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China
The Development Challenge: The People's Republic of China (PRC) sprawls across East Asia. Its sheer size and economic power dominate the region. For the United States, seeing China fully integrated into the global economic and trading system is critical for regional security, prosperity, environmental protection, and peace. Not only does China play a key role in international security affairs through its permanent membership in the United Nations Security Council, but it also is a major U.S. trading partner. Trade between the two countries totaled almost $150 billion in 2002. For these economic and security reasons, the United States actively seeks a good relationship with China.
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Currently, there is no USAID presence in the PRC. The United States, however, maintains principled and purposeful engagement with the Government and people of China. Although significant differences remain, this engagement has led to important gains in a number of critical areas, such as human rights and tariff reductions. The Chinese Government does not share core American values on human rights, religious freedom, or democracy, and the United States and China also disagree on the best policies for Taiwan. To narrow these differences and take advantage of the many areas where U.S. and Chinese interests coincide, the United States undertakes regular contacts and dialogue.
Since 1979, China has been engaged in an effort to reform its economy. China has tried to combine central planning with market-oriented reforms to increase productivity, living standards, and technological quality without exacerbating inflation, unemployment, and budget deficits. The United States firmly supports this effort. In addition to reducing the role of ideology in economic policy, the Chinese leadership has emphasized political and social stability and economic productivity. This has included increased support for market-based personal income growth and consumption. In the last 20 years, China has taken more people out of poverty than any country. Yet challenges remain. More than 200 million Chinese live on less than $1 a day, many of them in poor and remote regions of the country. The number of urban poor is also on the rise.
The Chinese Government's efforts to promote rule of law are significant and ongoing, but rule of law is still weak. After the Cultural Revolution, China's leaders worked 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 enacted.
With its entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, China agreed to lower tariffs and ease import and export restrictions for Chinese and foreign business people. This opens up new opportunities for U.S. industries and service providers, particularly in the banking, insurance, and telecommunications fields. However, hundreds of laws and regulations still need to be put into place, and enforcement of existing laws and regulations needs to be strengthened before China can comply fully with WTO requirements. Over the years, China has come to rely more upon foreign financing and imports, but modernizing the banking and legal systems to accommodate increased foreign ties remains a major hurdle.
The USAID Program: USAID's program in China is focused around two objectives:
- Improve China's legal infrastructure so that it is more compatible with a market economy and better protects its citizens' rights; and
- Assist Tibetan communities to preserve their cultural traditions, promote sustainable development, and conserve the environment.
The first objective is being met through a cooperative agreement to Temple University that is introducing key members of the Chinese legal and judicial system to the constitutional principles that support the rule of law -- due process, transparency, and equal access to justice. The program also teaches critical thinking and advocacy skills to support the application of those principles in the Chinese judicial system.
The second objective is being met through activities that directly assist Tibetan communities in China. This program is implemented through NGOs headquartered outside China that provide Tibetan communities with access to the financial, technical, marketing, environmental, and educational resources they need to sustain their traditional livelihoods, unique culture and environment and to avoid economic marginalization as China develops its western regions.
Other Program Elements: Department of State's Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor (State/DRL) manages a number of activities that support rule of law in China. USAID efforts complement these activities. As part of its Greater Mekong HIV/AIDS strategy, USAID will work on a limited scale with NGOs in two southern provinces in China, Guangxi and Yunnan. Over the past eight years, USAID's American Schools and Hospitals Abroad (ASHA) program has supported the construction and equipment of the Center for American Studies. ASHA has also supported the Johns Hopkins Center for Chinese-American Studies in Nanjing and provided a grant to Project Hope to support training for the Shanghai Children's Medical Center.
Other Donors: China does not have a formal aid group. Important donors include Japan, Germany, and the United Kingdom. Sweden, the United Nations, Australia, Italy, New Zealand, and Canada also provide support. Multilateral donors include the World Bank, the European Union, the Asian Development Bank, and the United Nations Development Program.
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