robberies, sometimes at gunpoint, have occurred in western China and more recently in Beijing. There have been some reports of robberies and assaults along remote mountain highways near China 's border with Nepal. Travelers are sometimes asked by locals to exchange money at a preferential rate. It is illegal to exchange dollars for RMB except at banks, hotels and official exchange offices. Due to the large volume of counterfeit currency in China, unofficial exchanges usually result in travelers losing their money and possibly left to face charges of breaking foreign exchange laws. If detained by police under suspicion of committing an economic crime involving currency, travelers may be delayed for weeks or months while police investigate the allegations.

Travelers should have small bills (RMB 10, 20 and 50 notes) for travel by taxi. Reports of taxi drivers using counterfeit RMB 50 and 100 notes to make change for large bills are increasingly common. Be sure to get a receipt from the taxi driver.

Throughout China, women outside hotels in tourist districts frequently use the prospect of companionship or sex to lure foreign men to isolated locations where accomplices are waiting for the purpose of robbery. Travelers should not allow themselves to be driven to bars or an individual's home unless they know the person making the offer. Hotel guests should refuse to open their room doors to anyone they do not know personally.

American visitors to China should carry their passports with them out of reach of pickpockets. Americans with Chinese residence permits (juliuzheng) should carry these documents, and leave their passports in a secure location except when traveling. All Americans are encouraged to make photocopies of their passport bio-data pages and Chinese visas and to keep these in a separate, secure location, and to register with the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate General. Please note the contact information below for registration by e-mail addresses.

Information for Victims of Crime:

The loss or theft abroad of a U.S. passport should be reported immediately to the local police and the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate. If you are the victim of a crime while over-seas, in addition to reporting to local police, please contact the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate for assistance. The Embassy/Consulate staff can, for example, assist you to find appropriate medical care, contact family members or friends and explain how funds could be transferred. Although the investigation and prosecution of the crime is solely the responsibility of local authorities, consular officers can help you to understand the local criminal justice process and to find an attorney if needed.

Medical Facilities and Health Information:

Western-style medical facilities with international staffs are available in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and a few other large cities. Many other hospitals in major Chinese cities have so-called VIP wards (gaogan bingfang). These feature reasonably up-to-date medical technology and physicians who are both knowledgeable and skilled. Most VIP wards also provide medical services to foreigners and have English-speaking doctors and nurses. Most hospitals in China will not accept medical insurance from the United States, with the exception of the following hospitals, which are on the BlueCross BlueShield's worldwide network providers-overseas network hospitals' list (http://www.fepblue.org/wasite/wabenefits/wabenefitsoverseas04.html): Hong Kong Adventist Hospital, Beijing United Family Hospital, Beijing Friendship Hospital, International Medical Center in Beijing, and Peking Union Medical Center. Travelers will be asked to post a deposit prior to admission to cover the expected cost of treatment. Hospitals in major cities may accept credit cards for payment. Even in the VIP/Foreigner wards of major hospitals, however, American patients have frequently encountered difficulty due to cultural and regulatory differences. Physicians and hospitals have sometimes refused to supply American patients with complete copies of their Chinese hospital medical records, including laboratory test results, scans, and x-rays. All Americans traveling to China are strongly encouraged to buy foreign medical care and medical evacuation insurance prior to arrival. Travelers who want a list of modern medical facilities in China can access that information at the Embassy's website.

Ambulances do not carry sophisticated medical equipment. Injured or seriously ill Americans may be required to take taxis or other immediately available vehicles to the nearest major hospital rather than waiting for ambulances to arrive. In rural areas, only rudimentary medical facilities are generally available with often poorly trained medical personnel who have little medical equipment and medications. Rural clinics are often reluctant to accept responsibility for treating foreigners, even in emergency situations.

Foreign-operated medical providers catering to expatriates and visitors are available in China.

SOS International, Ltd., operates modern medical and dental clinics and provides medical evacuation and medical escort services in Beijing, Nanjing, Tianjin and Shekou, as well as 24hr Alarm Centers in Beijing and Shanghai. Through clinics in Beijing (24 hours), Tianjin, Nanjing and Shekou, SOS offers international standard family practice services, emergency medical services and a range of clinical services.

The emergency assistance services SOS offers through alarm centers in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Beijing compliment their clinics. Each Alarm Center provides 24-hour hotline services to all global members when they are in China. Any problem from lost luggage to a serious medical condition can be reported to the alarm center, where multilingual coordinators and doctors are on duty to respond to all manners of emergencies.

To provide these services, SOS has developed an external network of hospitals, airlines and local authorities with whom they work to deliver a fast and efficient response. These services also support the many remote site medical staff, equipment and facilities that SOS provides to clients.

For medical emergencies anywhere in mainland China, Americans can call the SOS International, Ltd., 24-hour "Alarm Center" in Beijing at telephone (86-10) 6462-9100 or in Shanghai at (86-21) 6295-0099 for advice and referrals to local facilities. SOS International Alarm Centers can also be contacted in Hong Kong at telephone (852) 2428-9900 and in the United States at (215) 245-4707. For a full list of SOS locations and phone numbers, consult the SOS website at http://www.internationalsos.com.

Beijing United Family Hospital and Clinics ("BJU") Tel.: (8610) 64333960/1/2/3/4/5 (24-hour service), Fax: (8610) 64333963. BJU is the first and remains the only foreign-invested full service international standard 50-bed hospital operating in Beijing, China. BJU was opened in 1997 by Chindex International, an American company, which in 2002 was awarded the US Secretary of State's Award for Corporate Excellence. BJU offers the full range of specialties including Family Practice, Internal Medicine, Surgery, Obstetrics/Gynecology, Pediatrics, Dentistry, Psychiatry and Physiotherapy, in addition to a 24-hour Emergency Room staffed solely by Expatriate Staff Specialists. These Physicians are all board qualified (or equivalent) in their respective fields and include specialties such as Anesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine. Additionally, staff is fluent in a wide range of languages, including English French, German, Japanese, Spanish, Swedish, and Finnish.

Facilities include 2 Operating Theatres, international standard 5 star LDRP birthing suites, Neonatal ICU, a 4-bed Adult ICU, General Inpatient facilities, and standard support services such as Digital Radiology, Ambulance services, Pharmacy, Laboratory and a 24 hour on-site Blood Bank with emergency blood prescreened to the American Blood Bank standard.

Bayley & Jackson Beijing Medical Center
#7 Ritan Dong Lu, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100020
(8610) 8562-9998
Fax: (8610) 8561-4866
email: [email protected]
Website: www.bjhealthcare.com

Beijing United Family Hospital and Clinics
#2 Jiang Tai Lu, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100016
(8610) 6433-3960
Fax: (8610) 6433-3963
Emergency Hotline: (8610) 6433-2345
Website: www.bjunited.com.cn

Beijing United Family Clinic - Shunyi
Pinnacle Plaza, Unit # 818
Tian Zhu Real Estate
Development Zone
Shunyi District, 101312
(8610) 8046-5432
Fax: (8610) 8046-4383

Peking Union Medical Hospital
1 Shuai Fu Yuan, Dong Cheng District, Beijing 100730
Tel: 86-10-6529-5269 (registration and information); 86-10-6529-5284 (24 hours); 86-10-6529-6114 (operator)
Modern Facilities with English speaking staff. Separate ward for foreign patients.
World Link Shanghai Clinics: Expatriate doctors and imported vaccines.

Portman Clinic:
Shanghai Center #203 W,
1376 Nanjing Xi Lu, 200040
Tel: 86-10-6279-7688.
For appointments: 86-10-6279-8678
Fax: 86-10-6279-7698

Hong Qiao Clinic:
Mandarin City Unit 30,
788 Hong Xu Lu, 201103
Tel: 86-106405-5788;
Fax: 86-10-6405-3587

Shanghai United Family Hospital and Clinics
1139 Xian Xia Rd.,
Chang Ning District,
Shanghai 200336 PRC
Tel: 86-21-5133-1900
(information and registration)
Fax: 86-21-5133-1919
Website: http://www.shanghaiunited.com/

GlobalDoctor, Ltd., has opened clinics staffed by English-speaking doctors within the VIP wards of governmentrun hospitals in Chengdu, Nanjing, and Beijing. GlobalDoctor can be reached by telephone from China at 86-10-8456-9191 or on the Internet at http://www.eglobaldoctor.m/.

Additional information on medical providers specializing in treating foreigners for general medical, dental and orthodontic problems are available at http://www.usembassychina.org.cn/.

Information on vaccinations and other health precautions, such as safe food and water precautions and insect bite protection, may be obtained from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's hotline for international travelers at 1-877-FYI-TRIP (1-877-394-8747) or via the CDC's Internet site at http://www.cdc.gov/travel. For information about outbreaks of infectious diseases abroad consult the World Health Organization's (WHO) website at http://www.who.int/en. Further health information for travelers is available at http://www.who.int/ith.

Medical Insurance:

The Department of State strongly urges Americans to consult with their medical insurance company prior to traveling abroad to confirm whether their policy applies overseas and whether it will cover emergency expenses such as a medical evacuation.

Traffic Safety and Road Conditions:

While in a foreign country, U.S. citizens may encounter road conditions that differ significantly from those in the United States. The information below concerning China is provided for general reference only, and may not be totally accurate in a particular location or circumstance.

Driving etiquette in China is developing. As a result, traffic is often chaotic, and right-of-way and other courtesies are often ignored. Travelers should note that cars and buses in the wrong lanes frequently hit pedestrians and bicyclists. Pedestrians should always be careful while walking near traffic. Road/traffic conditions are generally safe if occupants of modern passenger vehicles wear seatbelts. Most traffic accident injuries involve pedestrians or cyclists who are involved in collisions or who encounter unexpected road hazards (e.g., unmarked open manholes). Foreigners with resident permits can apply for PRC driver licenses; however, liability issues often make it preferable to employ a local driver. Child safety seats are not widely available in China. Americans who wish to ride bicycles in China are urged to wear safety helmets meeting U.S. standards.

All drivers should be aware of the Chinese regulations regarding traffic accidents. These include the requirement that drivers:

1. Not move their vehicles or disturb the scene of the accident unless and until ordered to by the traffic police.

2. Summon the traffic police and wait at the scene until the police arrive and complete their investigation.

If called to an accident, the police may take 10 minutes or longer to arrive. Once the police arrive, they will complete a preliminary investigation and arrange a time for you to report to the police station responsible for the accident scene. The police will prepare a written report, in Chinese, describing the circumstances of the accident. They will present the report to you either at the scene, or more likely at the police station, and ask you to sign it verifying the details of the accident. Do not sign the report as is, unless your Chinese is good enough to completely understand the report and you find it totally accurate. If you either do not understand it or believe it is partly or wholly inaccurate, you may either:

A. Write a disclaimer on the report to the effect that you cannot read and understand the report and cannot attest to the accuracy thereof, but are signing it because of the police requirement that you do so, and then sign, or:

B. Write your own version of the accident, in English, on the police form and indicate that your signature only attests to the accuracy of the English version.

Most incidents (such as an accident) will draw a crowd. Drivers should remain calm. A crowd will usually move in very close to the accident and participants. In many cases the bystanders consider themselves to be an ad hoc jury. They may call for money, usually from RMB 100 to 1,000, to be paid by the party they consider at fault. The amount is not necessarily relevant to the amount of damage. A certain amount of bargaining is normal, even at accidents involving two Chinese parties. Though a crowd may seem threatening, crowd assaults on foreigners at accidents have not been reported.

If a traffic police booth is nearby, you may wish to leave the vehicle and walk there to await the arrival of the police accident team. Alternatively, you may walk to a shop, restaurant, or other location nearby in the immediate vicinity and wait for police.

You should not leave the scene of an accident. Your actions may serve to further incite the crowd if they perceive that you are fleeing to evade responsibility for your share of blame or payment of damages. The crowd may attempt to keep your vehicle at the accident scene by standing in the way or blocking the roadway with vehicles, bicycles and other objects.

Visit the website of the country's national tourist office and national authority responsible for road safety at China National Tourist Bureau—http://www.cnta.com/index.asp. The Traffic Administration of Ministry of Public Security of the PRC—http://www.mps.gov.cn/default.asp.

Aviation Safety Oversight:

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has assessed the Government of China as being in compliance with ICAO international aviation safety standards for oversight of China's air carrier operations. For more information, travelers may visit the FAA's internet web site at http://www.faa.gov/.

Special Circumstances:

Chinese customs authorities may enforce strict regulations concerning temporary importation into or export from China of items such as antiquities, banned publications, some religious literature, or vehicles not conforming to Chinese standards. It is advisable to contact the Embassy of China in Washington or one of China's consulates in the United States for specific information regarding customs requirements. In many countries around the world, counterfeit and pirated goods are widely available. Transactions involving such products are illegal and bringing them back to the United States may result in forfeitures and/or fines.

China's customs authorities encourage the use of an ATA (Admission Temporaire/Temporary Admission) Carnet for the temporary admission of professional equipment, commercial samples, and/or goods for exhibitions and fair purposes. ATA Carnet Headquarters, located at the U.S. Council for International Business, 1212 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10036, issues and guarantees the ATA Carnet in the United States. For additional information call (212) 354-4480, send an e-mail to [email protected], or visit www.uscib.org for details.

Criminal Penalties:

While in a foreign country, a U.S. citizen is subject to that country's laws and regulations, which sometimes differ significantly from those in the United States and may not afford the protections available to the individual under U.S. law. Penalties for breaking the law can be more severe than in the United States for similar offenses. Persons violating China's laws, even unknowingly, may be expelled, arrested or imprisoned. Penalties for possession, use, or trafficking in illegal drugs in China are severe, and convicted offenders can expect long jail sentences and heavy fines.

Americans in China who are not staying at hotels, including Americans who are staying with friends or relatives, must register with local police as soon as they arrive. Americans who are questioned by police should immediately notify the U.S. Embassy or the nearest consulate. Foreigners detained for questioning may not be allowed to contact their national authorities until the questioning is concluded. Foreigners detained pending trial have often waited over a year for their trial to begin. Foreigners suspected of committing a crime are rarely granted bail. Criminal punishments, especially prison terms, are much more severe than in the United States. Persons violating the law, even unknowingly, may be expelled, arrested or imprisoned. Criminal penalties for possession, use, or trafficking of illegal drugs are strict, and convicted offenders can expect severe jail sentences and fines. Non-American foreigners have been executed for drug offenses. Several Americans currently incarcerated in China have been implicated in financial fraud schemes involving falsified bank or business documents, tax evasion schemes and assisting alien smuggling, including selling passports to provide aliens with travel documents.

In the past, protesters detained for engaging in pro-Falun Gong activities have been quickly deported from China after being questioned. Several of these protesters alleged they were physically abused during their detention. In addition, they allege that personal property, including clothing, cameras and computers, have not always been returned to them upon their deportation. Chinese authorities report while they have deported these foreigners quickly after public demonstrations in favor of the Falun Gong, future adherents who intentionally arrive in China to protest against Chinese policy may receive longer terms of detention and possibly face prison sentences. In one instance, an American Falun Gong practitioner who was traveling in China on personal business was detained and asked to provide information on other Falun Gong sympathizers in the U.S.

Several Americans have been detained and expelled for passing out non-authorized Christian literature. Sentences for distributing this material may range from three to five years imprisonment, if convicted.

Under the PROTECT Act of April 2003, it is a crime, prosecutable in the U.S., for U.S. citizens or permanent resident aliens to exploit children sexually via pornography, the Inter-net or other means or to engage in illicit sexual conduct with a person under the age of 18 in a foreign country, regardless of whether there was intent.

Children's Issues:

For information on international adoption of children and nternational parental child abduction, see the Office of Children's Issues website at http://www.travel.state.gov/family/family_1732.html.

Registration/Embassy Location:

Americans living or traveling in China are encouraged to register with the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate through the State Department's travel registration website, https://travelregistration.state.gov, and to obtain updated information on travel and security within China. Americans without Internet access may register directly with the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate. By registering, American citizens make it easier for the Embassy or Consulate to contact them in case of emergency.

Beijing - The U.S. Embassy is located at No. 2 Xiu Shui Dong Jie, Chaoyang District, Beijing, the American Citizen Services section can be reached at 0086-10-65323431 ext 5648, 5344, 5028 and 5609 (8:30-12:00 a.m. and 2:00-4:00 p.m., Mon-Fri), after hours 0086-10-65321910. For detailed information please visit the Embassy's website at www.usembassychina.org.cn. The Embassy consular district includes the following provinces/regions of China: Beijing, Tianjin, Shandong, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, Ningxia, Shaanxi, Qinghai, Xinjiang, Hebei, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, and Jiangxi.

Chengdu - The U.S. Consulate General in Chengdu is located at Number 4, Lingshiguan Road, Section 4, Renmin Nanlu, Chengdu 610041, tel. (86-28) 558-3992, 555-3119, after hours (86-28) 1370-8001-422, and email address the [email protected]. This consular district includes the following provinces/regions of China: Guizhou, Sichuan Xizang (Tibet), and Yunnan, as well as the municipality of Chongqing.

Guangzhou - The main office of the U.S. Consulate General in Guangzhou is located at Number 1 South Shamian Street, Shamian Island 200S1, Guangzhou 510133. The Consular Section, including the American Citizens Services Unit, is now located at 5th Floor, Tianyu Garden (II phase), 136-146 Lin He Zhong Lu, Tianhe District, tel. (86-20) 8518-7605; after hours (86-20) 8121-6077, and email [email protected]. This consular district includes the following provinces/regions of China: Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan, and Fujian.

Shanghai - The Consular Section of the U.S. Consulate General in Shanghai is located in the Westgate Mall, 8th Floor, 1038 Ninjing Xi Lu, Shanghai 200031; tel. (86-21) 3217-4650, ext. 2102, 2013, or 2134, after hours (86-21) 6433-3936; email [email protected]. This consular district includes the following provinces/regions of China: Shanghai, Anhui, Jiangsu and Zhejiang.

Shenyang - The U.S. Consulate General in Shenyang is located at No. 52, 14th Wei Road, Heping District, Shenyang 110003; tel. (86-24) 2322-2374; email [email protected]/ This consular district includes the following provinces/regions of China: Liaoning, Heilongjiang, and Jilin.

International Adoption

January 2006

The information below has been edited from a report of the State Department Bureau of Consular Affairs, Office of Overseas Citizens Services. For more information, please read the International Adoption section of this book and review current reports online at www.travel.state.gov/family.

Disclaimer:

The information in this flyer relating to the legal requirements of specific foreign countries is based on public sources and our current understanding. Questions involving foreign and U.S. immigration laws and legal interpretation should be addressed respectively to qualified foreign or U.S. legal counsel.

The information is based on the Implementation Measures on the Adoption of Children by Foreigners in the People's Republic of China of November 13, 1993 and the China Adoption Law of April 1, 1992.

Please Note:

Chinese authorities are extremely sensitive about the intrusion of foreign entities. Adoption is also a sensitive subject in China. It is therefore advisable for any person interested in adopting a child from China to act with discretion and decorum. High profile attention to adoption in China could curtail or eliminate altogether adoption of Chinese children by persons from countries that have caused adoption to become the subject of public attention.

Only adoptions fully completed in China are permitted. It is not possible to obtain guardianship of a Chinese child for adoption in the United States. The China Adoption Law has specific provisions as to what children are available for adoption and what adoptive parents are acceptable. These variables will be discussed in the flyer.

Availability of Children for Adoption:

Only children processed by China's central authority for international adoptions, the Chinese center for Adoption Affairs (CCAA) are available for international adoption. The CCAA matches individual children with prospective adoptive parent(s) whose completed applications have been submitted to the CCAA by a licensed U.S. adoption agency whose credentials are on file at the CCAA.

Recent U.S. immigrant visa statistics reflect the following pattern for visa issuance to orphans:

FY-1996: IR-3 immigrant visas issued to Chinese orphans adopted abroad - 2,901; IR-4 immigrant visas issued to Chinese orphans adopted in the U.S. - 432
FY-1997: IR-3 Visas - 3,242; IR-4 Visas - 355
FY-1998: IR-3 Visas - 3,766; IR-4 Visas - 440
FY-1999: IR-3 Visas - 3,688; IR-4 Visas - 413
FY-2000: IR-3 Visas - 4,520; IR-4 Visas - 533

China Adoption Authority:

The government office responsible for adoptions in China is the Ministry of Civil Affairs, specifically the CCAA.

China Adoption Procedures:

An agency may submit adoption applications directly to the CCAA for consideration. Included with the application should be all the required documents (you'll find the list in documentary requirements) with authentications and translations. The CCAA will review the documents and advise the prospective adoptive parent(s) directly or through their U.S. licensed adoption agency, whether additional documents or authentication required.

Once the application for adoption is approved, the CCAA will then match the application with a child whose paperwork has been forwarded to the CCAA by a provincial Civil Affairs Bureau. Once a child is identified, the CCAA will send a letter of introduction about the child, photographs and a health record of the child through the U.S. adoption agency to the prospective adoptive parent(s).

To finalize the adoption, the prospective adoptive parent(s) need to travel to China to complete the process. It is important to contact the U.S. Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services in the Department of Homeland Security early in the process; you must have an approved I-600A before proceeding to China.

After the CCAA has advised you or your U.S. adoption agency in writing that your application is initially accepted for the adoption of a specified child, you may then respond through your adoption agency that you are interested in finalizing the adoption of the specified child. After indicating your acceptance of the child, you will then receive a formal notice from the CCAA to proceed to China. With approval notice in hand, prospective parents may then proceed directly to the city in China where the Civil Affairs Bureau with jurisdiction over the appropriate Children's Welfare Institute is located. Thereafter, a series of inter-views of the prospective adoptive parent(s) will occur; a contract will be signed with the Children's Welfare Institute; the contract will be regis-tered with the Civil Affairs Bureau; and a notarized adoption decree will be issued.

Parents will not be required to travel to Beijing for approval. The CCAA will have already forwarded a copy of the adoption approval notice to the locality where the child resides. Local Chinese Child Welfare Institutes, Provincial Chinese Civil Affairs officials and Chinese notarial offices will not process adoptions unless they have seen this notice.

Americans adopting in China commonly meet with a notary in the provincial capital for an informal interview. A translator supplied by the Child Welfare Institute is usually present. In some cases a second inter-view at a registry office is conducted. Sometimes the local notary in the city where the Children's Welfare Institute is located, meets with the parents and conducts a final interview in which questions similar to those posed at the provincial level are asked.

Prospective adoptive parents may request to see the child before completing the adoption. Any remaining questions and concerning the child's state of health or personal background after seeing the child should be addressed before completing the adoption. Prospective adoptive parents may wish to have the child examined by a physician on the U.S. Embassy or Consulate's list of physicians before finalizing the adoption.

After all interviews are completed, the actual adoption and completion of the contract, which includes making a fixed "donation" of around $3000-$4000 US dollars to the Children's Welfare Institute, take place. This "donation" is NOT a bribe, but is required for the adoption and completion of contract for the institute. Prospective adoptive parents will be requested to sign an adoption agree-ment/contract with the welfare institute, then register the adoption at the provincial Civil Affairs Bureau, pay requisite Chinese fees and obtain a Chinese passport and exit permit for the child. The adoption process also includes signing an agreement with the person or institution putting up the child for adoption, registering in person with the Chinese Civil Affairs Bureau and carrying out the notarized procedures at the designated Chinese notarial office. When the notarial office in the child's place of residence approves the adoption, that office issues a notarized certificate of adoption, a notarized birth certificate and either notarized death certificate (s) for the child's biological parent(s) or a statement of abandonment from the welfare institute. The adoptive relationship goes into effect on the day of the notarization.

Residency Requirements:

The adoptive parent(s) must come to China to execute the required documents in person before the appropriate Chinese authorities to finalize the adoption. If the adoptive parent is married, he or she should adopt the child together with the spouse. In case of married couples, if only one adopting parent comes to China, Chinese law requires that the spouse traveling to China bring a power of attorney from his or her spouse which has been notarized and properly authenticated by the Chinese Embassy or one of the Chinese Consulate Generals in the United States. In addition to documents required by the Chinese Government, the American Consulate in Guangzhou advises that if only one parent is coming to China to adopt a child with a physical or mental disability, a notarized statement from the absent parent indicating that they are aware of the child's disability and intends to finalize the adoption in the United States, is required under U.S. law.

Age and Civil Status Requirements:

Chinese law differentiates between an abandoned child (with one or both parents living) and an orphan (both parents deceased). The law restricts adoption of healthy abandoned children with one or both parents living to childless person 35 years old or older, and only permits the adoption of one healthy child. There are exceptions if you are adopting a relative's child. Persons who are under 35 years old and/or who already have child (ren) are only permitted to adopt orphans (requiring proof that both biological parents are deceased) or handicapped children. Persons seeking to adopt orphans or handicapped children are permitted by Chinese law to adopt more than one such child. The Chinese law permits adoption by married couples and single persons. The CCAA also has advised that "adoption applications from homosexual families are not acceptable."

Adoption Agencies and Attorneys:

Responsibility for various procedures necessary to adopt a child in China in accordance with Chinese law is divided among the following Chinese government authorities:

The China Center for Adoption Affairs (CCAA)
103 Beiheyan St.
Dongcheng District
Beijing 100006
Phone: 86-10-6522-3102 86-10-6513-0607

Department of Civil Affairs
No. 147 Beiheyan St.
Beijing, 100032
China

Doctors:

The U.S. Embassy in Beijing and the Consulate Generals all maintain current lists of doctors and sources for some western medicines, should either you or your child experience health problems while in China. A physician from an approved list of doctors ("panel physicians") using a specified form provided must perform the medical examination that the adoptive child needs, by the American Embassy or Consulate. The medical examination can be performed in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, or Taishan. The most convenient site for medical examinations in Guangzhou is the: Guangzhou Health and Quarantine Service, a modest walk from the Consulate at 33 Shamian North Road, telephone: 020-8188-9513.

China Documentary Requirements:

A foreigner interested in adopting a Chinese child must submit the following documents to the China Center of Adoption Affairs. It is advisable to bring several copies of the authenticated documentation with you to China.

  • Adoption application
  • Birth certificate
  • Marital status certificate
  • Certificates of profession, income and property
  • Health examination certificate
  • Certificate of criminal or no-criminal record
  • Home study report
  • Certificate of child adoption approval by the competent department of the adopter's country of residence
  • Copy of applicant's passport In addition, each adoption applicant should also submit two full-faced photos and several other photos reflecting the family's life

In addition to the package of documents forwarded by your adoption agency to the CCAA for approval, you are also required to have a chain of certificates and approval.

  • Certified and authenticated copies of the adoptive parent(s)'' birth certificate(s)
  • Certified and authenticated copy of the adoptive parents'' marriage certificate and proof of termination of any previous marriage (certified copy of spouse's death certificate of divorce decree)
  • Medical certificate(s) for adoptive parent(s) executed by physician before a notary public and authenticated
  • Statement that adoptive parent(s) is/are childless and has/have not adopted other children (notarized and authenticated)
  • A medical certificate of infertility if that condition exist (executed by a physician before a notary public and authenticated). (Note: Infertility is no longer a requirement for adoption in China).
  • A certificate of good conduct for the adoptive parent(s) from a local police department notarized or bearing the police department-seal and authenticated. An FBI report is acceptable in lieu of a local police record. This is separate from the FBI check conducted by BCIS as part of the petition process. You can request an FBI record check by sending two sets of fingerprints, an $18.00 money order, your full name, date and place of birth, social security number and letter of request explaining purpose for clearance to: FBI ID Division, Room 10104, Washington, DC 20537-9700. The FBI certificate should also be authenticated.
  • Verification of employment and salary notarized and authenticated.
  • Two letters of reference notarized and authenticated
  • A certified and authenticated copy of your property trust deeds, if applicable
  • A home study prepared by an authorized and licensed social agency certified and authenticated
  • Bank statements notarized/certified and authenticated
  • Power of attorney notarized and authenticated (if only one spouse will travel to China). In case of married couples, if only one adopting parent comes to china, Chinese law requires that the spouse traveling to China, bring a power of attorney from his or her spouse which has been notarized and properly authenticated by Chinese Embassy or one of the Chinese Consulate General in the United States.
  • Family letter of intent to adopt, describing the child the adoptive parent(s) is/are willing to adopt, notarized and authenticated
  • A copy of the I-171H form (approval notice from BCIS) notarized and authenticated.

Translation Requirements:

All documents prepared for each adoption application must be accompanied by a certified Mandarin Chinese translation. For a $200 fee, the CCAA will provide the translation service. If a translated copy is submitted with the application, the translator must execute a statement before a notary public as to the validity of the translation. The notary's seal must be authenticated.

Authentication Requirements:

All foreign (U.S.) documents must be authenticated for use in China. The document should then be authenticated by the state Secretary of State; (in your state capital) the U.S. Department of State Authentication's Office, and the Chinese Embassy or Consulate. Please see the International Adoption section of this book for more details and review current reports online at travel.state.gov/ family

U.S. Immigration Requirements:

A Chinese child adopted by an American citizen must obtain an immigrant visa before he or she can enter the U.S. as a lawful permanent resident. Please see the International Adoption section of this book for more details and review current reports online at travel.state.gov/family.

Chinese Embassy (and Consulates) in the United States:

Embassy of the People's Republic of China
Consular Section
2300 Connecticut Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20008
Tel: 202-328-2500

China also has Consulates in Los Angeles, CA; San Francisco, CA; Chicago, IL; New York, NY, and Houston, TX.

U.S. Embassy (and Consulate) in China:

U.S. Embassy of China
American Citizen Services
2 Xiu Shui Dong Jie
Beijing 100600 PRC
Tel: 86-10-6532-3831 ext. 229
Fax: 86-10-6532-4153

China also has Consulates in Guangzhou, Shanghai, Shenyang, and Chengdu.

Time Frame:

It is hard to predict with certainty how much time is required to complete an adoption in China. As of the publication of this flyer, adoptions were taking approximately ten to twelve months from the time the U.S. adoption agency submitted the paperwork of the prospective adopter to CCAA to the time the initial referral was sent by CCAA to the prospective parent(s) via their adoption agency. Special needs cases were taking longer.

Chinese Adoption Fees:

Fees charged by Chinese authorities in connection with foreign adoptions may vary widely. There are, of course, standard fees.

  • Fees for authentication /legalization of documents by the Chinese Embassy or Consulate in the United States is $10.00 per document (A document may be a single page or multi-paged, the fee is for authentication of the seal).
  • The China Center for Adoption Affairs (CCAA) advises that its initial fee is $365.00(U.S.), plus $200.00(U.S.) for translation of the documents. (The translations can be done in the United States or China; however, the China Center for Adoption Affairs (CCAA) advises that the translations must be "correct" and that CCAA will "rectify" any errors which could account for some extra cost above the initial $365.00)
  • Fees for the issuance of the registration of the adoption by the Civil Affairs Bureau; $100.00 (U.S.)
  • Fees for issuance of the Chinese notarized certificate approving the adoption. The fee varies on a case-by-case basis.

Note:

In addition to the fee for the adoption itself, there are fees for death certificates and for any investigation the Notarial Office may conduct to verify the child's status and eligibility for adoption.

  • Fees for the Chinese passport-100 RMB (Approx. $12.00) for normal ten-day issuance (An additional fee of 100 RMB is charged for expedited issuance).
  • After consultation with local price control administration authorities and local financial departments, individual Children's Welfare Institutes may charge from $3000 (U.S.) to $5000 (U.S.) as a combined donation to the institution and a fee for having raised and cared for the child prior to the adoption. Fees are handled by local officials outside of the Children's Welfare Institute and are largely based on real expenses in raising and caring for the child while in the institute.
  • The American Consulate General at Guangzhou advises that extra charges of up to $500 for transportation or expedited processing of documents have also been reported. Adoptive parent(s) should keep the U.S. Embassy and Consulate General apprised of any exorbitant fees.

U.S. Fees:

  • There is an BCIS fee of $155.00 for an I-600 or I-600A petition. If you have a valid I-600A and file an I-600 within one year of the approval of the I-600A, no fee will be charged for the I-600 provided you are only petitioning for one child or for siblings. If you have a valid I-600A and within one year of approval of the I-600A are petitioning for more than one child and the children are not siblings, the I-600 fee will be charged for each additional child.
  • If you are having documents authenticated by the Department of State Authentication office, there is a fee of $5.00 per document.
  • The adopted child must have a medical examination performed by one of the U.S. Embassy or Consulate's panel physicians before the immigrant visa can be issued. The cost of this medical examination (approximately $15.00 (U.S.)) and accompanying immunizations ($30 (U.S.)) must be paid by the adoptive parent(s).
  • The fee for the immigrant visa is $200.00 and may be paid either in U.S. dollars or local currency. This $200.00 fee does not include medical examinations, costs of documents, the petition, etc. The U.S. Consulate does not accept personal checks or credit cards.
  • If you are having documents authenticated by a consular officer at a U.S. embassy or consulate, there is a fee of $10.00 per document.

What To Bring For Your New Baby:

It is difficult to predict how long it may be necessary for you to remain in China with your adopted child. There are small grocery and sundry stores in major hotels in China. Nevertheless, not all western-style baby products are readily available in China. You may wish to consider bringing certain items with you. These might include: Plastic or cloth baby carrier

  • Bottle nipples
  • Disposable paper diapers
  • Baby wipes
  • Baby blankets
  • Infant wear
  • Thermos bottle, for hot water to prepare dry formula
  • Milk bottles (plastic, glass, and disposable)
  • Disposable plastic bags for milk bottles

Questions:

Specific questions regarding adoption in China may be addressed to the Consular Section of the U.S. Embassy or Consulate in Beijing. You may also contact the Office of Children's Issues, SA-29, 2201 C Street, NW, U.S. Department of State, Washington, DC 20520-2818, Tel: 1-888-407-4747 with specific questions.

International Parental Child Abduction

January 2006

The information below has been edited from the report of the State Department Bureau of Consular Affairs, Office of Overseas Citizens Services. For more information, please read the International Child Abduction section of this book and review current reports online at travel.state.gov.

Disclaimer:

The information in this flyer relating to the legal requirements of specific foreign countries is based on public sources and our current understanding. Questions involving foreign and U.S. immigration laws and legal interpretation should be addressed respectively to qualified foreign or U.S. legal counsel.

General Information:

The Peoples Republic of China (PRC) is not a party to the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, nor are there any international or bilateral treaties in force between China and the United States dealing with international parental child abduction. American citizens who travel to China place themselves under the jurisdiction of local courts. American citizens planning a trip to China with dual national children should bear this in mind.

Custody Disputes:

In China, parents who are legally married share the custody of their children. If they are not married and the parents cannot reach an agreement, custody is granted by the courts in the best interests of the child.

Enforcement of Foreign Judgments:

Custody orders and judgments of foreign courts are not enforceable in China. Such judgments must be presented to a Chinese court for that courts consideration and decision. In China, there is a limited process to appeal a lower court's decision.

Visitation Rights:

In cases where legal custody has been granted and the judgment has been rendered, the non-custodial parent's visitation rights are normally incorporated within the court ordered decision.

Dual Nationality:

Dual nationality is not recognized under Chinese law. Some U.S. citizens who are also Chinese nationals (mostly U.S.-born children of Chinese nationals or Legal Permanent Residents) have experienced difficulty entering and departing China on U.S. passports. In some cases, such dual nationals are required to use Chinese travel documents to depart China. Normally this causes inconvenience but no significant problems for affected persons; however, in child custody disputes, the ability of dual national children to depart from China could be affected. Generally, children who are Chinese nationals according to Chinese law are not permitted to depart China if one parent refuses to allow the travel requested by one parent, even if that parent is considered an abducting parent by United States courts. In those cases, children abducted to China are only permitted to return to the United States if both parents agree to their return, or if a Chinese court upholds a United States Court's decision to allow the left-behind parent sole custody. Specific questions on dual nationality may be directed to the Office of Over-seas Citizens Services, Department of State, Room 4811A, Washington. D.C. 20520 or to the U.S. Embassy or one of the U.S. Consulates General in China.

Criminal Remedies:

For information on possible criminal remedies, please contact your local law enforcement authorities or the nearest office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). http://www.ojjdp.ncjrs.org/ Information is also available on the Internet at the web site of the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) at http://www.ojjdp. ncjrs.org.

China

views updated May 11 2018

CHINA

Compiled from the March 2003 Background Note and supplemented with additional information from the State Department and the editors of this volume. See the introduction to this set for explanatory notes.

Official Name:
People's Republic of China

PROFILE
PEOPLE
HISTORY
GOVERNMENT
POLITICAL CONDITIONS
ECONOMY
FOREIGN RELATIONS
DEFENSE
U.S.-CHINA RELATIONS
TRAVEL


PROFILE


Geography

Total area: 9,596,960 sq. km. (about 3.7 million sq. mi.).

Cities: Capital—Beijing. Other major cities—Shanghai, Tianjin, Shenyang, Wuhan, Guangzhou, Chongqing, Harbin, Chengdu.

Terrain: Plains, deltas, and hills in east; mountains, high plateau s, deserts in west.

Climate: Tropical in south to subarctic in north.


People

Nationality: Noun and adjective—Chinese (singular and plural).

Population: (2002 est.) 1.3 billion.

Population growth rate: (2002 est.): About 1%.

Health: (2002 est.) Infant mortality rate—27.25/1,000. Life expectancy—71.86 years (overall); 70.02 years for males, 73.86 years for females.

Ethnic groups: Han Chin ese—91.9%; Zhuang, Manchu, Hui, Miao, Uygur, Yi, Mongolian, Tibetan, Buyi, Korean, and other nationalities—8.1%.

Religions: Officially atheist; Taoism, Buddhism, Islam, Christianity.

Language: Mandarin (Putonghua), plus many local dialects.

Education: Years compulsory—9. Literacy—81.5%.

Work force: (2001 est., 711 million) Agriculture and forestry—50%; industry and commerce—2 3%; other—27%.


Government

Type: Communist party-led state.

Constitution: December 4, 1982.

Independence: Unification under the Qin (Ch'in) Dynasty 221 BC; Qing (Ch'ing or Manchu) Dynasty replaced by a republic on February 12, 1912; People's Republic established October 1, 1949.

Branches: Executive—president, vice president, State Council, premier. Legislative —unicameral National People's Congress. Judicial—Supreme People's Court.

Administrative divisions: 23 provinces (the P.R.C. considers Taiwan to be its 23rd province); 5 autonomous regions, including Tibet; 4 municipalities directly under the State Council.

Political parties: Chinese Communist Party, 63 million members; 8 minor parties under communist supervision.

Suffrage: Universal at 18.


Economy

GDP: (2002 est.) $1.3 trillion.

Per capita GDP: (2002 est.) $930.

GDP real growth rate: (2002) 8.0%.

Natural resources: Coal, iron ore, crude oil, mercury, tin, tungsten, antimony, manganese, molybdenum, vanadium, magnetite, aluminum, lead, zinc, uranium, hydropower potential (world's largest).

Agriculture: Products—Among the world's largest producers of rice, potatoes, sorghum, peanuts, tea, millet, barley; commercial crops include cotton, other fibers, and oilseeds; produces variety of livestock products.

Industry: Types—iron, steel, coal, machinery, light industrial products, armaments, petroleum.

Trade: (2000) Exports—$324 billion: mainly apparel, electronics, appliances, footwear, toys. Main partners—U.S., Hong Kong, Japan, E.U., South Korea, Taiwan. Imports—$294 billion: mainly industrial machinery, electrical equipment, petroleum products, chemicals, textiles, steel. Main partners—Japan, E.U., Taiwan, South Korea, U.S., Hong Kong.




PEOPLE


Ethnic Groups

The largest ethnic group is the Han Chinese, who constitutes about 91.9% of the total population. The remaining 8.1% are Zhuang (16 million), Manchu (10 million), Hui (9 million), Miao (8 million), Uygur (7 million), Yi (7 million), Mongolian (5 million), Tibetan (5 million), Buyi (3 million), Korean (2 million), and other ethnic minorities.


Language

There are seven major Chinese dialects and many sub dialects. Mandarin (or Putonghua), the predominant dialect, is spoken by over 70% of the population. It is taught in all schools and is the medium of government. About two-thirds of the Han ethnic group are native speakers of Mandarin; the rest, concentrated in southwest and southeast China, speak one of the six other major Chinese dialects. Non-Chinese languages spoken widely by ethnic minorities include Mongolian, Tibetan, Uygur and other Turkic languages (in Xinjiang), and Korean (in the northeast).


The Pinyin System of Romanization


On January 1, 1979, the Chinese Government officially adopted the pinyin system for spelling Chinese names and places in Roman letters. A system of Romanization invented by the Chinese, pinyin has long been widely used in China on street and commercial signs as well as in elementary Chinese textbooks as an aid in learning Chinese characters. Variations of pinyin also are used as the written forms of several minority languages.


Pinyin has now replaced other conventional spellings in China's English-language publications. The U.S. Government also has adopted the pinyin system for all names and places in China. For example, the capital of China is now spelled "Beijing" rather than "Peking."


Religion

Religion plays a significant part in the life of many Chinese. Buddhism is most widely practiced, with an estimated 100 million adherents. Traditional Tao ism also is practice d. Official figures indicate there are 18 million Muslims, 4 million Catholics, and 10 million Protestants; unofficial estimates are much higher.

While the Chinese constitution affirms religious toleration, the Chinese Government places restrictions on religious practice outside officially recognized organizations. Only two Christian organizations — a Catholic church without official ties to Rome and the "Three-Self-Patriotic" Protestant church — are sanctioned by the Chinese Government. Unauthorized churches have sprung up in many parts of the country and unofficial religious practice is flourishing. In some regions authorities have tried to control activities of these unregistered churches. In other regions, registered and unregistered groups are treated similarly by authorities and congregations worship in both types of churches. Most Chinese Catholic bishops are recognized by the Pope, and official priests have Vatican approval to administer all the sacraments.


Population Policy

With a population officially just under 1.3 billion and an estimated growth rate of about 1%, China is very concerned about its population growth and has attempted with mixed results to implement a strict family planning policy. The government's goal is one child per urban family, and two children per rural family, with guidelines looser for ethnic minorities with small populations. Enforcement varies widely, and relies upon "social compensation fees" for extra children as a means of keeping families small. Official government policy opposes forced abortion or sterilization, but occasional allegations of coercion persist in localities that take their population growth targets most seriously. Recent international efforts, including those funded by the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), are demonstrating to government officials that a voluntary, non-coercive approach to family planning can be effective in promoting sustainable population growth. The government's goal is to stabilize the population in the first half of the 21st century, and current projections are that the population will peak at around 1.6 billion by 2050.


