Happy Lunar New Year from the USC US-China Institute!
Talking Points, April 15 -29, 2009
The USC U.S.-China Institute's weekly newsletter - news about U.S.-China relations and China-focused talks, conferences, performances, and screenings.
April 16, 2009
Talking Points
April 15 - 29, 2009
Chinese consumers are spending. Vehicle sales hit a record in March. Overall retail sales in China for the first quarter of 2009 are up over 14%. Some retailers, though, are taking measures to prepare for tougher times. Wal-Mart has 147 stores and more than 50,000 employees in China. On Wednesday it announced that it would reassign or lay off about 1,000 assistant managers. Here in the U.S., retail sales dropped in March after rising in January and February. Total U.S. trade with China in January and February was down 15% from the same period in 2008.
Last December, we marked the 30th anniversary of the establishment of formal diplomatic relations between the U.S. and China. A majority in Congress was not satisfied with the Carter Administration’s assertion that “the United States continues to have an interest in the peaceful resolution of the Taiwan issue” and on April 10, 1979 adopted the Taiwan Relations Act. TRA declares
“It is the policy of the United States … (4) to consider any effort to determine the future of Taiwan by other than peaceful means… a threat to the peace and security of the Western Pacific area and of grave concern to the United States; (5) to provide Taiwan with arms of a defensive character, and (6) to maintain the capacity of the United States to resist any resort to force … that would jeopardize the security, or the social or economic system of the people on Taiwan….” (click here for the full text, this and many other documents are available at our website)
In the thirty years since TRA was enacted, the United States has sold arms to Taiwan, over the consistent objections of the Chinese government. The most recent sale (of $6.5 billion worth of weapons) was announced last October. Huang Xueping of the Chinese Defense Ministry condemned the sale and the TRA justification offered by American authorities: “The so-called 'Taiwan Relations Act' severely runs counter to the principles of the three Sino-US joint communiqués and the fundamental norms governing international relations."
China and Taiwan are dramatically different places that they were thirty years ago. China is much more prosperous and open than ever and Taiwan has moved from a KMT dictatorship to a vibrant democracy while continuing to advance economically. Cross-strait trade is large and growing and in past year flight and shipping linkages between the two have expanded. Meetings between top officials have become more frequent and routine. Both governments are preoccupied with how the global economic downturn is devastating exports and are trying to boost domestic consumer spending. Many organizations are marking TRA’s 30th anniversary with events of one sort or another. Details on these and other events across North America are below and in the calendar section of our website.
As we and others have noted, the TRA milestone is just one of many anniversaries this year. While the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic will be grandly marked in October, other anniversaries are politically sensitive. Former Chinese Communist Party chief Hu Yaobang died on April 15, 1989. Hu had been removed from office two years earlier following student demonstrations. Many students mourned his passing and some used it as opportunity reassert calls for democratic reform. Large demonstrations in Tiananmen Square followed.
On April 25, 1999 thousands of Falungong followers staged a silent protest outside the Zhongnanhai, where many of China’s top leaders live and work. They were protesting the government’s refusal to allow the group to register as a legal entity. The protest, which caught the regime off-guard, generated a firm response. Falungong was formally banned and the government initiated a vigorous effort to suppress the movement and to get members to renounce their ties to it. UCLA political scientist James Tong has carefully documented the effectiveness of the government’s actions and shares his findings this afternoon. We hope you can join us.
And we hope you’ll forward Talking Points to others and encourage them to subscribe at http://china.usc.edu/subscribe.aspx.
Best wishes,
The USC U.S.-China Institute
Support the institute at: http://www.usc.edu/giving/.
USC:
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04/16/2009: Revenge of the Forbidden City: Effectiveness of the Anti-Falungong Campaign in China, 1999-2005 |
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04/22/2009: From Death Anxiety to Appreciation |
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04/23/2009: Thirty Years and Counting: The Taiwan Relations Act and Its Multi-Faceted Significance in U.S.-China-Taiwan Relations |
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04/29/2009: China and India: Variation in the Reregulation of Foreign Direct Investment in the Age of Globalization |
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04/29/2009: Lecture |
California:
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4/17/2009: Republican Era Newspapers: The Journalistic and the Literary |
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04/18/2009: New Media and Civil Society in China: A Roundtable Discussion on the Political Impact of the Internet |
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04/20/2009: Territorialization and Deterritorialization of Peasants in China's Urban Transformation |
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04/20/2009: The Rising Tide |
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04/24/2009: Collective Killings in Rural China During the CulturalRevolution: Evidence From Guangxi and Guangdong |
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04/27/2009: The Alley-Level State: Residents and Neighborhood Organizations in Beijing and Taipei |
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04/28/2009: The Other Half |
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04/29/2009: Tang-Song Transition and Material Culture: A Case Study of Tombs in Hubei |
North America:
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04/15/2009 - 04/17/2009: US-China Business Cooperation Conference |
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04/15/2009: The 2009 Annual Reischauer Lectures |
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04/16/2009: The Future of US-Taiwan-China Relations |
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04/20/2009: The Trauma of Displacement: Chinese Journalists in Wartime, 1937-1945 |
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04/25/2009: Does the Party Still Control the Message? |
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04/28/2009: United States and China: What Next? |
Exhibitions:
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02/12/2009 - 06/07/2009: Noble Tombs at Mawangdui: Art and Life in the Changsha Kingdom, Third Century BCE to First Century |
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11/03/2008 - 11/03/2009: Ancient Arts of China: A 5000 Year Legacy |
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11/14/2008 - 11/14/2009: Chinese Art: A Seattle Perspective |
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11/15/2008 - 11/15/2009: Masters of Adornment: The Miao People of China |
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02/12/2009 - 02/12/2010: Art of Adornment: Tribal Beauty |
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