HISTORY


Dynastic Period

China is the oldest continuous major world civilization, with records dating back about 3,500 years. Successive dynasties developed a system of bureaucratic control that gave the agrarian-based Chinese an advantage over neighboring nomadic and hill cultures. Chinese civilization was further strengthened by the development of a Confucian state ideology and a common written language that bridged the gaps among the country's many local languages and dialects. Whenever China was conquered by nomadic tribes, as it was by the Mongols in the 13th century, the conquerors sooner or later adopted the ways of the "higher" Chinese civilization and staffed the bureaucracy with Chinese.


The last dynasty was established in 1644, when the Manchus overthrew the native Ming dynasty and established the Qing (Ch'ing) dynasty with Beijing as its capital. At great expense in blood and treasure, the Manchus over the next half century gained control of many border areas, including Xinjiang, Yunnan, Tibet, Mongolia, and Taiwan. The success of the early Qing period was based on the combination of Manchu martial prowess and traditional Chinese bureaucratic skills.


During the 19th century, Qing control weakened, and prosperity diminished. China suffered massive social strife, economic stagnation, explosive population growth, and Western penetration and influence. The Taiping and Nian rebellions, along with a Russian-supported Muslim separatist movement in Xinjiang, drained Chinese resources and almost toppled the dynasty. Britain's desire to continue its illegal opium trade with China collided with imperial edicts prohibiting the addictive drug, and the First Opium War erupted in 1840. China lost the war; subsequently, Britain and other Western powers, including the United States, forcibly occupied "concessions" and gained

special commercial privileges. Hong Kong was ceded to Britain in 1842 under the Treaty of Nanking, and in 1898, when the Opium Wars finally ended, Britain executed a 99-year lease of the New Territories, significantly expanding the size of the Hong Kong colony.


As time went on, the Western powers, wielding superior military technology, gained more economic and political privileges. Reformist Chinese officials argued for the adoption of Western technology to strengthen the dynasty and counter Western advances, but the Qing court played down both the Western threat and the benefits of Western technology.


Early 20th Century China

Frustrated by the Qing court's resistance to reform, young officials, military officers, and students —inspired by the revolutionary ideas of Sun Yatsen — to advocate the overthrow of the Qing dynasty and creation of a republic. A revolutionary military uprising on October 10, 1911, led to the abdication of the last Qing monarch. As part of a compromise to overthrow the dynasty without a civil war, the revolutionaries and reformers allowed high Qing officials to retain prominent positions in the new republic. One of these figures, Gen. Yuan Shikai, was chosen as the republic's first president. Before his death in 1916, Yuan unsuccessfully attempted to name himself emperor. His death left the republican government all but shattered, ushering in the era of the "warlords" during which China was ruled and ravaged by shifting coalitions of competing provincial military leaders.

In the 1920s, Sun Yat-sen established a revolutionary base in south China and set out to unite the fragmented nation. With Soviet assistance, he organized the Kuomintang (KMT or "Chinese Nationalist People's Party"), and entered into an alliance with the fledgling Chinese Communist Party (CCP). After Sun's death in 1925, one of his protég és, Chiang Kai-shek, seized control of the KMT and succeeded in bringing most of south and central China under its rule. In 1927, Chiang turned on the CCP and executed many of its leaders. The remnants fled into the mountains of eastern China. In 1934, driven out of their mountain bases, the CCP's forces embarked on a "Long March" across some of China's most desolate terrain to the northwestern province of Shaanxi, where they established a guerrilla base at Yan'an.


During the "Long March," the communists reorganized under a new leader, Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-tung). The bitter struggle between the KMT and the CCP continued openly or clandestinely through the 14-year long Japanese invasion (1931-45), even though the two parties nominally formed a united front to oppose the Japanese invaders in 1937. The war between the two parties resumed after the Japanese defeat in 1945. By 1949, the CCP occupied most of the country.


Chiang Kai-shek fled with the remnants of his KMT government and military forces to Taiwan, where he proclaimed Taipei to be China's "provisional capital" and vowed to reconquer the Chinese main land. The KMT authorities on Taiwan still call themselves the "Republic of China."


The People's Republic of China

In Beijing, on October 1, 1949, Mao Zedong proclaimed the founding of the People's Republic of China. The new government assumed control of a people exhausted by two generations of war and social conflict, and an economy ravaged by high inflation and disrupted transportation links. A new political and economic order modeled on the Soviet example was quickly installed.

In the early 1950s, China undertook a massive economic and social reconstruction program. The new leaders gained popular support by curbing inflation, restoring the economy, and rebuilding many war-damaged industrial plants. The CCP's authority reached into almost every aspect of Chinese life. Party control was assured by large, politically loyal security and military forces; a government apparatus responsive to party direction; and the placement of party members into leadership positions in labor, women's, and other mass organizations.


The "Great Leap Forward" and the Sino-Soviet Split

In 1958, Mao broke with the Soviet model and announced a new economic program, the "Great Leap Forward," aimed at rapidly raising industrial and agricultural production. Giant cooperatives (communes) were formed, and "backyard factories" dotted the Chinese landscape. The results were disastrous. Normal market mechanisms were disrupted, agricultural production fell behind, and China's people exhausted themselves producing what turned out to be shoddy, unsalable goods. Within a year, starvation appeared even in fertile agricultural areas. From 1960 to 1961, the combination of poor planning during the Great Leap Forward and bad weather resulted in one of the deadliest famines in human history.


The al ready strained Sino-Soviet relationship deteriorated sharply in 1959, when the Soviets started to restrict the flow of scientific and technological information to China. The dispute escalated, and the Soviets withdrew all of their personnel from China in August 1960. In 1960, the Soviets and the Chinese began to have disputes openly in international forums.


The Cultural Revolution

In the early 1960s, State President Liu Shaoqi and his protégé, Party General Secretary Deng Xiaoping, took over direction of the party and adopted pragmatic economic policies at odds with Mao's revolutionary vision. Dissatisfied with China's new direction and his own reduced authority, Party Chairman Mao launched a massive political attack on Liu, Deng, and other pragmatists in the spring of 1966. The new movement, the "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution," was unprecedented in communist history. For the first time, a section of the Chinese communist leadership sought to rally popular opposition against another leadership group. China was set on a course of political and social anarchy that lasted the better part of a decade.

In the early stages of the Cultural Revolution, Mao and his "closest comrade in arms," National Defense Minister Lin Biao, charged Liu, Deng, and other top party leaders with dragging China back toward capitalism. Radical youth organizations, called Red Guards, attacked party and state organizations at all levels, seeking out leaders who would not bend to the radical wind. In reaction to this turmoil, some local People's Liberation Army (PLA) commanders and other officials maneuvered to outwardly back Mao and the radicals while actually taking steps to rein in local radical activity.


Gradually, Red Guard and other radical activity subsided, and the Chinese political situation stabilized along complex factional lines. The leadership conflict came to a head in September 1971, when Party Vice Chairman and Defense Minister Lin Biao reportedly tried to stage a coup against Mao; Lin Biao allegedly later died in a plane crash in Mongolia.


In the aftermath of the Lin Biao incident, many officials criticized and dismissed during 1966-69 were reinstated. Chief among these was Deng Xiaoping, who reemerged in 1973 and was confirmed in 1975 in the concurrent posts of Politburo Standing Committee member, PLA Chief of Staff, and Vice Premier.


The ideological struggle between more pragmatic, veteran party officials and the radicals re-emerg ed with a vengeance in late 1975. Mao's wife, Jiang Qing, and three close Cultural Revolution associates (later dubbed the "Gang of Four") launched a media campaign against Deng. In January 1976, Premier Zhou Enlai, a popular political figure, died of cancer. On April 5, Beijing citizens staged a spontaneous demonstration in Tiananmen Square in Zhou's memory, with strong political overtones of support for Deng. The authorities forcibly suppressed the demonstration. Deng was blamed for the disorder and stripped of all official positions, although he retained his party membership.


The Post-Mao Era

Mao's death in September 1976 removed a towering figure from Chinese politics and set off a scramble for succession. Former Minister of Pubic Security Hua Guofeng was quickly confirmed as Party Chairman and Premier. A month after Mao's death, Hua, backed by the PLA, arrested Jiang Qing and other members of the "Gang of Four." After extensive deliberations, the Chinese Communist Party leadership reinstated Deng Xiaoping to all of his previous posts at the 11th Party Congress in August 1977. Deng then led the effort to place government control in the hands of veteran party officials opposed to the radical excesses of the previous two decades.


The new, pragmatic leadership emphasized economic development and renounced mass political movements. At the pivotal December 1978 Third Plenum (of the 11th Party Congress Central Committee), the leadership adopted economic reform policies aimed at expanding rural income and incentives, encouraging experiments in enterprise autonomy, reducing central planning, and attracting direct foreign investment into China. The plenum also decided to accelerate the pace of legal reform, culminating in the passage of several new legal codes by the National People's Congress in June 1979.


After 1979, the Chinese leadership moved toward more pragmatic positions in almost all fields. The party encouraged artists, writers, and journalists to adopt more critical approaches, although open attacks on party authority were not permitted. In late 1980, Mao's Cultural Revolution was officially proclaimed a catastrophe. Hua Guofeng, a protég é of Mao, was replaced as premier in 1980 by reformist Sichuan party chief Zhao Ziyang and as party General Secretary in 1981 by the even more reformist Communist Youth League chairman Hu Yaobang.

Reform policies brought great improvements in the standard of living, especially for urban workers and for farmers who took advantage of opportunities to diversify crops and establish village industries. Literature and the arts blossomed, and Chinese intellectuals established extensive links with scholars in other countries.


At the same time, however, political dissent as well as social problems such as inflation, urban migration, and prostitution emerged. Although students and intellectuals urged greater reforms, some party elders increasingly questioned the pace and the ultimate goals of the reform program. In December 1986, student demonstrators, taking advantage of the loosening political atmosphere, staged protests against the slow pace of reform, confirming party elders' fear that the current reform program was leading to social instability. Hu Yaobang, a protégé of Deng and a leading advocate of reform, was blamed for the protests and forced to resign as CCP General Secretary in January 1987. Premier Zhao Ziyang was made General Secretary and Li Peng, former Vice Premier and Minister of Electric Power and Water Conservancy, was made Premier.


1989 Student Movement and Tiananmen Square

After Zhao became the party General Secretary, the economic and political reforms he had championed came under increasing attack. His proposal in May 1988 to accelerate price reform led to widespread popular complaints about rampant inflation and gave opponents of rapid reform the opening to call for greater centralization of economic controls and stricter prohibitions against Western influence. This precipitated a political debate, which grew more heated through the winter of 1988-89.

The death of Hu Yaobang on April 15, 1989, coupled with growing economic hardship caused by high inflation, provided the backdrop for a large-scale protest movement by students, intellectuals, and other parts of a disaffected urban population. University students and other citizens camped out in Beijing's Tiananmen Square to mourn Hu's death and to protest against those who would slow reform. Their protests, which grew despite government efforts to contain them, called for an end to official corruption and for defense of freedoms guaranteed by the Chinese Constitution. Protests also spread to many other cities, including Shanghai, Chengdu, and Guangzhou.


Martial law was declared on May 20, 1989. Late on June 3 and early on the morning of June 4, military units were brought into Beijing. They used armed force to clear demonstrators from the streets. There are no official estimates of deaths in Beijing, but most observers believe that casualties numbered in the hundreds.


After June 4, while foreign governments expressed horror at the brutal suppression of the demonstrators, the central government eliminated remaining sources of organized opposition, detained large numbers of protesters, and required political reeducation not only for students but also for large numbers of party cadre and government officials.


Following the resurgence of conservatives in the aftermath of June 4, economic reform slowed until given new impetus by Deng Xiaoping's dramatic visit to southern China in early 1992. Deng's renewed push for a market-oriented economy received official sanction at the 14th Party Congress later in the year as a number of younger, reform-minded leaders began their rise to top positions. Deng and his supporters argued that managing the economy in a way that increased living standards should be China's primary policy objective, even if "capitalist" measures were adopted. Subsequent to the visit, the Communist Party Politburo publicly issued an endorsement of Deng's policies of economic openness. Though not completely eschewing political reform, China has consistently placed overwhelming priority on the opening of its economy.


Third Generation of Leaders

Deng's health deteriorated in the years prior to his death in 1997. During that time, President Jiang Zemin and other members of his generation gradually assumed control of the day-to-day functions of government. This "third generation" leadership governs collectively with President Jiang at the center.


In March 1998, Jiang was re-elected President during the 9th National People's Congress. Premier Li Peng was constitutionally required to step down from that post. He was elected to the chairmanship of the National People's Congress. Zhu Rongji was selected to replace Li as Premier.


Fourth Generation of Leaders

In November 2002, the 16th Communist Party Congress elected Hu Jintao, who in 1992 was designated by Deng Xiaoping as the "core" of the fourth generation leaders, the new General Secretary. A new Politburo and Politburo Standing Committee was also elected in November.


In March 2003, General Secretary Hu Jintao was elected President at the 10th National People's Congress. Jiang Zemin retained the chairmanship of the Central Military Commission. The fourth generation will probably govern under the continued influence of Jiang Zemin.


China is firmly committed to economic reform and opening to the outside world. The Chinese leadership has identified reform of state industries and the establishment of a social safety network as government priorities. Government strategies for achieving these goals include large-scale privatization of unprofitable state-owned enterprises and development of a pension system for workers. The leadership has also downsized the government bureaucracy.


The Next 5 Years

The next 5 years represent a critical period in China's existence. To investors and firms, China represents a vast market that has yet to be fully tapped. This point is best illustrated by the rapid growth of cell phone and Internet users in China. Educationally, China is forging ahead as partnerships and exchanges with foreign universities have helped create new research opportunities for its students. However, there is still much that needs to change in China. Human rights issues remain a concern among members of the world community. To the ex tent that the Chinese Government responds positively to these concerns, relations with concerned countries will grow stronger.




GOVERNMENT


Chinese Communist Party

The more than 63 million member CCP, authoritarian in structure and ideology, continues to dominate government. Nevertheless, China's population, geographical vastness, and social diversity frustrate attempts to rule by fiat from Beijing. Central leaders must increasingly build consensus for new policies among party members, local and regional leaders, influential non-party members, and the population at large.


In periods of relative liberalization, the influence of people and organizations outside the formal party structure has tended to increase, particularly in the economic realm. This phenomenon is most apparent today in the rapidly developing coastal region. Nevertheless, in all important government, economic, and cultural institutions in China, party committees work to see that party and state policy guidance is followed and that non-party members do not create autonomous organizations that could challenge party rule. Party control is tightest in government offices and in urban economic, industrial, and cultural settings; it is considerably looser in the rural areas, where the majority of the people live.

Theoretically, the party's highest body is the Party Congress, which is supposed to meet at least once every 5 years. The primary organs of power in the Communist Party include:


  • The Politburo Standing Committee, which currently consists of seven members;
  • The Politburo, consisting of 22 full members, including the members of the Politburo Standing Committee (one seat vacant due to a death);
  • The Secretariat, the principal administrative mechanism of the CCP, headed by the General Secretary;
  • The Central Military Commission;
  • The Discipline Inspection Commission, which is charged with rooting out corruption and malfeasance among party cadres.

State Structure

The Chinese Government has always be en subordinate to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP); its role is to implement party policies. The prymarry organs of state power are the National People's Congress (NPC), the President (the head of state), and the State Council. Members of the State Council include Premier Went Jerboa (the head of government), a variable number of vice premiers (now four), five state councilors (protool equivalents of vice premiers but with narrower portfolios), and 22 ministers and four State Council commission directors.

Under the Chinese constitution, the NPC is the highest org an of state power in China. It meets annually for about 2 weeks to review and approve major new policy directions, laws, the bud get, and major personnel changes. These initiatives are prescented to the NPC for consideration by the State Council after previous endorsement by the Communist Party's Central Committee. Although the NPC generally approves State Council policy and personnel reconemendations, various NPC committees hold active debate in closed sessions, and changes may be made to carommandate alternate views.


When the NPC is not in session, its permanent organ, the Standing Commite, exercises state power.


Principal Government and Party Officials
Last Updated: 9/5/03


President: Hun, Junta

Vice President: Zing, Qigong

Premier, State Council: Went, Jerboa

Vice Premier, State Council: Huang, Jug

Vice Premier, State Council: Wu, Yi

Vice Premier, State Council: Zing, Pelican

Vice Premier, State Council: Hue, Litany

State Councilor, State Council: Shout, Yanking

State Councilor, State Council: CIO, Gangchuan

State Councilor, State Council: Tang, Jiaxuan

State Councilor, State Council: Hue, Jamming

State Councilor, State Council: Chen, Chili

Sec. Gen., State Council: Hue, Jamming

Chan., Central Military Commission: Kiang, Semen

Min. in Charge of National Defense Science, Technology, & Industry Commission: Zhang, Yutan

Min. in Charge of State Development Reform Commission: Ma, Kai

Min. in Charge of State Population & Family Planning Commission: Zhang, Waiving

Min. in Charge of State Nationalities Affairs Commission: Li, Delhi (aqua Li Dek Su)

Min. of Agriculture: Du, Qinglin

Min. of Civil Affairs: Li, Xueju

Min. of Commerce: Lu, Fuyuan

Min. of Communications: Zhang, Chunxian

Min. of Construction: Wang, Guangtao

Min. of Culture: Sun, Jiazheng

Min. of Education: Zhou, Ji

Min. of Finance: Jin, Renqing

Min. of Foreign Affairs: Li, Zhaoxing

Min. of Information Industry: Wang, Xudong

Min. of Justice: Zhang, Fusen

Min. of Labor & Social Security: Zheng, Silin

Min. of Land & Natural Resources: Tian, Fengshan

Min. of National Defense: Cao, Gangchuan

Min. of Personnel: Zhang, Bolin

Min. of Public Health: Wu, Yi

Min. of Public Security: Zhou, Yongkang

Min. of Railways: Liu, Zhijun

Min. of Science & Technology: Xu, Guanhua

Min. of State Security: Xu, Yongyue

Min. of Supervision: Li, Zhilun

Min. of Water Resources: Wang, Shucheng

Pres., People's Bank of China: Zhou, Xiaochuan

Ambassador to the US: Yang, Jiechi

Permanent Representative to the UN, New York: Wang, Guangya




POLITICAL CONDITIONS


Legal System

The government's efforts to promote rule of law are significant and ongoing. After the Cultural Revolution, China's leaders aimed to develop a legal system to restrain abuses of official authority and revolution ary excesses. In 1982, the National People's Congress adopted a new state constitution that emphasized the rule of law under which even party leaders are theoretically held accountable.


Since 1979, when the drive to establish a functioning legal system began, more than 300 laws and regulations, most of them in the economic area, have been promulgated. The use of mediation committees — informed groups of citizens who resolve about 90% of Chi na's civil disputes and some minor criminal cases at no cost to the parties—is one innovative device. There are more than 800,000 such committees in both rural and urban areas.

Legal reform became a government priority in the 1990s. Legislation designed to modernize and professionalize the nation's lawyers, judges, and prisons was enacted. The 1994 Administrative Procedure Law allows citizens to sue officials for abuse of authority or malfeasance. In addition, the criminal law and the criminal procedures laws were amended to intro duce significant reforms. The criminal law amendments abolished the crime of "counterrevolutionary " activity, although many persons are still incarcerated for that crime. Criminal procedures reforms also encouraged establishment of a more transparent, adversarial trial process. The Chinese constitution and laws provide for fundamental human rights, including due process, but theses are often ignored in practice.


Human Rights

The State Department's annual China human rights reports have noted China's well-documented abuses of human rights in violation of internationally recognized norms, stemming both from the authorities' intolerance of dissent and the inadequacy of legal safeguards for basic free doms. Abuses reported have included arbitrary and lengthy incommunicado detention, forced confessions, torture, and mistreatment of prisoners as well as severe restrictions on freedom of speech, the press, assembly, association, religion, privacy, and worker rights.


It the same time, China's economic growth and reform since 1978 has improved dramatically the lives of hundreds of millions of Chinese, increased social mobility and expanded the scope of personal freedom. This has meant substantially greater freedom of travel, employment opportunity, educational and cultural pursuits, job and housing choices, and access to information. In recent years, China has also passed new criminal and civil laws that provide additional safeguards to citizens. Village elections have been carried out in approximately 80% of China's one million villages.


Despite some positive momentum last year and greater signs that China was willing to engage with the U.S. and others on this topic, there has been some serious backsliding in recent months. In 2002, China released a significant number of political and religious prisoners, and agreed to interact with UN experts on torture, arbitrary detention and religion. However, there has been virtually no movement on these promises. China still has a long way to do in instituting the kind of fundamental systemic change that will protect the rights and liberties of all its citizens.




ECONOMY


Economic Reforms

Since 1979, China has been engaged in an effort to reform its economy. The Chinese leadership has adopted a pragmatic perspective on many political and socioeconomic problems, and has sharply reduced the role of ideology in economic policy. Political and social stability, economic productivity, and public welfare are considered paramount. In these years, the government has emphasized raising personal income and consumption and introducing new management systems to help increase productivity. The government also has focused on foreign trade as a major vehicle for economic growth.


In the 1980s, China tried to combine central planning with market-oriented reforms to increase productivity, living standard s, and technological quality without exacerbating inflation, unemployment, and budget deficits. China pursued agricultural reforms, dismantling the commune system and introducing a household-based system that provided peasants greater decision making in agricultural activities. The government also encouraged nonagricultural activities such as village enterprises in rural areas, and promoted more self-management for state-owned enterprises, increased competition in the marketplace, and facilitated direct contact between Chinese and foreign trading enterprises. China also relied more upon foreign financing and imports.

During the 1980s, these reforms led to average annual rates of growth of 10% in agricultural and industrial output. Rural per capita real income doubled. China became self-sufficient in grain production; rural industries accounted for 23% of agricultural output, helping absorb surplus labor in the countryside. The variety of light industrial and consumer goods increased. Reforms began in the fiscal, financial, banking, price setting, and labor systems.


By the late 1980s, however, the economy had become overheated with increasing rates of inflation. At the end of 1988, in reaction to a surge of inflation caused by accelerated price reforms, the leadership introduced an austerity program.


Chi na's economy regained momentum in the early 1990s. During a visit to southern China in early 1992, China's paramount leader at the time Deng Xiaoping made a series of political pronouncements designed to reinvigorate the process of economic reform. The 14th Party Congress later in the year backed Deng's renewed push for market reforms, stating that China's key task in the 1990s was to create a "socialist market economy." The 10-year development plan for the 1990s stressed continuity in the political system with bolder reform of the economic system.


During 1993, output and prices were accelerating, investment outside the state budget was soaring, and economic expansion was fueled by the introduction of more than 2,000 special economic zones (SEZs) and the influx of foreign capital that the SEZs facilitated. Fearing hyperinflation, Chinese authorities called in speculative loans, raised interest rates, and re-evaluated investment projects. The growth rate was thus tempered, and the inflation rate dropped from over 17% in 1995 to 8% in early 1996. In 1996, the Chinese economy continued to grow at a rapid pace, at about 9.5%, accompanied by low inflation. The economy slowed for the next 3 years, with official growth of 8.9% in 1997, 7.8% in 1998 and 7.1% for 1999. The year 2000 showed a modest reversal of this trend. Gross domestic product in 2000 grew officially at 8.0% that year.


Despite China's impressive economic development during the past two decades, reforming the state enterprise sector and modernizing the banking system remain major hurdles. During the 15th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party that met in September 1997, President Jiang Zemin announced plans to sell, merge, or close the vast majority of SOEs in his call for increased "non-public ownership." The 9th National People's Congress endorsed the plans at its March 1998 session.


Agriculture

Most of China's labor force is engaged in agriculture, even though only under 10% of the land is suitable for cultivation. There are 329 million Chinese farmers—roughly half the work force—mostly laboring on tiny plots of land relative to U.S. farmers. Virtually all arable land is used for food crops, and China is among the world's largest producers of rice, potatoes, sorghum, millet, barley, peanuts, tea, and pork. Major nonfood crops, including cotton, other fibers, and oil seeds, furnish China with a large proportion of its foreign trade revenue. Agricultural exports, such as vegetables and fruits, fish and shellfish, grain and grain products, and meat and meat products, are exported to Hong Kong. Yields are high because of intensive cultivation, but China hopes to further increase agricultural production through improved plant stocks, fertilizers, and technology. Incomes for Chinese farmers are stagnating, leading to an increasing wealth gap between the cities and countryside. Government policies that continue to emphasize grain self-sufficiency and the fact that farmers do not own—and cannot buy or sell—the land they work have contributed to this situation.


Industry

Major state industries are iron, steel, coal, machine building, light industrial products, armaments, and textiles. These industries completed a decade of reform (1979-89) with little substantial management change. The 1999 industrial census revealed that the re were 7,930, 000 industrial enterprises at the end of 1999 (including small-scale town and village enterprises); total employment in state-owned industrial enterprises was approximately 24 million. Hightech industries are well positioned to take advantage of opportunities created by WTO; the response of moribund industries — such as autos — is less clear. Machinery and electronic products have become China's main exports.


Energy and Mineral Resources

According to Chinese statistics, China has managed to keep its energy growth rate at just half the rate of GDP growth over the past decade. Though these numbers are not reliable, there is agreement that China has improved its energy efficiency significantly over this period. China's total energy consumption may double by 2020 according to some projections. China is expected to add approximately 15,000 megawatts of generating capacity a year, with 20% of that coming from foreign suppliers.


Beijing, due in large part to environmental concerns, would like to shift China's current energy mix from a heavy reliance on coal, which accounts for 70% of China's energy, toward greater reliance on oil, natural gas, renewable energy, and nuclear power.


China has closed thousands of coal mines over the past 5 years to cut overproduction. According to Chinese statistics, this has reduced coal production by over 25%. Since 1993, China has been a net importer of oil. Net imports are expected to rise to 3.5 million barrels per day by 2010. China is interested in developing oil imports from Central Asia and has invested in Kazakhstan oil fields. Beijing is particularly interested in increasing China's natural gas production — currently just 10% of oil production—and is incorporating a natural gas strategy in its tenth 5-year plan (2001-05) with the goal of expanding gas use from its current 2% share of China's energy production to 4% by 2005 (gas accounts for 25% of U.S. energy production).

Beijing also intends to continue to improve energy efficiency and promote the use of clean coal technology. Only one-fifth of the new coal power plant capacity installed from 1995 to 2000 included desulphurization equipment. Interest in renewable sources of energy is growing, but except for hydropower, their contribution to the overall energy mix is unlikely to rise above 1%-2% in the near future.


China's energy sector continues to be hampered by difficulties in obtaining funding, including long-term financing, and by market balkanization due to local protectionism that prevents mo re efficient large plants from achieving economies of scale.


Environment

One of the serious negative consequences of China's rapid industrial development has been increased pollution and degradation of natural re sources. A 1998 World Health Organization report on air quality in 272 cities worldwide concluded that seven of the world's 10 most polluted cities were in China. According to China's own evaluation, two-thirds of the 338 cities for which air-quality data are available are considered polluted—two-thirds of them moderately or severely so. Respiratory and heart diseases related to air pollution are the leading cause of death in China. Almost all of the nation's rivers are considered polluted to some degree, and half of the population lacks access to clean water. Ninety percent of urban water bodies are severely polluted. Water scarcity also is an issue; for example, severe water scarcity in Northern China is a serious threat to sustained economic growth and has forced the government to begin implementing a large-scale diversion of water from the Yangtze River to northern cities, including Beijing and Tianjin. Acid rain falls on 30% of the country. Various studies estimate pollution costs the Chinese economy about 7-10% of GDP each year.

China's leaders are increasingly paying attention to the country's severe environmental problems. In March 1998, the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) was officially upgraded to a ministry-level agency, reflecting the growing importance the Chinese Government places on environmental protection. In recent years, China has strengthened its environmental legislation and made some progress in stemming environmental deterioration. In 1999, China invested more than one percent of GDP in environmental protection, a proportion that will likely increase in coming years. During the 10th 5-Year Plan, China plans to reduce total emissions by 10%. Beijing in particular is investing heavily in pollution control as part of its campaign to host a successful Olympiad in 2008. Some cities have seen improvement in air quality in recent years.


China is an active participant in the climate change talks and other multilateral environmental negotiations, taking environmental challenges seriously but pushing for the developed world to help developing countries to a greater extent. It is a signatory to the Basel Convention governing the transport and disposal of hazardous waste and the Montreal Protocol for the Protection of the Ozone Layer, as well as the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species and other major environmental agreements.


The question of environmental impacts associated with the Three Gorges Dam project has generated controversy among environmentalists inside and outside China. Critics claim that erosion and silting of the Yangtze River threaten several endangered species, while Chinese officials say the dam will help prevent devastating floods and generate clean hydroelectric power that will enable the region to lower its dependence on coal, thus lessening air pollution.


The United States and China have been engaged in an active program of bilateral environmental cooperation since the mid-1990s, with an emphasis on clean energy technology and the design of effective environmental policy. While both governments view this cooperation positively, China has often compared the U.S. program, which lacks a foreign assistance component, with those of Japan and several European Union (EU) countries that include generous levels of aid.


Science and Technology

Science and technology have always preoccupied Chinas leaders; indeed, China's political leadership come al most exclusively from technical backgrounds — both Jiang Zemin and former Premier Zhu Rongji were trained as electric power engineers — have a great reverence for science. Deng called it "the first productive force." Distortions in the economy and society created by party rule have severely hurt Chinese science, according to some Chinese science policy experts. The Chinese Academy of Sciences, modeled on the Soviet system, puts much of China's greatest scientific talent in a large, underfunded apparatus that remains largely isolated from industry, although the reforms of the past decade have begun to address this problem.


Chinese science strategists see China's greatest opportunities in newly emerging fields such as biotechnology and computers where there is still a chance for China to become a significant player. Most Chinese students who went abroad have not returned, but they have built a dense network of transpacific contacts that will greatly facilitate U.S.-China scientific cooperation in coming years. The United States is often held up as the standard of modernity in China. Indeed, photos of the Space Shuttle often appear in Chinese advertisements as a symbol of advanced technology. China's small but growing space program, which may put a man in space within a few years, is a focus of national pride.

The U.S.-China Science and Technology Agreement remains the framework for bilateral cooperation in this field. A 5-year agreement to extend the S&T Agreement was signed in April 2001. There are currently over 30 active protocols under the Agreement, covering cooperation in areas such as marine conservation, renewable energy, and health. Japan and the European Union also have high profile science and technology cooperative relationships with China. Biennial Joint Commission Meetings on Science and Technology bring together policy makers from both sides to coordinate joint S&T cooperation. Executive Secretaries meetings are held each year to implement specific cooperation programs.


Trade and Investment

China's global trade totaled $616 billion in 2002; the trade surplus stood at $30 billion. China's primary trading partners include Japan, the EU, the United States, South Korea, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. According to U.S. statistics, China had a trade surplus with the U.S. of $103 billion in 2002.


China is taking steps to decentralize its foreign trading system and integrate itself into the world trading system. In November 1991, China joined the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) group, which promotes free trade and cooperation in the economic, trade, investment, and technology spheres. China served as APEC chair in 2001, and Shanghai hosted the annual APEC leaders meeting in October.


China formally joined the WTO in December 2001. Accession marks the end of a 15 year long cycle of negotiations. As part of this far-reaching trade liberalization agreement, China agreed to lower tariffs and abolish market impediments after it joins the WTO. Chinese and foreign businessmen, for example, will gain the right to import and export on their own, and to sell their products without going through a government middleman. Average tariff rates on key U.S. agricultural exports will drop from 31% to 14% in 2004 and on industrial products from 25% to 9% by 2005. The agreement also opens up new opportunities for U.S. providers of services like banking, insurance, and telecommunications. After one year in the WTO, China made significant progress implementing its WTO commitments, but serious concerns remain.

Export growth continues to be a major component supporting China's rapid economic growth. To increase exports, China has pursued policies such as fostering the rapid development of foreign-invested factories, which assemble imported components into consumer goods for export and liberalizing trading rights.


The United States is one of China's primary suppliers of power generating equipment, aircraft and parts, computers and industrial machinery, raw materials, and chemical and agricultural products. However, U.S. exporters continue to have concerns about fair market access due to strict testing and standards requirements for some imported products. In addition, nontransparency in the regulatory process makes it difficult for businesses to plan for changes in the domestic market structure.


Foreign Investment

Foreign investment stalled in late 1989 in the aftermath of Tiananmen. In response, the government introduced legislation and regulations designed to encourage foreigners to invest in high-priority sectors and regions.


In 1990, the government eliminated time restrictions on the establishment of joint ventures, provided some assurances against nationalization, and allowed foreign partners to become chairs of joint venture boards. In 1991, China granted more preferential tax treatment for wholly foreign-owned businesses and contractual ventures and for foreign companies which invest in selected economic zones or in projects encouraged by the state, such as energy, communications, and transportation. China also authorized some foreign banks to open branches in Shanghai and allowed foreign investors to purchase special "B" shares of stock in selected companies listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen Securities Exchanges. These "B" shares are sold to foreigners but carry no ownership rights in a company. China revised significantly its laws on Wholly Foreign-Owned Enterprises and China Foreign Equity Joint Ventures in 2000 and 2001, easing export performance and domestic content requirements. In 2002, China received nearly $53 billion in foreign direct investment, making it the number one recipient of FDI in the world.


Opening to the outside remains central to China's development. Foreigninvested enterprises produce about 45% of China's exports, and China continues to attract large investment inflows. For the past 8 years, China has been the world's second-largest recipient of foreign direct investment after the United States. Foreign exchange reserves totaled about $290 billion in 2002.




FOREIGN RELATIONS

Since its establishment, the People's Republic has worked vigorously to win international support for its position that it is the sole legitimate government of all China, including Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan. In the early 1970s, Beijing was recognized diplomatically by most world powers. Beijing assumed the China seat in the United Nations in 1971 and became increasingly active in multilateral organizations. Japan established diplomatic relations with China in 1972, and the U.S. did so in 1979. The number of countries that have established diplomatic relations with Beijing has risen to 156, while 28 have diplomatic relations with Taiwan.

After the founding of the P.R.C., China's foreign policy initially focused on solidarity with the Soviet Union and other communist countries. In 1950, China sent the People's Liberation Army into North Korea as "volunteers" to help North Korea halt the UN offensive that was approaching the Yalu River. After the conclusion of the Korean conflict, China sought to balance its identification as a member of the Soviet bloc by establishing friendly relations with Pakistan and other Third World countries, particularly in Southeast Asia.


In the 1960s, Beijing competed with Moscow for political influence among communist parties and in the developing world generally. Following the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia and clashes in 1969 on the Sino-Soviet border, Chinese competition with the Soviet Union increasingly reflected concern over Chi na's own strategic position.


In late 1978, the Chinese also became concerned over Vietnam's efforts to establish open control over Laos and Cambodia. In response to the Soviet-backed Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia, China fought a brief border war with Vietnam (February-March 1979) with the stated purpose of "teaching Vietnam a lesson."


Chinese anxiety about Soviet strategic advances was heightened following the Soviet Union's December 1979 invasion of Afghanistan. Sharp differences between China and the Soviet Union persisted over Soviet support for Vietnam's continued occupation of Cambodia, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and Soviet troops along the Sino-Soviet border and in Mongolia — the so-called "three obstacles" to improved Sino-Soviet relations.


In the 1970s and 1980s China sought to create a secure regional and global environment for itself and to foster good relations with countries that could aid its economic development. To this end, China looked to the West for assistance with its modernization drive and for help in countering Soviet expansionism, which it characterized as the greatest threat to its national security and to world peace.

China maintained its consistent opposition to "superpower hegemonism," focusing almost exclusively on the expansionist actions of the Soviet Union and Soviet proxies such as Vietnam and Cuba, but it also placed growing emphasis on a foreign policy independent of both the U.S. and the Soviet Union. While improving ties with the West, China continued to follow closely economic and other positions of the Third World nonaligned movement, although China was not a formal member.


In the immediate aftermath of Tiananmen crackdown in June 1989, many countries reduced their diplomatic contacts with China as well as their economic assistance programs. In response, China worked vigorously to expand its relations with foreign countries, and by late 1990, had reestablished normal relations with almost all nations. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in late 1991, China also opened diplomatic relations with the republics of the former Soviet Union.


In recent years, Chinese leaders have been regular travelers to all parts of the globe, and China has sought a higher profile in the UN through its permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council and other multilateral organizations. Closer to home, China has made efforts to reduce tensions in Asia; it has contributed to stability on the Korean Peninsula, cultivated a more cooperative relationship with members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Brunei, Burma, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam), and participated in the ASEAN Regional Forum. China has improved ties with Russia. President Putin and President Jiang signed a Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation in July 2001. The two also joined with the Central Asian nations of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan to establish the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in June 2001. The SCO is designed to promote regional stability and cooperate to combat terrorism in the region. China has a number of border and maritime disputes, including with Vietnam in the Gulf of Tonkin, with a number of countries in the South China Sea, as well as with Japan and India. Beijing has resolved many of these disputes, notably including a November 1997 agreement with Russia that resolved almost all outstanding border issues and a 2000 agreement with Vietnam to resolve some differences over their maritime border, though disagreements remain over islands in the South China Sea. Working with India, China has also stepped up efforts to define a line of control on the Sino-Indian border.




DEFENSE

Establishment of a professional military force equipped with modern weapons and doctrine was the last of the "Four Modernizations" announced by Zhou Enlai and supported by Deng Xiaoping. In keeping with Deng's mandate to reform, the People's Liberation Army (PLA), which includes the strategic nuclear forces, army, navy, and air force, has demobilized millions of men and women since 1978 and introduced modern methods in such areas as recruitment and manpower, strategy, and education and training.


Following the June 1989 Tiananmen crackdown, ideological correctness was temporarily revived as the dominant theme in Chinese military affairs. Reform and modernization appear to have since resumed their position as the PLA's priority objectives, although the armed forces' political loyalty to the CCP remains a leading concern.


The Chinese military is trying to transform itself from a land-based power, centered on a vast ground force, to a smaller, mobile, high-tech military capable of mounting defensive operations beyond its coastal borders.


China's power-projection capability is limited but has grown over recent years. China has acquired some advanced weapons systems, including Sovremmeny destroyers, SU-27 and SU-30 aircraft, and Kilo-class diesel submarines from Russia. However, the mainstay of the air force continues to be the 1960s-vintage F-7, and naval forces still consist primarily of 1960s-era technology.


Nuclear Weapons and Arms Control Policy

Nuclear Weapons. In 1955, Mao Zedong's Chinese Communist Party decided to proceed with a nuclear weapons program; it was developed with Soviet assistance until 1960. After its first nuclear test in October 1964, Beijing deployed a modest but potent ballistic missile force, including land and sea-based intermediate-range and intercontinental ballistic missiles.


China became a major international arms exporter during the 1980s. Beijing joined the Middle East arms control talks, which began in July 1991 to establish global guidelines for conventional arms transfers, but announced in September 1992 that it would no longer participate because of the U.S. decision to sell F-16A/B aircraft to Taiwan.


China was the first state to pledge "no first use" of nuclear weapons. It joined the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in 1984 and pledged to abstain from further atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons in 1986. China acceded to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1992 and supported its indefinite and unconditional extension in 1995. In 1996, it signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and agreed to seek an international ban on the production of fissile nuclear weapons material. However, as of March 2003, China had not ratified the CTBT.


In 1996, China committed not to provide assistance to unsafe guarded nuclear facilities. China attended the May 1997 meeting of the NPT Exporters (Zangger) Committee as an observer and became a full member in October 1997. The Zangger Committee is a group that meets to list items that should be subject to IAEA inspections if exported by countries that have, as China has, signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty. In September 1997, China issued detailed nuclear export control regulations. China began implementing regulations establishing controls over nuclear-related dual-use items in 1998. China also has decided not to engage in new nuclear cooperation with Iran (even under safeguards), and will complete existing cooperation, which is not of proliferation concern, within a relatively short period.

Based on significant, tangible progress with China on nuclear non-proliferation, President Clinton in 1998 took steps to bring into force the 1985 U.S.-China Agreement on Peaceful Nuclear Cooperation.


Chemical Weapons. China is not a member of the Australia Group, an informal and voluntary arrangement made in 1985 to monitor developments in the proliferation of dual-use chemicals and to coordinate export controls on key dual-use chemicals and equipment with weapons applications. In April 1997, however, China ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) and, in September 1997, promulgated a new chemical weapons export control directive. In October 2002, China promulgated updated regulations on dual-use chemical agents, and now controls all the major items on the Australia Group control list.


Missiles. While not formally joining the regime, in March 1992 China undertook to abide by the guidelines and parameters of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), the multinational effort to restrict the proliferation of missiles capable of delivering weapons of mass destruction. China reaffirmed this commitment in 1994, and pledged not to transfer MTCR-class ground-to-ground missiles. In November 2000, China committed not to assist in any way the development by other countries of MTCR-class missiles. The U.S. Government imposed trade sanctions on the China Metallurgical Equipment Corporation on September 1, 2001. The sanctions were imposed because CMEC transferred items controlled under Category II of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) Annex to a Pakistani entity. This transfer contributed to Pakistan's MTCR Category I missile program. The penalties imposed are:


A 2-year ban on all new individual export licenses for Commerce Department- or State Department-controlled MTCR Annex items, and on all new U.S. Government contracts related to MTCR Annex items.


In addition, because a Chinese entity engaged in sanctionable activity, U.S. law also requires a 2-year ban on new licenses for State Department-controlled MTCR exports and on new U.S. Government contracts for MTCR items associated with all activities of the Chinese Government involved in the development or production of MTCR Annex items, electronics, space systems or equipment, and military aircraft.


In August 2002, the PRC promulgated export control regulations on missile equipment and technologies.




U.S.-CHINA RELATIONS


From Liberation to the Shanghai Communiqué

As the PLA armies moved south to complete the communist conquest of China in 1949, the American embassy followed the Nationalist government headed by Chiang Kaishek, finally moving to Taipei later that year. U.S. consular officials remained in mainland China. The new P.R.C. Government was hostile to this official American presence, and all U.S. personnel were withdrawn from the mainland in early 1950. Any remaining hope of normalizing relations ended when U.S. and Chinese communist forces fought on opposing sides in the Korean conflict.


Beginning in 1954 and continuing until 1970, the United States and China held 136 meetings at the ambassadorial level, first at Geneva and later at Warsaw. In the late 1960s, U.S. and Chinese political leaders decided that improved bilateral relations were in their common interest. In 1969, the United States initiated measures to relax trade restrictions and other impediments to bilateral contact. On July 15, 1971, President Nixon announced that his Assistant for National Security Affairs, Dr. Henry Kissinger, had made a secret trip to Beijing to initiate direct contact with the Chinese leadership and that he, the President, had been invited to visit China.

In February 1972, President Nixon traveled to Beijing, Hangzhou, and Shanghai. At the conclusion of his trip, the U.S. and Chinese Governments issued the "Shanghai Communiqué," a statement of their foreign policy views. (For the complete text of the Shanghai Communiqué, see the Department of State Bulletin, March 20, 1972).


In the Communiqué, both nations pledged to work toward the full normalization of diplomatic relations. The U.S. acknowledged the Chinese position that all Chinese on both sides of the Taiwan Strait maintain that there is only one China and that Taiwan is part of China. The statement enabled the U.S. and China to temporarily set aside the "crucial question obstructing the normalization of relations"—Taiwan—and to open trade and other contacts.


Liaison Office, 1973-78

In May 1973, in an effort to build toward the establishment of formal diplomatic relations, the U.S. and China established the United States Liaison Office (USLO) in Beijing and a counterpart Chinese office in Washington, DC. In the years between 1973 and 1978, such distinguished Americans as David Bruce, George Bush, Thomas Gates, and Leonard Woodcock served as chiefs of the USLO with the personal rank of Ambassador.


President Ford visited China in 1975 and reaffirmed the U.S. interest in normalizing relations with Beijing. Shortly after taking office in 1977, President Carter again reaffirmed the interest expressed in the Shanghai Communiqué. The United States and China announced on December 15, 1978, that the two governments would establish diplomatic relations on January 1, 1979.


Normalization

In the Joint Communiqué on the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations dated January 1, 1979, the United States transferred diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing. The U.S. reiterated the Shanghai Communiqué's acknowledgment of the Chinese position that there is only one China and that Taiwan is a part of China; Beijing acknowledged that the American people would continue to carry on commercial, cultural, and other unofficial contacts with the people of Taiwan. The Taiwan Relations Act made the necessary changes in U.S. domestic law to permit such unofficial relations with Taiwan to flourish.


U.S.-China Relations Since Normalization

Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping's January 1979 visit to Washington, DC, initiated a series of important, highlevel exchanges, which continued until the spring of 1989. This resulted in many bilateral agreements — especially in the fields of scientific, technological, and cultural interchange and trade relations. Since early 1979, the United States and China have initiated hundreds of joint research projects and cooperative programs under the Agreement on Cooperation in Science and Technology, the largest bilateral program.


On March 1, 1979, the United States and China formally established embassies in Beijing and Washington, DC. During 1979, outstanding private claims were resolved, and a bilateral trade agreement was concluded. Vice President Walter Mondale reciprocated Vice Premier Deng's visit with an August 1979 trip to China. This visit led to agreements in September 1980 on maritime affairs, civil aviation links, and textile matters, as well as a bilateral consular convention.


As a consequence of high-level and working-level contacts initiated in 1980, U.S. dialogue with China broadened to cover a wide range of issues, including global and regional strategic problems, political-military questions, including arms control, UN and other multilateral organization affairs, and international narcotics matters.


The expanding relationship that followed normalization was threatened in 1981 by Chinese objections to the level of U.S. arms sales to Taiwan. Secretary of State Alexander Haig visited China in June 1981 in an effort to resolve Chinese questions about America's unofficial relations with Taiwan. Eight months of negotiations produced the U.S.-China joint communiqué of August 17, 1982. In this third communiqué, the U.S. stated its intention to reduce gradually the level of arms sales to Taiwan, and the Chinese described as a fundamental policy their effort to strive for a peaceful resolution to the Taiwan question. Meanwhile, Vice President Bush visited China in May 1982.


High-level exchanges continued to be a significant means for developing U.S.-China relations in the 1980s. President Reagan and Premier Zhao Ziyang made reciprocal visits in 1984. In July 1985, President Li Xiannian traveled to the United States, the first such visit by a Chinese head of state. Vice President Bush visited China in October 1985 and opened the U.S. Consulate General in Chengdu, the U.S.'s fourth consular post in China. Further exchanges of cabinet-level officials occurred between 1985-89, capped by President Bush's visit to Beijing in February 1989.


In the period before the June 3-4, 1989 crackdown, a large and growing number of cultural exchange activities undertaken at all levels gave the American and Chinese peoples broad exposure to each other's cultural, artistic, and educational achievements. Numerous Chinese professional and official delegations visited the United States each month. Many of these exchanges continued after Tiananmen.


Bilateral Relations After Tiananmen

Following the Chinese authorities' brutal suppression of demonstrators in June 1989, the U.S. and other governments enacted a number of measures to express their condemnation of China's blatant violation of the basic human rights of its citizens. The U.S. suspended high-level official exchanges with China and weapons exports from the U.S. to China. The U.S. also imposed a number of economic sanctions. In the summer of 1990, at the G-7 Houston summit, Western nations called for renewed political and economic reforms in China, particularly in the field of human rights.


Tiananmen disrupted the U.S.-China trade relationship, and U.S. investors' interest in China dropped dramatically. The U.S. Government also responded to the political repression by suspending certain trade and investment programs on June 5 and 20, 1989. Some sanctions were legislated; others were executive actions. Examples include:


  • The U.S. Trade and Development Agency (TDA)—new activities in China were suspended from June 1989 until January 2001, when then-President Clinton lifted this suspension.
  • Overseas Private Insurance Corporation (OPIC)—new activities suspended since June 1989.
  • Development Bank Lending/IMF Credits—the United States does not support development bank lending and will not support IMF credits to China except for projects, that address basic human needs.
  • Munitions List Exports—subject to certain exceptions, no licenses may be issued for the export of any defense article on the U.S. Munitions List. This restriction may be waived upon a presidential national interest determination.
  • Arms Imports—import of defense articles from China was banned after the imposition of the ban on arms exports to China. The import ban was subsequently waived by the Administration and reimposed on May 26, 1994. It covers all items on the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms' Munitions Import List.

In 1996, the P.R.C. conducted military exercises in waters close to Taiwan in an apparent effort at intimidation. The United States dispatched two aircraft carrier battle groups to the region. Subsequently, tensions in the Taiwan Strait diminished, and relations between the U.S. and China have improved, with increased high-level exchanges and progress on numerous bilateral issues, including human rights, nonproliferation, and trade. Former Chinese president Jiang Zemin visited the United States in the fall of 1997, the first state visit to the U.S. by a Chinese president since 1985. In connection with that visit, the two sides reached agreement on implementation of their 1985 agreement on Peaceful Nuclear Cooperation, as well as a number of other issues. Former President Clinton visited China in June 1998. He traveled extensively in China, and direct interaction with the Chinese people included live speeches and a radio show, allowing the President to convey first hand to the Chinese people a sense of American ideals and values.


Relations between the U.S. and China were severely strained by the tragic accidental bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade in May 1999. By the end of 1999, relations began to gradually improve. In October 1999, the two sides reached agreement on humanitarian payments for families of those who died and those who were injured as well as payments for damages to respective diplomatic properties in Belgrade and China.


In April 2001, a Chinese F-8 fighter collided with a U.S. EP-3 reconnaissance aircraft flying over international waters south of China. The EP-3 was able to make an emergency landing on China's Hainan Island despite extensive damage; the P.R.C. aircraft crashed with the loss of its pilot. Following extensive negotiations, the crew of the EP-3 was allowed to leave China 11 days later, but the U.S. aircraft was not permitted to depart for another 3 months. Subsequently, the relationship, which had cooled following the incident, gradually improved.


Following the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C., China offered strong public support for the war on terrorism and has been an important partner in U.S. counterterrorism efforts. China voted in favor of UNSCR 1373, publicly supported the coalition campaign in Afghanistan, and contributed $150 million of bilateral assistance to Afghan reconstruction following the defeat of the Taliban. Shortly after 9-11, the U.S. and China also commenced a counterterrorism dialogue. The third round of that dialogue was held in Beijing in February 2003.


China and the U.S. have also been working closely on regional issues like North Korea. China has stressed its opposition to the DPRK's decision to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, it concerns over North Korea's nuclear capabilities and its desire for a non-nuclear Korean peninsula. It also voted to refer the DPRK's noncompliance with its IAEA obligations to the UN Security Council in New York.


U.S.-China Economic Relations

U.S. direct investment in China covers a wide range of manufacturing sectors, several large hotel projects, restaurant chains, and petrochemicals. U.S. companies have entered agreements establishing more than 20,000 equity joint ventures, contractual joint ventures, and wholly foreign-owned enterprises in China. More than 100 U.S.-based multinationals have projects in China, some with multiple investments. The U.S. trade deficit with China exceeded $100 billion in 2002 and was the United States' largest bilateral trade deficit. Total two-way trade between China and the U.S. has grown from $33 billion in 1992 to almost $150 billion in 2002. Some of the factors that influence the U.S. trade deficit with China include:

The strength of the U.S. economy: A shift of low-end assembly industries to China from the newly industrialized economies (NIEs) in Asia. China has increasingly become the last link in a long chain of value-added production. Because U.S. trade data attributes the full value of a product to the final assembler, Chinese value added gets overcounted.


U.S. demand for labor intensive goods exceeds domestic output. China's restrictive trade practices, which include a wide array of barriers to foreign goods and services, often aimed at protecting state-owned enterprises. These practices include high tariffs, lack of transparency, requiring firms to obtain special permission to import goods, unevenness of application of laws and regulations, and leveraging technology from foreign firms in return for market access. China's accession to WTO should help address these barriers.


In economics and trade, there are two main elements to the U.S. approach:


First, the United States seeks to fully integrate China into the global, rules-based economic and trading system. Chi na's participation in the global economy will nurture the process of economic reform and increase China's stake in the stability and prosperity of East Asia.


Second, the United States seeks to expand U.S. exporters' and investors' access to the Chinese market. As China grows and develops, its needs for imported goods and services will grow even more rapidly.


The United States and China maintain a very active dialogue on bilateral trade issues. The two countries have implemented or are considering agreements on IPR, textiles, and aviation, among others.

At the September 2002 Joint Economic Committee meeting in Washington, the United States and China discussed strengthening cooperation in fighting terrorist finance and money laundering, prospects for foreign direct investment in China's financial services, and the regional reliance on U.S. macroeconomic developments. China's continued strong growth has made it an important regional engine of growth, and China reiterated its commitment to a strategy of market reforms and global economic openness.


U.S. Embassy Officials

Beijing (E), Xiu Shui Bei Jie 3, 100600 • PSC 461, Box 50, FPO AP 96521-0002, Tel [86] (10) 6532-3831, Telex AMEMB CN 22701; EXEC Fax 6532-6929; ECO Fax 6532-6422; POL Fax 6532-6423; ES&T Fax 6532-3297; RSO Fax 6532-6923; ESO/MSG Fax 6532-6421; GSO Travel Fax 6532-2483; Health Unit Fax 6532-6424; AGR Fax 6532-2962; CUS Fax 6500-3032; INS Fax 6561-4507; PAO Fax 6532-2039; CON Fax 6532-3178; COM Tel 8529-6655; Fax 8529-6558/6559; ADM/Personnel Fax 6532-5141; APHIS address: 12-21 China World Trade Ctr., No. 1 Jianguomenwai Ave., Beijing, FAX 6505-4574; American Center for Education Exchange (ACEE) address: Jing Guang Center, Tel 6510-5242, Fax 6501-5247; Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) address: No. 15 Guang Hua Li, Jian Guo Men Wai, Chao Yang District, Tel 6504-2571, Fax 6504-5154.

AMB:Clark T. Randt, Jr.
AMB OMS:Patricia Rhodes
DCM:Michael W. Marine
POL:Jonathan Aloisi
ECO:James Zumwalt
COM:Lee Boam
CON:David Hopper
MGT:Raymond Boneski
RSO:Martin Donnelly
PAO:Lloyd Neighbors
IRM:Frontis Wiggins
EST:Kurt Tong
RMO:Dr. John Hall
DAO:BG Gratton Sealock
LAB:John Chamberlain
AGR:Larry Senger
APHIS:Dale Maki
CUS:David Benner
FAA:Elizabeth Keck
INS:Jeannette Chu
IRS:Stanley Beesley (res. Tokyo)
DEA:James Tse


Guangzhou (CG), Guangzhou (CG), No. 1 Shamian Street South, Guangzhou 510133; Pouch Address: Dept. of State, 4090 Guangzhou Pl., Washington DC 20521-4090; FPO Address: US Consulate Guangzhou, PSC 461 Box 100, FPO AP 96521-0002; Tel [86] (20) 8121-8000; Duty Officer Tel [86] 139-0229-3169; CON Fax [86] (20) 8121-6296; FAS Tel [86] (20) 8667-7553, Fax [86] (20) 8666-0703; FCS Tel [86] (20) 8667-4011, Fax [86] (20) 8666-6409; EXEC/ADM Fax [86] (20) 8121-9001; PAO Tel [86] (20) 8335-4269, Fax [86] (20) 8335-4764; American International School of Guangzhou Tel [86] (20) 8735-3392, Fax [86] (20) 8735-3339.

CG:Edward K.H. Dong
CG OMS:Antonette M. Schroeder
ECO/POL:Harvey A. Somers
COM:Eric Y. Zheng
CON:Linda L. Donahue
MGT:W.P. Leahy
RSO:Charles Lisenbee
PAO:Wendy P. Lyle
IRM:Frank Landymore
INS:Young S. Ly
ATO:Keith Schneller


Shanghai (CG), 1469 Huai Hai Zhong Lu, Shanghai 200031 China; FPO address: AmConGen Shanghai • PSC 461, Box 200 FPO AP 96521, Tel [86] (21) 6433-3936, Fax 6433-4122.

CG:Douglas G. Spelman
CG OMS:Irvina L. Wallace
POL/ECO:John Hoover
PAO:Salome Hernandez
MGT:Paul Yeskoo
CON:J. Richard Walsh
COM:Catherine Houghton
RSO:Paul Vallee
ATO:Laverne Brabant


Shenyang (CG), 52, 14th Wei Road, Heping District, 110003 • PSC 461, Box 45, FPO AP 96521-0045, Tel [86] (24) 2322-0848 or 1198, Duty Officer Tel 137-0988-9307, Fax 2322-2374; PAO Fax 2322-1505; FCS Fax 2322-2206.

CG:Mark Kennon
CG OMS:Kathy Ramsay
COM:Erin Sullivan
CON:Mark Bysfield
ECO:Bruce Hudspeth
POL:Mark Zimmer
MGT:Joseph Zadrozny
IRM:Jerry Sheppard
PAO:Cynthia Caples


Chengdu (CG), 4 Lingshiguan Road, Chengdu 610041, Sichuan • PSC 461, Box 85, FPO AP 96521-0002, Tel [86] (28) 558-3992, 558-9642, Duty Officer Tel 1370-800-1422; PC Tel 541-2234/2360/2436, Fax 541-7152, PC Duty Officer 139-8005-9990; CON Fax 558-3520; PAO Fax 557-7540; FCS Fax 558-9221.

CG:Jeffrey A. Moon
CG OMS:Renee M. Cummings
ECO/POL:G.A. Donovan
POL/ECO:Brook Hefright
CON:Terry Mobley
MGT:Maureen Gabbard
IRM:David Gabbard
FMS:Anthony Tee
COM:[Vacant]
PAO:John Louton
GSO:William Coleman, IV


Last Modified: Tuesday, October 28, 2003




TRAVEL


Consular Information Sheet
May 29, 2003


Americans planning to travel to China should read the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) Fact Sheet.


Country Description: The People's Republic of China was established on October 1, 1949, with Beijing as its capital city. With well over 1.3 billion citizens, China is the world's most populous country and the third largest country in the world in terms of territory. China is undergoing rapid, profound economic and social change and development. Political power remains centralized in the Chinese Communist Party. Modern tourist facilities are available in major cities, but many facilities in smaller provincial cities and rural areas are frequently below international standards.

Entry and Exit Requirements: A valid passport and visa are required to enter China. Americans arriving without valid passports and the appropriate Chinese visa are not permitted to enter and will be subject to a fine and immediate deportation at the traveler's expense. Travelers should not rely on Chinese host organizations claiming to be able to arrange a visa upon arrival.


Visas are required to transit China. Persons transiting China on the way to and from Mongolia or North Korea or who plan to re-enter from the Hong Kong or Macau Special Administrative Regions should be sure to obtain visas allowing multiple entries. Permits are required to visit Tibet as well as many remote areas not normally open to foreigners.


For information about landing visa requirements and other entry requirements and restricted areas, travelers may consult the Embassy of the People's Republic of China (PRC) at 2300 Connecticut Avenue N.W., Washington, D.C. 20008, or telephone (1-202) 328-2500, 2501 or 2502. For a list of services and frequently asked visa questions and answers, travelers can view the Chinese Embassy's websites at http://www.chinaembassy.org/, or [email protected]. There are Chinese Consulates General in Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco. Americans traveling in Asia have been able to obtain visas to enter China from the Chinese visa office in Hong Kong and the Embassy of the People's Republic of China in Seoul, South Korea.


Americans who overstay or otherwise violate the terms of their Chinese visas will be subject to fines and departure delays and may be subject to detention. Travelers should note that international flights departing China are routinely overbooked, making reconfirmation of departure reservations and early airport check-in essential. Passengers must pay a RMB 90 airport user fee (approximately $11 US) when departing China on international flights and RMB 50 airport fee (approximately US $6.10) for all domestic flights.


In an effort to prevent international child abduction, many governments have initiated new procedures at entry / exit points. These often include requiring documentary evidence of relationship and permission for the child's travel from the parent(s) or legal guardian if they are not present. Having such documentation on hand, even if not required, may facilitate entry/departure.


Dual Nationality: China does not recognize dual nationality. Some U.S. citizens who are also Chinese nationals (mostly U.S.-born children of Chinese nationals or Legal Permanent Residents) have experienced difficulty entering and departing China on U.S. passports. In some cases, such dual nationals are required to use Chinese travel documents to depart China. Normally this causes inconvenience but no significant problems for affected persons; however, in child custody disputes, the ability of dual national children to depart from China could be affected. Chinese "Travel Permits" (Luxingzheng) are usually issued to U.S. citizen children of Chinese citizens in lieu of a visa. These documents are essentially one-way permits that allow entry into China, but do not permit the holder to depart. Persons holding Chinese "Travel Permits" are regarded as Chinese citizens by Chinese authorities. In addition to being subject to all Chinese laws, dual nationals may also be subject to other laws that impose special obligations on Chinese citizens. In some cases, such dual nationals are required to use Chinese documentation to enter China, in which case U.S. consular access and protection will be denied. Dual nationals who enter and depart China using a U.S. passport and a valid PRC visa retain the right of U.S. consular access and protection under the U.S.-PRC Consular Convention. The ability of the U.S. Embassy or Consulates General to provide normal consular services would be extremely limited should a dual national enter China on a Chinese or other non-U.S. travel document, including PRC documents issued to persons from Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau.

If one or both parents of a child are PRC nationals who have not permanently settled in another country, then China regards the child as a PRC national and does not recognize any other citizenship the child may acquire at birth, including U.S. citizenship. This is true regardless of where the child is born. Such children are required to enter and depart China on PRC travel documents. Although Chinese consulates have frequently issued visas to such individuals in error, they are treated solely as PRC nationals by Chinese authorities when in China. Specific questions on dual nationality may be directed to the Office of Overseas Citizens Services, Department of State, Room 4811, Washington, D.C. 20520 or to the U.S. Embassy or one of the U.S. Consulates General in China. For additional information, please see the Bureau of Consular Affairs home page on the Internet at http://travel.state.gov/ for the Dual Nationality flyer.


Safety and Security: Americans visiting or residing in China are advised to take the normal safety precautions travelers take when in a foreign country. Specifically, travelers should remain aware of their surroundings and of events that are happening around them. Travelers should respect local police requirements to temporarily avoid travel in some areas. In light of the greatly increased numbers of older Americans traveling to China, U.S. tour operators should check that local guides are familiar with medical facilities and emergency medical evacuation procedures.


American citizens who rent apartments with gas appliances should be aware that in some areas, natural gas is not scented to warn occupants of gas leaks or concentrations. In addition, heaters may not always be well vented, thereby allowing excess carbon monoxide to build up in living spaces. Due to fatal accidents involving American citizens, travelers are advised to ensure all gas appliances are properly vented or install gas and carbon monoxide detectors in their residences. These devices are not widely available in China, and they should be purchased prior to arrival.

Chinese security personnel may place foreign government officials, journalists, and business people with access to advanced proprietary technology under surveillance. Hotel rooms and personal computing devices for these categories of visitors are sometimes searched.


Terrorism is rare in China, although a small number of bombings and incidents of unrest have occurred in Beijing and in other areas inhabited primarily by ethnic minorities. Recent bombings have largely been the result of commercial disputes between Chinese. There is no indication that acts of public violence have been directed against foreigners.


Crime: Overall, China is a safe country, with a low but increasing crime rate. Pickpockets target tourists at sight seeing destinations, open-air markets and in stores, often with the complicity of low-paid security guards. Violence against foreigners occurs, but it is rare. The number of violent incidents against Americans is very low on a worldwide basis (there were eleven reported violent attacks on American citizens between 2000 and 2002), but such incidents do occur. Robberies, sometimes at gunpoint, have occurred in western China, and there have been some reports of robberies and assaults along remote mountain highways near China's border with Nepal. Travelers are sometimes asked by locals to exchange money at a preferential rate. It is illegal to exchange dollars for RMB except at banks, hotels and official exchange offices. Due to the large volume of counterfeit currency in China, un official exchanges usually result in travelers losing their money and possibly left to face charges of breaking foreign exchange laws.


Travelers should have small bills (RMB 10, 20 and 50 notes) for travel by taxi. Reports of taxi drivers using counterfeit RMB 50 and 100 notes to make change for large bills are increasingly common. Be sure to get a receipt from the taxi driver.


Throughout China, women outside hotels in tourist districts frequently use the prospect of companionship or sex to lure foreign men to isolated locations where accomplices are waiting for the purpose of robbery. Travelers should not allow themselves to be driven to bars or an individual's home unless they know the person making the offer. Hotel guests should refuse to open their room doors to anyone they do not know personally.


American visitors to China should carry their passports with them out of reach of pickpockets. Americans with Chinese residence permits (juliuzheng) should carry these documents, and leave their passports in a secure location except when traveling. All Americans are encouraged to make photocopies of their passport bio-data pages and Chinese visas and to keep these in a separate, secure location.


The loss or theft of a U.S. passport should be reported immediately to the police in the city where the loss occurs as well as to the nearest U.S. embassy or consulate general. Americans who give away or sell their passport in China are liable to arrest and prosecution in both China and in the United States. For useful information on safeguarding valuables, protecting personal security, and ways to promote a trouble-free journey while traveling abroad, U.S. citizens may refer to the Department of State's pamphlet, "A Safe Trip Abroad." This is available by mail from the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 20402 or via the Internet at http://www.gpoaccess.gov/index.html, or via the Bureau of Consular Affairs home page at http://www.travel.state.gov/.


Medical Facilities: Western style medical facilities with international staffs are available in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and a few other large cities. Many other hospitals in major Chinese cities have so-called VIP wards (gaogan bingfang). These feature reasonably up-to-date medical technology and physicians who are both knowledgeable and skilled. Most VIP wards also provide medical services to foreigners and have English-speaking doctors and nurses. Most hospitals in China will not accept medical insurance from the United States, with the exception of the following hospitals, which are on the BlueCross BlueShield's worldwide network providers - overseas network hospitals' list, Hong Kong Adventist Hospital, Beijing United Family Hospital, Beijing Friendship Hospital, International Medical Center in Beijing, and Peking Union Medical Center. Travelers will be asked to post a deposit prior to admission to cover the expected cost of treatment. Many hospitals in major cities may accept credit cards for payment. Even in the VIP/Foreigner wards of major hospitals, however, American patients have frequently encountered difficulty due to cultural and regulatory differences. Physicians and hospitals have sometimes refused to supply American patients with complete copies of their Chinese hospital medical records, including laboratory test results, scans, and x-rays. All Americans traveling to China are strongly encouraged to buy foreign medical care and medical evacuation insurance prior to arrival. Travelers who want a list of modern medical facilities in China can access that information at the Embassy's website: http://www.usembassy-china.org.cn.


Ambulances do not carry sophisticated medical equipment, and ambulance personnel generally have little or no medical training. Therefore, injured or seriously ill Americans may be required to take taxis or other immediately available vehicles to the nearest major hospital rather than waiting for ambulances to arrive. In rural areas, only rudimentary medical facilities are generally available. Medical personnel in rural areas are often poorly trained, have little medical equipment or availability to medications. Rural clinics are often reluctant to accept responsibility for treating foreigners, even in emergency situations.

Foreign-operated medical providers catering to expatriates and visitors are available in China.


*SOS International, Ltd., operates modern medical and dental clinics and provides medical evacuation and medical escort services in several Chinese cities. For medical emergencies anywhere in mainland China, Americans can call the SOS International, Ltd., 24-hour "Alarm Center" in Beijing at telephone (86-10) 6462-9100 or in Shanghai at (86-21) 6295-0099 for advice and referrals to local facilities. SOS International Alarm Centers can also be contacted in Hong Kong at telephone (852) 2428-9900 and in the United States at (1-800) 523-6586.


*Beijing United Family Hospital and Clinics ("B JU ") is the first and remains the only foreign-invested full service international standard 50 bed hospital operating in Beijing, China. BJU was opened in 1997 by Chindex International, an American company, which in 2002 was awarded the US Secretary of State's Award for Corporate Excellence. BJU offers the full range of specialties including Family Practice, Internal Medicine, Surgery, Obstetrics/Gynecology, Pediatrics, Dentistry, Psychiatry and Physiotherapy, in addition to a 24 hour Emergency Room staffed solely by Expatriate Staff Specialists. These Physicians are all board qualified (or equivalent) in their respective fields and include specialties such as Anesthesiology, and Intensive Care Medicine. Additionally, staff are fluent in not only English, but also a wide range of languages including French, German, Japanese, Spanish, Swedish, Finnish to name a few.


Facilities include 3 Operating Theatres, international standard 5 star LDRP birthing suites, Neonatal ICU, a 4-bed Adult ICU, General Inpatient facilities, and standard support services such as Digital Radiology, Ambulance services, Pharmacy, Laboratory and a 24 hour on-site Blood Bank with emergency blood prescreened to the American Blood Bank standard.

Beijing United Family Hospital and Clinics
#2 Jiang Tai Lu, Chaoyang District,
Beijing 100016
(8610)6433-3960 Fax: (8610) 6433-3963
Emergency Hotline: (8610) 6433-2345
website: www.bjunited.com


Beijing United Family Clinic - Shunyi


Pinnacle Plaza, Unit # 818, Tian Zhu Real Estate Development Zone, Shunyi District, 101312
(8610) 8046-5432 Fax: (8610) 8046-4383


*The Australian firm, GlobalDoctor, Ltd., has opened clinics staffed by English-speaking doctors within the VIP wards of government-run hospitals in Chengdu, Nanjing, and Beijing. GlobalDoctor can be reached by telephone from China at 86-10-8456-9191 or on the Internet at http://www.eglobaldoctor.com/. Additional information on medical providers specializing in treating foreigners for general medical, dental and orthodontic problems are available at http://www.usembassy-china.org.cn/.


Medical Insurance: Americans are advised not to travel to China without both health insurance and medical evacuation insurance (often included in so-called "travel" insurance and provided as part of a tour group package). U.S. medical insurance is not always valid outside the United States. Medicare/Medicaid programs do not provide coverage for medical services outside the United States. Even when insurance does cover services received in China, it will usually be necessary to pay first and then file for reimbursement with the insurance company upon returning to the United States. Supplemental insurance with specific overseas coverage, including provision for medical evacuation, is strongly recommended and can be purchased in the United States prior to travel. Please check with your own insurance company to confirm whether your policy applies overseas, and if it includes a provision for medical evacuation.

Recent medical evacuations by air ambulance from China to nearby areas have cost over US $30,000. Two private emergency medical assistance firms, SOS International, Ltd., and Medex Assistance Corporation, offer medical insurance policies designed for travelers. Both of these companies have staff in China who can assist in the event of a medical emergency.


SOS International, Ltd.

Beijing Clinic address: Building C, BITIC Leasing Center
No. 1 North Road, Xingfu Sancun, Sanlitun, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100027


Beijing SOS International Clinic, telephone: (86-10) 6462-9112, Fax (86-10) 6462-9111.


For medical emergencies, please telephone the SOS International Alarm Center at (86-10) 6462-9100 from anywhere in Mainland China, From Hong Kong: call (852) 2428-9900 From the U.S.: 1-800-468-5232. These phone lines are answered 24 hours by SOS International Alarm Center personnel. For information on purchasing health or travel insurance from SOS International, please telephone (1-800) 523-6586 (8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Eastern Time, Monday through Friday) in the U.S. or visit http://www.intsos.com/ on the Internet or e-mail: [email protected].


SOS members calling with a medical emergency should first telephone the Alarm Center in Beijing at (86-10)6462-9100.


MEDEX Assistance Corporation

871 Poly Plaza
Beijing 100027
Beijing Office Fax: (86-10) 6595-8509
Email: [email protected] (Baltimore, Maryland)

U.S. telephone: (1-800) 537-2029 or (1-410) 453-6300 (24 hours)
Emergencies (members only) (1-800) 527-0218 or (1-410) 453-6330
Website: http://www.medexassist.com/


Medex members calling with a medical emergency should call Medex-Emergency in China at telephone (86-10) 6595-8510.

Heathrow Air Ambulance


Heathrow is an air evacuation service with offices in the United States and England. Travelers can pre-arrange air evacuation insurance and other emergency travel assistance. This service also has a business plan to assist foreigners who lack travel insurance. Heathrow Air Ambulance Service, 15554 FM, Suite 195 Houston, TX. 77095-2704. Office telephone 1-800-513-5192. Office fax 1-281-550-9763. E-mail: [email protected].


Useful information on medical emergencies abroad, including overseas insurance programs, is provided in the Department of State's Bureau of Consular Affairs brochure, "Medical Information for Americans Traveling Abroad," available via the Bureau of Consular Affairs home page, or autofax: 1-202 647-3000.


Other Health Information: Most roads and towns in Tibet, Qinghai, parts of Xinjiang, and western Sichuan are situated at altitudes over 10,000 feet. Travelers should seek medical advice in advance of travel, allow time for acclimatization to the high altitude, and remain alert to signs of altitude sickness. HIV has become a significant concern in China. Travelers should always ask doctors and dentists to use sterilized equipment and be prepared to pay for new syringe needles in hospitals or clinics. Air pollution is a problem throughout urban China. Travelers should consult their doctor prior to travel and consider the impact seasonal smog and heavy particulate pollution may have on them.


Alcoholics Anonymous can be reached in Beijing at telephone (86-10) 6437-6305, or visit the U.S. Embassy web page in advance of travel to China for additional contact numbers. There is an Al-Anon chapter in Beijing that can be reached at (86-10) 6940-3935. Information on vaccinations and other health precautions may be obtained from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's hotline for international travelers at 1-877-394-8747; fax-888-232-3299, or via the CDC's Internet site at http://www.cdc.gov/. For information about outbreaks of infectious diseases abroad consult the World Health Organization's website at http://www.who.int/en. Further health information for travelers is available at http://www.who.int/iht.


Traffic Safety and Road Conditions: While in a foreign country, U.S. citizens may encounter road conditions that differ significantly from those in the United States. The information below concerning the People's Republic of China is provided for general reference only, and may not be totally accurate in a particular location or circumstance.


Driving etiquette in China is developing. As a result, traffic is often chaotic, and right-of-way and other courtesies are often ignored. Travelers should note that cars and buses in the wrong lanes frequently hit pedestrians and bicyclists on sidewalks. Pedestrians should always be careful while walking near traffic.


Road/traffic conditions are generally safe if occupants of modern passenger vehicles wear seatbelts. Most traffic accident injuries involve pedestrians or cyclists who are involved in collisions or who encounter unexpected road hazards (e.g., unmarked open manholes). Foreigners with resident permits can apply for PRC driver licenses; however, liability issues often make it preferable to employ a local driver. Child safety seats are not widely available. Americans who wish to ride bicycles in China are urged to wear safety helmets meeting U.S. standards:


Safety of Public Transportation: Good
Urban Road Conditions/Maintenance: Good
Rural Road Conditions/Maintenance: Fair
Availability of Roadside Assistance: Fair in or near large cities; unavailable in rural areas.


For additional general information about road safety, including links to foreign government sites, please see the Department of State, Bureau of Consular Affairs home page at http://travel.state.gov/road_safety.html.

Aviation Safety Oversight: The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has assessed the civil aviation authority of the government of the People's Republic of China as Category 1 - in compliance with international aviation safety standards for oversight of China's air carrier operations. For further information, travelers may contact the Department of Transportation within the United States at telephone (1-800) 322-7873, or visit the FAA's Internet website at http://www.faa.gov/avr/iasa/


The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) separately assesses some foreign air carriers for suitability as official providers of air services. For information regarding the DOD policy on specific carriers, travelers may contact the DOD at telephone (1-618) 229-4801.


Customs Regulations: Chinese customs authorities enforce strict regulations concerning temporary importation into or export from China of items such as religious material and antiquities, banned publications or vehicles not conforming to Chinese standards. Information concerning regulations and procedures governing items that may be brought into China is available through the Chinese Embassy and Consulates in the United States. Students may bring into China only a limited number of items that are considered necessary for study and daily life. Some U.S. citizens residing in China have been required to pay customs duty on certain high-value items when departing China because procedures were not followed when the items were originally brought into China.


The importation of pets into China (cats, dogs and some birds) is generally allowable if the animal has up to date international shot records and a veterinary certificate of health. Note that animals are deported by the Chinese customs if the shot records are not authenticated and notarized by a state notary. Importation of exotic animals may be considered but must be pre-approved by Chinese customs. Additional information on Chinese customs and animal import and export regulations can be obtained by calling the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C. at telephone 1-202-338-6688.

Chinese customs officials encourage the use of an ATA (Admission Temporaire/Temporary Admission) Carnet for the temporary admission of professional equipment, commercial samples, and/or goods for exhibitions and fair purposes. ATA Carnet Headquarters, located at the U.S. Council for International Business, 1212 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10036, issues and guarantees the ATA Carnet in the United States. For additional information, please telephone (212) 354-4480, or send e-mail to [email protected] or visit http://www.uscib.org/ for details.


Criminal Penalties: While in a foreign country, a U.S. citizen is subject to that country's laws and regulations, which sometimes differ significantly from those in the United States and do not afford the protections available to the individual under U.S. law.


Americans in China who are not staying at hotels, including Americans who are staying with friends or relatives, must register with local police. Americans who are questioned by police should immediately notify the U.S. Embassy or the nearest consulate. Foreigners detained for questioning may not be allowed to contact their national authorities until the questioning is concluded. Foreigners detained pending trial have often waited over a year for their trial to begin. Americans are rarely granted bail. Criminal punishments, especially prison terms, are more severe than in the United States. Persons violating the law, even unknowingly, may be expelled, arrested or imprisoned. Criminal penalties for possession, use, or trafficking of illegal drugs are strict, and convicted offenders can expect severe jail sentences and fines. Non-American foreigners have been executed for drug offenses. Several Americans currently incarcerated in China have been implicated in financial fraud schemes involving falsified banking or business documents, tax evasion schemes and assisting alien smuggling, including selling passports.


In the past, protesters detained for engaging in pro-Falun Gong activities have been deported quickly from China. Several of these protesters alleged they were physically abused during their detention. In addition, they alleged that personal property including clothing, cameras and computers had not always been returned to them upon their deportation. Chinese authorities report while they have deported these foreigners quickly after public demonstrations in favor of the Falun Gong, future adherents who intentionally arrive in China to protest against Chinese policy may receive longer terms of detention and possibly face prison sentences.


Several Americans have been detained and expelled for passing out non-authorized Christian literature. Sentences for distributing this material may range from three to five years imprisonment, if convicted.


Consular Access: The U.S.-PRC Consular Convention of 1980 provides that detained U.S. citizens have the right to contact a U.S. consular officer, that U.S. consular officers shall be notified within four days whenever an American is taken into custody, and that a consular officer may visit detained Americans. Note, however, that U.S. consular officers do not always receive timely notification of the detention or arrest of a U.S. citizen. U.S. citizens who are detained or arrested should request contact with the U.S. Embassy or one of the U.S. Consulates General. As explained in the section on "Dual Nationality" found earlier in this document, China does not recognize dual nationality. Naturalized U.S. citizens who enter China on Chinese passports or PRC-issued Hong Kong or Taiwan travel documents can be denied access to U.S. consular officials. The U.S. Government strongly recommends that all Americans enter China using only American passports containing Chinese visas.

Special Circumstances: Travel to Tibet - It is possible to make travel arrangements to Tibet from outside of China. Once in China, travelers wishing to visit Tibet must join a group, which can be arranged by almost any Chinese travel agency. The travel agency will arrange for the necessary permits and collect any fees. The Chinese government requires foreigners (including U.S. citizens) wishing to visit Tibet to apply in advance for approval from the tourist administration of the Tibetan Autonomous Region. More information is available from the Chinese Embassy or one of the Chinese consulates in the United States, or, while in China, from the U.S. Embassy or nearest U.S. consulate general. (Please see the above section on Entry Requirements.) Recently, some Americans with long-term Chinese visas have experienced difficulty obtaining permits to visit Tibet.


English Teachers and Secondary School Teachers: Many Americans have enjoyed their teaching experience in China; others have encountered significant problems. Some Americans have come to China under a contract with promises of good salary, bonuses and other amenities, only to find themselves in tenuous situations often lacking funds to return to the United States. The U.S. Embassy cannot act as a legal advisor or negotiate business or personal grievances on behalf of individual citizens. Americans experiencing problems can contact the Embassy's American Citizens Services Unit at telephone (86-10) 6532-3431, extension 5648, 5028, 5609 or 5344, or via e-mail to [email protected] to report problems with school employment contracts.


American teachers considering teaching English in China should check that their contracts specify the maximum number of classroom hours per day and per week, maximum workdays per week, and vacation periods. Americans teaching in China, particularly at newly established private secondary schools and private English training centers, have often found their employers unable or unwilling to honor contract terms or to assist in obtaining Chinese employment-based visas and other permits required for foreigners to teach lawfully in China. Prospective teachers should always ask for references from other foreign teachers who have completed a contract teaching term and have returned to their home country. Prospective teachers should never come to China without first receiving the proper "Z" or work visa from the Chinese Embassy. Prospective teachers should not accept a promise by a school or organization to obtain the correct visa after their arrival. Health insurance provided by Chinese employers should be supplemented as described above. (Please see the section on Medical Insurance.)

Disaster Preparedness: Some areas of China frequented by Americans, notably Yunnan Province, are prone to earthquakes. Coastal areas of Hainan, Guangdong, Fujian, and Zhejiang provinces are subject to typhoons during the summer rainy season. General information about natural disaster preparedness is available via the Internet from the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) at http://www.fema.gov/. Travelers should check weather conditions for cities and areas in China prior to departure. Winter weather and summer typhoons often cause the closure of airports in some parts of the country.


Document Seizures: Chinese authorities have seized documents, literature, and letters that they deem to be pornographic, political in nature, or intended for religious proselytism. Persons seeking to enter China with religious materials in a quantity deemed to be greater than that needed for personal use may be detained and fined. Chinese customs authorities may seize books, films, records, tapes, and compact disks to determine if they violate Chinese prohibitions. Individuals believed to be engaged in religious proselytism or in conduct Chinese officials consider immoral or inappropriate have been detained and expelled.


Passport Confiscation: PRC authorities occasionally confiscate passports and levy exit bans against persons involved in commercial or other disputes. The U.S. Embassy or Consulate General will make inquiries with local authorities to ensure that the U.S. citizen's rights under the U.S. - China Bilateral Consular Convention are honored. The individual usually is not taken into custody, but is sometimes confined to a hotel or other facility until the dispute is resolved. The U.S. Embassy or Consulate General will issue another passport to any U.S. citizen who applies for one under these circumstances; however, even with a new U.S. passport, Chinese authorities will often block departure by refusing to provide a visa for exit purposes.


Children's Issues: For information on international children's issues, please refer to our Internet site at http://10.8.40.7/cainternet/children's_issues.html or telephone (1-888) 407-4747.


Registration/Embassy and Consulate Locations: U.S. citizens other than tourists at major hotels are encouraged to register at the U.S. Embassy or at one of the U.S. Consulates General in China. They may also obtain updated information on travel and security within the country at the Embassy or Consulates General. It is possible to register from the United States via the Internet through the U.S. Embassy's home page at http: //www.usembassy-china.org.cn/.


Beijing: The U.S. Embassy in China is located at 2 Xiu Shui Dong Jie, Beijing 100600, telephone: (86-10) 6532-3431, 6532-3831, and after-hours: (86-10) 6532-1910; fax (86-10) 6532-4153. The U.S. Embassy website address is http://www.usembassy-china.org.cn/ and the e-mail address is [email protected]. The Consular Section, including the American Citizen Services Unit, is located on the eighth floor of Westgate Mall, 1038 West Nanjing Road, tel: (86-21) 3217-4650 ext. 2102 or 2103., fax: (86-21) 6217-2071. The Embassy consular district includes the following provinces/regions of China: Beijing, Tianjin, Shandong, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, Ningxia, Shaanxi, Qinghai, Xinjiang, Hebei, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, and Jiangxi.

Chengdu: The U.S. Consulate General in Chengdu is located at Number 4, Lingshiguan Road, Section 4, Renmin Nanlu, Chengdu 610041, telephone: (86-28) 558-3992, 555-3119; fax (86-28) 8558-3520 and the e-mail address is [email protected]; after-hours (86-0) 13708001422. This consular district includes the following provinces/regions of China: Guizhou, Sichuan Xizang (Tibet), and Yunnan, as well as the municipality of Chongqing


Guangzhou: The U.S. Consulate General in Guangzhou is located at Number 1 South Shamian Street, Shamian Island 200S1, Guangzhou 510133; telephone: (86-20) 8121-8418; after-hours: (86-)139-0229-3169; fax: (86-20) 8121-8428 and the e-mail address is [email protected]. This consular district includes the following provinces/regions of China: Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan, and Fujian.


Shanghai: The U.S. Consulate General in Shanghai is located at 1469 Huaihai Zhonglu, Shanghai 200031 telephone: (86-21) 6433-6880, after-hours: (86-21) 6433-3936; fax: (86-21) 6471-1493, 6433-4122, 6471-1148 and the e-mail address is [email protected]. This consular district includes the following provinces/regions of China: Shanghai, Anhui, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang.


Shenyang: The U.S. Consulate General in Shenyang is located at No. 52, 14th Wei Road, Heping District, Shenyang 110003, telephone: (86-24) 2322-1198, 2322-0368; after-hours: (86-0) 13704019790; fax (86-24) 2322-2374 and the e-mail address is [email protected]. This consular district includes the following provinces/regions of China: Liaoning, Heilongjiang, and Jilin.

International Parental Child Abduction
September 2002


The information below has been edited from the report of the State Department Bureau of Consular Affairs, American Citizen Services. For more information, please read the Guarding Against International Child Abduction section of this book and review current reports online at travel.state.gov


Disclaimer: The information in this circular relating to the legal requirements of a specific foreign country is provided for general information only. Questions involving interpretation of specific foreign laws should be addressed to foreign legal counsel.


General Information: The Peoples Republic of China (PRC) is not a party to the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, nor are there any international or bilateral treaties in force between China and the United States dealing with international parental child abduction. American citizens who travel to China place themselves under the jurisdiction of local courts. American citizens planning a trip to China with dual national children should bear this in mind.


Custody Disputes: In China, parents who are legally married share the custody of their children. If they are not married and the parents cannot reach an agreement, custody is granted by the courts in the best interests of the child.


Enforcement of Foreign Judgments: Custody orders and judgments of foreign courts are not enforceable in China. Such judgements must be presented to a Chinese court forth at courts consideration and decision. In China, there is a limited process to appeal a lower court's decision.


Visitation Rights: In cases where legal custody has been granted and the judgment has been rendered, the non-custodial parent's visitation rights are normally incorporated within the court ordered decision.

Dual Nationality: Dual nationality is not recognized under Chinese law. Some U.S. citizens who are also Chinese nationals (mostly U.S.-born children of Chinese nationals or Legal permanent Permanent Residents) have experienced difficulty entering and departing China on U.S. passports. In somecases, such dual nationals are required to use Chinese travel documents to depart China. Normally this causes inconvenience but no significant problems for affected persons; however, in child custody disputes, the ability of dual national children to depart from China could be affected.

Generally, children who are Chinese nationals according to Chinese law are not permitted to depart China if one parent refuses to allow the travel requested by one parent, even if that parent is considered an abducting parent by United States courts. In those cases, children abducted to China are only permitted to return to the United States if both parents agree to their return, or if a Chinese court upholds a United States Court's decision to allow the left-behind parent sole custody.

Specific questions on dual nationality may be directed to the Office of Overseas Citizens Services, Department of State, Room 4811A, Washington. D.C. 20520 or to the U.S. Embassy or one of the U.S. Consulates General in China. For additional information, please see the Bureau of Consular Affairs home page on the Internet at http://travel.state.gov for the Dual Nationality flyer.

Children's Passport Issuance Alert Program: Separate from the two-parent signature requirement for U.S. passport issuance, parents may also request that their children's names be entered in the U.S. passport name-check system, also know as CPIAP. A parent or legal guardian can be notified by the Department of State's Office of Children's Issues before a passport is issued to his/her minor child. The parent, legal guardian or the court of competent jurisdiction must submit a written request for entry of a child's name into the Passport Issuance Alert program to the Office of Children's Issues. The CPIAP also provides denial of passport issuance if appropriate court orders are on file with the Office of Children's Issues. Although this system can be used to alert a parent or court when an application for a U.S. passport has been executed on behalf of a minor, it cannot be used to track the use of a passport that has already been issued. If there is a possibility that your child has another nationality you may want to contact the appropriate embassy or consulate directly to inquire about the possibility of denial of that country's passport. There is no requirement that foreign embassies adhere to U.S. regulations regarding issuance and denial of passports. For more information contact the Office of Children's Issues at 202-312-9700. General passport information is also available on the Office of Children's Issues home page on the Internet at http://travel.state.gov/children's_ issues.html.

Travel Restrictions: While no exit visas are required to leave China, persons who replace passports are required to get an exit permit from the entry and exit police. The U.S. Embassy and Consulates will assist a traveler with a new passport in obtaining this document.

Persons who wish to pursue a child custody claim in a Chinese court should retain an attorney in China. The American Embassy and U.S. Consulates in China maintain lists of attorneys willing to represent American clients.

China

views updated May 17 2018

China

Basic Data
Official Country Name:People's Republic of China
Region:East & South Asia
Population:1,261,832,482
Language(s):Chinese (Mandarin), Yue (Cantonese), Wu (Shanghaiese), Minbei (Fuzhou), Minnan (Hokkien-Taiwanese), Xiang, Gan, Hakka dialects
Literacy Rate:81.5%
Academic Year:September-June
Number of Primary Schools:628,840
Compulsory Schooling:9 years
Public Expenditure on Education:2.3%
Libraries:2,600
Educational Enrollment:Primary: 139,954,000
 Secondary: 71,883,000
 Higher: 6,075,215
Educational Enrollment Rate:Primary: 123%
 Secondary: 70%
 Higher: 6%
Teachers:Primary: 5,794,000
 Secondary: 4,437,000
 Higher: 516,400
Student-Teacher Ratio:Primary: 24:1
 Secondary: 17:1
Female Enrollment Rate:Primary: 123%
 Secondary: 66%
 Higher: 4%

History & Background

By 2000 B.C., Chinese education had developed to the level of institutions specifically established for the purpose of learning. From 800 to 400 B.C. China had both guoxue (government schools) and xiangxue (local schools). Education in traditional China was dominated by the keju (civil service examination system), which began developing around 400 A.D. and reached its height during the Tang Dynasty (618-896). Essentially, the keju was a search program based on the Confucian notion of meritocracy. This civil service examination system remained almost the exclusive avenue to government positions for China's educated elite for more than 1,000 years.

Historically, formal education was a privilege of the rich. Mastering classical Chinese, which consisted of different written and spoken versions and lacked an alphabet, required time and resources most Chinese could not afford. As a result, for much of its history, China had an extremely high rate of illiteracy (80 percent). The result was a nation of mass illiteracy dominated by a bureaucratic elite highly educated in the Confucian classical tradition. The earliest modern government schools were created to provide education in subjects of Western strength such as the sciences, engineering, and military development to address Western incursion and to maintain the integrity of China's own culture and polity. The aim of these schools was to modernize technologically by imitating the West, while maintaining all traditional aspects of Chinese culture. These schools were never integrated into the civil service examination system.

In 1898, Emperor Guang Xu, supported by Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao, well-known reformers, issued a series of decrees to initiate sweeping reforms in Chinese education. The measures included the establishment of a system of modern schools accessible to a greater majority of the population, abolition of the rigid examination system for the selection of government officials, and the introduction of short and practical essay examinations.

Between 1901 and 1905, the Qing court issued a new series of education reform decrees. The old academies that had supported the civil service examinations were reorganized. A modern school system was built on their foundations with primary, secondary, and college levels reflective of Western models. Schools throughout China were organized into three major stages and seven levels. Elementary education was composed of kindergarten, lower elementary, and higher elementary; secondary education consisted of middle school; and higher education was divided into preparatory school, specialized college, and university. The Qing Court also instructed provincial, prefectural, and county governments to open new schools and start a compulsory education program. The civil examination system (keju ) was officially abolished in 1905, marking the end of the trademark of traditional Chinese education.

Six years later, China's dynastic tradition also came to an end when the new Nationalist Republic replaced it. With this political metamorphosis, China's educational system experienced further transformations. The search for modern nationhood and economic prosperity created the first golden age of education in modern China. Education in China enjoyed a rare interval of uninterrupted growth as the Beijing government enthusiastically pursued educational development in both the public and private sectors as an essential component of the Nationalists' nation-building program. In 1912 and 1913 the Republican government issued Regulations Concerning Public and Private Schools and Regulations Concerning Private Universities; these documents laid out the criteria for private schools and stipulated proper application and registration procedures, while calling for financial investment in education nationwide.

The eruption of the Sino-Japanese War in 1937 and rapid Japanese conquest of coastal areas in the months immediately following changed the educational situation dramatically. As a result of military operations, 70 percent of Chinese cultural institutions were destroyed. By November 1, 1937, no less than 24 institutions of higher learning had been bombed or demolished by the Japanese. Seventy-seven of China's institutions of higher learning were either closed down or literally uprooted and moved many hundreds of miles into the interior. Not all the students could follow their respective universities. As a result, the retaining rate of their original student bodies for these institutions ranged from 25 to 75 percent. The subsequent civil war (1946-1949) between the Nationalists and the Communists continued to subject China to a state of political turmoil in which education suffered drastically as a result.

After the founding of the People's Republic of China (PRC), the new Communist government pursued the movement to "learn from the Soviet Union" with all the enthusiasm that had characterized the Western imitation process in earlier decades. The entire national educational system was first reorganized to conform to the Soviet model in 1952-53. American-style liberal arts colleges were abolished, with arts and science facilities separated from the larger universities to form the core of Soviet style zonghexing (comprehensive) universities; about 12 of these were formed, in more or less even distribution around the country. The remaining disciplines of the old universities were reorganized into separate technical colleges or merged with existing specialized institutes. Also following the Soviet example, nationally unified teaching plans, syllabi, materials, and textbooks were introduced for every academic specialty or major.

The Great Leap Forward of 1958 introduced educational reforms as part of a comprehensive new strategy of mass mobilization for economic development. To end the continuing influence of such pre-revolutionary ideas as "education can only be led by experts" and "the separation of mental and manual labor," as well as to strengthen party leadership, the Ministry of Education (MOE) issued a directive on September 19, 1958, launching the educational reforms. It called universities to fill both academic and administrative leadership positions with party members. Productive labor became part of the curriculum in all schools at all levels. More specifically, the half-work/half-study schools were founded to meet the task of rapidly universalizing education for the masses, since these schools could be run on a self-supporting basis without financial aid from the state. The party directives also stipulated that no professional educational staff was necessary; anyone who could teach would suffice.

The Cultural Revolution further broke the power of the existing educational bureaucracy, the professional academics, and any party leaders who supported them. This represented a final abolition of the obstacles the Chinese intellectual establishment had always imposed against radical reform of the educational system as a whole. It ended the authority of education professionals, which led to a general lowering of academic standards, particularly in higher education. As a result of the experimentation in that area, the content of college curricula on the average was reduced by half. The policy of sending city youth to rural areas to be "re-educated by peasants" also produced many millions of dissatisfied young people who failed to adapt to the rural lifestyle.

After the death of Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping's reform period began with a major national education conference in April 1978, which abandoned the Cultural Revolution's goals of class struggle and adopted modernization as the main goal for educational development. The nation witnessed a remarkable new era of rapid reconstruction and expansion of all levels of education, especially higher education. In both the formal and nonformal sectors, one of the goals of the reforms was that a college-level education was to be a prerequisite for all officials, including county-level leaders. This is a goal yet to be accomplished in the twenty-first century, but it is already underway in the political reintegration of China's intellectuals within the ruling class.

The scene in higher education in the PRC has changed rapidly since the 1990s. With the increasing drive to modernize China by integrating free-market forces, the government has introduced radical new reforms to privatize education. The most recent reforms include introduction of student fees, abolition of guaranteed job assignment after graduation, localization of institutions, and the development of private educational institutions.


Constitutional & Legal Foundations


The Chinese have always regarded education as a tool for strengthening the country instead of cultivating individuals, which dictates that learning for the sake of knowledge is not enough. Students are expected to develop, first, as patriotic Chinese with strong morals, then as individuals with the necessary skills to serve the country and people. Throughout the educational system, the ideal of a well-rounded, cultured person with a strong socialist consciousness is deeply embedded. Article 46 of the Constitution, adopted on December 4, 1982, stipulates that "citizens of the People's Republic of China have the duty as well as the right to receive education." It also states that minorities "have the freedom to use and develop their own spoken and written languages" (Article 4), and the blind, deaf-mute, and other handicapped citizens should receive help from the state to improve their education (Article 45). The most important provision of the 1982 Constitution on education is Article 19. It states that "the state develops socialist educational undertakings and works to raise the scientific and cultural level of the whole nation." It sets the nation's educational goal as "to wipe out illiteracy and provide political, cultural, scientific, technical, and professional education" for China's citizens, and "encourages people to become educated through self-study." These principles set the keynote for subsequent legislation in the 1980s and 1990s.

The document that led to the rehabilitation and expansion of education in post-Mao China was the 1985 Decision on the Reform of China's Educational Structure. It stated that the major goal of the reform was to develop education as a significant tool of socialist construction, economic expansion, and modernization. To this end, the reform document specifically called for a commitment to a compulsory nine-year cycle of primary and middle school education, diversifying high school education, expanding vocational education, improving teaching quality, granting more autonomy to higher educational institutions, reforming the job assignment system, and allocating more responsibility to education professionals over party officials.

In February 1993 the Central Committee of the Communist Party, together with the State Council, officially distributed the Outline for Reform and Development of Education in China. This document details strategic tasks to guide education reform in the 1990s and into the next century. The Outline calls the nation to make education a strategic priority because of its fundamental importance to China's modernization drive to raise the ideological and ethical standards of the entire population, as well as to raise its scientific and educational levels. The main tasks include gearing education to the needs of the future modernization efforts, improving the quality of the workforce, and establishing an educational system suited to a socialist market economy (Ashmore & Cao 1997).

Educational SystemOverview


China has one of the world's largest (in terms of numbers of students) educational systems: a total of approximately 289,859,000 students were enrolled in 1998. Sixty-seven percent of the students were in primary and junior secondary schools, grades one through nine (China Statistical Yearbook ). (Unfortunately though, statistics issued by the Chinese government should be used with caution; they best represent trends or the general picture.) These nine grades constitute China's formal basic education. Compulsory education has been very successful at the primary level (first through sixth grades), but not as impressive at the junior secondary level (seventh through ninth grades).

Although the quality of schools varies widely in China, there are standard textbooks and curricula for all subjects at all levels. The textbooks convey a strong nationalist message in content. Teaching style emphasizes the authority of the teacher and demands great amounts of memorization and recitation.

Higher education is merit-based and extremely competitive in China. The overall enrollment in 1998 was 3,409,000 in the formal higher education sector (China Statistical Yearbook 1999) and 74,967,300 in the nonformal sector (China Statistical Yearbook 1999). On average, formal higher education institutions admit about 50 percent of the graduates of general senior secondary schools (Agelasto & Adamson 1998).

Foreign influences on Chinese education manifested themselves through two main channels: foreign missionary schools and the Western-educated Chinese. Missionary education in China dates back to 1818 when British missionaries opened schools in Malacca for the children of overseas Chinese. Starting in the 1840s, missionary schools came under the protection of a series of "unequal treaties" between the Chinese government and the Western powers. The second half of the nineteenth century witnessed a steady rise in the number of mission schools due to missionaries' growing interests in education and a general advancement of Western powers in China. In many ways, mission schools were a catalyst for the educational reform in modern China.

The reform was initiated in the 1860s as a component of the Self-Strengthening Movement and sponsored by a few high-ranking officials involved in yiwu, (barbarian affairs). From the point of view of the Chinese court in Beijing, there was an urgent need to understand Western culture and Westerners. In 1903 the imperial government issued the Guidelines for Educational Affairs, which established an educational system modeled after that of the Japanese, who had successfully replicated the Western system.

During the Nationalist decade (1928-1937), Chinese education experienced a transition from the earlier Japanese model to the American model, partly because of the return of students from the West, especially the United States, and partly because of China's deteriorating relationship with Japan. China started a public school system patterned after that of the United States and adopted American textbooks in its 1922 educational system.

In addition to help from universities and colleges in the United States, American missionary colleges in China also played an important role in the Americanization of the Chinese educational system. By the 1930s there were 16 Christian colleges and universities in China. Three of them were sponsored by Catholic missions and 13 of them were by Protestants. Academically, they were the first to introduce relatively comprehensive programs in science, technology, and medicine. However, in spite of all their positive attributes and efforts to communicate with the Chinese populace, a huge gap always existed between mission schools and Chinese society at large. The factors that contributed to the distance included the unwillingness of the missionaries to learn Chinese and the unwillingness to address Chinese concerns about national sovereignty and China's cultural heritage.

Missionary institutions not only transformed the life of Chinese youth who enrolled in them, but also smoothed the way for those who desired to study abroad. For students who planned to go abroad to pursue graduate studies, a degree from a western missionary school was invaluable. The pro-Western attitude manifested itself most in universities and colleges in the 1920s and 1930s. By 1927, Western-educated men monopolized nearly all important posts in higher education. Returnees, especially those from the United States, also dominated the diplomatic corps, military forces, and top government positions. After the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the Communist Party expelled all missionary schools from China and forbade Chinese from going to the West to study, except for a very few who were allowed to study Western languages for diplomatic purposes. These measures were intended to end all Western influences on Chinese education. Since 1949 there has not been any private school operated exclusively by foreigners in China.

According to the China Statistical Yearbook, by 1998, China had a total population of 1,248,100,000 people. Among those over age 15, an estimated 83.22 percent were literate (China Statistical Yearbook 1999). In 1998, about 139,538,000 Chinese were enrolled in primary school; 63,010,000 were in middle school, among them 9,380,000 were high school students; 3,409,000 were students attending a university; and 198,885 were graduate students (China Statistical Yearbook 1999).

Illiteracy in China still poses a big challenge. Of those age 15 and older, 16.78 percent of Chinese know fewer than the 1,500 characters needed for basic literacy. Illiterate male Chinese make up 9.01 percent of the total male population over age 15, while illiterate female Chinese account for 22.61 percent of the total female population over age 15 (China Statistical Yearbook 1999).

Another problem of educational attainment is the huge discrepancy between urban and rural areas. Generally, almost all urban residents are literate due to better funding of schools and the prohibition of child labor. The majority of Chinese illiterates live in rural area. The lack of teachers and schools, poor funding, and the necessity for children to participate in farm-work contributes to the long-term problem.


The Compulsory Education Law of 1986 mandates six years for primary education and three years of middle school. Compulsory education serves two purposes: to prepare students for employment and to enable them to lay a solid foundation for entering schools of higher level. Although the law says the nine-year compulsory education should be free for all children, schools, often driven by economic necessity, ask parents to pay many fees, such as examination paper fees, school construction fees, water fees, and after-school coaching fees. Sometimes due to the high fees charged by schools, rural parents have to pull their children out of school (Lin 1999).

In order to develop compulsory education nationwide, the Chinese government is assisting economically deprived areas. To further increase state education appropriations, the government established the Hope Project, a back-to-school fund for children in impoverished areas who had discontinued schooling. By the end of 1994, the government had collected more than 350 million yuan (US$42.7 million) in donations, and 1,000,000 children who had been forced to leave school because of their impoverished situation were able to resume their education (Ashmore & Cao 1997).

The academic year in China is comprised of a fall semester and a spring semester. Students have classes five days a week with much homework assigned over the weekend. The school year extends from September to July. The teaching language is Putonghua, (Mandarin Chinese). Occasionally, local dialects are used as the teaching language in remote minority areas; however, the teaching of Mandarin Chinese is strictly enforced and is mostly used alongside local minority languages.

The new orientation of the Chinese economy in the 1980s required many skilled and trained laborers. Private education proved to be a pragmatic solution to meet the challenges of China's burgeoning market economy. Various nongovernmental schools became established in urban areas. They emphasized vocational training and offered courses such as foreign languages, accounting, bookkeeping, home economics, architecture, tailoring, and industrial management. By 1998, the total enrollment in nonformal institutions had reached 74,967,300 students (China Statistical Yearbook 1999).

In 1987 and 1988, the State Education Commission issued a series of documents, including the Provisional Regulations Concerning Educational Institutions Run by Social Forces and Provisional Regulations on the Finance of Educational Institutions Run by Social Forces. With these documents, the government allowed state-owned enterprises and institutions, the democratic parties, popular organizations, economic collectives, and learned societies to set up educational institutions. Private citizens were also allowed to do so with special permission from the educational office at various levels of the government. Foreigners, overseas Chinese, educators, and businessmen from Hong Kong and Taiwan were invited as well.

The first pre-college private school since the economic reforms was Guangya school in Dujiangyan, Sichuan Province. It opened in June 1992 by Qing Guangya. Three years later there were 20,780 private kindergartens, 3,159 private primary and secondary schools, and 672 private vocational and technical schools. In addition, there were 12,230 private colleges with an average enrollment of 2,400 students. Generally, there have been three types of private schools developed since the 1980s in terms of their funding and operation. The first type was founded and controlled by private investors, including former educators and businessmen. The second type of private schools was set up by Chinese individuals or business firms in collaboration with foreign investors. The third type included those founded and operated by Chinese enterprises and institutions in the tradition of the minban school, which are popularly-run schools supported by village funds in rural areas. Although the majority of minban schools are primary schools, there may be a few middle schools. Many private schools involved government officials or agencies in their administration or boards. In the 1990s, with strong financial support, private schools became much better equipped than most public schools. Computer labs, language labs, indoor gyms, swimming pools, and piano studios have enabled these schools to implement programs that prepared their students for the challenge of the market economy.

Although the future of private institutions remains uncertain, it seems that it is improving. More than ever before, the People's Republic of China is committed to economic reforms. Given the benefits of private universities, they are very likely to prosper in China's drive for modernization.

Although the philosophy of Communism dictates that women should enjoy equal rights with men, in educational life there have been consistently fewer females than males both overall and at each level of education throughout the history of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Females have consistently constituted a declining proportion of total students as one moves up the educational ladder. The obstacles of gender discrepancies at all levels of education stems in part from deeply embedded cultural sentiments. Female inferiority was enshrined in the Confucian ethic nan zun nu bei (male honorable, female inferior). This concept of female inferiority remains firmly entrenched in the basic social structure of modern Chinese society. Overt institutional discrimination occurs in the admission of females to both secondary and higher education. In the post-Mao Era, technical schools have been particularly active in this area, imposing quotas on the proportion of females enrolled. They argue that while girls mature faster intellectually than boys, they begin to fall behind at the later stage of junior middle school or in senior high school. More importantly, they use employment demands to justify gender discrimination. Since potential employers prefer male recruits, female graduates would have a hard time finding jobs. In addition women are considered less committed and are viewed as having less energy for their work because of their domestic responsibilities. Family attitudes and behavior also present obstacles to female education. Throughout the history of post-1949 China, the family has continued to favor the education of sons over daughters, especially in rural areas where both traditional attitudes and the virilocal family structure have persisted. Girls are often withdrawn from junior high school and even primary school to assist with domestic chores, accounting for their lower participation rates in education (Epstein 1991).

Despite the continuous disproportion of enrollment, female participation in education has increased over the period as a whole. Up to the mid-1980s, women's participation in formal higher education improved rapidly, from 23.4 percent in 1980 to 38.3 percent in 1998 (China Statistical Yearbook 1999). It is important to note, however, that free-market reforms have not always benefited women. Since the mid-1980s, female graduates have faced increasing discrimination in employment, as the centralized job allocation system has been modified to allow for greater autonomy on the part of employers. Because employers now have a choice, many choose to hire males over females to avoid paying maternity benefits. A new law protecting women's rights was passed by the national People's Congress in 1992, specifying that "schools and pertinent departments should ensure that females and males are treated equally when it comes to starting school, progressing from a lower-level school to a higher one, assigning jobs on graduation, awarding academic degrees, and selecting people for overseas study." But this is increasingly difficult to implement since educational institutions have less and less control over the employment of their graduates.

At the end of 1998, China had 55 minority groups with a population of 75,774,500. Although they constitute 6.07 percent of the total population, they are very unequally distributed among the 31 province-level territories. In 10 territories, their share of the total population is less than 1 percent. In 2 other territories, their share is between 10 and 20 percent (China Statistical Yearbook 1999). Because the Communist Party wanted to promote a unified country, it maintained that non-Han populations had the right to preserve their own languages, customs, and religions over a long period of time until all minorities would ultimately "melt together." In the meantime, the government also insisted that minorities were backward in their customs, economy, and political consciousness. Therefore, they needed assistance from the Han people to achieve a developed socialist country.

As a result of these contradictory policies, China has developed one of the oldest and largest programs of state-sponsored affirmative action for ethnic minorities. By 1950 the government had established 45 special minority primary schools and 8 provincial minority secondary schools. The minority students in these schools were provided free education, books, and school supplies and were subsidized for food and housing (Hansen 1990). For the long-term political goal, the government also focused on the education of minority cadres. An important institution to accomplish this goal is minzu xueyuan (special minority institutes), which trained minority cadres to work in minority regions as representatives of the Communist party and government. In college entrance examinations, minorities are given additional points to give them greater access to higher education20 points are automatically added to their scores if they apply to minority institutes, or 5 points are added if they apply to other schools. Also, in many cases, minority students are allowed to take the examinations in their indigenous languages and later enroll in classes taught in Mandarin. Many prominent universities now have minzu ban (ethnic classes or cohorts). Since the early 1980s, there have also been one-year yuke ban (preparatory courses) for minorities at key universities and minority institutes. These classes, which may be arranged by agreement between minority areas and universities, can serve students who failed to enter a university through the national enrollment system. Minority students also benefit from quotas that set aside a certain percentage of the spaces in classes for them. Furthermore, governments at different levels tried to strengthen the training of local teachers and re-establish bilingual education, particularly among Tibetans, Mongols, and Uygurs. The autonomous governments of minorities are allowed to decide which kinds of schools to establish, the length of schooling, whether a special curriculum is needed, which languages to teach in addition to Chinese, and how to recruit students. The central government also decided that minority students studying in cities should be allocated jobs in their home-counties after graduation in order to ensure that poor and underdeveloped rural minority areas would benefit from minority higher education. In exchange for the preferential policies, minorities are expected to support China's construction by providing more natural resources.

In spite of governmental preferential policies, many minority areas are still characterized by low levels of school enrollment and educational attainment. In 1990, the level of illiteracy of the national minorities as a whole (30.8 percent) is markedly higher than that of all Han combined at 21.5 percent. While minority students continue to do relatively well in terms of opportunities to enter higher education, they are increasingly disadvantaged in their access to the job market upon graduation. Furthermore, both minority men and women are highly disadvantaged in applying to enter graduate school, due to the foreign language requirement. It is not easy for them to reach an adequate level in a foreign language when they must master Chinese in addition to their own language and then learn the foreign language through the medium of Chinese. Nor is there much evidence of affirmative action for minority students at the graduate level. Also, the fact that many minority undergraduates intend to become cadres, rather than academics, contributes to the scarcity of minority graduate students. In 1993, only 3 percent of graduate students were minorities.

The use of instructional technology in China's classrooms remains inadequate. Many schools, particularly in rural area, still rely on blackboard and chalk as their major instructional media. Since the economic reforms in the 1980s, some schools in the cities have acquired limited audio-visual resources. Both key high schools and universities have the advantage of being equipped first due to funding priority from the state. Private schools are better equipped than most public schools due to their generous donors, usually overseas Chinese or the newly rich entrepreneurs. As for Internet access in classrooms, Chinese schools are behind most advanced Western countries. Only very few researchers at key universities, supported by outside funding, have unlimited access to Internet resources. Due to both high cost and the fear of influx of undesired information, the Chinese government hesitates to make the Internet a valuable teaching tool on campuses.

In using both radio and television as instructional media to provide educational opportunities for Chinese mass, however, China is ahead of many countries in the world. Even during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) when all schools were closed, Chinese Central People's Broadcast Station started to offer English lessons through radio broadcast in the 1970s. In February 1979 a television university was formed to offer different courses to Chinese citizens. In 1998 there were 45 radio and television universities with a enrollment of 484,400 students (China Statistical Yearbook 1999). Upon passing all required tests in a particular field, students can receive diplomas from the universities. The well-developed network presents lectures and classes in all major cities and regions throughout China. By presenting lectures of top experts in a given field, these radio and television universities provide educational opportunities to a large viewing audience who cannot attend formal college.


Preprimary & Primary Education


Unlike primary education in Chinese cities, kindergarten education is not offered on a universal basis. Nationwide, in 1998, approximately 24,030,000 children attended 181,368 kindergartens (China Statistical Yearbook 1999). The proportion of children who attend kindergartens in cities is higher, with more children spending at least some time in kindergarten between the ages of three and six when they enter primary school. It is a general principle that children who have attended a reputable kindergarten will more easily attain a spot in a good primary school. Consequently, despite the higher fees charged at the best kindergartens, places are often difficult to secure. Sometimes there are entrance examinations designed to test coordination, verbal development, simple counting, and the recognition of shapes. Despite the existence of formal selection procedures, access to guanxi (connections), or a "back door" may help with entry into a good kindergarten.

Factories, companies, universities, and government offices all operate nurseries for their own employees. Their quality varies, depending in part on the nature of the unit to which they are attached. Usually, the elite kindergartens are operated by local education bureaus. University kindergartens are renowned for their standards, and the admission criteria are very stringent. When choosing kindergartens for their children, however, closeness to the work place and opening hours coordinated with the working day make enterprise kindergartens a convenient choice. The majority of urban kindergartens are run by the residents' committees. These provide day care only. The equipment is simpler and their staff less highly trained than in the elite establishments.

Kindergarten activities have undergone significant changes in the 1990s. The popularization of a national kindergarten syllabus has produced a surprising degree of similarity in the children's day and in teaching methods used in kindergartens all over the country. The subjects taught include language, arithmetic, social studies, music, art, and physical education. The learning through play approach is much better established than in the past.

The status of kindergarten teachers has not risen very much since the days when the majority of staff were kindly but uneducated elderly women. Today, the qualified teachers are graduates from normal schools for kindergartens. They are called laoshi (teacher) as a mark of respect, rather than the familiar address form ayi (auntie) used in the past. However, their wages are poor, and kindergarten training tends to be taken by less competitive students whose grades are not good enough to get into any other college.

Moral and ideological education in kindergarten has changed a great deal in the years since Mao's death (1976). In the past, words like "revolution," "socialism," "communism," and "Chairman Mao's thought" were common in the kindergarten classroom. Today, although the government still requires kindergartens to instill a strong ideology and children are still taught to "love China and the communist Party," kindergartens also teach children to be modest, unselfish, tidy, and polite. Children also need to learn to distinguish between good and bad, care for their environment, and help one another. These values are important considering the fact that today's Chinese children are from one-child families, and most of them are spoiled by their parents and grandparents.

The most important document regarding primary education policy was The Government Administration Council Directive Concerning the Reorganization and Improvement of Primary School Education signed by Premier Zhou Enlai in 1953. It asked primary schools throughout China to have the same pedagogical plan and to develop the same systems of governing attendance, leave, and certification of attainment. Children begin primary school when they are seven-years-old or often six-years-old in urban areas. Primary education includes six-year programs, although in the past there were some five-year programs. There are three types of schools: full-time elementary, rural elementary, and simple elementary (Ashmore & Cao 1997). In 1998, about 139,538,000 students were enrolled in 609,626 primary schools (China Statistical Yearbook 1999).

Primary classes are large, the atmosphere is formal, and discipline is quite strict. Children are no longer required to sit with their hands clasped behind their backs as they were before the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), but they sit in straight rows, stand up to answer the teacher, and recite much of what they are required to learn in unison.

Two programs were developed to satisfy the need for education in less developed areas. One is the half-and-half agricultural secondary school. Students in this kind of school spend a half-day in study and a half-day in labor to support themselves. Their facilities are often primitive: a hastily erected shack or the floor of a barn. Another program is the part-time primary school, often called "simplified primary school." It usually offers a few daily classes taught by locally recruited teachers, usually themselves only primary school graduates. The classrooms are often located in old temples and the facilities are ill-suited for students. These are known as minban (popularly-run) schools, which are run communally by villages; they are solely supported by village funds and do not receive any financial support from the national government. Minban schools do not intend to prepare students for further education or for vocations different from those of their parents. The number of minban schools is unreported by Chinese authorities. Theoretically, every primary school teacher should be paid by the government. In reality, sometimes it is hard to find a teacher in rural areas. Villagers need to recruit teachers themselves, and the salary of the teacher is drawn from village funds.

The curriculum for primary schools is very much standardized in China. There are standard textbooks for curricula at all levels. The central theme of these uniformly written textbooks is that China is a unified, glorious country with a great past and a bright future. Despite considerable variation in geography, agriculture, climate, language, and local customs, nearly the same subjects are taught with the same materials throughout the country. The standardized curriculum dictates that 40 percent of class hours should be devoted to the study of Chinese (including reading, writing, composition, and speaking). A further 24 percent of class hours is devoted to arithmetic. The remaining class hours are absorbed by physical education, music, art, natural science, politics, geography, and history. Increasingly, foreign languages, particularly English, have become optional courses. The government planned to make English a mandatory course starting at the third year of primary school at the beginning of the twenty-first century.


Secondary Education


The First National Conference on Secondary Education was held in Beijing in March 1951. Based on the conference, the Ministry of Education issued the "Temporary Rules for Middle Schools" in the next year. According to this directive, the task of middle schools was to educate a generation of young people for the new China, which meant to combine the theory of Marxism-Leninism with a concrete appreciation for Chinese society and to cultivate proletarian successors who loved the party, the people, and the country. In the early 1950s, a unified system of middle schools was set up in China. All private middle schools were eliminated, and all curriculum and textbooks were standardized.

General secondary schools include a 3-year junior secondary school and a 3-year senior secondary school. Some systems have a 4-year junior/3-year senior plan; a few others have a 2-year senior school structure. Secondary schools in China are divided into "key" and "ordinary" schools. Designated key schools are schools distinguished from ordinary schools by their academic reputation and are generally allocated more resources by the state. Their original purpose was to quicken the training of highly needed talent for China's modernization, but another purpose was to set up exemplary schools to improve teaching in all schools. This stratified structure has given key schools numerous privileges. They can select the best students through city-wide or region-wide examination and transfer the best teachers in the area to teach in their school. They receive much more funding from the government, and in getting funds for upgrading equipment or the purchase of expensive items such as computers, they always have priority. Because of these advantages, key schools often boast 90 to 99 percent admission rates to universities (Lin 1999).

In addition, key schools dominate the creation and distribution of secondary school education materials. Their best teachers are not only called upon to write and grade national examination test papers, but they are also publishing researchers who authoritatively resolve secondary school disputes through their domination of district education bureau publications. Some key schools are even affiliated with overseas alumni associations that are a source of prestige and hard currency. Such schools embody China's modernization goal of defining success in relationship to international standards. Admission into key schools often paves the way for entering elite colleges in China and abroad, perpetuating a syndrome of ever-increasing pressure on children to gain admission to the best secondary schools. Although the State Education Commission and local bureaus of education have attempted to reduce student work loads by banning excessive examinations, stipulating the number of hours secondary school pupils must sleep each night, restricting homework during semester breaks and holidays, and preventing merit pay for instructors who teach solely the top students, there is not much improvement.

Besides inequality between key and ordinary schools, there has been a huge discrepancy between urban areas and less-developed rural areas since the 1980s. Historically, the Chinese government's investment on education for peasants has always been meager. In rural areas 90 percent of secondary schools fail to meet national standards for such basic facilities as chairs, desks, and safe drinking water.

In 1998, among 13,948 regular senior secondary schools in China, only 20 percent (2,721) were in rural areas, serving 70 percent of Chinese population, not to mention the huge discrepancy in their equipment, government funding, and the quantity and quality of the teachers. In terms of student enrollment, rural pupils only constitute 14 percent (1,310,436) of senior secondary school students (China Statistical Yearbook 1999). Besides inadequate resources, the fact that many peasants believe that formal schooling is useless and irrelevant to their agrarian life is also responsible for the high illiteracy rate in rural areas. The poorest of China's counties are so behind in secondary school provision that the government implemented a prairie fire program to push rural educational efforts (Epstein 1991).

The academic year for junior secondary school consists of two 20-week terms, 11 to 12 holiday weeks, and one or two weeks for flexible use. Six classes are offered each day, Monday through Friday. Classroom instruction involves 28 to 30 hours each week. The core curriculum of secondary schools includes three fundamental subjects: Chinese, mathematics, and English. Each is taught for six years and together account for more than 50 percent of the total hours students spend in the classroom. Political study is required in each year of secondary school. It consists of political ideology and morality, the history of social development and dialectical materialism, political and legal knowledge, political philosophy, political economy, and review during the senior year. In addition, students study five years of physics, four years of chemistry and biology, three years of geography and history, and one year of computer science, which includes basic computer literacy and programming. Pupils also participate in physical education in each year of secondary school and two or three years of art and music. Many schools now teach typing in the second year of junior secondary school.

Besides the senior secondary schools that prepare students for going on to college, there are vocational and technical senior secondary schools (VTE) that train pupils in specialized fields and prepare them to enter the workforce immediately after graduation from secondary school. Full-time senior secondary school programs are commonly classified into specialized technical and teacher-training schools, technical and pre-service skilled worker schools, and, the largest sector, vocational and agricultural schools. The most prestigious VTE programs are offered by more than 4,109 specialized schools that train middle-level technical personnel and kindergarten and primary school teachers. These institutions, developed in the mid-1950s and directed by technical ministries as well as the State Education Commission, are managed directly by education, technical, and labor bureaus at the local, district, county, and provincial levels. Entering students are junior secondary school graduates who are selected through competitive state examinations administered by bureaus of higher education. The four-year study program includes nine broad specializations in technical fields (agriculture, art, economics, engineering, forestry, medicine, physical culture, politics and law, and a miscellaneous category that includes everything from the training of Buddhist monks and nuns to flight attendants) and one type in teacher training for secondary schools.

Less prestigious than specialized schools, technical schools are run by education bureaus and industrial units. They train technicians in steel, textile, petroleum, pharmaceutical, agricultural, and botanical enterprises, as well as middle-level workers in law, finance, health, art, and physical culture. These primarily three-year institutions recruit junior middle school graduates who are assigned to them by labor and personnel bureaus on the basis of entrance examination results and preferred choice of specialty. They are more successful than specialized schools in forging close and flexible ties with specific enterprises because their enrollment and curriculum are not controlled by national ministries. Like specialized schools, they have the advantage of high demand since students receive employment upon graduation.

Key and non-key vocational and agricultural schools, normally managed at the district and county level, have offered the least prestigious VTE programs because their graduates have not enjoyed secure employment opportunities and because graduates from these three-year programs are classified as skilled workers rather than technicians. Therefore, they provide the last chance for students hoping to pursue senior secondary schooling and have the highest level of dropouts. However, vocational and agricultural schools in relatively developed regions of China have managed to compensate for the lack of formal employment mechanisms by powerful local contacts with surrounding enterprises and capitalizing on economic demand for skilled labor. Job security, in turn, has raised the confidence of the public in such schools, which are attracting increasingly qualified junior high school graduates.

There are two kinds of examinations conducted in secondary schools. One kind is the graduation test. Every student is required to pass examinations for the following ten subjects in order to graduate from secondary school: Chinese, mathematics, foreign language, physics, chemistry, political study, history, geography, computer science, and biology. The examination for each subject is conducted in different years of secondary school. Each examination is graded on a 100-point scale and students receive grades curved from "A" to "E." All students take each test at the same time, and results become a matter of public record. Students who pass all classes receive a graduation certificate and are eligible for applying to take the college entrance examinations.

The second kind of test is college entrance examinations. All students who wish to enter college are also required to take a unified national examination in their last year of high school. The score on this examination is the main criteria for college, and almost the entirety of the last year of high school is devoted to preparation for this examination. It takes place from July 7 to July 9 annually and covers seven different subjects. During senior year all high school students need to declare whether they are on the humanities track or the science track, in accordance with the two specialties tested by the college entrance examination. This early specialization has been blamed for a premature narrowing of intellectual pursuit. In the college entrance examination, humanities students are tested in history and political study. Science students are tested in physics and chemistry. All students are also required to take examinations in Chinese, mathematics, and a foreign language regardless of their future majors. Nationally, only about 25 percent of high school graduates are able to pursue higher education directly through public support because of the extremely competitive nature of the college entrance examination. Those students whose examination scores are not high enough or who lack the resources to pursue higher education privately go straight into the workforce without further education.

While the establishment of schools for the physically disabled dates to the late nineteenth century, institutional expansion proceeded moderately until the Cultural Revolution and has increased substantially since the 1980s. In general, however, education for the disabled in China remains in its infancy, and serious improvement remains to be done to promote the social integration of disabled Chinese youth.

The first Chinese school for the blind and deaf was established in 1927 in Nanjing. After the founding of the PRC in 1949, the Chinese government reaffirmed its commitments to educate the disabled in a 1951 document published by the Ministry of Education. By 1998, there were 1,062 schools for the blind, hearing impaired, and mute, with a total student enrollment of 97,649. There were 21,415 full-time teachers out of a total staff of 30,868. Schools for retarded children date from as late as 1979 and numbered 90 by 1987. The best estimates indicate that 504 schools employ 14,400 special education teachers and staff, who served 52,800 children at the beginning of the 1990. But only six percent of China's 6,000,000 children and youth who suffer from disability are enrolled in any type of educational programs.

Basically, Chinese special schools only offer a primary-school level education, which emphasizes mastery of survival skills along with those manual skills traditionally performed by adults with specific disabilities. The curriculum follows a work-study structure. The goal of the work experience in these schools is to teach socialization and survival skills. The textbooks used in these schools are the ones used in primary schools with the translations of Braille. Recently, some colleges started to admit disabled students and even established special education majors and teacher training programs devoted to teaching disabled students.

China established reformatories and work-study schools since the late 1950s and early 1960s when urban and rural theft, fighting, and poor school discipline became noticeable problems. They are under the supervision of the public security apparatus. Based on early Chinese Communist practice in Yanan, reformatories were conceived as production units, and inmate labor would be used to make them self-sufficient and to make them contribute to the socialist economy. Work-study schools for delinquents, on the other hand, were founded for those guilty of less serious delinquent activity. They also emphasized the importance of offenders participating in productive labor. During the Cultural Revolution, the work of both reformatories and work-study schools was disrupted, as reformatories were viewed as overly coercive, and work-study schools were dismissed as ineffective and were shut down completely. During the 1980s when reformatories resumed, the Chinese government still emphasized the use of productive labor as a character-reforming device. Furthermore, the removal of youth from normal family environments, the use of drill and militaristic ritual within the institutional settings, and the display of offenders completing production tasks in public view reinforced the strong negative social labeling that is associated with reformatories and work-study schools. The quality of education provided at both reformatories and work-study schools is often substandard. In addition, they have no systematic counseling system; offenders are put together regardless of their specific offence and few preparations are made to facilitate their readjustment after their release.

Higher Education

The 1952 reorganization of higher education resulted in three types of government-controlled institutions. First, there were a small number of comprehensive universities with departments in the classical arts and science disciplines of the European tradition, as well as six national normal universities that had departments of education, fine arts, and music, which were established with the intention of training academic teachers for the secondary and tertiary level. Second, based on the Marxian concept of polytechnical education and a broad exposure to the applied sciences, several great polytechnical universities such as Qinghua and Jiaotong were reorganized with the broad range of engineering sciences included in their curricula. Finally, since some sectors of the society need special kinds of knowledge, some colleges were designed to train advanced personnel to meet these special demands. Thus, medical colleges and institutions of finance, economics, political science, and law were created for this purpose. At the head of the system was a new revolutionary university, People's University, which had the task of developing an authoritative Marxist, Leninist, and Maoist canon for the social sciences. By the end of 1953, all private institutions of higher learning had been taken over by the government.

The educational reform document of 1985 dictates that Chinese higher educational institutions are responsible for two main tasks: "training advanced personnel" and "developing science, technology, and culture." Abolishing the excessive government control of past policies, the State Education Commission promised new autonomy to universities, including freedom to develop "ties with productive units, scientific research institutions," and greater jurisdiction over the institution's curriculum and the use of state funds. As part of the scheme to make China a modernized country in the twenty-first century, a few private institutions have also been established either by social organizations or individuals. All universities are required to abide by the principles set forth in the Chinese Constitution. In 1998, approximately 3,409,000 students were enrolled in 1,020 higher education institutions.

Since 1949, owing to the different political and economic situations in China, the weighing of admissions criteria constantly shifted, depending on the political climate. Immediately following the Communists' rise to power, admissions criteria focused heavily on the background of a student's family: the "good" (red) classes included the workers, peasants, the former poor, Revolutionary cadres, and revolutionary martyrs; the "bad" (black) consisted of former capitalists, landlords, rich peasants, Nationalists, reactionaries, and criminals. Later, however, because China was in desperate need of professionals and engineers for socialist construction, academic achievement became more important than class background in admissions criteria. Deng Xiaoping's reforms abolished class background as a factor of consideration altogether. Instead, he instituted the national unified college entrance examinations taken by high school graduates in their last school year. Students are admitted to colleges according to two factors: their scores in the gaokao (unified college entrance examination) and the quotas of enrollment in specific institutions and specific majors. The quotas are assigned to an institution according to a national plan. Students obtain an average score in the gaokao, in a range that permits choices of specialties in institutions. Each major within a college sets up a fenshuxian (score mark), meaning cut-off score. Students whose score is below the cut-off point cannot be accepted by that institution. A prestigious university, usually a key institution, may require a score of 850 out of 900 for entrance. A second-rate institution may require only 600. Economic reforms have motivated institutions to admit zifeisheng (self-supported students) since 1995 in order to increase income. Zifeisheng are candidates below the cut-off point and hence outside the state plan.

Meanwhile, there is a direct entrance system that allows a tiny number of superior students who achieve outstanding examination results or win prizes in important academic contests to enroll directly in a designated postsecondary institution without sitting for the college entrance examination. Key universities allot several minge (positions) to appropriate key secondary schools, and students to fill them are normally selected by a school administrator and the student's homeroom teacher in consultation with the student and his or her parents. This process is extremely competitive except for students who choose to enter institutions, such as normal colleges and universities, which have trouble attracting highly qualified students.

The structure of Chinese higher education is still based on the Soviet pattern in which the arts and sciences are taught at comprehensive universities with separate institutions responsible for other fields. Academic departments within each institution still follow the Soviet example by offering a host of narrow specialties or majors, conforming to specific job requirements. Since the late 1980s, most Chinese universities have adopted the credit system, aiming to grant all undergraduates the opportunity to select courses in areas outside their own specialization. These courses are often in interesting new areas of the humanities and are offered as frequently in specialist engineering and agricultural universities as in comprehensive universities. However, students still have little freedom of choice among courses, and they choose not to study at their own pace because to graduate out of turn would disrupt the predetermined enrollment and job assignment plans.

A student's major is decided before entering college. After the college entrance examination, students, teachers, and parents meet based on the estimates of each student's entrance examination scores to choose a college and a major. Every college publicizes their standard cutoff point after the examination. The main purpose is to get into a college. Parents and students are realistic enough not to pick a good school whose cut-off point is above the estimated student's score. Once entering the college, students cannot change their majors. Each academic year is divided into spring and fall semesters. The former lasts from February to July while the latter is from September to January. University degree programs are usually either three or four years in length.

The degree system in China is still in quite an early stage in its development. Despite attempts to set up a degree system during the 1950s and 1960s, it was successfully established only after the Cultural Revolution (1966-76) and first implemented on January 1, 1981. A complete undergraduate education consists of four years of study, at which time the student is granted a diploma, which is separate from the B.A. degree. Only those students who have successfully completed a senior thesis along with their four years of study are granted a B.A. degree. In the late 1980s, double major programs have been introduced to outstanding students, and major/minor programs have been arranged for students wishing to develop a second area of professional expertise.

Since the establishment of the Academics Degrees Committee under the State Council, graduate programs have been rapidly developed. Master's studies last for three years (full-time) with heavy coursework in the first two years and a thesis to follow. Doctoral studies are also normally full-time over three years, again with substantial coursework. It was only in the 1990s that institutions began to accept postgraduate studies in a part-time mode. Strict academic control has been maintained through a system whereby academic departments must be approved by the academic degree committee before they can enroll masters students, and only individual professors of high academic standing are accredited to supervise doctoral students. While expansion has been extremely rapid at the master's level, there has been much greater caution at the doctoral level. Graduate enrollments have grown from 21,604 students in 1980 to 198,885 students in 1998.

Until the 1980s college graduates' jobs were guaranteed. Under the old job assignment system, central and provincial authorities drew up the employment plans each year. The Communist Party of China (CPC) organization within each school then assigned their graduates to fill the slots. Since the mid-1990s the system has been in transition from centralized job assignment to allowing market mechanisms to determine job placement. In early 1988, the State Education Commission asked higher learning institutions in Guangdong Province to start experimenting on a new package of enrollment, tuition, and job assignment reforms. As a part of the design to institute aspects of the free market into China's centralized socialist system, the aims of this package of reforms are to abolish free higher education, to change the centralized system of enrollment (student enrollment quota to each school and each major from each province), and to abolish job assignment plans. This same set of reforms was extended in the autumn of 1989 to 36 institutions administered directly by the State Education Commission. The freshmen class in 1997 was the first to pay for their own college education and find jobs for themselves upon graduation through a "two-way selection," meaning both employers and college graduates can decide with whom they want to work without the interfering of the process from the party officials. At provincial and local levels, graduates were almost always expected to return to the place they had come from, though they were sometimes able to move to a slightly better location or situation. But for students who fail to find a work unit within the choices given them by the plan, the school must make the assignment as before. The state employment plan is used to place only a minority of China's college students as necessary for the hard-to-fill occupational quotas.

The main argument against the free-market approach to job placement was that only when the government can guarantee fair competition in the job market should the job assignment system be abandoned. Without a legal guarantee, the best opportunities are reserved for male students from big cities whose parents have many well-connected friends and relations. Other concerns include that the employers in remote and backward regions do not receive much needed graduates and that there are not enough opportunities waiting each year for all the graduates. The lack of attractive job openings generated a low student morale that became increasingly evident on many campuses. There even arose the feeling that "study is useless."

Deng Xiaoping's Open Door policy has brought an unprecedented exodus of both faculty and students to Western countries. The resulting increase in educational, scientific, and commercial contacts with the outside world brought China closer to its long-held goal of acquiring world-wide scientific and technical knowledge through Western educational institutions. From 1978 to 1998, some 147,000 students went abroad to study in Western institutions. China's "going abroad fever" is likely to continue. In academic year 1999-2000, there were 54,466 Chinese students in the United States, topping the number of any nationality of foreign students in that country.

On the other hand, with the unparalleled number of China's brightest students leaving the country, the government soon faced a "brain-drain" dilemma. Only 53,040 students, or less than 36 percent of those who left, eventually returned. To counter the "brain-drain" problem, Chinese officials have introduced specific regulations since the mid-1980s. First, Chinese students are supposed to work for a specified period at home before going abroad for further study. Any violators of the rule are punished financially. For example, a college graduate must work in China for five years before going abroad. Anybody who wants to leave China earlier must turn in money to the state, about 5,000 yuan for a year. A graduate student (MA degree holder) must serve three years before leaving China. For every unfulfilled year, the student needs to pay 6,000 to 7,000 yuan to the state. Second, in terms of visa restrictions, all state-sponsored students went to the United States on the more restrictive "J" visas. Upon completion of their studies, U.S. rules require such visa holders to return to their home countries for at least two years before being eligible to work in the United States. Third, all visa-extension requests must be forwarded to the State Education Commission; the U.S. Embassy in Beijing will not grant an extension without the Commission's approval. Finally, all students are required to sign contractual agreements with their Chinese employers before leaving China. These agreements should specify obligations on both sides, including what the employer needs and what the student will study, the posting of bonds, the guarantor's signature, and compensation if the student failed to return on schedule.

Visiting scholars, on the other hand, differ greatly in background from students that study abroad. In terms of their backgrounds, the vast majority of visiting scholars have been teaching at universities, although a significant percentage have been from government institutions. Visiting scholars make up the largest percentage of Chinese exchange visitors. They do not go abroad to enroll in specific degree programs but rather to conduct research and study on their own. In general, they must have an established reputation in China or a relatively long and successful academic career or research experience when selected for the program. Since the mid-1990s, the Chinese government has implemented a new policy to ensure the return of visiting scholars; basically, before leaving China they need to turn in a huge amount of money, about 100,000 yuan, to the government as a deposit. Upon their return to China, the money will be returned to them in full plus the interest earned during the period. Also, visiting scholars' decisions are linked to their colleagues' chances of going abroad. If one does not return, one's colleagues cannot go abroad. Besides the strict government policy and the pressures from colleagues, the possibilities for further professional development and for putting to use the new areas of knowledge acquired abroad motivate visiting scholars to go back to China. Usually, visiting scholars tend to be much older than students and, unlike students, have a high returning rate. Visiting scholars have been funded by both Western and Chinese sources. Studying abroad can be a significant turning point in Chinese professionals' lives, and it has opened up areas of research and teaching that would otherwise have been impossible.

With the crackdown of the student movement in June 1989, many graduate students abroad decided not to return. The outrage in the West over Chinese government action in the violent suppression of the students has led to several countries granting permanent residency to Chinese citizens. Even though it is more difficult for older visiting scholars to establish professional careers abroad, some of them have also decided not to return.


Administration, Finance, & Educational Research

The educational system is almost entirely centralized in China. The first National Ministry of Education (MOE) was founded in 1952 and patterned closely on its Soviet counterpart. It experienced reorganization three times before 1966. When the Cultural Revolution broke out in 1966, the Red Guards, with the support of Mao Zedong, abolished the entire educational administration in China.

A single Ministry of Education was re-established in 1975. As the political situation in China became more stable, the MOE was consolidated by the State Council. On June 18, 1985, a major reorganization of central educational administration took place in China. The 11th Plenary of the Standing Committee of the People's Congress in China passed a resolution that called for the abolition of the Ministry of Education and the establishment of the State Education Commission (SEC), a multi-functional executive branch of the State Council. The SEC is the supreme administrative authority for the education system in China and is responsible for turning out personnel well-educated and well-trained in various subjects and fields for China. For the first time in China's history, those who have assumed direct command of the country's educational system have high positions in the State Council. The SEC formulates major educational policies, designs overall strategies for promoting education, coordinates educational undertakings supervised by various ministries, and directs education reform.

In terms of accountability, institutes of higher education in the PRC are divided into four categories:

  1. Those under the direct administration of the SEC
  2. Those under the non-educational central ministries
  3. Those under provincial and other local authorities
  4. Private institutions

Usually, those under the direct administration of the SEC are considered as zhongdian daxue (key universities). The concept of key universities was first introduced in 1954. It has never been abandoned by the Chinese government except from 1972 to 1977 when students were not selected by college entrance examinations. Since the economic reforms in the 1980s, Beijing has more than ever before emphasized the importance of key schools. In 2000, eleven universities were designated as key institutions nationwide, following the example of American-style comprehensive universities to become leading higher educational institutions in the world.

Besides the universities under the SEC, there are some universities under the non-educational central ministries. Those universities tend to specialize in certain areas. For example, the Beijing Institute of Forest is under the Ministry of Forest; the Beijing University of Agriculture is run by the Ministry of Agriculture. Another type of university is managed by provincial and other local education bureaus. The proliferation of provincial and city universities has been encouraged both in order to meet rising social demand and in order to produce the mid-level technical personnel greatly needed in China's modernization drive.

Before the reform, financing of higher education was characterized by a number of features. First, since the early 1950s when the enrollment and job assignment plans went into effect, the majority of Chinese universities have been funded by both national and provincial governments. Second, the central government was in absolute control of the education budget. Funds were channeled through the Ministry of Finance to various ministries and local governments, with the endorsement of the then Ministry of Education. Third, funds were calculated by "basic number plus development." The "basic number" referred to the student enrollment and staff size as dictated by the national plan. "Development" referred to the incremental changes, again as required by the national plan. Unspent funds were returned to the government. Fourth, the national student-stipend scheme was designed to help students from low-income families. However, the government's overall education budget is not enough and is mostly spent in urban areas. As a result of poor facilities and lack of qualified teachers, students in the countryside have little access to adequate education.

The application of the Guangdong experiment in 1988 drastically altered China's highly centralized, socialist education system by introducing tuition payments and abolishing strict enrollment quotas. In the meantime the national student-stipend scheme began to be phased out at the end of the 1980s, and the student loan program was introduced in 1986-1987 by state-financed loans. Among those exempt are students at teacher training and national minorities institutes, who continue to receive a monthly cost-of-living allowance.

The Guangdong experiment immediately was perceived as changing the egalitarian distribution system and adding to the burdens of poor students. Also, as a result of this reform, "out-of-province" students were reluctant to attend colleges in Guangdong. To address these concerns, the State Education Commission has directed that college students should be divided into two basic enrollment categories. One is zhilingxing jihua (directed or state-assigned plan), while the other is the more flexible zhiddaoxing jihua (guided plan). Students enrolled under the state-guided plan will generally be exempt from paying tuition, and their other expenses will be largely state-subsidized. In return, they must agree to major in one of several unpopular specialties, enrollment quotas for which are typically difficult to fill. They must also accept a state-assigned job in the area for which they have been trained. Other students, under the guided plan, will be responsible for their own tuition and living expenses and for repaying any loans incurred, but they will be free to apply for enrollment in more popular specialties that train for better-paying and more prestigious careers, and they will find employment on their own after graduation. The two functions of the division are allowing students from poorer families to attend college and guaranteeing enrollments in essential specialties that are unpopular. Usually, those fields include teacher training, agriculture, water conservancy, geology, petroleum engineering, and mining. In addition, a small number of dingxiang peiyang students (under contractual arrangements between the school and the locality) who are enrolled from border and mountain regions must return after graduation. They also belong to the category of directed plan.

The Outline of Reform (1993) and the Education Law of 1995 stipulated that the two major sources of income that an institution receives are state appropriation and other non-state income. The former is known as yusuannei (budgeted), the latter, yusuanwai (unbudgeted). Budgeted refers to those that are appropriated by the state. Basically, the state provides funding for salaries and the general operation of the institutions. The state also provides partial funding for capital investments. The principle for the management of government appropriation is "one-line budget, retention of surplus." This is to provide incentive for institutions to economize on the resources available. Unbudgeted income is not recorded in government accounts. The five main sources of unbudgeted income are: university-run enterprises; research services and consulting sponsored mainly by individual academic departments; selling teaching services (correspondence courses, refresher courses, adult evening classes, technical training programs); endowment/ donations; and student fees. The proceeds are used to supplement faculty salaries.

Since 1953, all college students received tuition-waiver scholarship and free dormitory. The food subsidies depend on the student's family income. Usually 80 percent of the students receive food subsidies from the national government. From 1997, all higher education institutions started charging student fees. Those students whose admission to college is based on their score have been required to pay 4,000 to 6,000 yuan per academic year while those zifeisheng are asked to pay 20,000 to 30,000 yuan per year.

Total World Bank loans to Chinese education have amounted to about US$1.2 billion since the 1980s. It has been managed in a bureaucratic way, with the Ministry of Finance having overall supervision, a loan office in the State Education Commission overseeing the disbursement of loans to all institutions at the national level, and similar offices in provincial education commissions responsible for the oversight of projects at the provincial level. In contrast to World Bank projects, cooperative projects funded by agencies such as UNESCO, UNDP, UNFPA, and UNICEF in China have been small in scale and focused on particular developmental goals related to their area of responsibility. These agencies have a fairly diffuse presence within many different governmental offices and provide a wide range of opportunities for university scholars to participate in regional or international projects of mutual learning and enhancement.

The restrictive policies of the Chinese government in the past have posed a major obstacle to qualitative and quantitative research regarding many aspects of Chinese society, including education. Since the institution of the Four Modernizations and the subsequent Open Door Policy, the leadership has been more lenient in permitting education research by both domestic and foreign scholars. Nevertheless, much of the material published on Chinese education immediately following the reform period are empirically and theoretically weak. Often, the only source for the assertions made are the writers' own impressions, and any data originates from state-arranged interviews with designated educational professionals and policy-makers. Since the 1980s, there has been steadily growing interest in domestic issues among Chinese intellectuals, fostered by the reform era and growing international interest in China. As a result, the increase in dissertation research, as well as the growing number of social science research institutes, indicates a promising future for education research in general.

Main research institutes in China include the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and eleven key universities. They may apply on an equal basis for research funding, with all applications judged by a peer review process. For applied research, institutes and universities are officially encouraged to seek support through contracts with productive ministries and enterprises in addition to traditional allocations available within the national plan. This enhanced flexibility and opportunity for the exercise of initiative has made possible a more significant research role for higher level institutions.

Nonformal Education


From 1949 to 1981 the Chinese term for nonformal education was worker-peasant education. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) launched a campaign to improve worker-peasant literacy for the sake of economic reconstruction. Formal classroom instruction, distance instruction through correspondence, and radio instruction were utilized at factories, production brigades, and government agencies. By 1956, about 62,000,000 peasants had attended different types of literacy classes, representing about 30 percent of the age group of 14 years and older from the country's rural population. To prepare students for college and quickly produce a new kind of intellectual drawn directly from working-class ranks, the CCP also initiated the gongnong sucheng zhongxue (worker-peasant accelerated middle school) experiment in 1950. However, because these schools could not compete with formal educational institutions, and students did not produce good academic records, the experiment was declared a failure and abandoned in 1955.

The term "adult education" was introduced to China by a study team from the International Council for Adult Education. After the Cultural Revolution, the Chinese government issued its first document regarding adult education on November 6, 1978, titled "Directives on the Issues of Literacy." It set up the standard to eradicate illiteracy among workers and peasants throughout the country; the ability of peasants to master 1,500 Chinese characters and of workers to master 2,000 characters; the capacity to read a newspaper; the ability to write simple letters and complete applications and appropriate forms; and the ability to complete a simple test measuring the above mentioned skills.

Adult education during the post-Mao period can be characterized by the restoration and re-establishment of institutions abolished during the Cultural Revolution. The 1980s witnessed a radical expansion of higher adult education institutions. Promotion and employment were more directly linked to one's academic rather than political background, increasing the demand for a college diploma. Because of the restrictive admissions policies of formal higher education institutions, the vast majority of high school graduates sought nonformal higher education training. By the end of 1998, approximately 661,705 schools of varied types of nonformal education produced 94,841,000 graduates.

Nonformal higher education is largely three years in length. It follows the curriculum for formal higher education in corresponding disciplines. Entrance to such programs usually requires passing the Adult Higher Education Entrance Examination, which is a national public examination. The State Education Commission now includes an adult educational department as do provincial, autonomous regional, municipal, and county-level education commissions, departments, and bureaus.

In addition to institutional nonformal higher education, open learning through the Self-Study Examination has attracted many candidates. Candidates may enroll in individual subjects and may accumulate their credentials over time. There is no entrance requirement for the self-study examination. The approach was first piloted in three major cities and one province in 1981 and was extended nationwide in 1983. This system was designed to expand the benefits of higher education with minimal investment. It appeals to many adults who do not want to sacrifice their jobs and family life to obtain a college diploma. With no limitation on age and formal education, it opens up higher education to an enormous number of Chinese citizens who would not have had a chance in regular colleges, and inspires great enthusiasm in higher learning.

The Self-Study Examination is offered twice each year. The National Examination Committee creates the tests, which are administered by local committees. Citizens can apply to take these examinations without having acquired previous course credit. Students who pass the examinations for four-year degree courses receive a bachelor's degree; those who pass three-year courses or single courses are issued certificates. At present, most of the provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions have set up their own local committees for self-study examinations, whose specializations include the liberal arts, science, engineering, agriculture, finance, economics, politics, and law. In the first examination in April 1995, enrollment reached 3.65 million. Of these candidates, 50 percent were students of adult education institutions in one form or another; the other 50 percent had undertaken private study.


Teaching Profession

The scope of the teacher education system in the People's Republic of China is extensive. In numerical terms, teachers in China form the largest teaching force in the world. In 1998, there were 229 training institutions at various levels with 138,745 education majors enrolled. Yet this massive training system has barely met the demand for the number of teachers required to sustain the even larger school system in terms of both quantity and quality. A range of serious policy problems, organizational barriers, and socioeconomic factors undermine the ability of the teacher education system to make adequate contributions to the nation.

There are two main categories of teachers in China, distinguished according to the source and structure of their pay. The first category is the gongban (state-paid) teachers who are regarded as state employees and earn a regular monthly salary comparable to other civil servants or workers in state-owned enterprises. The second category is the minban (community-paid) teachers who are paid by the local community. Their monthly income depends on the economic conditions of the local community.

The education of teachers is directly supervised by the State Education Commission. The Teacher Education Bureau is one of the 23 bureaus in the SEC and is immediately responsible for formulating policies on teacher education and supervising the development of the teacher training system, including the goals of teacher education, curriculum structure, recruitment of teacher trainees, and accreditation criteria. It also directly administers six key normal universities, namely those in Beijing, East China, Central China, Northeast China, Southwest China, and Shanxi. Provincial education commissions and education bureaus in the prefectures and counties are responsible for teacher education under their purview, and they are expected to implement the policies formulated by the central government.

The system of teacher education comprises two distinct subsystems: pre-service and in-service. Pre-service education is housed in monotechnic colleges or shifan xueyuan (specialized teacher education institutions), which enjoy a unique status within the overall education system. The lowest level of the pre-service subsystem recruits trainees from among junior secondary school graduates who are trained to be kindergarten and primary school teachers. This structure originated from the teacher education system that was first established in 1897 and heavily influenced by Japanese and German models. Because of the need for large numbers of teachers at various levels of schooling, the Chinese government, in different periods, still favored the hierarchical, monotechnic, and specialized teacher education system. In 1953, the Ministry of Education stipulated a three-tier system of pre-service teacher education: normal universities for the large administrative zones, teachers colleges in provinces and metropolitan cities, and junior colleges and secondary normal schools of various types at township and county levels.

The in-service teacher education is designed to provide unqualified teachers with appropriate training and education credentials. It is organized into four levels: provincial college of education; county or city college or teachers' advancement college; county teachers' school; and town and village teachers' supervisory center. Every level has specific target trainees. Provincial colleges are responsible for training senior high school teachers; county or city colleges for junior high school teachers; county teachers' school for primary and kindergarten teachers; and town and village teachers' center for teachers for their own geographic areas. The in-service courses are offered on a part-time basis and are more flexible in length and format. They also tend to accommodate the needs of individual groups of teachers. Sometimes, in-service institutions also organize research to address local problems.

The government maintains strict control over the teacher education curriculum and the SEC outlines the curriculum framework for all normal institutions, as well as specifies basic teaching hours and promotes the standardization of instructional materials by producing national course books for teacher trainees. The normal education curriculum is comprised of five major components: foundation courses, including politics, moral education, second languages and physical education; professional education courses, consisting of pedagogy, psychology, philosophy, history of education, sociology and so forth; subject matter specialization that replicates the major academic subjects in the secondary school curriculum; optional courses, such as art appreciation, computer literacy, counseling and extracurricular activities; and the teaching practicum, which is divided into a two-week and six-week block in the third and fourth year respectively. Besides setting development targets for the teaching training system, the Chinese Communist Party seeks to reaffirm the political and ideological orientation of teacher education, which is "to cultivate cultured persons as teachers with lofty ideals, high morality, strong discipline, and a sense of mission as educators, the engineers of the human soul and the gardeners of the nation's flowers" (Leung and Hui 2000).

Unlike the United States and many other countries, China traditionally has had no system of teacher certification. It was assumed, rather, that teachers were qualified by the professional training they received in their teacher education program. However, due to dramatic influx of untrained teachers in the Cultural Revolution decade, many teachers have not received pre-service preparation and have no claim to technical qualifications. Thus, in the mid-and-late 1980s, the government tried to directly reshape the teaching force through a system of teacher examinations and credentials.

The examinations are standardized for secondary teachers by the central government, while examinations for elementary teachers are the responsibility of each province. The system has a potentially powerful impact as it was designed to be coordinated with teacher ranking and salaries from 1989 on. Generally speaking, primary teachers should have at least graduated from the secondary normal schools or senior secondary schools; junior secondary schoolteachers should at least have a teaching diploma from the junior teachers colleges, while senior secondary teachers should be graduates of the normal universities and teachers colleges or degree holders from other tertiary institutions (Epstein 1991).

The state-paid teachers are categorized into grades according to their years of service and their standard of performance. In 1980, the Chinese government introduced a five-grade system. The highest grade is the super-grade teachers, who occupy 5 percent of the teaching force. The other grades, in descending order, are the senior, first, second, and third grade teachers. In 1990, only 6 percent of secondary teachers belonged to the senior grade, while the majority of secondary teachers were in the second grade. Most primary teachers were in the senior grade and first grade. This pattern of distribution of grades of teachers illustrates that the teaching force at the primary level is more experienced and older than that of secondary school teachers.

The lack of qualified teachers has been a serious problem in China since economic reforms started in the 1980s. Although the in-service teacher education system has contributed significantly to alleviating the problem, the national situation is far from satisfactory. There are two major factors accounting for the inconsistency in the demand for and supply of teachers. First, there is a general reluctance on the part of secondary school graduates to become teacher trainees since the reform of the Chinese economy opened up better paying opportunities for young people. Teacher remuneration became relatively unappealing in comparison with other state-paid occupations, not to mention the more lucrative jobs in the private sectors or foreign-invested enterprises. In 1991, the average annual income of state-paid occupations was 2,563 yuan, but the annual salary of the teaching profession averaged only 2,257 yuan and it ranked among the bottom third of the twelve major categories of occupations. Furthermore, it was not uncommon to see the delayed payment of teachers in the countryside and poor areas. Some villages and townships even paid teachers various factory or farm products instead of cash. Moreover, teachers were seriously deprived of fringe welfare benefits, such as good housing quarters, traveling, and medical care allowances that are critical in Chinese society.

The second factor accounting for the shortage of teachers is the internal efficiency of the school system and the teacher training system in general. The training capacity of the existing normal universities and teachers colleges has reached a maximum level, with an average of 28,000 trainees per institution. Most of these institutions are suffering from overcrowding and large class sizes, yet a proportion of the expansion in enrollment is taken up by non-normal specialties, as schools desperately try to attract more able students by offering more popular specialties such as finance, international trade, law, business management, accounting, and marketing.

The unique aspect of China's teacher training system is the rigid regulation of teacher education by the state and the Communist Party within the context of an economy and labor market that is experiencing a rapid reduction in the degree of state control. Because education remains a state-run business there has been a subtle change in terms of people's perception of teaching profession since the end of the twentieth century. Some young people started to view teaching as a guaranteed job with a stable income (although not very high), and it is better than facing uncertainties in private sectors. The teaching profession is gradually climbing up the occupational ladder. In the twenty-first century, China plans to implement system of teacher certification. After having their diploma and teaching experiences reviewed, current teachers should obtain their certificates quickly. For those who plan to choose teaching as their career, they will need to pass examinations on several educationrelated courses, such as education, psychology, and Mandarin.

Teacher education suffered severe setback during the Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976 when anti-intellectualism reached its climax. With the death of Mao Zedong, Chinese leaders once again emphasized the importance of teacher education in order to achieve nine-year compulsory education and the nation's grand modernization scheme. In 1987 the Chinese government established a national Teachers' Day on September 10 to honor the teaching profession. Despite the fact that teachers experience the ups and downs and receive low pay for their job, they enjoy unquestionable authority when they deliver knowledge to their students. The universal assumption in Chinese society is that the teacher tells the single and absolute truth, and the job of the students is to absorb the knowledge conveyed by the teacher without question. While some subjects (such as English, geometry, or algebra) provide more opportunities for students to practice or to drill, the structure of the lessons, their pace, and the nature of questioning are all determined by the teachers, who control the nature of classroom interactions. The most common experience for students is to go through the forty-five minute period without talking once, without being called on individually, or without asking a question. Students are taught that important knowledge comes from teachers and textbooks; that learning involves listening, thinking, and silent practice; and that the knowledge espoused by teachers and textbooks is not to be challenged, despite the lack of connection between course material and the immediate lives of the students.

Summary

Since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, education has been valued for the improvement of Chinese society rather than as a basic human right. Although the fundamental purpose or function of education has not changed, there have been some structural changes. Qualified personnel have been trained, and school conditions have improved. Education reform has progressed steadilythe nine-year compulsory education program has been implemented, primary education is becoming universal, and technical and vocational education has developed. Higher education also has developed quickly. Enrollments have increased, and a comprehensive system featuring a variety of disciplines is in place. Education for adults and minorities has been funded, and international exchange and studying abroad opportunities are also available. Most types of educational reforms in China since the 1980s have led to decentralization and the granting of semi-autonomy to lower administrative levels. In addition, college education has become a prerequisite for official bureaucratic positions.

However, much remains to be done in order to provide education to most Chinese citizens. Overall, education is insufficiently and unevenly developed. The discrepancy in the quality of education between rural areas and urban areas is overwhelming. There are no reliable sources of rural school financing. Investment in education also is inadequate. Teachers' salaries and benefits remain low, and working conditions often are poor. The elitist nature of key schools and the early determination of students' majors prevent students from discovering and developing their talents and imagination freely. The "brain-drain" problem goes beyond accommodating returned students from the West. Educational philosophy, teaching concepts, and methodologies are divorced from reality to varying degrees; practical and personal applications need to be emphasized over ideological and political work in the curriculum. Furthermore, the educational system and its management mechanism cannot meet the needs of the continual restructuring of the economy, politics, science, and technology. These problems are caused by variable combinations of politics, economics, and professional assumptions about how to develop modern education in China. As the economy expands and the reform deepens, serious efforts must be made to solve these educational problems.

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Ting Ni

China

views updated May 21 2018

CHINA

People's Republic of China

Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo

COUNTRY OVERVIEW

LOCATION AND SIZE.

China is situated in the eastern part of Asia, on the west coast of the Pacific Ocean, in the southeastern part of the Eurasian continent, bordering the East China Sea, Korea Bay, Yellow Sea, and South China Sea, between North Korea and Vietnam. Its border countries include Afghanistan, Bhutan, Burma, (Hong Kong), India, Kazakhstan, North Korea, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, (Macau), Mongolia, Nepal, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Vietnam. The land area consists of 9,596,960 square kilometers (3,696,000 square miles), the third largest in the world after Russia and Canada. The country's coastline is 14,500 kilometers (9,010 miles) long. China is divided into 22 provinces, 4 municipalities, 5 autonomous regions, and 2 special administration regions (Hong Kong and Macau). Beijing, the capital, is also the cultural and educational center of China. The city has an area of 65 square kilometers (25 square miles) and is partially surrounded by walls that were built in the 15th century.

POPULATION.

The population of China was estimated at 1,262 million in July of 2000, an increase of 10.36 percent from the 1990 population of 1,143 million. In 2000 the population growth rate was estimated at 0.9 percent, the birth rate was 16.12 per 1,000, and the death rate was 6.73 per 1,000. With a projected annual population growth rate of 0.9 percent between 2000 and 2010, the population is expected to reach 1,392.5 million in 2010. A simulation study conducted by the China State Statistics Bureau indicates that country's total population will peak at 1,402 to 1,550 million in the 2030s or 2040s.

The population of China consists of 56 ethnic groups. Han Chinese make up 91.9 percent while Zhuang, Uygur, Hui, Yi, Tibetan, Miao, Manchu, Mongol, Buyi, Korean, and other ethnic minorities make up 8.1 percent. The great majority, 68 percent of the population, is between ages 15 and 64; while 25 percent is at the age of 14 or below, 7 percent is at 65 or older. The life expectancy at birth in 2000 is estimated at 71.4 years (total population), 69.6 years (male) and 73.3 years (female). The country's high life expectancy and low infant mortality rates are envied by much richer nations.

In 1949, when China became a communist nation, the population was about 541 million. Over the following 10 years, it increased by another 118 million. It continued to rise through the 1960s. The government encouraged this increase so China could develop water control and communication infrastructures. The government also thought increased production could help produce more food and strengthen the nation's defense. Twenty years later, the millions born during that period contributed to another baby boom. By 1970, there were roughly 830 million Chinese. The over-growing population had generated serious problems and negatively affected the national economy.

To slow the population growth the government introduced a one-child-per-family policy in the late 1970s. The policy was created not only to deal with the huge population problem but as a prerequisite for the social and financial planning necessary in a socialist system. The policy is more strictly enforced in urban areas and is unpopular in the rural areas where male children are more important. However, it is enforced enough to make most couples obey it. With the introduction of the one-child policy, the population growth has slowed, with probably 250 million fewer births since 1979. Two types of obvious changes in population have taken place. First, the people are aging. The number of people 65 or older is estimated at 87.8 million in 2000 and is expected to be 167 million by 2020, compared with an elderly population of 66 million in 1990. Second, the population is becoming more urban. For instance, the urban population was at 297 million in 1990, up 90 million from 1982. During the same period, the populations of the 2 largest cities, Beijing and Shanghai, have increased 17 percent and 13 percent respectively.

Overpopulation is the number-one global problem. Many people question controlling population through legislation. Even after the 20 years that the Chinese civilization has trusted this solution to solve their problem, some still violate the policy. However, this does not imply that legislative control is wrong, especially when dealing with the extremes facing China. Backers of China's population policy say that such state-mandated birth control and family planning is necessary not only for the well-being of China but for that of the whole world.

OVERVIEW OF ECONOMY

China's economy has grown increasingly faster since the 1978 introduction of economic reforms. The Chinese official statistics show that real gross domestic product (GDP) from 1979 to 1999 was growing at an average annual rate of 9.7 percent, making China one the world's fastest growing economies. According to the World Bank, China's rapid development has raised nearly 200 million people out of extreme poverty.

Since its establishment in 1949 and until the end of 1978, China maintained a centrally planned, or command, economy. The state directed and controlled a large share of the country's economic output; the state set production goals, controlled prices, and allocated resources throughout most of the economy. By 1978, nearly three-fourths of the country's industrial production was produced by centrally controlled state-owned enterprises (SOEs) according to centrally planned output targets. There were almost no private enterprises or foreign invested firms in China. It was estimated that China's real GDP grew at an average annual rate of about 5.3 percent from 1960 to 1978. Because the central planning economic systems and government economic policies put little emphasis on profitability or competition, the country's economy was relatively stagnant and inefficient. As a result the Chinese living standards were substantially lower than those of many other developing countries. The Chinese government took steps to improve economic growth and raise living standards in the late 1970s.

The first of China's economic reforms started in 1978 when Den Xiaoping came into power again. The reforms concentrated on the agricultural production system in rural areas. The central government initiated price and ownership incentives for farmers; for the first time, farmers were able to sell a portion of their crops on the free market. In addition, the reforms tried to attract foreign investment, boost exports, and begin the importation of high technology products into the country. To do this, the government established 4 special economic zones (SEZs). Additional reforms followed in stages that sought to decentralize economic policymaking in several economic sectors, especially trade. As a part of the decentralization of economic policymaking, provincial and local governments took economic control of various enterprises, allowing them to operate and compete on free market principles.

The economic reforms had produced such promising economic growth that by the middle of 1980s the government selected additional coastal regions and cities as open cities and development zones to test more free market reforms and to offer tax and trade incentives to attract investment from overseas. Moreover, the state gradually eliminated the price controls on a wide range of products. Agricultural output doubled in the 1980s, and industry also demonstrated major gains, especially in coastal areas close to Hong Kong and opposite Taiwan, where foreign investment helped stimulate output of both domestic and export goods. Even more reforms were initiated in late 1993 when China's leadership approved additional long-term reforms which would allow the state enterprises to continue to dominate many key industries in what was now termed "a socialist market economy."

The transition of the country's economic system from a command to a market-based economy helped fuel a strong average growth. Between the start of an economic reform program in 1978 and 1995, the GDP growth was 8.0 percent a year. The growth remained strong from 1996 to 2000. In 1999 China became the second largest economy in the world, after the United States. But China's GDP per capita of US$3,800 was much less than the United States.

China's trade and investment reforms as well as its incentives led to a surge in foreign direct investment (FDI), which has served as a major source of China's capital growth. Annual utilized FDI in China grew from US$636 million in 1983 to US$45.6 billion in 1998 (but dropped to an estimated level of US$40.5 billion in 1999), making China, in the late 1990s, the second largest destination of FDI (after the United States). About two-thirds of FDI in China comes from Hong Kong and Taiwan. The United States is the third largest investor in China, accounting for 8.0 percent (US$24.6 billion) of total FDI in China from 1979 to 1999.

Since the reforms, China has made great strides in improving its social welfare. Both consumption and saving have more than doubled, and the poverty rate has declined. According to the World Bank, about 200 million Chinese who used to live in absolute poverty have been raised above the minimum poverty line. And only 10 percent of the country's population of 1.25 billion were illiterate.

Although the reforms were encouraging, the Chinese government experienced various difficulties. It struggled to collect revenues due from provinces, businesses, and individuals; to reduce corruption and other economic crimes coinciding with the reforms; and to maintain daily operations of the large state-owned enterprises. Many of the state-owned enterprises had not participated in the vigorous expansion of the economy, and some of them had lost the ability to pay full wages and pensions.

POLITICS, GOVERNMENT, AND TAXATION

China's form of government is a communist state known as a People's Republic. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is the leading political party in China. Unlike parties in Western democracies, CCP is a tightly organized political force that controls and leads society at all levels. The party sets policy and controls its execution through government officials who are required to be CCP members. It is organized as a hierarchy, with power concentrated at the top. Above the local units, or cells, is a pyramid-like structure of party congresses and committees at various levels, culminating in the National Party Congress.

Generally, CCP's national congress is supposed to meet every 5 years, though this has not always been the case. When it is not in session, direction of the party is in the hands of a Central Committee of about 200 members, which is symbolically elected by the congress according to the name list distributed by the congress board. The symbolically elected Central Committee, in turn, elects the Political Bureau. It is within the Political Bureau and its elite Standing Committee that power is concentrated, which make the state's highest-level decisions. There is also a secretariat, which carries on the day-today business of the party.

Theoretically, party membership is open to anyone over 18 years of age who accepts the party program and is willing to work actively in one of its organizations. In reality, only those who are deemed to be fellows of local CCP branch leaders will have the chance to be recruited into the party. Members are expected to abide by the party's discipline and to serve as model citizens. The backbone of the party consists of full-time paid workers known as cadres (Chinese, ganbu ). The term cadre is also used for public officials holding responsible positions, who may or may not be members of the party.

The People's Republic was first governed according to the "Common Program" and organic laws adopted in 1949. Since 1954, 4 constitutions followed, each reflecting shifts in policy and the balance of power among factions of the top leadership. The government structure forms a pyramid, ranging from local units such as residents' (urban) and villagers' committees through counties, prefectures, and then to the 22 provinces, 5 autonomous regions, and 4 special status municipalities (Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, and Chongqing), each with its own people's congress and administrative organs, and 2 special administration regions (Hong Kong, Macau). At the top of the government structure is the national government in Beijing.

The chief of state is President Jiang Zemin, who has served as president since 1993. The president and vice-president are elected to 5-year terms by the National People's Congress. The head of government is Premier Zhu Rongji, who has served in his position since 1998. The president nominates the premier who is confirmed by the Congress.

The National People's Congress is the legislature of China and serves annual sessions with 5-year terms. The Standing Committee of the Congress exercises its functions between sessions. The highest administrative organ is the State Council (similar to the United States Cabinet), headed by the premier. The court system parallels the administrative system. However, the Chinese have traditionally tended to resolve conflicts through social rather than legal or judicial mediation, and the rule of law as it is known in Western countries is currently not well-known. The number of lawyers is very small compared with many Western countries, and legal methods are not familiar to most Chinese.

The judiciary is headed by the Supreme People's Court, which consists of 1 president and 1 vice president, who each serve 4-year terms. Other courts include Special People's Courts and Local People's Courts. Supreme People's Procuratorates and Local People's Procuratorates enforce laws.

Tax policies are administered by the Ministry of Finance (MOF) and the State Administration of Taxation (SAT). The SAT is the central tax authority at ministerial level. Tax policy is the exclusive domain of the central government although the local government may input some efforts in taxation. With the adoption of a new tax system in 1994, the country adopted a tax revenue-sharing system. This means that some taxes, mostly direct taxes , are assigned to local government, while other taxes, such as value-added tax (VAT), are shared between the central government (75 percent) and local government (25 percent). Shared taxes are levied on the same tax base and then allocated between different levels of governments at pre-determined ratios.

The ratio of the total tax revenue to GDP has declined over the 1990s, although the total tax revenue has increased substantially. The main reason for the decline is the rapid growth of the service sector, whose tax burden is lower than that of manufacturing, and an increase in foreign investment, mostly in special zones where very generous tax incentives have been granted. The 1994 tax reform emphasized taxation on consumption, and currently efforts are being made to fine tune these indirect taxes , particularly the administration and collection of VAT. The abuse of invoices is a serious, continuing tax fraud problem. The main tax types for business, citizens, foreign enterprises, and foreigners in China are value-added tax (VAT); consumption tax; business tax; foreign enterprises income tax ; individual income tax; customs duties ; urban estate tax ; vehicle and vessel usage and license plate tax; land appreciation tax; stamp duties; resources tax; and deed tax.

INFRASTRUCTURE, POWER, AND COMMUNICATIONS

Infrastructure in China varies from fairly good to very poor. Resources for industry are currently heavily constrained by infrastructure shortages. The government

Communications
CountryNewspapersRadiosTV Sets aCable subscribers aMobile Phones aFax Machines aPersonal Computers aInternet Hosts bInternet Users b
199619971998199819981998199819991999
ChinaN/A33327240.0191.68.90.508,900
United States2152,146847244.325678.4458.61,508.7774,100
Japan578955707114.8374126.8237.2163.7527,060
Russia10541842078.550.440.613.062,700
aData are from International Telecommunication Union, World Telecommunication Development Report 1999 and are per 1,000 people.
bData are from the Internet Software Consortium (http://www.isc.org) and are per 10,000 people.
SOURCE: World Bank. World Development Indicators 2000.

recognizes infrastructure as the key to achieving full-industrialized status and to offsetting a diminishing cheap labor advantage. Energy and transportation needs in particular have stalled growth and fueled inflation , while telecommunications is acknowledged as a requirement for further economic growth.

RAILWAYS.

China has an estimated 69,412 kilometers (43,131 miles) of railroad. Every province-level administrative unit except Tibet was served by rail, and plans were being made to extend a line south from the Lanzhou-Urumqi line to Lhasa, in Xizang (Tibet). Railways have been the most important tools for transportation in China. For example, more than 50 percent of the country's traffic is moved by the railroad system. China's railway network consists of a series of north-south trunk lines, crossed by a few major east-west lines. Most of the large cities are served by these trunk lines, forming a nationwide network, with Beijing as its hub.

ROADS AND HIGHWAYS.

China has 1,209,800 kilometers (751,894 miles) of highway in total, among which 271,300 kilometers (168,586 miles) are paved (with at least 24,474 kilometers or 15,200 miles of expressways). The network of all-weather roads and highways is not a unified national system with consistent standards; the conditions of many of the roads are poor. Despite its shortcomings, the road network is probably adequate to meet the country's current needs. China has a small number of cars, trucks, and buses as compared with the United States or Japan. In the early 1990s there were about 7 million motor vehicles, two-thirds of which were trucks and buses. It produces about 200,000 trucks annually and limited automobiles. An increasing number of cars are owned privately, which will lead fast demand for qualified highways. The highway network accounts for only about 2 percent of total freight traffic.

AIR TRANSPORTATION.

China set up the General Administration of Civil Aviation of China (GACAC) after 1949, which has continued to serve as the nation's domestic and international air carrier. Most major cities are served by domestic flights, and a few large cities like Guangzhou, Shanghai, and Beijing have international service. GACAC planes fly to Europe, Japan, the United States, and South Asia. Some provincial and urban authorities operate intercity airlines that carry passengers and freight. There are 206 airports (1996 est.), among which 192 have paved runways.

SHIPPING.

China has 110,000 kilometers (68,354 miles) of navigable waterways and 1,746 ships (merchant marine). It has 9,070 kilometers (5,636 miles) of crude oil pipelines, 560 kilometers (348 miles) of petroleum products pipelines and 9,383 kilometers (5,830 miles) of natural gas pipelines (1999 est.).

POWER.

China's power sector has performed impressively in support of economic growth during the past twenty years. Faced with the need to expand its power capacity, the state is investing heavily in the construction of new power plants and self-financing capability. Equally significant in the development of the national power sector are the establishment of regional power grids and the implementation of an electricity tariff reform to tackle the problems of inefficient power distribution and usage. Electrical power is supplied mainly by the state-owned enterprises. China has effectively restructured its power industry by closing a large number of small thermal power plants with high coal consumption, heavy pollution, and poor economic efficiency. According to the official statistics, the country generated 1.16 trillion kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity in 2000, a 6 percent increase from the previous year; the country has made headway in building and renovating 87 urban power grid projects and 1,590 rural ones. China has also developed its enormous hydroelectric potential so that a larger share of its domestic demand for electric power can be met with renewable hydropower. Renewable hydropower is tapped from moving water such as waterfalls and fast-moving streams.

The reform and opening up policies have brought great leaps and bounds to the development of the country's nuclear power industry. Meanwhile, China attracts foreign funds to supplement the domestic shortage of funds in power construction and to upgrade the technological equipment of the power industry. According to the statistic communiqué of the PRC on the 1998 national economic and social development issued in February of 1999, the newly-increased annual production capacity in 1998 through capital construction projects included 16.9 million kilowatts of power generation by large and medium-sized generators and 47.26 million kilovolt-amperes of power transformer equipment (including 7.79 million kilovolt-amperes of updated power grid in urban and rural areas). China is the country to deliberate the biggest nuclear power station construction plan in the world. According to the central government's plan, by year 2020, China will possess 40,000,000 KM of nuclear power installed capacity.

COMMUNICATION.

Considerable effort has been expended on the postal and telecommunications systems in China since 1949, but they are still far from meeting Western standards of speed and efficiency. The mail is mainly carried by the nation's railroad. As is the case with transportation, the telecommunications system is sufficient enough to meet the needs of a growing economy. There were 110 million main lines in use (1999 est.) and 23.4 million mobile cellular phones in use (1998). Domestic and international services are increasingly available for private use; an unevenly distributed domestic system serves principal cities, industrial centers, and most small and middle-sized towns. Domestically, inter-provincial fiber-optic trunk lines and cellular telephone systems have been installed; a domestic satellite system with 55 earth stations is in place. Internationally, China has 5 Intelsat (4 Pacific Ocean and 1 Indian Ocean), 1 Intersputnik (Indian Ocean region), and 1 Inmarsat (Pacific and Indian Ocean regions), as well as several international fiber-optic links to Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Russia, and Germany. The country had 673 radio broadcast stations369 AM, 259 FM, 45 shortwaveand 417 million radios. In 1997, the country had 3,240 television broadcast stations, (of which 209 are operated by China Central Television, 31 are provincial TV stations and nearly 3,000 are local city stations), and 400 million televisions. In 1999, the country had 3 Internet service providers (ISPs).

ECONOMIC SECTORS

Over the years, China has become gradually more industrialized. Like other modernizing countries, for instance, the contribution of China's agricultural sector to its GDP has kept decreasing, from 37.9 percent in 1965 to 28.4 percent in 1985 and then to 18.4 percent in 1998 a net decrease of 19.5 percent in the 3-decade period. At the same time, the contribution of the industrial sector to GDP has kept increasing, from 35.1 percent in 1965 to 43.1 percent in 1985 and then to 48.7 percent in 1998, a net increase of 14.6 percent in the 3-decade period. The contribution of tertiary industry (service) to the GDP has increased from 27.0 percent in 1965 to 28.5 percent in 1985 and then to 32.9 per cent in 1998, a total increase of only 5.9 percent in the same period.

The world's economic development history indicates that as a country heads toward modernization, the ratio of agriculture to its GDP is set to drop, the ratio of service to its GDP will go up, while the ratio of industry to its GDP will first go up and then drop. China's economic development followed the same patterns. For instance, the ratio of agriculture's value added to the world's GDP was 7 percent in 1980 and fell to 5 percent in 1998. The ratio of agriculture's value added to the GDP of developed countries is normally 2 to 3 percent. The popular development model also demonstrates that when the GDP annual per capita income stood between US$300 and US$500, the proportions of agricultural and industrial sectors were virtually similar in the GDP while the employment proportion was higher in agricultural sector; when the annual per capita income reached US$1,500, the proportions of the industrial sector and service sector were basically similar in the GDP while the employment proportion in agricultural sector fell to the lowest proportion. However, China's situation varies somewhat from the traditional development model. For instance, in 1999, the per capita income in China exceeded US$1,000 (using the purchasing power parity method), while the proportion of the employment in the agricultural sector was still as high as 50 percent.

As shown above, non-agricultural industries' value amounts to the main body of the national economy, but the proportion of employees in the agricultural sector dominates the workforce at present and will do so in the future. The conflict of a dual economic structure is still obvious. It is reflected in the enlarged income gap between industry and agriculture, rising from 2.12 in 1991 to 5.25 in 1995, and its estimated value will reach 5.62 in 2005. Obviously, the changes of the industrial structure and employment structures are not consistent with other developing countries. The Chinese government and scholars have noticed this phenomenon, and many efforts have been made to reshape the structure more properly.

AGRICULTURE

In the thousands of years that farming has been practiced in China, the Chinese have refined and perfected their agricultural techniques. Traditional Chinese agriculture is labor intensive; the emphasis is on using many workers to increase the crop yield per unit of land rather than on increasing the productivity of the individual worker. Chinese agricultural practices have been shaped by the a shortage of farmland in the country, at least relative to the population.

Agriculture and rural activities are important in China for many reasons. First, farming provides the food and fiber needed for the sustenance of China's people. At the same time, nearly 65 percent of the people depend on agriculture or other rural economic activities for their livelihood. Second, agriculture has always provided the means of employment for most new workers entering the labor force . With between 12 and 16 million new workers entering the labor force annually since the 1980s, agriculture must continue to absorb tremendous numbers of new workers while continuing to find ways to use these workers productively. Finally, the agricultural sector has been an important source of investment money. If, through hard work, good management, and the application of sound, scientific farming, Chinese agriculture can be more productive, capital surpluses can be created and invested in other sectors of the economy, which could accelerate the rate of economic growth and ultimately benefit all of China's people.

China's grain output hit over 500 million tons in recent years, while current annual consumption is 463.5 million tons. Grain reserves now stand at historically high levels. However, it is true that the weak and fragile foundations of the agricultural system remain basically unchanged. Grain supply is still threatened by a series of unfavorable factors in production, circulation, consumption and foreign trade. A recent detailed estimate forecasts that the country's grain consumption requirements in the year 2030 would be between 632.8 and 725.8 million tons, with projected production at that time of 662.5 million tons. So even faced with the maximum shortfall of 63.3 million tons, the country would still be able to satisfy 90 percent of its own needs. Over the past decades, China has imported about 12 million tons annually, or 3 to 4 percent of consumption. Considering the trend of grain shortages in the medium and long term, China might need to import about 5 percent of its grain demand, or 20 million tons, in regular years.

CROPS AND LIVESTOCK.

China's principal food crops are rice, wheat, corn, gaoliang (Chinese sorghum), millet, barley, and sunflower seeds. China is the world's largest producer of rice, and rice accounts for almost half of the country's total food-crop output. Rice, wheat, and corn together make up more than 90 percent of China's total food grain production, and these crops occupy about 85 percent of the land under cultivation. Grain production has risen steadily since rural economic system reform started in 1978. There has also been a steady rise in the output of industrial crops, the most important of which are cotton, oil-bearing crops (such as peanuts and rapeseed), sugar (both cane sugar and beet sugar), tobacco, baste fiber (for cordage, matting, and similar uses), tea, and fruits. Poultry and livestock production, though rising, remains the weakest sector of Chinese agriculture. Livestock numbers are high, but the amount of meat produced per animal is low. Thus, China has 15 percent of the world's livestock and about 40 percent of its pigs, but it provides only 7 percent of the meat products and 15 percent of the pork.

FORESTRY.

Despite China's large land area, its forest resources are modest. Much of the western interior is too high or too dry to support dense forest stands. In the humid east, the forests were harvested for centuries for building material and firewood; limited effort was made to regenerate them. In 1949, it was estimated that about 8 percent of the total surface of the country was covered with forests. Since then, an active program of forestation has been undertaken, and it is estimated that the forested area has been increased to 12 to 13 percent. In recent years about 2.5 million acres (1 million hectares) of forestland have been added annually. The state is aiming to have 20 percent of the country's surface in forest. In contrast, more than 30 percent of the United States is forested.

FISHING.

China has a long tradition of ocean and freshwater fishing and of aquaculture. Pond raising has always played an important role and has been increasingly emphasized to supplement coastal and inland fisheries threatened by over-fishing. China produces about 17.6 million tons yearly, first among the world's nations. More than 57 percent of the total catch is from the ocean. The remainder comes from rivers, canals, lakes, and ponds. China's coastal zone is rich in fish. All the coastal seas have extensive areas of shallow water over the continental shelf. In these seas, especially the Yellow River and East China River, cold and warm ocean currents mix, creating an environment that is particularly suitable for many species of ocean fish, including croakers, mackerels, tuna, herring, and sharks. Several varieties of shell-fish and specialties such as squid and octopus are also produced.

INDUSTRY

Since 1949 when the People's Republic of China was established, and especially since 1978, China's transformation from a traditional agricultural society to a modern industrial society has been greatly accelerated by a rapid industrial restructuring. China's industrial structure developed according to the objective of industrialization, which aimed at the proportion of agriculture being declined ceaselessly, the proportion of the industrial sector being ascended continually, and the proportion of the services sector being ascended greatly. The industrial goods produced in China all range from capital goods to consumption goods currently, though certain consumer products remain in short supply.

China's factory outputs extend from textiles to railway locomotives, jet planes, and computers. China is the largest producer of inexpensive cotton textiles in the world and exports large quantities of textiles and garments. Food processing is very important, and many agricultural goods are exported. China is one of the leaders of cement production in the world. Iron-and steel-making has declined recently, the production having dropped somewhat to about 44 million tons annually. Other industrial products include television sets, bicycles, cars, trucks, and washing machines. The product quality and production technology lag behind those made in Japan, the United States, and the European countries. The processing and manufacture of chemicals, including fertilizers, petroleum products, and pharmaceuticals, is another large and expanding segment of Chinese industry.

China has become an industrialized country to some extent. The pillar industries, such as the auto industry and the housing industry, in the interim of industrialization have developed by leaps and bounds. Iron and steel manufacturing are also major industries in China. The most important export products are machinery and electric equipment; while the most important import products are raw materials. In recent years, due to economic extro-version, China's industry has competed internationally, and as a result, the country's industrial development is increasingly influenced by international economic environments. On one hand, exporting becomes more difficult and export prices keep declining; on the other hand, market share of foreign products and foreign-invested enterprises' products keeps growing. The above 2 factors increase the difficulties for the country's domestic industry in terms of producing and selling; the state-owned enterprises are impacted particularly. In fact, textile and other light industries have slowed their growth since 1985. Since 1989, the production capability of durable consumption goods has become idle; after the mid-1990s, bottleneck sectors including steel, oil, and raw material began to fall into market saturation. Large-scale IC chips account for only 40 percent of all IC chips made in China; 80 percent of the Chinese telecom equipment and instrument market is taken by foreign enterprises.

Generally, China's industrial system has a low level of technology; the high-tech industries are simply in their starting periods. The technologies of major industrial sectors are poor and lack self-equipment capability. Average life cycle for more than 2000 kinds of Chinese leading products is 10.5 years, 3.5 times that of the same products in America. And fewer Chinese work in the information sector than do U.S. citizens, for example. About 45 percent of the American workforce is involved in information technology, but only 10 percent of the Chinese workforce is. Chinese technological level of industries needs to be raised, particularly high-tech oriented industries, so that the country's industries can be advanced toward a knowledge economy in the 21st century.

MINING.

With one of the largest and richest stocks of minerals of any country, China has enough minerals to support a modern industrial state. Mining of all types of minerals is expanding rapidly. The most significant minerals are coal, iron, tin, copper, lead, zinc, molybdenum, tungsten, mercury, antimony, and fluorspar. China has the world's largest coal reserves, which are estimated at more than 600 billion tons. These reserves would keep the country supplied with coal for about 500 years, if usage were to continue at its present level.

PETROLEUM.

The country also has substantial petroleum reserves, both on land and offshore. Offshore prospecting is under way in several locations, with a number of Western and Japanese petroleum companies assisting China. Such minerals as tungsten, aluminum, titanium, and copper have export possibilities. Extensive deposits and promising sites were located in 1960s. The main production centers are in the North China Plain and in the Northeast. For instance, Daqing petroleum production basis in Heilongjiang Province is one of the largest petroleum producers in the country. Since the mid-1970s, China has been ranked as one of the ten largest oil-producing countries in the world, with the capacity to produce more than 1 billion barrels yearly. A small quantity of this output has been exported for earning foreign currency.

MANUFACTURING.

Chief manufactured products include cement, rolled steel, chemical fertilizer, paper and paperboard, sulfuric acid, sugar, cotton yarn, cotton fabrics, cigarettes, television sets, and washing machines. Generally, the Chinese industrial structure has a higher level of manufacturing although it is far from high manufacturing in terms of productivity. Since 1978, the proportion has decreased, largely of output of low-level manufacturing sectors in light industry with agricultural products as raw material and mining sectors in heavy industry, but low-level expansion and repetitious construction in these sectors are still very serious. Product quality upgrade is still behind the demand of structures' upgrade, which in turn leads to the dependence on import of high-level manufactured goods for economic growth. The proportion of the 2 preceding sectors dropped from 34.1 percent and 8.19 percent in 1985 to27.16 percent and 5.97 percent in 1998, dropping in total by 7.03 percent and 2.22 percent respectively. Compared with the United States and other developed countries, the horizontal industrial expansion with low levels of manufacturing causes low-level malignant competition in the domestic manufacturing sector. The same effects can be found in high-level consumption of energy and raw materials. For this reason inflated demands bring about a large increase of sectors with low technology content and delay upgrade of industrial structures.

SERVICES

According to a State Development Planning Commission (SDPC) document entitled Report on China's National Economic Growth and Social Development for the Year 2000, China's fast growing service sector has become the country's key employer. Preliminary statistics indicate that the service sector created 5.71 million new jobs in 1999, making up 70 percent of China's total new employment in the year. The service sector employed the majority of the country's urban new labor force and at the same time rehired the redundant labor force from the other 2 sectors. The SDPC data show that employment in the service industry by the end of 1999 rose 0.6 percent from 1998 to 192.5 million people, accounting for 27.3 percent of the total national workforce.

The service industry has become a major factor in boosting national economic growth. The key growth areas for the service industry in recent years include community services, domestic tourism, higher and non-compulsory education, information, culture and other intermediary services. In the first 4 years of China's 9th 5-Year Plan (1996 to 2000), the average contribution of the service industry to the GDP was 40.8 percent, a 10.4 percentage point increase over the 8th 5-Year Plan (1990-95). The state aimed at encouraging more involvement by the private sector in the development of the service industry by channeling more private investment into the industry.

FOOD SERVICE.

Dining out is one of the most important social activities for both personal and business reasons in China. The food service can be categorized as fine dining, family restaurants, neighborhood restaurants, quick-serve restaurants, street vendors, food courts, and cafeterias operated by the institutions or corporations. Since the 1980s, Western-style chain restaurants have been the driving force for the development of service, quality, value and distribution in the Chinese food service industry. A recent survey indicates that China has approximately 2.2 million restaurants and cafeterias. With the growth of China's economy, the changing life styles, and increased disposable incomes for the potentially largest group of middle-income families in the world, China is expected to be the new leader in the growth of the food service industry in the 21st century.

TOURISM.

China is a world-class destination that offers several thousand years of history and brilliant cultural achievements. Tourism has been designated as an important growth area under the current national restructuring. Remarkable progress has been made in China's tourism since 1978, when it barely existed as an industry. In 1978, on the eve of the open-door policy, China received a mere 760,000 tourists and US$260 million in tourism-related foreign exchange earnings.

During the 1980s, the state council strengthened its management over tourism and adopted a policy of enlisting support from all quartersthe state, the collectives, related ministries or departments, individuals and foreign investors. China began the construction of a large number of tourist hotels by using foreign capital and also improved the ability of its travel agencies to solicit tourists. In 1988, the national tourism industry earned US$2.24 billion in foreign exchange, or 10 times the figure in 1978. Meanwhile, efforts have continued to open up new scenic spots, tap new visitor sources and improve tourism-related rules and laws. Drawing experience from developed countries, China improved its management skills and the overall quality of employees to optimize the environment for tourism expansion.

In the 1990s, the country began to design special tourism projects. The Visit China '97 program was a big success, with overseas visitors hitting 57.6 million and foreign exchange earnings reaching US$12.074 billion, thus catapulting China's place in world tourism earnings from 41st to 11th. At the same time domestic tourism also reached a new record with the number of tourists jumping to 644 million and earnings reaching US$27 billion. As a result, tourism income in the year totaled over US$38 billion, or 4.1 percent of the GDP. Massive infrastructure investments and rising living standards helped to stabilize the basic tourism market and improve the overall environment for tourism expansion. China's tourism earnings in the year 2000 were estimated as US$43.9 billion, or 5 percent of the GDP, with US$14 billion in foreign exchange earnings from overseas.

RETAIL.

Retail was one of the fastest growing sectors in China in the earlier 1990s. Since retail industry reforms began in 1992, the government has adopted some new policies highlighted by the proclamation of the Provisional Rules on Retailing and Wholesaling in June 1999. These policies have propelled the retail industry through a process of fundamental transformation. While shopping in the past meant visiting a run-down department store and choosing from a limited range of low-quality products, currently the Chinese consumer is exposed to a growing number of sophisticated retail formats and wooed by a wide range of foreign and domestic products. The existing retail formats in China are warehouse/discount stores, supermarkets, department stores, convenience stores, franchised service or chain-store outlets, specialty stores, shopping centers, catalogue sales, TV home shopping, and recently developed e-commerce .

One eye-catching development is that local governments, in spite of central regulations, approved a large number of joint commercial ventures. Some Chinese retail stores in large cities are even beginning to hire foreign managers or are being contracted to a foreign management team. Large multinational corporations have made considerable inroads into China's consumer markets. They do so by forming joint ventures with domestic manufacturers to produce and sell their own brand-name products. By doing so they effectively take over the well-developed distribution channels of the domestic firms, and consequently their market shares improve steadily. In this area, Asian businesses (especially overseas Chinese ones) again enjoy an edge because of their familiarity with the Chinese consumption culture. They are not deterred by the lack of policy transparency and inadequate legal infrastructure. They thrive on personal connections cultivated with state officials and often regard these as a better guarantee for security. In 2000, the activities of foreign-invested retailers remained subject to tight regulation although the government took its first steps towards opening the retail sector to real foreign participation in 1992. A pilot program restricted Sino-foreign retail joint ventures to 11 cities, with only 2 such ventures allowed in each pilot site.

INTERNATIONAL TRADE

International trade has been used to bring in new equipment and technologies and to meet scarcities in the domestic economy since China has sought to modernize its economy. Exports have been used as a means of producing foreign earnings to pay for the imports. The state has sought to maintain an even balance of trade so that the country can pay for imports rather than buying on credit. With 1.2 billion people and the world's fastest growing major economy, China is hailed as potentially the "market of all markets," which has helped to attract investments from around the world at such a magnitude that China is now the second largest recipient of foreign capital (next only to the United States). However, it has also given the government more reasons to carefully guard its market. The issue of market entry has been a contentious one, bogging down its negotiations to join the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and the World Trade Organization for over a decade.

The total volume of China's exports was US$232 billion ( f.o.b. , 2000), according to the CIA World Fact-book. The country's principal commodities are machinery and equipment, textiles and clothing, footwear, toys and sporting goods, and mineral fuels. The United States bought 21 percent of China's exports, Hong Kong 18 percent, and Japan 17 percent; Germany, South Korea, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Singapore, and Taiwan are other main export partners.

Trade (expressed in billions of US$): China
ExportsImports
19757.6897.926
198018.09919.941
198527.35042.252
199062.09153.345
1995148.797129.113
1998183.589140.305
SOURCE: International Monetary Fund. International Financial Statistics Yearbook 1999.

China exports agricultural commodities and goods (about one-third of total exports) and manufactured goods (about half), as well as mineral products such as oil and coal. Foodstuffs account for about 6 percent of total imports, and industrial supplies and materials such as crude steel and chemicals account for about 50 percent. The remainder consists chiefly of expensive capital goods such as machinery, precision instruments, and transportation equipment.

In 1998, machinery and transport equipment took the first place among the exports, amounting to 50.2 billion dollars. The proportion of it is 48.4 percent, much higher than the proportion of light and textile industrial products (26.5 percent). On the other hand, export structure of machinery and transport equipment is changing for the better. The proportion of more technologically-intensive products is growing up, and labor-intensive products are slowing down. Also, the interim structure of traditional export products, such as light and textile industrial products, changed tremendously. Resource and labor-intensive, low value-added, low-technological products declined, lower labor-extensive but higher technological and value-added products increased.

China imports a total volume of US$197 billion (2000). The principal commodities China imports are machinery and equipment, mineral fuels, plastics, iron and steel, and chemicals. Japan provides the main source (20 percent) of China's imports. The United States provides 12 percent, Taiwan 12 percent, and South Korea 10 percent. Other trading partners include Germany, Hong Kong, Russia, and Singapore.

The 5 top import products of China during the first semester in 1999 included mechanical and electrical products at US$35 billion (up 28 percent from 1998); plastics in primary form at US$4.1 billion (up 3.9 percent from 1998); steel products at US$3.4 billion (up 14.6 percent from 1998); computer parts at US$1.8 billion (up 18.7 percent from 1998); and crude petroleum oil at US$1.6 billion (down 23.6 percent from 1998). The commodities China imports are materials essential to modernizing China's economy and increasing export-oriented industries.

MONEY

China embarked on its open-door economic policy in 1979 by reforming the agricultural sector and establishing several special economic zones (SEZs). The high export-led growth rates in the SEZs contributed to an annual inflation rate of over 10 percent in the 1980s. As a result the economy was overheating. The monetary authorities were ineffective in dealing with inflation. Fiscal revenues declined during the reform period and pressed the Ministry of Finance (MOF) to sell bonds to the central

Exchange rates: China
yuan per US$1
Jan 20018.2776
20008.2785
19998.2783
19988.2790
19978.2898
19968.3142
Note: Beginning January 1, 1994, the People's Bank of China quotes the midpoint rate against the US dollar based on the previous day's prevailing rate in the interbank foreign exchange market.
SOURCE: CIA World Factbook 2001 [ONLINE].

bank in exchange for currency to cover its budget deficit and to release aggravating inflationary pressures. By 1994, laws were passed to create a more consistent and more transparent tax system, which would reverse the steady decline in fiscal revenues. The new laws also banned fiscal overdrafts on the financial system. In reflecting tighter monetary policies and stronger measures to control food prices, inflation dropped sharply between 1995 and 1999.

Financial reform first appeared in 1984, when the People's Bank (monobank) discarded its commercial banking functions to become a central bank. The 3 specialized banks were reformed as commercial banks, passing on their policy lending to newly established policy banks. The banking system was decentralized, and inter-bank competition was allowed. Urban and rural credit cooperatives were established as alternative banking institutions. Interest rates remained under government control; preferential lending rates have been removed in certain sectors but continue in many others. Although lending rates are a highly political issue for the impact on state-owned enterprise (SOE) debt-servicing obligations, deregulating lending rates and deposit will be on the official agenda. Various ministries, including the monobank and the State Planning Commission, are in charge of a credit plan that involves a multi-step, highly negotiated process in which lending quotas are allocated to the state banks (lenders) based on their balance of deposits against borrowings. A re-lending facility allows the central bank to reallocate deposits from surplus to deficit ones at bank levels or regional levels. The mechanism is funded by reserves set at 20 percent of deposits; thus, deposit-poor lenders are assured that their allocated funding requirements will be covered by monobank loans.

Under the re-lending facility the loans are generally rolled over, which make up 30 percent of state banks' liabilities and are estimated to equal 3 to 4 percent of the GDP. The continuing injection of funds to SOEs under the credit plan allowed many profitless SOEs to remain in business, some SOEs even staying while making a net loss. Many of the loans to SOEs could not be called back and eventually became the bank's liabilities, which suggests that any financial sector reform and resolution of the SOE debt problem are intricately linked. Moreover, the continued reliance on state bank loans to support SOEs has also exacerbated the government's fiscal weakness, as it causes the lack of funds for much-needed enterprise and welfare reforms.

China used 2 systems of currency between 1979 and 1994: Renminbi and Foreign Exchange Certificates (FEC). Foreign exchange could be obtained through either FEC exchange centers (FECs) or foreign exchange adjustment centers (FEACs) until the 1994 currency unification. There were over 100 FEACs, or swap centers, where foreign currency was exchanged at a floating rate that varied widely among the centers in the 1980s. By 1993, 80 percent of all foreign exchange transactions were handled by FEACs. With the currency unification of 1994 came the gradual, complete withdrawal of FECs altogether from foreign exchange. The yuan's exchange rate is determined by the swap centers. It is noticeable that the movements toward convertibility of the current account have allowed foreign firms to make their transactions through designated foreign exchange banks and through FEACs. However, the domestic firms must sell all of their foreign exchange holdings to designated banks.

BANKING.

The financial sector's main regulatory authority is the People's Bank of China (PBOC), the country's central bank. The PBOC controls the money supply, determines interest and deposit rates, and handles foreign exchange reserves through its division, the State Administration of Exchange Control. The PBOC also supervises banks' operations, uses the credit plan to administratively control overall lending, and oversees the People's Insurance Company of China as well as through its branches, trust and investment companies (TICs).

China has 4 state banks and eleven commercial banks. The state banks were created in 1984, when specialized banks and part of the monobank were transformed into commercial banks. The Agricultural Bank of China provides finance services in rural areas. The People's Construction Bank of China is responsible for medium- and long-term finance for capital construction. The Bank of China functions as the main international and foreign exchange bank, and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the largest state bank, extends working capital loans to SOEs for fixed-asset investment. State banks with a network of branches, newly created affiliates, and special departments are responsible for implementing the credit plan.

More than 60,000 urban and rural credit cooperatives were established as an alternative to banks by 1999. Urban cooperative banks, small and manageable, are structured in a 2-tier system: the upper tier interfaces with capital markets and acts as a supervisor for the system, while the lower tier, a number of small-scale banks, handles deposits and loans. The rural or agricultural cooperative banks, acting under the guidance of the Agricultural Development Bank, have limited autonomy in management and lending decisions. Their clients are mainly rural townships and enterprises.

The state-owned People's Insurance Company of China (PICC) used to be a monopoly insurer. In 1993, it still handled over 95 percent of China's total insurance business. The new insurance law of 1995 limited the PICC to commercial insurance business and transferred its social insurance business to the Ministry of Labor. Currently, although the PICC and several government financial authorities own 17 regional life insurers, there are 3 other regional insurers and 2 independent national insurers. The market for life insurance and household casualty insurance is still small in China, and corporate customers purchase most casualty insurance. Most assets have to be deposited with domestic banks in interest-bearing accounts, while other investments need to be spread among safe investments and are limited to short-run commitments.

STOCK EXCHANGES.

The Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges, China's only 2 stock exchanges currently, were established in 1990 and 1991, respectively. No cross listing exists between these 2 exchanges. Since their founding, securities markets have grown rapidly, especially in the later 1990s. Securities exchange centers, limited to government and corporate bond trading only, exist in 18 larger cities. Securities exchange centers were established in the mid-1980s when SOEs were allowed to sell bonds to employees, other companies, and, to some extent, to the public. Securities exchange centers are linked to the stock exchanges through electronic trading networks.

Chinese companies offer 2 types of shares: A shares, which are exclusively sold to Chinese nationals, and B shares, denominated in Renminbi but traded and purchased in foreign currency exclusively by foreigners originally. By March 2001, B shares could also be purchased by Chinese citizens using foreign currency. B shares are restricted to limited liability shareholding companies. To be qualified, companies must have been profitable for at least 2 consecutive years; must possess sufficient foreign exchange revenues to pay dividends and cash bonuses; must be able to provide financial statements and earning forecasts for 3 consecutive years and at the time of listing; and must have a price-earning ratio of less than 15.

The state planning commission formulates quotas for stock and debt listings, which sets a figure for the aggregate offering price of issuances in a given year. The formulated quotas are then allocated on a provincial level. This process generates some problems, such as politicized selection and approval process, lowered quality of issuer with a large number of small issuers, the lack of predictability in the schedule of announcements of annual quotas, and the fact that announced quotas change yearly according to market conditions. Furthermore, the quota system pushes non-quota activity into unofficial and semi-official channels such as the securities exchange centers. Because of these problems, it is widely agreed that the Chinese stock markets are far from formal and mature and, thus, are full of myth and risks.

FOREIGN PARTICIPATION.

Foreign banks are generally restricted to hard currency operations, although the government has announced its intention to partially open a local currency business to foreign banks in its bid to join the WTO. Foreign banks are allowed to set up branches and local subsidiaries and to establish joint venture banks with Chinese partners in selected cities and SEZs. However, their activities must be limited to wholesale banking and only a limited number of foreign exchange transactions such as foreign exchange deposits and loans for joint ventures, foreign exchange investments and guarantees, and the settlement of import and export accounts. Foreign non-bank financial institutions consist of 6 finance companies and 6 fully-licensed insurance companies. Generally, it takes about 3 years for foreign insurance companies to obtain a PBOC-issued insurance license.

POVERTY AND WEALTH

In the early decades after the communist state was founded in 1949, incomes were low and roughly the same. However, according to a newly conducted investigation, economic reforms over the past 20 years have created a substantial class of very wealthy Chinese, with more than 5.3 million families boasting annual incomes of US$6,000 or more. The average annual urban income is about US$600, and the average earned by rural residents is about US$230. Private businessmen and managers make up the core of the newly affluent. Others include

GDP per Capita (US$)
Country19751980198519901998
China138168261349727
United States19,36421,52923,20025,36329,683
Japan23,29627,67231,58838,71342,081
Russia2,5553,6543,4633,6682,138
SOURCE: United Nations. Human Development Report 2000; Trends in human development and per capita income.
Distribution of Income or Consumption by Percentage Share: China
Lowest 10%2.4
Lowest 20%5.9
Second 20%10.2
Third 20%15.1
Fourth 20%22.2
Highest 20%46.6
Highest 10%30.4
Survey year: 1998
Note: This information refers to income shares by percentiles of the population and is ranked by per capita income.
SOURCE: 2000 World Development Indicators [CD-ROM].

scientists who own patents, teachers who tutor privately, consultants, securities traders, entertainers or advertising executives. There are roughly 30 million Chinese considered to be well off, which makes only a small fraction of China's population of 1.2 billion. Heavily concentrated in major cities such as Beijing and Shanghai, the affluent Chinese represent a newly emerging market for all sorts of luxuries. China is counting on the desire of the well-to-do for better housing and consumer goods to help keep the economy growing.

URBAN-RURAL INCOME INEQUALITY.

Economic reforms have made substantial improvements in the living standards of rural residents. Since 1978, the farmers boosted their incomes by engaging in specialized agricultural activities such as animal husbandry, agriculture, and orchard production, in addition to raising traditional crops. Furthermore, township and village enterprises (TVEs) accounted for the bulk of increased wage income earned by the rural residents. As the result, the disposable income among rural residents has increased dramatically since the early 1980s. However, in spite of these improvements, the rise in income of rural residents is markedly small when compared to that of urban areas. The total rural incomes are only 40 percent of urban incomes in China when in most countries rural incomes are 66 percent or more of urban income. The gap in income between rural and urban residents has grown at an increasing rate since the late 1980s. In fact, such disparity has been the most important contributor to the problem of social equity in China, followed by inter-regional disparity.

REGIONAL INCOME INEQUALITY.

Decades of strict central planning created serious disparities in incomes among citizens in different regions. The average annual income is high, for example, in Jiangsu province located in the eastern region, but Guizhou, located in the western region, has a low income level. The difference is quite enormous. For instance, in 1996, per capita annual income of Jiangsu was 2613.54 yuan while in Guizhou it was 609.80 yuan; the ratio between the two was 4.3:1. In the same year, per capita GDP and the total GDP of the eastern region were 1.9 times and 5.5 times larger, respectively, than those of the western region.

INTRA-URBAN INCOME INEQUALITY.

In addition to the gap between urban and rural areas, city dwellers also feel the income inequality among themselves. According to the Urban Socio-Economic Survey Organization of the State Statistics Bureau, in the middle 1990s the per capita income of the top 20 percent income earners was 4.2 times greater than the bottom 20 percent, worsened from 2.9 times in the later 1980s. Although many enterprises in urban areas have either stopped working or closed down, many of the idle employees who have been laid off are waiting for future employment that would provide them the minimum incomes to maintain the basic standard of living in the urban areas. Currently, many idle workers are either receiving low incomes or no incomes at all. The wage level of retired employees is also quite low, and, considering the effects of inflation, their living standard is falling.

POVERTY REDUCTION.

About 10 percent of the Chinese population lives below the poverty line. One of the largest challenges in China is poverty alleviation and elimination. According to the World Bank, due to aggressive measures, China has achieved great success in its anti-poverty struggle in the past 2 decades. The impoverished population dropped from about 250 million in 1978 to 125 million in 1985 because rural areas experienced economic growth. The Chinese government has been planning and organizing a number of large-scale anti-poverty programs all over the country since 1986. By the end of 1992, the poverty population of rural China was reduced to 80 million, reducing the poverty rate to 8.8 percent.

In 1994, in order to accelerate the poverty alleviation and ultimately eliminate poverty by the end of last century, the Chinese government launched the "8-7 Plan," the main point of which was to eliminate absolute poverty in 7 years through the tax favorite policy, financial support, and social-economic development program. For the convenience of implementing the "8-7 Plan," the central government selected the 592 poorest counties from the more than 2000 counties nationwide and designated them as "national poor counties." It was estimated that more than 70 percent of the 80 million poor concentrated in these 592 counties had very bad natural environments and under-developed social-economic conditions.

After 4 years, the poor population of rural China was reduced to 42.1 million, and the poverty rate was 4.6 percent by the end of 1998. The Chinese government spent 24.8 billion yuan (US$3 billion) on poverty alleviation in 1999, 30 times more than in 1980. Rural per capita income among China's 870 million rural residents in 1999 was 2,210 yuan. Only 3 percent of the rural population remained impoverished or living below the 635-yuan standard, making China's rural poverty rate the lowest among developing nations. In 2000, China announced that it had eliminated "absolute poverty."

WORKING CONDITIONS

China has the largest labor force in the world. According to Chinese official data, over 700 million people were employed by the end of 1990s. More than half of its labor force is engaged in agriculture, although that sector accounts for less than 20 percent of China's GDP. In other words, China's agricultural labor force is over 100 times as large as its U.S. counterpart. By the middle of the 1990s, most of China's urban workers were employed in state-owned enterprises (SOEs). In the 1990s, China's increasingly dynamic service sector employed more workers than industrial enterprises for each of the last 3 years. Latest sources from the State Statistics Bureau show that 6.4 percent of labor force in rural China shifted to the country's secondary and tertiary industries in 1999. With 0.5 percent of its rural labor force having made a change in their life from agricultural to non-agricultural labor, the net shifting amount of rural labor force was placed at 5.9 percent of the rural total, up 0.4 percent over the same period in 1998. According to one official survey, as many as 50 million people leave rural areas in search of urban jobs every year. Of this number, approximately 30 million people leave their home provinces.

Shifting labor forces experienced a big rise in proportion on a provincial, regional, or municipal scale. About 79 percent of surplus labor force became locally employed in the industrial and service sectors in the country in 1999, up 11 percentage points over 1998. East China remains the hottest destination for drawing rural laborers, although more people began to focus on west China. Among the rural laborers leaving their native place to seek employment in other provinces, 79.8 percent headed for the East in 1999, down 2.5 percentage points compared with the same period of 1998. About 10 percent chose central China for employment, up 0.6 percentage points. More than 10.2 percent went to the country's west, up 1.9 percentage points over 1998. Most of the laborers are young or people in their prime. People ages 18 to 40 accounted for 77.3 percent. Of these, 57.9 percent were between 18 and 30 years of age.

EMPLOYMENT PROBLEMS.

Chinese labor has benefitted significantly from economic reforms. During the 8th 5-Year Plan (1991-95), real incomes increased by 7.7 percent annually in urban areas and 4.5 percent annually in the countryside. However some serious problems existed in the labor market, which threatened to impede economic reforms and to disrupt social stability. Increased lay-offs (officially labeled as "temporarily losing a job"), placing workers "off post" ( xiagang ), as well as delayed wage and pension payments, resulted in a number of demonstrations by workers and retirees in several Chinese cities. Within a certain period, typically 1 year, these "laid off" workers are usually encouraged to take other types of jobs, generally with less pay and/or status than their original positions. Many workers also take second jobs. Some continue to draw a basic salary and benefits from their previous employer for whom they do little or no real work. By 2001, the problems caused by the increasing lay-offs from SOEs, along with several other issues, became the first worries of the nation's leaders.

The official unemployment rate was officially reported to be 6 percent by the end of 1990s. Labor officials readily admitted that the official unemployment rate did not include 2 large and important groups that are effectively unemployed, redundant state sector workers and rural surplus laborers. By official estimate, the underemployed population in the countryside, defined as those with productive employment less than half of the year, exceeds 200 million people. Some probably more accurate estimates of urban unemployment vary anywhere between 10 and 23 percent. Even according to the official unemployment criteria, a report completed by China's State Commission for economic restructuring in early 1997 projected that China could have 15 to 20 million unemployed urban workers by 2000. Meanwhile, it is estimated that between the years 2000 and 2010 over 40 million new entrants will be brought into the urban workforce.

LABOR LAW.

A national labor law effective 1 January 1995 codified earlier regulations and provides a framework for labor reform. New provisions in the law require workers at all types of businesses to sign labor contracts with the employers; establish arbitration and inspection divisions at all levels of government; set out a preliminary framework for collective bargaining at all types of enterprises; and empower managers to dismiss workers for economic reasons. However, the local governments are less effective in enforcing strict worker safety and overtime provisions of the Labor Law. As the result, industrial accidents, particularly in the mining sector, claim a high number of lives every year.

The Labor Law also requires localities to establish local minimum wages. For instance, the monthly minimum wage in Beijing at the end of 1996 was RMB 270 (approximately US$33); RMB 300 (approximately US$36) in Shanghai; RMB 398 (approximately US$48) in Shenzhen; and RMB 140 (approximately US$17) in Guizhou province. Other parts of China, including Guangdong, Jiangsu, and Shandong provinces, have created a sliding scale of minimum rates for different trades and localities. The minimum wage level determinations are generally higher than the local poverty relief ceiling but lower than the current wage level of the average worker.

Labor disputes, including delayed wages and strikes, have been increasing over the last several years in China. The upward trend has made some labor and union officials become defensive. The official media continuously pay attention to worker abuse, invariably at small, export-oriented foreign ventures with Asian (Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea) investment. However, many unofficial observers indicate that working conditions are generally worse in private Chinese enterprises and in domestic small town and village enterprises, which are often owned by local government. Most labor disputes are solved through arbitration and recently some cases reached the courts. According to official statistics, based on National Mediation Center and Labor Bureau records, 48,121 labor disputes occurred nationwide in China during 1996.

ALL-CHINA FEDERATION OF TRADE UNIONS (ACFTU).

For the most part, unions in China maintain their primary function of enhancing production and sustaining labor discipline, rather than supporting worker rights. Local unions also perform a variety of social and welfare functions, such as handling disability benefits and housing funds and operating clubs, eating facilities, nurseries, and schools. The All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU), the country's only officially recognized workers' organization, remains focused on the state sector. There is still little evidence to suggest that ACFTU is being positioned to assume the new role of worker advocate mandated by article seven of the labor law, although some union officials at the working level may be increasingly interested in representing the interests of workers, particularly on safety issues.

For the ACFTU, improving labor discipline and mobilizing workers to achieve party and government goals are their primary objectives. However, since the early 1980s, additional objectives have been to increase productivity and encourage participation in, and support for, economic reforms. Generally, the membership is limited to the workers in SOEs. Over half of the country's non-agricultural workers are not members of the ACFTU, those who are outside the state industrial structure in collectives, private and individual enterprises, foreign-in-vested enterprises, and township and village enterprises.

WORKING CONDITIONS.

The working conditions are generally poor in China, especially in the rural areas. The rate of industrial accidents had remained high until 1996 when, according to Ministry of Labor statistics, for the first time in many years the number of industrial accidents actually dropped. Total accidents stood at 18,181, 13.5 percent less than in 1995, with total fatalities at 17,231, a 13.9 percent drop from 1995. By 2001, there was no evidence to confirm whether this decline represents a permanent trend. The official media continue to criticize the overall high number of work-related accidents and fatalities. The majority of industrial accidents in China occur in mines, particularly in poorly regulated small-scale private, township, and village mines. For instance, in 1996 there were 7,695 mining accidents and 9,974 workers were killed.

Work safety issues attracted the attention of senior government leaders; occupational safety and health became the subject of constant campaigns. All work units are required to designate a safety officer. Since 1991, the Ministry of Labor has conducted an annual "industrial safety week" during May, to promote safety consciousness among managers and workers. As of mid-1997, the Ministry of Labor fulfilled new National Occupational Safety and Health legislation. Labor Ministry officials have also indicated that they have the responsibility of drafting improved National Mine Safety legislation. However, much evidence demonstrates that enforcement of existing regulations, rather than the drafting of new legislation, is what is needed most. Moreover, pressures for increased output, lack of financial resources to maintain equipment, lack of concern by management, poor enforcement of existing regulations, and a traditionally poor understanding of safety issues by workers, all make it difficult, if not impossible, to lower the high rate of accidents.

On 1 May 1995 China reduced the national standard workweek from 44 to 40 hours, excluding overtime. The Labor Law mandates a 24-hour rest period weekly and does not allow overtime work in excess of 3 hours a day or 36 hours a month. The Labor Law also sets forth a required scale of remuneration for overtime work that is set at no less than 150 percent of normal wages. Enforcement of these regulations varies according to region and type of enterprise. The official media regularly report cases of workers required to work long overtime hours at small-scale foreign-invested enterprises, particularly in special economic zones and other areas of Southeast China. Similar abuses in non-state sector enterprises are also widely acknowledged to occur.

WOMEN IN THE WORKFORCE.

Economic reforms have increased employment opportunities for both men and women in China. The growth of the less regulated non-state sector and the declining role of the government in job assignments has also increased the likelihood that women will face employment discrimination in China. In 1995 while hosting the U.N. Fourth World Conference on Women (FWCW), China pledged to pay more attention to the problems faced by women in the work-force. The state council promulgated the national program for Chinese Women's Development in August 1995 with the goal of increasing enforcement of the right to education and employment and asserting the status of women. Responding to the hesitancy demonstrated by government ministries to hire women at a Beijing job fair in early 1996, the All-China Women's Federation (ACWF) called for stricter safeguards of women's rights.

In SOEs, women are more likely to be forced into early retirement or placed "off-post." A joint study of sample enterprises in 5 cities performed by the Ministry of Labor and the ILO in early 1995 indicated that 70 percent of workers described as "surplus" were women. According to an official survey completed in Shanghai in August 1996, women were the first to be affected by unemployment in the city because of their overall lower level of skills. The 1988 Women's Protection Law provides a minimum of 3 months of maternity leave and additional childcare benefits for women. The law also provides exclusion for breastfeeding mothers from certain categories of physical labor and night shifts. However, the regulations are designed to provide additional incentives to women workers of childbearing age to abide by family planning policies, which do not affect rural workers.

AGE DISCRIMINATION.

China perhaps is one of few countries that discriminates against middle aged and older workers in terms of re-entering employment after being laid off. Many employers will state openly in their job advertisements that they would not hire those who are over 45 years old. Older workers are also finding it increasingly difficult to compete. Some managers complain that older workers do not have the skills needed for the current marketplace; others note that older workers are in poor health. Older workers are likely to be the first to be affected by downsizing in the state sector. By all accounts, older women have an especially difficult time maintaining their employment. Many older women are poorly educated upon entry into the job force and receive little opportunity to upgrade their skills thereafter. While managers may want to keep on a certain number of experienced men, most view older women simply as a burden. Older women find the differences in China's statutory retirement age especially rankling. The retirement age for men is 60, while for women it is 50 in industry and 55 elsewhere. Although traditional views hold that women want to retire early to take care of grandchildren, women today, especially educated women, prefer to make this decision themselves and not be forced out of the workforce before they are ready.

CHILD LABOR.

In theory, child labor is forbidden in China. For instance, the 1995 National Labor Law specifies, "No employing unit shall be allowed to recruit juveniles under the age of 16." Administrative review, fines, and revocation of business licenses of those businesses that hire minors are specified in article 94 of the Labor Law. Chinese children are entitled to receive 9 years of compulsory education and to receive their subsistence from parents or guardians. Laborers between the ages of 16 and 18 are referred to as "juvenile workers" and are prohibited from engaging in certain forms of physical work including labor in mines. The Labor Law mandates the establishment of labor inspection corps at all administrative levels above county government. The rapid growth of China's non-state sector has outpaced the evolution of government inspection and enforcement regimes. However, in poorer, isolated areas, child labor in agriculture is widespread given the few options available to minors who have completed their primary school education at approximately 13 years of age. According to official statistics, 10 million children between the ages of 6 and 14, two-thirds of whom were girls, dropped out of Chinese primary schools during 1996. Presumably they ended up performing some type of labor to help the family's financial well-being.

COUNTRY HISTORY AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

2205-1783 B.C. Early Bronze Age occurs, as does use of metal.

1783-1134 B.C. Economy is based on agriculture, with some hunting and animal husbandry. More advanced bronze metallurgy appears. Silk fabric appears.

1134-770 B.C. Feudalistic society appears. Routine taxation on agriculture begins. Systematic irrigation, fertilization, and animal-drawn plows are used in farming. Iron tools appear in farming and mining. Cowry shells, silk, jade, pearls, leather, and pieces of silver are used in trading.

770-246 B.C. Commerce improves through coinage and technology.

246-206 B.C. Standardization of legal codes, bureaucratic procedures, coinage, writing, philosophical thought, and scholarship take place. Walls from warring states are combined to make a Great Wall. Public works projects begin, including an imperial road.

206-1 B.C. Merchant class grows wealthy due to agricultural enterprises (cereals and rice), cattle, fish farming, cloth mills, private foundries, lacquer factories, shops, and money lending. State foundries appear in most areas. Technological advances occur, noticeably in paper and porcelain.

1-88. Government supports free, no-interest loans to curb usury. Regional commissions set prices on staple goods. Granaries hold surplus food in case of famine. State Wine Monopoly is formed. State monopolies in iron and salt are abolished.

89-166. Embassies from various nations are established.

220-265. Advances in medicine, astronomy and cartography occur. State supports silk weaving workshops, each with thousands of workers. Gunpowder is introduced in fireworks.

300-399. Oil wick lamps and umbrellas appear. Coal is used in lieu of wood in making cart iron.

400-499. Harness with paddle-horse collar is invented. Fusion process is used in making steel. First true porcelain is made in China.

552. Byzantine emperor, Justinian, sends missionaries to China to smuggle out silk worms and mulberry leaves.

600. Man-powered paddle-wheel boat appears. Merchants from 27 different lands meet at Zhang-ye on silk road to discuss trade.

618-907. Tang Dynasty adopts function of state affairs over public administration, finances, rites, army, justice, and public works. A censorate ensures compliance of governmental performance with plans. Use of receipts of deposit, for exchange of commercial transactions, begins. Earlier restrictions on business activities are ignored. Tang dynasty recognizes middle class over peasants.

894-1300. Japan severs all relations with China; however, it allows informal commercial visits by private traders with luxury goods.

960-1126. K'ai-feng becomes a major city, under the Northern Song Dynasty, with broad roads, wide canals, all-day markets, eateries, and restaurants, merchants, vendors, and entertainers. Invention of navigational compasses, astronomical instruments, celestial globes, water-driven mechanical clocks, blast furnace using coke, and spinning wheel occurs. Government prints promissory notes. Civil servants manage state monopolies. The government recognizes association of merchants and artisans and "chambers of commerce." Silk working machinery aids production. Specialization in pottery occurs. Tea and cotton are major cultivated crops.

1000-99. Large-scale iron and steel complexes are built in the north using blast furnaces and employing some 3,000 workers. An industrial complex is built to mass-produce ceramic for imperial court.

1068-85. Under emperor Shen Tsung, provincial money taxes are substituted for labor obligation to reduce peas-ant's dependence on moneylenders. A financial bureau reduces budget by 40 percent. Government loans cash or grain to poor to protect usury on crop loans.

1100-99. Intaglio printing is used in money printing to prevent counterfeiting.

1260-94. Kublai Khan rules over the Mongol empire, Central Asia, Persia, North China, and Mongolia. He retains the salt and iron monopolies. Discrimination against the Huns begins. Three types of paper money are established: one based on silk and two based on silver. Fixed taxes are adopted and large levies of Song Dynasty are abolished. Government is reorganized to include a bureau of imperial manufactures (industrial matters), a secretariat (civilian matters), a privy council (military matters), a censorate (evaluating officials), and offices of personnel, revenue, rites, war, justice, and public works. Banners are used to advertise wine. Pawnshops are first seen.

1277. Marco Polo is appointed agent to the imperial council.

1287. Kublai Khan replaces paper money with new currency to fight against rapid inflation.

1295. Marco Polo returns to Italy, incites interest in trade with China.

1342. Weapons, fans, screens, laquerware, and books are traded during Japanese trading expeditions.

1368-1644. Ming Dynasty begins, and government is re-organized. Silk is reserved for imperial use. Nationwide tax system is implemented, and corrupt Mongols are replaced. Slavery is abolished. Large estates are confiscated and poor peasants rent land. The wealthy are taxed heavily. Contact with foreigners is restricted. Elementary school system is established.

1420. Ming navy produces combat vessels. More than 250 are capable of long-range voyages.

1421. Beijing becomes the capital. The imperial workshop employs more than 27,000 craftsmen in trade and foreign relations.

1557-97. Chinese allow Portuguese colonization and development on Macau.

1637. First English factory is established in Canton.

1644-1912. Manchu overthrow Ming Dynasty, and China enters Qing Dynasty.

1800. China produces 33.3 percent of the world manufacturing output. Foreign merchants exchange opium for goods.

1842. Treaty of Nanking is signed; Britain gets control of Hong Kong. Shanghai and other coastline cities are open to foreign settlements.

1873-90. Modern non-military enterprises begin to form, owned and operated by Chinese compradors and merchant middlemen.

1900-01. Boxer Rebellion tries to force foreigners out, suppressed by Britain, United States, France, and Japan. China pays US$330 million in restitution.

1916-31. Japanese receive commercial rights to Inner Mongolia and Southern Manchuria and create the puppet state of Manchuria.

1937. Japanese forces invade and eventually occupy Beijing.

1949. People's Republic of China is formed when Communists take over the government. A mass exodus of entrepreneurs to Hong Kong and nationalists to Taiwan occurs.

1958. Great Leap Forward begins by creating communes to increase production and increase collectivism. However, it fails to increase economic growth.

1966. Great Cultural Revolution is launched, attacking bourgeoisie ideology and capitalist thought, which leads to rioting and instability. These events have a devastating impact on the economy.

1976. The death of Mao Zedong and arrest of Gang of Four end Great Cultural Revolution.

1980. Special Economic Zones are extended for capitalist enterprises north of Hong Kong. The country's first management program is established and forms the Chinese National Center for Industrial Science and Technology at Dalian Institute of Technology.

1985. The development of consumer-based industry occurs. The first stockbroker in Shanghai trades with 10 corporations.

1989. The first Beijing International Fair opens, which is the first and the biggest international fair held independently by China. Growing student objections to official corruption lead to violence after a demonstration in Tiananmen Square.

1990. The 4th Asian Trade Promoting Meeting is held in Beijing. Official census counts 1 billion people. China is granted observer status in GATT.

1991. China Stock Association announces its establishment in Beijing.

1992. China announces that the goal of the economic reform is to set up a socialist market system.

1993. Electric power groups (North, East, Middle, Easter-North, and West-North) were permitted to be set up by the State Council.

1994. The launching ceremony of Yangtzi River Three Gorges is held and its construction started.

1995. The China Investment Association announces its establishment in Beijing.

1996. With sharp economic growth and controlled inflation under control, China achieves the goal of macro economic control.

1997. China decreases tariffs and promises to reduce the average tariff of the industrial products to 10 percent.

1998. In order to protect China's growing economy from the Asian economic crisis, Chinese government issues 1,000 billion national debts for the construction of domestic infrastructure and civil services.

1999. China resumes the collection of tax on the interest of personal savings.

2000. China successfully completes the 9th 5-Year Plan for economic growth; and the country's GDP reaches US$10,000 billion.

FUTURE TRENDS

Since 1978, China's economic system has undergone a market-oriented reform and begun its open-door policy. In more than 20 years, although system devolvement and structural transformation were mostly driven by domestic factors, China has been increasingly influenced by economic globalization and worldwide industrial upgrade. In the 21st century, it is estimated that Chinese economic development will be influenced by world economy, especially the economy of the Asian area. The Chinese economy will depend on the attitude and strategy China will take toward being involved in the globalization process.

OUTLOOK FOR CHINA'S ECONOMY.

The long-term outlook for the Chinese economy remains unclear. China's commitment to join the WTO appears to represent a major commitment on the part of the Chinese government to significant economic reform and greater access to its domestic markets. Some observers believe that the Chinese government views accession to the WTO as an important, though painful, step towards making Chinese firms more efficient and competitive in the world market. In addition, the government hopes that liberalized trade rules will attract more foreign investment to China. It is expected that over the long run a more open market system would boost competition, improve productivity, and lower costs for consumers, as well as for firms using imported goods as inputs for production. Economic resources would be redirected towards more profitable ventures, especially those in China's growing private sector. As a result, China would likely experience more rapid economic growth than would occur under current economic policies. It is estimated that WTO membership would double China's trade and foreign investment levels by the year 2005 and raise real GDP growth by an additional 0.5 percent per year.

In the short run, due to increased foreign competition, widespread economic reforms (if implemented) could result in disruptions in certain industries, especially unprofitable SOEs. As a result, many firms would likely go bankrupt and many workers could lose their jobs. How the government handles these disruptions will greatly determine the extent and pace of future reforms. The central government appears to be counting on trade liberalization to boost foreign investment and spur overall economic growth; doing so would enable laid-off workers to be employed in higher growth sectors, especially in the growing private sector. However, the Chinese government is deeply concerned about maintaining social stability. If trade liberalization were followed by a severe economic slowdown, leading to widespread bankruptcies and layoffs, the central government might choose to halt certain economic reforms rather than risk possible political upheaval.

In February 1998 the officials announced their intentions to spend US$750 billion on infrastructure development over the next 3 years, although many analysts have questioned China's ability to obtain funding for such a massive financial undertaking in such a short period of time. It is likely that China intends to attract foreign investment for much of its infrastructure needs.

However, Chinese restrictions on ownership, profits, and operational control of major projects, China's demands for subsidized financing and sharing of technology, and uncertainties regarding obtaining approval from Chinese officials at the central and local levels have made foreign investors reluctant to invest in major Chinese infrastructure projects.

WEST REGION DEVELOPMENT.

The central government has decided to accelerate the economic development in its west regions over the next few decades. China will build more highways in its western region, including 2 linking the heartland with the Tibet Autonomous Region, over the next 5 to 10 years. There are already 3 highways linking the inland areas with Tibet. China will also build another 14 main highways in the western region in the coming 10 years. China will have completed a modern highway network in the west by 2030. At the moment, roads in the western region are poor and insufficient. There are only 7.8 kilometers of highways per 100 square kilometers in the region, only half the national average. China has made the improvement of infrastructure the priority in its program to develop the vast western region. This development is expected to become one of the most dynamic forces in the country's economic growth.

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION.

The last 2 decades of rapid economic growth, urbanization, and industrialization have been accompanied by steady deterioration of the environment in China. The concentration of both air and water pollutants are among the highest in the world, causing damage to human health and lost agricultural productivity. Some major Chinese cities have particulate and sulfur levels from 2 to 5 times World Health Organization and Chinese standards. Soil erosion, deforestation, and damage to wetlands and grasslands have resulted in deterioration of the national ecosystems and pose a threat to future agricultural sustainability.

China has already taken some steps to reduce pollution and deforestation and has staved off an abrupt worsening of environmental conditions in general. A system of pollution control programs and institutional networks for environmental protection is being constructed at the national and local levels. As part of the recent government reorganization, China's environmental agency, the State Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA), has been upgraded to full ministerial rank and its coverage expanded to include the "green" issues. For better urban and industrial pollution control, China has focused increasingly on river basin management, greater use of economic incentives, and increased use of public information campaigns. Issues of vehicle emissions in urban areas are being tackled through improved traffic management, public transport initiatives, changes in transport fees, and phasing out of leaded gas, which has already been implemented in the largest city centers. Coastal zone management has been introduced, and energy conservation efforts and the development of renewable sources of energy have been expanded.

DEPENDENCIES

China has no territories or colonies.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Cao Yuanzheng. "World Economic Restructuring and China's Economic Transformation." Paper Presented at 6th Meeting of the Trilateral Forum, Sponsored by Berkeley Roundtable on International Economy. Berkeley, California, 28-29 January 2000.

Economist Intelligence Unit. Country Profile: China. London: Economist Intelligence Unit, 2001.

Economist Intelligence Unit. Financing Foreign Operation: China. London: Economist Intelligence Unit, 1992.

Embassy of the People's Republic of China in the United States of America. <http://www.china-embassy.org/eng/index.html>. Accessed October 2001.

Han, Taejoon. "China: A Shared Poverty to Uneven Wealth?" The George Washington University. <http://www.hfni.gsehd.gwu.edu/~econ270/Taejoon.html>. Accessed February 2001.

Holmes, William D. "China's Financial Reforms in the Global Market." Paper presented at the Conference on Regulation of Capital Markets and Financial Services in the Pacific Rim, Washington. Georgetown University Law Center, 11-13 November 1996.

Hong Kong Christian Industrial Committee. "Working Conditions in Chinese Factories Making Disney Products." Global Exchange. <http://www.globalexchange.org/economy/corporations/china/HongKongReport.html>. Accessed February 2001.

Hu, Angang. "Employment and Deployment: China's Employment Problem and Employment Strategy." World Economy & China. Vol. 7, No. 1, January, 1999.

Khan, Azizur Rahman. "Issues in Development Discussion Paper 22: Poverty in China in the Period of Globalization: New Evidence on Trend and Pattern." International Labor Organization. <http://www.ilo.org/public/english/employment/strat/publ/iddp22.htm>. Accessed February 2001.

Lamble, Peter, and Robin Low. The Asia Pacific Insurance Handbook. Sydney, NWT: Coopers & Lybrand, 1995.

Liu Jintang, and Lin Fude. "Zero Growth: Long-Term Effect of China's Family Planning Program." <http://www.cpirc.org.cn/e-view1.htm>. Accessed February 2001.

Liu Yingqiu. "Changes in China's Economic Growth Pattern and Domestic Demand Stimulation." World Economy & China. Vol. 7, No. 3-4, 5-6, 1999.

Maurice, Beryl. "Working Conditions in Chinese Factories Making Disney Products." Global Exchange. <http://www.globalexchange.org/economy/corporations/china/HongKongR eport.html>. Accessed February 2001.

Morrison, Wayne M. "IB98014: China's Economic Conditions." The National Council for Science and the Environment. <http:// www.cnie.org/nle/inter-10.html>. Accessed February 2001.

Rojas, Róbinson. "The Other Side of China Economic Miracle: Unemployment and Inequality." The Róbinson Rojas Archive. <http://www.rrojasdatabank.org/chinaemp.htm>. Accessed February 2001.

U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. World Factbook 2001. <http:// www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index.html>. Accessed September 2001.

U.S. Department of the Treasury. National Treatment Study. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1994.

Robert Guang Tian

Camilla Hong Wang

CAPITAL:

Beijing (Peking).

MONETARY UNIT:

Chinese Renminbi (in Chinese "Renminbi" means "People's Currency") Yuan (RMB). One yuan equals ten jiao; one jiao equals ten fen. Paper bills include 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 50, and 100 yuan; 1 jiao, 2 jiao, 5 jiao; 1 fen, 2 fen, 5 fen. There are coins of 1 yuan; 1 jiao, 2 jiao, 5 jiao; 1 fen, 2 fen, and 5 fen.

CHIEF EXPORTS:

Crude oil, textile yarn, fabrics, chemicals, coal, soybeans, vegetable oil, rice, and small machinery.

CHIEF IMPORTS:

Machinery, steel and other metals, wheat, chemicals, and fertilizers.

GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT:

US$4.8 trillion (purchasing power parity, 1999 est).

BALANCE OF TRADE:

Exports: US$194.9 billion (f.o.b., 1999). Imports: US$165.8 billion (c.i.f.,1999).

China

views updated May 18 2018

China

POPULATION 1,284,303,705
CHINESE POPULAR RELIGIONIST 29.2 percent
BUDDHIST 8 percent
ATHEIST 8.1 percent
CHRISTIAN 6.5 percent
TRIBAL RELIGIONIST 4.3 percent
MUSLIM 1.7 percent
NONRELIGIONIST 42.1 percent
OTHER less than 0.1 percent

Country Overview

INTRODUCTION

China is the world's most populous country and the fourth largest in area. About four-fifths of its population are peasants; one-fifth works in industry and trade in urban centers. The Han Chinese are the dominant ethnic group (92 percent), but there are more than 50 ethnic minorities (over 100 million people) in China, most of whom live in regions bordering other countries.

The country's largest faith is Chinese popular religion, a syncretic belief system that originated in the second millennium b.c.e. and that later borrowed elements of both religious (not philosophical) Taoism (Daoism) and Confucianism. Taoism, a Chinese religion founded in the second century c.e., incorporated Buddhist deities into its pantheon, and many Taoist gods and ritual practices were then amalgamated into popular religion. Today Taoism and Chinese popular religion overlap symbiotically. Taoist priests (and sometimes Buddhist monks and nuns or even Confucian ritual specialists) are hired to perform popular religious rituals.

Confucianism originated in China during the late sixth and early fifth centuries b.c.e. with the "Sage Master" philosopher Confucius. Although only a small percentage of Chinese still practice it exclusively as an ethical and ritual system, Confucianism remains a strong cultural force, and many of its beliefs and practices are widely recognized by followers of Chinese popular religion.

Buddhism was introduced into China in the first century c.e. by immigrants from Persia, Central Asia, and India; by the eighth century it was fully domesticated. In the mid-seventh century Christianity arrived from Syria. Muslim traders brought Islam from the Middle East and Central Asia to China in the late seventh century. In the mid-ninth century a Taoist Tang emperor heavily persecuted foreign religions. Buddhism went underground, and Christianity died out; indigenous Islamic converts were too few to warrant imperial attention. At the end of the thirteenth century Catholicism appeared in China. At about the same time, a significant number of indigenous people began to be converted to Islam. Western Protestant missionaries were active in China from the beginning of the nineteenth century until the Communist People's Republic of China (PRC) expelled them in 1952.

Since the death of Mao Tse-tung, China's leader from 1949 to 1976, Christianity has been the country's fastest-growing religion. Strong revivals have occurred in the port cities along the eastern seaboard, as well as in cities and towns dotting the interior provinces. A parallel, nationwide resurgence of Pure Land Buddhism has also taken place. Meditative Chan (Zen in Japanese) Buddhism is practiced by Buddhist monks in monasteries as well as by philosophically minded lay intellectuals.

RELIGIOUS TOLERANCE

The 1954 constitution of the PRC and each constitution promulgated thereafter all guarantee freedom of religion. Technically, however, the government recognizes and sanctions only five faiths—Buddhism, Taoism (Taoism stands for religious Taoism in this essay), Islam, Catholicism, and Protestantism—and religious activities are limited to state-approved facilities. Popular religion and related heterodox cults do not receive constitutional protection, but popular religionists enjoy a high degree of freedom, partly because their religious practices are based in Taoism and Buddhism and appear legal and partly because popular religionists form such a large group. Their base of more than 360 million adherents makes the government leery of losing their support.

The degree of religious tolerance since 1949 has fluctuated according to the intensity of radicalism in Chinese Communist Party (CCP) politics. During Mao's Cultural Revolution (1966–76), all religions were harshly suppressed, and religious activities went underground. Nearly all churches and temples were closed or appropriated for secular uses. In the post-Mao era religious tolerance has greatly increased, though it does not yet conform to international standards.

In 1999 the government passed an anticult (fan xiejiao) law as part of a crackdown on Falungong, a popular group that promotes qigong (breath cultivation) combined with Buddhist-style meditation and that has a far larger membership than any other social organization or dissident movement in China. Since 2001 the government has expanded the crackdown to include certain unregistered Christian "house churches," involving millions of Protestants whose gatherings are technically illegal.

Major Religions

CHINESE POPULAR RELIGION

BUDDHISM

CHRISTIANITY

CHINESE POPULAR RELIGION

DATE OF ORIGIN c. second millennium b.c.e.
NUMBER OF FOLLOWERS 366 million

HISTORY

Chinese popular, or folk, religion probably originated during the Shang period (c.1766–1122 b.c.e.). Throughout its existence it has been in flux, formed through a gradual process of incorporating newer, harmonious ideas into its ancient pristine traditions over three thousand years. During premodern times these ideas were essentially taken from Confucian ethics, Taoism, and folk Buddhism, but the religion's absorption of different forms of belief and practice is ongoing even into the contemporary period. Popular religion is followed by people of all social groups, especially in the observance of major festivals. Since the 1980s, as a legacy of the Cultural Revolution, Chairman Mao has emerged as a cult figure, his image used not only as an emblem of protection in vehicles but also as an object of worship in certain shrines established by local peasants in northern China. After their harsh repression by Mao, popular religious activities have resurfaced into public life and are booming. Devotion to local deities thrives, and the sale of objects for ritual use—incense sticks, paper money, and elaborate, miniature imitations of consumer commodities (such as furniture, for ancestors to use in the next world)—is big business. Mediums are common in rural areas and suburban centers.

At the national level Chinese popular religion is a diffused system, but it is highly organized in local communities. Because it performs the vital social function of promoting community identity and solidarity, popular religion has also been called "local communal religion." Adherents believe the universe is divided into three spheres—Heaven, Earth, and the Underworld—all governed by a supreme ruler, the Jade Emperor (Yuhuang Dadi). The counterpart of the earthly emperor, he presides in Heaven over a bureaucracy staffed by all sorts of god-officials (shi) and gods (shen). Among these are the King of the Underworld (Yanluowang) and a host of other functionaries stationed on earth, including the city god (Chenghuang), comparable to a human magistrate, and the local earth god (Tudi Gong), like a local constable. The kitchen god (Zao Jun), whose picture hangs above a peasant family's kitchen stove, is the resident agent of the Jade Emperor, watching over the daily conduct of the family members.

Under the officials are the common ghosts (gui)—the souls of the dead, who are confined in the Under-world. Souls of cultural heroes (for example, the mythic Yellow Emperor and Confucius) may have had their status changed from ghosts to gods (or saints) after their deification (mostly by the imperial government). Ancestors (zu) are those lucky ghosts whose living descendants sustain them through sacrifices. Ghosts who died without offspring are like the homeless and beggars in human society, and they are prone to make trouble for their relatives and fellow villagers; they may be propitiated, however, by community offerings at an annual festival. Notable female deities, including the Old Mother (Laomu, counterpart of the Buddhist goddess of mercy, Guanyi), are worshiped nationally; and Mazu (Heavenly Empress), the deified spirit of a virtuous unmarried woman, is worshiped widely in the southeastern provinces.

A bewildering array of popular religious groups, commonly called "secret societies," are characterized by secret hierarchical organizational structures and are empowered by occult folk Buddhist and religious Taoist beliefs. In Chinese history these groups adopted different names, such as "society" (hui), "brotherhood" (men), "way" (tao, or dao), and "sect" (jiao). Major examples include the Triad (Sanhe Hui), the Universal Salvation Society (Puji Hui; named after its founder, Pu Ji), the Hong Brotherhood (Hong Men), the Unity Way (Yiguan Dao), the Nine Functions Way (Jiugong Dao), and the White Lotus Sect (Bailian Jiao).

Often linked with millenarianism (the belief in a coming messianic kingdom), secret societies may trace their origins to as far back as the third century b.c.e. Some groups became politically subversive, playing major roles in popular revolts (for example, the White Lotus Rebellion at the turn of the nineteenth century) against imperial governments. The Red Spear Society (Hongqiang Hui) sprang up in the 1930s in northern China; these were local groups formed during the Japanese occupation to defend villages against roaming bandits. In 1953 the Communist government launched a massive suppression campaign against Hui-Dao-Men ("Societies-Ways-Brotherhoods"), all but eradicating them from the Chinese mainland. Some of their offshoots have reappeared, reintroduced by Chinese adherents who live overseas.

EARLY AND MODERN LEADERS

Only secret societies that gave birth to political movements have produced national leaders. Liu Song and Zhu Hongdeng (Zhu Fengming) were pioneers of a popular movement that led to the 1796–1804 White Lotus Rebellion. Chang Loxing led the Nien (an offshoot of the White Lotus Sect) Rebellion (c. 1853–68) against the Manchu (Qing) regime. Under a quasi-Christian ideology, Hong Xiuquan (1814–64) led the anti-Qing Taiping Rebellion (1850–64), the longest and most devastating period of civil unrest in Chinese history, nearly toppling the Qing imperial dynasty. Sun Yat-sen (Sun Zhongshan, 1866–1925), a member of the Hong Brotherhood, led the anti-Qing revolution, resulting in its final demise in 1911. Li Hongzhi (born in 1953), a former trumpet player from northeastern China, is the founder of the Falungong movement.

MAJOR THEOLOGIANS AND AUTHORS

The deities in popular religion are not supported by any systematic study or documentation.

HOUSES OF WORSHIP AND HOLY PLACES

For more than two thousand years the emperor (Son of Heaven) alone could officially offer sacrifices to Heaven at special altars in the imperial capital. The demise of the imperial system in 1911 ended these rituals. Thousands of household shrines and altars remain. Many of China's villages and towns have local temples, more numerous in the south and southeast. Sacred sites venerated by both popular religionists and religious Taoists outside population centers include the five (Taoist) sacred mountain peaks (wuyue)—Taishan (shan means "mountain" or "peak") in eastern Shandong, Bei Hengshan (bei means "north") in northern Shanxi, Nan Hengshan (nan means "south") in southern Hunan, Huashan in western Shanxi, and Songshan in central Henan—as well as major Buddhist sacred sites and renowned Taoist temples.

WHAT IS SACRED?

Certain individual cults in popular religion are dedicated to sacred natural beings or objects, such as the god of insects, the god of horses, the tree god, the dragon king, and various astral gods (such as the Purple Emperor Star, ziweixin).

HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS

The aspect of popular religion shared by all Chinese is the annual cycle of festivals, which follows the lunar calendar. The Chinese New Year (Xinnian, or Chunjie: Festival of the Spring) is the most important. Family members return home from distant workplaces, and families hold a banquet in honor of the ancestors. Held on the third day of the third lunar month, the Qingming (Pure and Clear) Festival, also known as Hanshi jie(Day of Eating Things Cold), is the second most important opportunity to honor ancestors; family members perform the traditional sacrificial rituals of cleaning the graves (saomu) and offering food. The PRC government's forcible implementation of cremation has largely eliminated private graveyards and led to a simplification of the rituals. People in southern Anhui now buy Qingming diaozi (three-foot-long bamboo sticks with multicolored paper strips tied to the tip) from supply stores and erect them around family tombstones in public cemeteries. In metropolitan Shanghai families place fresh flowers around gravestones; they burn incense, offer cooked foods and wine, and light cigarettes for the deceased to enjoy.

The Ghost Festival (Guijie), which coincides with the Buddhist Ullambhana (Deliverance) Festival, is held on the fifteenth day of the seventh month. Hell is said to open its gates to release the spirits of the dead. People in suburban Shanghai entertain their ancestors with a lavish dinner and the burning of mock gold and silver ingots. They also place food offerings and burn incense outside the front door for roaming ghosts (those who died without offspring). The Hanyi jie (Sending Off the Winter Cloths), which has been revived in the north around Hebei, is celebrated on the first day of the tenth lunar month (November on the Gregorian calendar). Popular religion adherents offer mock (paper) clothing and abundant food supplies to the ancestors in preparation for winter.

On the twenty-third day of the twelfth month, it is the prescribed duty of the kitchen god to present his annual report to the Jade Emperor on the conduct of each family member. On the evening of his ascent to Heaven, family members offer him candies (tanggua: round, sticky candy balls shaped like miniature tomatoes) to sweeten his lips, so that he may say only good things about them.

MODE OF DRESS

Lay adherents of popular religion have no dress code. When invited to preside over folk rituals, Buddhist monks wear their robes, and Taoist specialists wear standardized ritual vestments (Taoists are differentiated by the color of their headband; hence the Redhead and Blackhead Taoists). The Red Spear Society requires its practitioners to wear a red apron when they communicate with their patron deities in the sanctuary.

DIETARY PRACTICES

Dietary restrictions are required mostly among members of the secret societies. The Nine Functions Way (Jiugong Dao) forbids members to eat meat, garlic, or onions; to drink wine; and to smoke tobacco. The Unity Way (Yiguan Dao) forbids the use of alcohol.

RITUALS

The rituals of Chinese popular religion allow humans to interact with the spirit world. Most communal rituals are performed by Taoist priests of the Zhengyi sect (Celestial Masters Taoism). Buddhist ritual traditions are used during requiem services and Confucian rituals for rites involving animal sacrifice. Taoist priests or ritual masters are invited to perform rites in the temples on the birthdays of the local gods. They also preside over one of the most elaborate public rituals performed for a community, the jiao ritual of cosmic renewal. A large-scale festival involving scores of villages surrounding the central temple of the local god, the ritual may last for many days. Mass processions, sacrificial offerings, and ritual theatrical performances are staged to entertain the gods. On the third day of the festival, the Taoist priests emerge from the temple to present offerings to the superior gods in Heaven. On a different day they perform the feast for the universal deliverance of hungry ghosts (pudu, which means "all-ferried over"), allowing them to go to a better place in the Underworld or in Heaven.

RITES OF PASSAGE

Since the Han period (206 b.c.e.–220 c.e.) birth, maturation, marriage, and burial have been regulated by sumptuary (extravagance-prevention) and ritual laws of the Confucian tradition. Today a pregnant woman no longer makes offerings to the spirit (taishen) believed to protect the fetus, but rites related to the recovery of the mother's health are maintained: She must rest for one month after delivery, eating special foods rich in protein and vitamins. The old rite of "capping," in which the father gave his son both a new name and a square-cornered cap, thus marking his entrance into mature manhood, was dropped long ago. Weddings are largely devoid of religious content and involve no religious functionaries. In cities businesses known as Liyigongsi (Companies of Rituals and Ceremonials) arrange for the wedding garments, transportation, and the other aspects of the event.

By contrast, the traditional funeral rite has been enhanced. Layers of white tissue paper and talismans are put over the corpse in its coffin. A Taoist priest is usually invited to perform the funeral rites at a funeral parlor. At the graveside the bereaved family ceremonially burns a paper house completely furnished with miniature lamps, stoves, refrigerators, a telephone, and reams of paper money for the bank account of the dead in hell. After the cremation, bone-ash caskets (guhuixia) are either stored in the village Spirits' Hall (lingtang; in northern China) or buried in a public cemetery (in southern China), to be visited annually during the Qingming festival.

MEMBERSHIP

The participation of villagers in local religious activities is voluntary. Secret societies require an elaborate initiation procedure, including an oath of secrecy, and members' conduct is regulated by secret rules, including the ritual use of symbols and gestures as a means of communication. During times of famine or political unrest, these groups drew their members mostly from the lower stratum of the society—the poor and the unemployed.

SOCIAL JUSTICE

Chinese popular religion has no systematic teachings regarding such social issues as poverty, education, and human rights. Temple networks connecting local communities in a large area function as informal local governments, collecting contributions from adherents in order to provide social services to the needy.

SOCIAL ASPECTS

Chinese popular religion is centered on the family and the local community. Marriage is seen as uniting two families rather than two individuals. Sometimes two families hire a ritual specialist to conduct a spirit marriage (minhun)—a wedding ceremony uniting the ghost of the deceased daughter of one family with the ghost of the deceased son of the other. The PRC government's strict enforcement of its law permitting only one child per couple has undermined the value popular religion places on having more children.

POLITICAL IMPACT

Throughout Chinese history perennial tensions existed between the imperial government and certain Buddhist-inspired popular secret societies, as these groups have at times inspired popular revolts. The White Lotus Sect led an eight-year mass rebellion (1796–1804) protesting political corruption and economic hardship. The Boxers, a secret religious sect whose members practiced a form of martial arts and staged occult rituals worshiping the gods, started a massive anti-foreign and anti-Christian movement in 1900. Ravaging China's northern provinces for two years, the Boxer Rebellion caused the martyrdom of hundreds of Western missionaries and thousands of Chinese Christians.

CONTROVERSIAL ISSUES

In keeping with its syncretic nature, Chinese popular religion stresses compromise and harmony in its beliefs and practices; hardly any issue causes controversy among adherents. In contrast to the divisiveness the cult of Mary has brought about within Christianity in the West, Chinese popular religion embraces and honors many prominent female deities. There are cults of Mazu and the Niangniang (a group of goddesses who grant children and protect the eyes). Women's ministry is accepted by all: Buddhist nuns may be invited to officiate at ritual events, and spirit mediums are almost exclusively female.

CULTURAL IMPACT

Literature inspired by Chinese popular religion includes hagiographies (idealized biographies of saints) and ghost revenge stories. The sixteenth-century classic Fengshen Yanyi (The Investiture of the Gods) reflects popular religion's polytheistic ideology. Popular communal festivals and rituals have led to the creation of ritual dances, processions, and theatrical arts as corollaries to communal worship.

BUDDHISM

DATE OF ORIGIN c. 68 c.e.
NUMBER OF FOLLOWERS 107.9 million

HISTORY

Immigrants brought Buddhism to China during the first century c.e. in three distinct forms: Southern Buddhism (Theravada), Tibetan Buddhism (Lamaism or Tantric Buddhism), and Han Buddhism. Theravada is practiced only among the Dai, a small ethnic group that inhabits the border region of southern Yunnan. Tibetan Buddhism, which belongs to the Mahayana school, is the religion of the Tibetans and some of China's minority nationals, such as the Mongols in the north and the Manchus in the northeast. Strictly speaking, only Han Buddhism, also of the Mahayana school, may be called "Chinese Buddhism," because it is subscribed to by the Han Chinese, who constitute over 90 percent of China's Buddhist population. Historically the two most popular forms of Chinese Buddhism were the Pure Land Sect (Jintu zong), which flourished mainly in China's rural communities, and Chan Buddhism, which found adherents among the educated in cities and towns. Pure Land Buddhism asserts that people can be saved into the "Western Paradise" through faith in the Amitabha Buddha (O Mi To Fo in Chinese; Bodhisattva of Boundless Light and Life) and repetitious invocation of his name. Chan Buddhists believe that through meditation practice, they may experience inner enlightenment, achieving Buddhahood in this life.

Buddhism became woven into the fiber of Chinese sociopolitical life by the middle of the eighth century. Its growth and influence was abruptly arrested in the middle of the ninth century by devastating political suppression. Though "folk Buddhism" remained a vital part of rural popular culture, Buddhism as a high ideology forever lost its prestige among China's educated ruling elite. In the era of the Chinese Republic (1912–49), Buddhism experienced a small revival led by certain "monk-politicians," who helped establish the nationwide Chinese Buddhist Association (CBA; Zhongguo Fojiao Xiehui) to carry out reforms within the Buddhist sangha (Buddhist community) and to protect monastic properties from government encroachment.

When the CCP seized power on the mainland in 1949, the CBA's headquarters moved to Taiwan with the Nationalist government. The founding of the PRC fundamentally changed the socioeconomic status of Buddhism in China. The land reform law of 1950 officially deprived the large Buddhist monasteries of their land-owning rights. The state set up a new Chinese Buddhist Association (also abbreviated as CBA) in 1952 as a quasi-religious organization under the supervision of the CCP party apparatus. After 1959 the CCP's forceful application of Marxism-Leninism to all aspects of intellectual life left no room for independent thinking. During the violent years of the Cultural Revolution (1966–76), Buddhist temples were severely damaged, and monks and nuns were forced to return to laity in order to participate in productive labor. The post-Mao government considerably liberalized China's religious policies. Both Tibetan and Han Buddhism flourish in China today. Though various Han sects existed before the founding of the PRC, only the Pure Land sect remains popular, and it has experienced a strong revival throughout China, especially in rural communities. Chan Buddhism is practiced in Chan monasteries and by an undetermined number of intellectuals.

EARLY AND MODERN LEADERS

Dao Cho (562–645) and Shan Dao (613–81) founded the Pure Land sect of Chinese Buddhism. Xuan Zhuang (600–64), a pioneering Chinese Buddhist pilgrim-scholar, translated the Buddhist scriptures of the School of Consciousness Only (Weishi) from Sanskrit into Chinese. Master Jian Zhen (Ganjin in Japanese; 688–763), a famous Chinese Buddhist missionary, founded the Japanese monastic Ritsu (Lü in Chinese) School in 753. The Sixth Patriarch Hui Neng (638–713) was an epic figure in Chan Buddhism. It was he who perfected the teaching of Chan.

The two leaders of the revival movement under the Chinese Republic were the progressive Abbot Taixu (Tai-hsü; 1889–1947) and the more conservative Abbot Yuanying (Yuan-ying; 1878–1953). They advocated purging Buddhism of "superstition"—getting rid of the Buddhas and bodhisattvas (Buddhas-to-be: beings who compassionately refrain from entering Nirvana in order to help others), which they considered "illusionary," and eliminating profit-making funerary rites—so that all Buddhists might find the "Western Paradise" in this world by rendering services in their local communities. They also led the founding of the CBA in 1929. During China's War of Resistance against Japan (1937–45), Monk Juzan (Chu-tsan; secular name: Pan Chutong; 1908–84), one of Taixu's prominent disciples, organized the Anti-Japan Association of Chinese Buddhists and founded the patriotic journal Lion's Roars (Shizihou). In 1950, thanks to his pro-CCP activism, Juzan was appointed editor-in-chief of Modern Buddhism (Xiandai foxue), a monthly magazine that serves as the mouthpiece of CCP's religious policy.

MAJOR THEOLOGIANS AND AUTHORS

The sida gaoseng (four eminent monks)—Zhu Hong (1535–1615), Zhen Ke (1542–1603), De Qing (1546–1623), and Zhi Xu (1599–1655)—arose in China in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. The four advocated creating a synthesized Buddhism from Pure Land Buddhism, Chan Buddhism, and Neo-Confucianism. Under their tutelage numerous intellectuals became jushi (lay devotees) and helped foster the rise of the new religious phenomenon known as jushi Buddhism. Yang Wenhui (1837–1911) was a pivotal figure in the jushi tradition. Among his disciples who became renowned jushi scholars were four of the famous late–Qing dynasty reformers: Tan Sitong (1865–98), Liang Qichao (1873–1929), Tang Yongtong (1893–1964), and Lü Zheng (1896–1989).

The famous jushi Zhao Puchu (1907–2000), president of the CBA from the 1980s until his death and author of Buddhism in China, advanced a doctrine of "this-worldly" Buddhist thought, calling on Chinese Buddhists to pay equal attention to agricultural work (work in "this world") and Chan meditative practice (nong Chan bingzhong). Ren Jiyu (born in 1916), a leading philosopher and director of the Institute for Research of World Religions at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, directed the monumental project Zhongguo Fojiaoshi (History of Chinese Buddhism), published in 1981.

HOUSES OF WORSHIP AND HOLY PLACES

Chinese Buddhist monks and nuns worship in temples or within the monastery of their residence. Lay devotees worship together at the Lay Association Hall (Jushi lin). Rank-and-file Buddhists set up family shrines or icons for worship and go to the temple only on festival days and for special purposes—for example, to ask a bodhisattva for healing. Among the most popular Buddhist worship centers in China are the various holy sites known as zuting (where certain patriarchs founded their sects).

Chinese Buddhists make pilgrimages to the sida mingshan (four famous mountains), each with devotion to a particular bodhisattva: Putuo Shan (shan means "mountain"), situated on an island in Eastern Zhejiang Province, is dedicated to Guanyin (Avalokiteshvara; goddess of compassion); Omei Shan in Sichuan is dedicated to Puxian (Samantabhadra, god of universal virtue); Wutai Shan in Shanxi is dedicated to Wenshu (Manjushri, god of great wit); and Jiuhua Shan in Anhwei is dedicated to Dizang (Kshitigarbha, god of specters). Song Shan—a mountain in Henan with a legendary Chan temple, Shaolin Si (si means "temple")—is famed for its tradition of spectacular martial arts. In southernmost China, on Hainan Island, the world's tallest statue of the goddess Guanyin was erected in 2003 (on the date Guanyin renounced her lay life) as part of the PRC's aggressive promotion of pilgrimage tourism.

WHAT IS SACRED?

Some mountains are sacred to Chinese Buddhists. Certain rocks and caves may also be venerated in Tibet and other Tantric Buddhist areas. Buddhist relics, such as the tooth relic housed in the Buddha's Tooth Pagoda (a 50-meter-high structure outside Beijing, restored in 1961), are considered sacred. The tooth is revered as a fawu (divine object) and looked upon by the worshipers as a kind of guanxiang, or medium of meditation.

HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS

Buddhist festivals in China have been largely secularized and politicized. Their dates are determined by the lunar calendar. During the lunar month of Vesakha (generally in May), Chinese Buddhists hold the Yufojie (Bathing the Buddha Festival), celebrating the day the newborn Sakyamuni ("Sage of the Sakyans"; the historical Buddha) is said to have been bathed by water sent down by gods. On the nineteenth day of the second, sixth, and ninth months of the year, Chinese Buddhists celebrate Guanyin's birth, enlightenment, and death. The Yulanpen (Ullambhana; Festival of the Hungry Ghosts) takes place on the fifteenth day of the seventh month (in August or September). At the full moon monks chant from Buddhist scripture for the hungry ghosts and put out food to feed them. Lay devotees also participate in the rites by burning large paper boats, helping "ferry across" hungry ghosts to a better world.

MODE OF DRESS

Monastic dress code prohibits the use of animal products and silk. The color and pattern of garments worn by Chinese Buddhists are determined by their social status within the Buddhist community.

There are three main categories of garment. The first is called changshan (an informal long gown worn for most monastic work). The second is called haiqing or changpao (a gown with much fuller sleeves than the first, hanging down about 18 inches from the wrist). It might be worn alone, but for important ritual events it is always worn under the jiasha (kasaya in Sanskrit), which is the third and most formal type of garment.

Most monastic garments are grey or black, but grey is perhaps the most widely worn. Novices, nuns, and lay devotees wear the 5-strip garment (wutiao i), so-called because it is made from 5 strips of cloth. Fully ordained monks may wear the 7-strip garment (qitiao i) in any shade of yellow to light brown. The temple abbot normally wears a 25-strip red robe (hongi). On major ritual occasions, such as ordinations, he puts on the Ten-Thousand-Buddha garment (qianfo i) (a robe magnificently embroidered with numerous Buddha figures). All monks' garments have the same "Y" neck—one side crosses over the other, as with a Western bathrobe, leaving the throat bare. All ordained monks and nuns shave their heads completely.

Xiangke (literally "incense-offerers"; occasional Buddhists), particularly those in the countryside, tend to wear conservative colors: gray, black, and dark blue. Lay devotees may also wear monks' robes, but they do not shave their heads.

DIETARY PRACTICES

Dietary habit in Chinese monasteries varies according to geography. In general, meat, fish, eggs, dairy products, vegetables of the onion family (including garlic and leeks), and all intoxicating beverages are forbidden or customarily avoided, as they are believed to stir up the sexual appetite. Typically the daily diet consists of rice, congee, bean curd, turnips, and mixed vegetables (lohan zhai, the most popular combination, consists of 18 different vegetables; 18 is the number of lohan, or enlightened ones who have crossed over to "the other shore" and received eternal salvation, in the Buddhist pantheon). On the first, eighth, fifteenth, and twenty-third days of each lunar month, the diet is supplemented by somewhat better ingredients, such as mushrooms, noodles, or Chinese vermicelli. Some lay devotees observe the same dietary restrictions as the clergy; others do so only on special occasions.

RITUALS

Buddhist rituals are performed both in monasteries and in the homes of the laity. When a layperson enters the sangha (Buddhist community), he goes through the rite of tonsure (tidu). Kneeling before an image of Maitreya (Milefo; the coming Buddha who will succeed the historical Buddha, or Sakyamuni), the candidate publicly renounces his lay life and his obligations in human relationships, including those to his parents, asking the master to shave his hair to symbolize this renunciation. After attaining the minimum age (usually 20), a novice becomes a monk through the rite of ordination (shoujie). The candidate takes a series of vows, after which "ordination scars" are burned into his scalp with moxa.

To become a lay devotee (jushi), a person must follow a three-step ritual: declaring faith in the Three Refuges (the Buddha, the dharma (law), and the sangha); taking the Five Vows (not to kill, steal, drink alcoholic beverages, lie, or commit sexual misconduct); and taking the Bodhisattva Vows (committing to follow the bodhisattva path in helping and saving all other creatures). Lay devotees attend worship services at the temple on special occasions and practice religious cultivation (xiuxing) at home, where they set up altars next to ancestral tablets for worshiping and offering incense to the Buddha image.

Increasingly popular, lay pilgrimage is a conspicuous aspect of contemporary Buddhist ritual. Tienzhu Shan in Hangzhou is one of the most visited cultic centers of the goddess Guanyin; the business that has grown up around servicing pilgrims epitomizes the secular character of contemporary lay pilgrimage in China.

RITES OF PASSAGE

The life cycle of a lay Buddhist in China is marked by a set of religious rites. Buddhist mothers usually bring newborn babies to the monastery so that the abbot can touch the baby's forehead, giving a blessing for longevity. During the Cultural Revolution the Mao cult became a quasi religion, and some Buddhist adherents also performed "revolutionary wedding rites" in front of a portrait of Chairman Mao. Tibetan Buddhists still practice symbolic "kidnapping" (of the bride from her parents) as a major part of the marriage rites. Since the 1980s memorial services have replaced the traditional Buddhist funeral rite of chaodu (which saved the dead from being punished in hell) in most areas of China. Most Han Buddhists are now cremated rather than buried, although a simplified form of the Buddhist funeral procession remains, with Chinese and Western bands playing traditional and modern dirges.

MEMBERSHIP

Proselytizing anywhere except within temples is illegal for Chinese Buddhists. Family influence has been a major factor in the growth of the Buddhist lay population. A lay devotee receives a formal certificate (jushi zheng, or guiyi zheng) after taking the Three Refuges and the Five Vows, confirming his jushi status and his membership in a Buddhist sangha. The over-whelming majority of lay Buddhists in China today, however, are xiangk (occasional Buddhists), whose affiliation with the sangha is often fluid and does not involve a membership ceremony, since they may worship other deities in popular religion as well.

Ordination is required to join a Buddhist monastery. The great shortage of Buddhist monks and nuns after the Cultural Revolution has been slowly alleviated since 1978 (two years after Mao's death, when the "reform" era began) by the restoration of Buddhist seminaries and academies, which had been in ruins.

SOCIAL JUSTICE

After 1949 the Communist government decided it must rectify "feudal" abnormalities and "injustices" embedded in the Chinese Buddhist clergy's monastic life. Monks and nuns were given civil rights (to vote and hold public office), but these rights obliged them to perform the civil duties other citizens had to fulfill, such as taking part in productive work, serving in the army, and actively participating in political campaigns and movements. Today lay Buddhists are required to serve in the army, but monks and nuns are not.

Neither the CBA nor any of its leaders may engage in social reform activities. Under the doctrine of "this-worldly" Buddhism, Chinese Buddhists are now actively engaged in various voluntary social services, including medicine, education, and environmental protection.

SOCIAL ASPECTS

In 1955 a group of young Shanghai monks called for a revision of the Vinaya (monastic regulations) with the hope of allowing marriage for monks and nuns. In support their request, they invoked the new marriage law of 1950, which aimed at abolishing the patriarchal and compulsory practices in the system of arranged marriages by parents. These monks compared the compulsory nature of enforced celibacy for Buddhist clerics to that of arranged marriages within the secular community. Xuyun (Hsü-yün; 1840–1959), an eminent Chan abbot and honorary president of the CBA, vetoed the request. While lay devotees can marry, he refuted, monks and nuns must remain celibate unless they give up their vocation and return to secular life (huansu). The new marriage law also allows lay Buddhists (like all Chinese citizens) to divorce.

POLITICAL IMPACT

Individual Buddhists have had little effect on politics in China, with the exception of the Dalai Lama, who has worked peacefully for Tibetan autonomy. The CBA's main function since its founding in 1952 has been to keep the Buddhist clerical ranks free from "counterrevolutionaries" and the laity from forming "subversive" heterodox sects. The government has also used the CBA internationally to conduct "people's diplomacy," fostering closer ties with neighboring Buddhist countries in South and Southeast Asia and Japan.

CONTROVERSIAL ISSUES

From the early days of the PRC, Buddhist participation in politics has caused controversy between progressive and conservative Buddhist clergy. Conservatives distrust the new constitution, which allows monks and nuns to vote and hold public office. The progressives disagree, and they have had to reinterpret the Vinaya (monastic regulations) in order to justify killing Chinese "counterrevolutionaries" or foreign enemies during war.

Compulsory abortion has been a controversial issue among lay Buddhists since the post-Mao government widely enforced the "one child only" policy after 1978. Some regard the practice as killing life.

CULTURAL IMPACT

Historically Buddhism has profoundly influenced Chinese architecture, sculpture, paintings, literature, and musical traditions. Buddhist architecture introduced into China included temples, pagodas, and grottos (cave complexes hewn into cliff walls). Because dynasty emperors were often the most pious Buddhists, Buddhist temples gradually took on the design of imperial palaces, bearing little resemblance to their Indian counterparts. The most famous Buddhist temple is the Famen Si in Xi'an, Shaanxi. Notable examples of a pagoda and a grotto are the Liuhe Ta (Six Harmonies Pagoda) in Hangzhou, originally built in 971 c.e. and the Magao Grottos in Dunhuang City in the northwest, which contain Buddhist mural paintings and stucco sculptures.

Even after the founding of the PRC, Buddhist-inspired literature remained popular among Chinese readers, especially the sixteenth-century Xiyouji (Journey to the West; English translators sometimes use the title Monkey). This novel was Mao's favorite reading, and he promoted a revolutionary interpretation of the classic. Fanhua (a Buddhist painting style), fanbei (Buddhist music), and chanwu (Chan dance) are increasingly popular in China today.

CHRISTIANITY

DATE OF ORIGIN 635 c.e.
NUMBER OF FOLLOWERS 91.2 million

HISTORY

Christian Nestorianism (Jingjiao, meaning "Luminous Faith") reached China from Syria in the mid-seventh century, died out after massive religious persecution in the mid-ninth century, and resurfaced in 1260. Franciscan missionaries commissioned by the pope arrived in China at the end of the thirteenth century. In both cases Christianity was accepted mostly by non-Han ethnic minorities, and it failed to survive the end of the Mongol Yuan dynasty (1271–1368 c.e.). Only at the end of the sixteenth century did the Christian faith become domesticated among the Han people, through Jesuit missionaries pioneered by Matteo Ricci (1552–1610).

Robert Morrison of the London Missionary Society was in 1807 the first Protestant missionary to reach China. Protestantism expanded steadily throughout the nineteenth century and well into the first half of the twentieth. Western missionaries established mission churches along denominational lines. In the 1920s the rising tide of anti-imperialism among China's intellectuals led to anti-Christian riots.

Meanwhile, independent Protestant churches under Chinese leadership emerged outside the mission churches; these include the Local Churches (or Local Assemblies; Difang jiaohu; a term referring to any indigenous church whose theology promotes the idea of a single, united church for each city, town, or village), the Jesus Family (Yesu jiating), and the True Jesus Church (Zhen Yesu jiaohui). Two major ministry churches also came into being: the Christian Tabernacle (Jidutu Huitan) in Beijing and the Great Horse Station Congregation (Damazhan Jiaohu) in Gangzhou (Canton), under the ministries of Wang Mingdao (1900–1991) and Lin Xian' gao (Samuel Lamb, born in 1924), respectively.

In 1952 the Communist regime expelled all Western missionaries from China. Two quasi-religious mass organizations—the Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM) for Protestants and the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association (CCPA) for Catholics—were established under the direct supervision of the CCP, which made membership mandatory for all Protestant and Catholic churches. Some Catholics and independent Protestant groups refused to join.

During the Cultural Revolution (1966–76), public worship was forbidden, and Christians with divergent backgrounds began meeting in private homes; thus, "house churches" (jiating jiaohui) emerged all over the country. Since the death of Mao in 1976 and the "opening up" of China, the house church movement has mushroomed, and Protestant churches along the eastern seaboard and in the interior provinces (some where Western missionaries began their work in the nineteenth century and others where indigenous Christian groups flourished in the first half of the twentieth century) have experienced waves of revivals. New, unorthodox, quasi-Christian sectarian groups have also arisen.

The Chinese Catholic Church, historically under the direct control of Rome, was finally granted the status of a "national church" in 1946 and put under the formal jurisdiction of a native hierarchy. The pope ordained Thomas Tien (Tian) Gengxin (1890–1967), the bishop of Beijing, as the first Chinese cardinal. After 1949 the papacy's continuing assertion of supreme ecclesiastical authority over the Chinese Catholic Church clashed with the PRC's policy of independence in religion. The PRC government rejected Rome's authority over episcopal appointments and the ordination of priests in China. Chinese bishops who had received their appointments from the pope before 1949 were forbidden to make contact with Rome. While government-approved clergy served the "official churches" (those who had joined the CCPA) in the cities, "underground" priests (those approved by Rome) served rural Chinese Catholic congregations that had refused to join.

In the post-Mao "reform" era (since 1978), wanting to meet the severe shortage of Chinese clerics, the Vatican has waived canonical law and allowed the Chinese Catholic Church to ordain new priests on their own initiative and even consecrate new bishops. A list of Chinese episcopal nominees must first be sent to Rome for final approval through Rome's representatives in Hong Kong. Over two-thirds of the Chinese Catholic bishops currently associated with the CCPA gained Vatican approval during the early 1990s. Meanwhile, Beijing has begun to allow the consecration through the CCPA of bishops who have already openly received appointments from Rome.

EARLY AND MODERN LEADERS

Of the Jesuits' early Catholic converts, the most prominent were Li Zhizao (Leo; died in 1630) and Xu Guangqi (Paul Hsü; 1562–1633), both high-ranking ministers in the Ming imperial court. Xu and the Italian mathematician Matteo Ricci translated Euclid's Elements of Geometry into Chinese as part of the missionary strategy of introducing Western sciences as a prelude to evangelism.

Liang Fa (Aa-fa; 1789–1855, baptized in 1816), the first ordained Chinese Protestant pastor and evangelist, was a prolific gospel tract writer. His Quanshi Liangyan (Sincere Exhortations to the People of the World) converted Hong Xiuquan (1814–1864), founder of the anti-Qing Taiping Heavenly Kingdom (Taiping Tianguo). Xi Shengmo (Shenmo means "overcoming the devil"; also known as Pastor Xi; 1830–96), the star convert of the China Inland Mission, was a legendary Christian leader and powerful evangelist.

Throughout the twentieth century Chinese Christian leaders submitted to the ruling authorities. Major conservatives (evangelicals) were Dora Yu (Yu Cidu; 1873–1931), Watchman Nee (Ni Tuosheng, 1903–72), Leland Wang (Wang Zai; 1898–1975), and John Sung (Song Shangjie; 1901–44). Major liberals were Cheng Jingyi (1881–1939), Yu Rizhang (David Yui; 1882–1936), and Wu Leichuan (1870–1944).

MAJOR THEOLOGIANS AND AUTHORS

Zhao Zichen (T.C. Chao; 1888–1979), a renowned theologian and a prolific writer, was a pioneering figure in advocating for the independence of the Chinese Church under the "three-self" principle (self-governing, self-propagating, and self-financing). Wu Yaozong (Y.T. Wu; 1893–1979), a liberal theologian and a prominent leader of China's YMCA, was the main architect behind the establishment of the TSPM. Wu argued that Chinese Christians must be "politically accountable." His successor, Ding Guangxun (K.H. Ting; born in 1915), was a consecrated Anglican bishop educated at Union Theological Seminary and Columbia University. Ding has contended that not every word in the Bible should be taken as the word of God and has advocated the remolding of Chinese Christianity as a faith that "answers to the tide of history and to the needs of the broad masses."

On the conservative side ("the spiritual group"; shulingpai), Reverend Jia Yuming (1880–1964) was the first Chinese theologian to introduce systematic theology (a branch of Western theology that explores Biblical doctrines analytically and thematically) into the Chinese Church. Wang Mingdao, a proponent of practical theology, emphasized moral discipline in day-to-day Christian life. Watchman Nee championed experiential theology, emphasizing a personal life of holiness, as well as the ecclesiastical theology of having only one church in each city, town, or village. Citing New Testament examples, such as the seven churches in seven localities mentioned in chapters 2 and 3 of Revelation, Nee called the idea a practical way of working out the "oneness of the Body of Christ" in a locality. This idea has contributed to the emergence of thousands of indigenous, independent Local Churches worldwide.

HOUSES OF WORSHIP AND HOLY PLACES

During the darkest days of the Cultural Revolution (1966–69), faithful Christians (mainly Protestants) still managed to meet in small groups in houses, fields, or parks. They sang hymns of praise, setting the lyrics to the tunes of revolutionary songs.

In the "reform" era (since 1978) Christians in China's large cities have met in traditional chapels or cathedrals. The Mo En Church (formerly Moor Memorial Methodist Church) in downtown Shanghai accommodates thousands of Protestant worshipers on Sunday. The great majority of Christians, however, meet in homes or larger "meeting points" (juhui dian), particularly in rural areas.

Marian shrines at Donglu in Hebei province and Sheshan in suburban Shanghai are the most prominent sites for Catholic pilgrimages. Apparitions of the Virgin Mary are rumored to have appeared at these and other holy places.

WHAT IS SACRED?

Both Chinese Protestants and Catholics treat the Communion bread and wine as sacred. Catholics also view holy pictures, as well as Marian statutes and icons of saints, as sacred.

HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS

Chinese Catholics celebrate Christmas, Easter, Pentecost, and the Assumption as the four great feast days. Those who live in the countryside also celebrate the Chinese popular festivals of the lunar calendar, from New Year's Day to the mid-Autumn festival, substituting compatible Catholic practices for the popular indigenous ones. At the Qingming Festival rural Catholics honor their ancestors with prayers in front of their graves rather than with sacrifices of food. At the Feasts of All Souls and All Saints, Catholic priests say masses for the dead.

Chinese Protestant members of official churches or of house congregations with denominational backgrounds celebrate traditional Christian holidays, such as Christmas and Easter. Indigenous independent congregations, such as the Local Churches, observe only the Lord's Day (Sunday) and reject Christmas and Easter for their "pagan" origins. They often celebrate traditional Chinese festivals by evangelizing. The Seventh-day Adventists observe the Sabbath (Saturday) instead of the Lord's Day.

MODE OF DRESS

After Mao's death in 1976, Chinese Christians, like other Chinese citizens, changed their gray Sun Yat-sen uniform (made of loose pants and jacket, required clothing during the Mao era) for more Westernized dress. Especially in rural areas, Christians tend to dress conservatively, both in style and in color. Clergy in the official churches wear formal vestments during worship, according to their denominational tradition; other clergy usually dress in Western style suits.

DIETARY PRACTICES

Chinese Christians follow the injunction in the New Testament (Acts 15:29) to abstain from eating the meat of strangled animals, animal blood, and foods that have been sacrificed to idols. Chinese Catholics still observe the prohibition against eating meat on Fridays. Some fast to make their prayers more effective.

RITUALS

Christian worship in official Protestant churches in such urban centers as Beijing follows the practice of the pre-1949 mission churches and is patterned on a typical Western service. Baptism by sprinkling is most common, and weddings and memorial services are conducted in Western style.

Local Churches and Seventh-day Adventists in Beijing and Shanghai conduct their worship services openly and independently. The vast majority of Protestants, however, meet at unregistered "house churches" (jiating jiaohui) or registered "meeting points" (juhui dian) in both rural communities and cities. Some Local Churches advise women to wear a head covering at meetings, often a black hairnet. The Local Church in Nanjing holds weekday evening meetings that sometimes include a sermon; sometimes the meetings are for prayers and fellowship. On Sunday mornings the church holds Holy Communion, which they call "meeting for breaking the bread" (bobing juhui). Baptisms are performed in a Baptismo (commonly a cement or ceramic pool). Most Local Church weddings and funerals include scriptural readings, frequently from Ephesians 5:23–27 for weddings and from I Corinthians 15:50–58 for funerals.

Since the Second Vatican Council (1962–65) Catholic priests have conducted Mass in native Chinese dialects in such major cities as Beijing and Tianjin, whereas some older priests in the countryside still hold Mass in Latin. Other aspects of the Mass have changed significantly: The altar is now set between the priest and the congregation, so that the priest faces the worshipers, and congregants may sing hymns in Chinese and participate in the reading of the Scriptures. Underground priests in rural areas conduct Mass and sacramental rituals in believers' homes.

RITES OF PASSAGE

Official Protestant churches perform rites identical with their counterparts outside China, with some notable exceptions. Whether operated officially (registered) or as house churches (unregistered), Local Churches require believers who desire baptism to show evidence of having been saved and to learn the "basic truths" regarding Christ's redemptive work on the cross. Baptism is by full immersion. If a believer is called to serve the Lord full-time, a consecration meeting is conducted for his sake; in some places church elders lay hands on him and bless him so he will receive spiritual gifts to enhance his ministry. Weddings afford a couple the opportunity to consecrate their new family to the Lord. Funerals allow the living to testify to the faithful Christian service of the deceased.

Chinese Catholic children are baptized in infancy. At age seven they may begin receiving Holy Communion at Mass. Young Catholics participate in the sacrament of confirmation at the onset of puberty. Virtually all rural Catholics share some non-Catholic folk customs associated with burials: providing a funeral banquet, wearing mourning garments, and forming a procession to the grave site. Catholics, however, do not kowtow to the casket or burn incense sticks and mock paper money. Instead, Catholic peasants sprinkle holy water on the casket, say prayers for the dead, and place a simple cross on the burial mound or tombstone. When one is available, a Catholic priest attends the funeral and leads the prayers; otherwise the family of the deceased leads the service.

MEMBERSHIP

Catholicism is an inherited faith in China, particularly in rural areas. Those born into Catholic families need not make any personal commitment to the church. In official Protestant churches membership is confirmed by baptism. Church membership grows through public evangelism conducted in registered meeting places and through personal contact with relatives and friends. Government regulations forbid preaching the gospel to children under 18, though the policy has been modified since the 1980s.

House church members evangelize aggressively. Young members become itinerant evangelists, boldly roaming beyond the boundaries of their native provinces in search of converts, which is against government regulations. Some young evangelists sign wills before leaving parents or spouses in anticipation of arrest and imprisonment.

SOCIAL JUSTICE

The PRC's religious policy is that all religious practices must be compatible with Chinese socialism. Despite their rapid growth, contemporary Protestant and Catholic churches may not effect any social reforms and dare not publicly voice concern over rampant official corruption and social injustice. Since 1978 Chinese Protestants and Catholics have resumed some of their traditional social services, such as providing famine relief and setting up schools and orphanages.

SOCIAL ASPECTS

Chinese Catholicism and Protestantism consider marriage a holy union (one of the seven sacraments for Catholics) that may be broken only in cases of adultery or death. The traditional Chinese emphasis on the family and the relationship between husband and wife (valued as one of the five cardinal bonds in Chinese society) reinforces the Christian value. Divorce—not allowed for Catholics—is infrequent among Chinese Protestants, especially among house church believers in the rural areas. Mixed marriages among urban Catholics are common, but in rural communities Catholic parents usually seek Catholic wives for their sons.

POLITICAL IMPACT

Chinese government policy forbids any religious organization from interfering with the political or judicial process or from holding any activity that may have a negative impact on national unification or harmonious relationships among nationals. Even after the 1982 publication of Document 19, which embodies the government's newest and considerably liberalized guidelines governing religious affairs, little room is allowed for Christian groups to voice political concerns. The essential function of the TSPM and the CCPA is identical with that of the CBA: to implement the official guidelines contained in Document 19. At the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (an advisory organization whose members include high-ranking CCP officials as well as representatives from small parties and registered religious organizations), the Catholic and Protestant representatives are allowed to voice some degree of concern over political matters.

CONTROVERSIAL ISSUES

Abortion is extremely controversial among conservative Chinese Christian groups, even though they have no objection to the common practice of sterilization (performed to ensure compliance with the government's "one child only" policy). Women practice ministry widely, in both official and house churches, but certain conservative groups still advise women to cover their heads and allow women to speak only to all-female audiences.

Also controversial is the legal status of "cults" (xiejiao), which are the objects of a recent government crackdown. The government has condemned and outlawed some Christian groups as cults on the basis of their political outlook rather than their religious doctrine. It has treated some Local Church groups in Zhejiang as cults and has labeled them the "shouters sect" (Huhanpai) because they were found praying loudly en masse during their meetings. Some of these groups have been vindicated and granted legal status after registering their meeting facilities with the government. Other groups, such as the Eastern Lightning sect (Dongfang Shandian), are regarded as cults both by the government and by Chinese Christians at large. Eastern Lightning originated in Henan in 1989 and claims that Christ has already returned to earth (like the "lightning") as a woman in China (the "East"), as Jesus predicted in Matthew 24:27. The group is said to have specifically targeted house church members in the rural areas and the Catholic clergy as potential converts.

CULTURAL IMPACT

Since the New Cultural Movement of the May Fourth era (1919), Christian influence on Chinese literature and music has been pronounced. The novel Yao (Medicine) by Lu Xun (1881–1936), an eminent leader of the new Chinese literary movement, portrays vividly the bold spirit of suffering of Christ. The work of Bing Xin (pen name of Xie Wanying; born in 1900), a renowned female author, was inspired by Christ's spirit of love. Death of Jesus by Mao Dun (1896–1981); the confessional literature of Ba Jin (born in 1905), China's St. Augustine; and the works of leading contemporary scholars, such as Zhu Weizhi and literary critic and historian Ma Jia, all attest to the profound impact of Christianity on Chinese literature.

Thousands of classic church songs and hymns by such Western composers as Charles Wesley, John Newton, Fannie Crosby, and A.B. Simpson have been translated into Chinese. In the late 1920s Chinese Christians began writing their own hymns. The 1936 hymnal Putian Songzan (Hymns of Universal Praise) and the hymnal compiled by Watchman Nee (which includes his own compositions) are widely used among Chinese Protestants. The music popular among the house churches comes from Jianan Shixuan (Songs of Canaan), composed by Lü Xiaomin, a young Chinese Muslim who converted to Christianity.

Other Religions

By the late seventh century Muslim traders had reached China by land from the west (the Silk Route) and by sea from the southeast. Foreign Muslims from the West settled in northwestern China during the Tang dynasty (618–907), and under their influence, some Chinese had converted to Islam by the eighth century. As part of the Mongol empire during the Yuan dynasty (1279–1368), China found its land and sea communications with the Muslim world greatly improved. Kublai Khan, the Mongol ruler, aggressively recruited Muslims from various parts of his empire to help his government as ministers and tax collectors, resulting in an influx of Muslims into all parts of China. Though a minority, the Muslim population increased steadily, primarily through births, intermarriages between Muslim men and Chinese women, and the adoption of Chinese male children into wealthy Muslim families as mates for their daughters.

The founder of the Chinese Ming dynasty (1368–1643) decreed that Muslims in China must adopt Chinese dress, take a Chinese name, and learn and speak Chinese. The descendants of these Chinese-speaking Muslims became known as the Hui, or Chinese Muslims. The Hui, though they complied with the decree, held tenaciously to their faith, their religious practices, and their dietary restrictions, retaining their identity as members of the Muslim world. Contemporary Hui live in nearly every urban center and town throughout China, with the largest concentrations in the Ningxia and Qinghai Autonomous Regions in the northwest. Some Mongols in Inner Mongolia on China's northern frontier are also Muslims.

Turkic-speaking Muslims, the majority of whom are Uyghurs, are concentrated in China's far northwest (Xinjiang). Both Turkic and Hui Muslims responded to repression under the Qing dynasty (1644–1911) with frequent rebellions. The legendary Hui figure, Ma Hualong (1810–71), led a major insurrection against the Qing from 1862 to 1878 that ravaged all of northwestern China. During the Republican period (1912–49) the Kazakh chieftain Osman (Usman) Bator led a full-scale rebellion in Xinjiang against the Nationalist government and formed the Eastern Turkestan Republic. Two Muslim leaders in the northwest, Burhan and Saifudin, negotiated a compact with the Communist regime, resulting in the 1955 creation of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. Shahidi, a Tartar general of Xinjiang and chairman of the Islamic Association of China, has supported carrying out the CCP's policies among the Turkic-Muslim population, but radical Muslims in Xinjiang have always promoted a separatist movement. The 1999 jailing of Rabiya Kadeer, a prominent Muslim businesswoman, reflects the continuing tension between non-Chinese-speaking Muslims and the PRC government.

Since the founding of the PRC, serious local disturbances have occurred frequently in the northwest between the Gedimu ("the ancient tradition"; officially recognized Islamic groups) and newer organizations, such as Sufi orders that emerged before 1949. Chinese Sufism, which originated in Central Asia, is a synthesis of Islam, Taoism, and martial arts practices; it emphasizes the inner, mystical dimension of Islam. Sufi leaders among the Uyghurs maintain influence over their adherents through tight control of sacred religious sites.

Wang Daiyu (1580–1650), acclaimed as China's most illustrious Islamic scholar, wrote the first important text in Chinese on the Islamic faith. The twentieth-century's famous four chief ahongs (grand imams) were Wang Jingzhai (1879–1949), Da Busheng (1874–1965), Ha Decheng (1888–1943), and Ma Songting (1895–1992). Ma Jian (Ma Zishi, 1906–78), a prolific translator from Arabic into Chinese, was actively involved in PRC politics, and he emphasized the compatibility between the teachings of Islam and Marxism.

China's most famous mosques include Fenghuang Si in Hangzhou, Huaisheng Si in Guangzhou (Canton), Shengyou Si (Mosque of Friends of the Prophet) in Quanzhou (all three built in the eleventh century), and the thirteenth-century Xianhe Si in Yangzhou. Shrines (known as gongbei among the Hui and mazar in Xinjiang) built around the tombs of Sufi masters and other religious leaders are important sites for Muslim worshipers in the northwest. The Honglefu daotang (Hall of the Path or Doctrine) in Ningxia, the site of Ma Hualong's execution and tomb, regained its status as a major center of Sufi worship in the 1980s. Thousands of followers of the Zheherenye (Jahriyyah) Sufi sect from Yunnan, Xinjiang, and elsewhere gather there during major religious festivals.

Muslims in China may not consume pork or other nonhalal meat and generally eat lamb and mutton. Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang eat polo (pilaf, made of mutton and rice) and naan bread (baked as in northern India and Afghanistan); naan stalls are common in cities as far east as Xi'an. Major Muslim festivals observed in China are Shengjijie (Maolujie; the Prophet's birthday), Kaijaijie (the Fast-Breaking Festival at the end of Ramadan), and Guerbangjie (Corban, or Feast of Sacrifices; also called Zhongxiaojie, or Feast of Loyalty and Filiality).

Islamic worship rituals (libai or baigong) in China include the five daily prayers and the observance of Ramadan. The Hui largely ignore the traditional Muslim rites of passage, though some rural communities, such as the town of Na in Ningxia, faithfully preserve them. On the third day after the birth of each child in Na, a local ahong (imam) reads the scripture in the family's home and gives the child a jingming (Koranic name). The family also gives the child a hanming (Chinese name) or xiaoming (school name) for official purposes. All Hui boys in Qinghai undergo gehetainai (circumcision) when they are 12.

Hui men may be distinguished from Han Chinese by their round-topped, brimless skullcaps made of white or black cotton or wool. Beards are also an important marker, especially for older men. Turkic Muslims may be identified by their caps and ethnic dress. Men and boys favor "flower caps" (colorfully embroidered square caps) or tall fur or felt hats. Women generally wear black, white, or green kerchiefs made of silk or cotton. Sufis of the Jahriyyah orders shave the sides of their beards in memory of their founding shaykh (religious leader), Ma Mingxin (1719–81), whose beard was shaved off before his execution.

Taoism as a religion (Taojiao) originated in a movement during the second century called Tianshi tao (the Way of Celestial Masters). The founding of this movement is attributed to Zhang Ling (Zhang Daoling; 34–156 c.e.). Zhang claimed that the Taishang Laojun (Lord Lao the Most High: the deified title of Laozi, who lived from approximately 604 to 531 b.c.e.) bestowed the title Tianshi (Celestial Master) on him in a revelation in 142 c.e. In time the movement absorbed elements of popular religion. Wang Chongyang (1127–70), founder of the Quanzhen (Perfect Truth) sect, was the first major Taoist theologian whose ideology combined Taoist, Buddhist, and, to a lesser degree, Confucian ideas.

Taoists believe in a hierarchy of gods—including mythical figures as well as deified human beings—all under the supreme deity Yuhuang dadi (the Jade Emperor). Taoist rituals performed by individuals are generally aimed at prolongation of life or immortality. Every Taoist must perform the zhai (purification) rituals involving sacrifices, fasts, and mental renewal. Although Taoist beliefs and rituals, such as the jiao community ritual for cosmic renewal, have all been absorbed into the complex amalgam of Chinese popular religious practices, Taoism as a religion has maintained a separate institutional identity in Chinese society.

Most Taoists in China today are priests, monks, and nuns. Along with some lay devotees, they conduct their religious rituals at Taoist monasteries. The best-known Quanzhen monastery is the White Cloud Monastery (Baiyuan guan) in Beijing, which currently houses the headquarters of the Chinese Taoist Association. Other famous Taoist sacred sites (temples, pavilions, and the like) are the Yonglo gong (Chunyang gong; gong means "palace") in Shanxi and the Louguan tai (tai means terrace; also called the Ziyün lou) on the mountain Zhongnan Shan in Shaanxi. Other Taoist sacred mountains include Wudang Shan in Hubei, Mao Shan in Jiangsu, Longhu Shan in Jiangxi, Qingcheng Shan in Sichuan, and Lao Shan in Shandong.

The PRC's regulations embodied in Document 19 outlaw any public religious rituals (including Taoist) that it considers superstitious or harmful to the physical and mental health of the people. The government has also banned some traditional Taoist rituals performed for individuals, such as spirit writing (fuluan, a divinatory technique for communicating with gods). Local authorities may simply ignore such practices in rural communities.

Confucianism is a belief system that integrates the original teachings of Confucius (551–479 b.c.e.) and new elements advanced by later Confucian thinkers. It consists of doctrinal teachings on proper interpersonal relations within human society and ritual practices performed in relation to supernatural beings and the spirits of deceased ancestors. Many of the beliefs and practices Confucius adopted had been in existence since the Western Zhou dynasty (c. 1027–777 b.c.e.). From the eleventh century c.e. onward, because of its ideological and ritual development in response to Chan mysticism and Taoist metaphysics, the belief system became known as Neo-Confucianism. In modern times the system has taken on the name of New Confucianism.

Throughout the time of the imperial dynasties, Confucian rituals were an intrinsic part of state religion. These rituals were largely practiced among the educated elite, including officials in the imperial bureaucracy and upper-class gentry in the countryside. Until 1905 Confucianism was a basis for upward social mobility, as the civil service examination required candidates to write an essay on a phrase from a Confucian text. The Communist revolution under Mao totally reoriented Chinese social structure, and Confucian rituals were virtually abandoned. Confucius temples are still preserved (like famous Buddhist and Taoist temples) as national cultural monuments.

Confucian beliefs recognize a supreme reality (or being) in the universe known as Heaven (Tien) or Lord on High (Shangdi), as well as the existence of gods (shen) and spirits (ling). Confucians also venerate celestial and earthly deities (the sun, moon, mountains, and rivers), all of which are presumed to have the power to intervene in human affairs. Only the emperor, as the Son of Heaven (Tienzi), could conduct the grand rite of sacrificing burnt offerings in the name of the Cult of Heaven. The emperor also offered smaller sacrifices at the altars of the earth, sun, and moon located (since the time of the Ming dynasty; 1368–1644) in the imperial capital. Heaven had his own will (tienyi), and he issued mandates (tienming). As Son of Heaven, the emperor had to embody cardinal Confucian virtues, such as benevolence (ren) and justice (yi) to his people. Before withdrawing his mandate from an unworthy monarch, Heaven showed his displeasure by issuing warnings to the emperor in the form of portents, omens, and wonders (such as earthquakes, solar and lunar eclipses, and unusual and freakish occurrences in the natural world).

Confucianism also involved family rituals, the most important being ancestor worship. Various rites pertinent to the human life cycle (those surrounding adulthood, prospective marriages, funerals, and anniversaries of a death) have been absorbed into the syncretic system of popular religion. Under the PRC Kong Miao—the Confucius Temple in Qufu, Shandong (Confucius' birth place)—is a tourist site for religious pilgrimage. Some metropolitan cities, such as Beijing and Tianjin, also have Confucius temples. A small number of Confucian ritual specialists, along with Taoist and Buddhist priests, may be hired to preside over popular religious events.

Silas Wu

See Also Vol. 1: Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism

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