CRS Issue Statement on the Korean Peninsula and Japan

Mark E. Manyin, Coordinator
Specialist in Asian Affairs

The Korean Peninsula and Japan represent a study in contrasts for U.S. foreign policy interests: the established democracies of Japan and the South Korea are long-standing U.S. military allies, while totalitarian North Korea represents one of the United States= biggest challenges through its production of nuclear weapons and missiles and its record of serious human rights abuses. Issues for Congress with respect to the three states relate to strategy and policies to maintain U.S. interests in security, stability, human rights, and trade and financial relationships both with and within the region. 

The most prominent issue is North Korea's nuclear weapons program. For Congress, the major policy question is to what extent it should support a policy of engagement through diplomacy and incentives or a policy of coercion through additional pressure and confrontation, or a combination of the two. A challenge for the United States is balancing its desire to achieve a full dismantlement of North Korea's nuclear weapons program and prevent proliferation with concerns about: North Korea=s willingness to stick with any deal, the continued evolution of its long-range missile capabilities, and the interests of the four other parties (China, South Korea, Japan, and Russia) in the Six-Party Talks over North Korea's program.


Date of Report: January 15, 2010
Number of Pages: 3
Order Number: IS40341
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The 2009 Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Meetings and U.S. Trade Policy in Asia

Michael F. Martin
Specialist in Asian Affairs

Congress and the Executive Branch have historically identified the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum (APEC) as potentially important in the promotion of liberalized international trade and investment in Asia, and possibly the rest of the world. APEC's commitment to the goal of trade and investment liberalization is embodied in its Bogor Goals, in which APEC members pledged to free and open trade and investment in the Asia-Pacific by 2010 for industrialized economies and 2020 for developing economies. 

The 2009 APEC Leaders' and Ministerial Meetings focused on balanced growth, resisting protectionism, fostering trade and investment liberalization, accelerating regional economic integration, and enhancing human security. In the Leaders' Declaration, APEC presented a new "growth paradigm" based on balanced, sustainable, and inclusive growth. In the Ministerial Meeting, one of the main topics was efforts to be taken at, behind, and across borders to promote regional economic integration. 

The next two years may be a critical period for APEC and its achievement of the Bogor Goals. The 2010 meetings are to be held in Yokohama, Japan—the target year for APEC's industrialized members to achieve the Bogor Goals. The United States will host the 2011 meetings. The Obama Administration has chosen Honolulu as the host city for the 2011 Leaders' Meeting, but has not given a clear indication of APEC's role in U.S. trade policy. 

Several alternative avenues for the promotion of trade integration in Asia have emerged, challenging the past U.S. focus on APEC. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is promoting the creation of various forms of an all-Asian free trade association that could exclude the United States. In November 2009, the Obama Administration announced it would to enter into negotiations with the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement (TPP), a free trade agreement between Brunei Darussalam, Chile, New Zealand, and Singapore. 

Critics of APEC have referred to the association as a "talk shop," that has produced few results. However, studies conducted by APEC reveal a substantial drop in members' average tariff rates, the elimination of a number of non-tariff trade barriers, and a major reduction in the transaction costs associated with international trade—all of which is likely attributable at least in part to APEC initiatives. 

Historical trade data is consistent with the premise that APEC has been successful in promoting greater trade within its member economies and with the rest of the world. Both the exports and imports of APEC members have grown faster than global trade since the creation of APEC. However, APEC's greater trade growth may be attributable to other factors than the liberalization of trade and investment policies among its members. 

The 111th Congress may reexamine U.S. policy towards APEC. It has already increased APECrelated funding in FY2009, in part to provide for the preparations for the 2011 APEC meetings to be held in the United States. In addition, there are other actions Congress may choose to take with respect to APEC, depending on its determination of APEC's role in relation to trade promotion initiatives in Asia. Congressional attitudes and actions may also be influenced by the Obama Administration's trade policies in Asia—and the role APEC plays in those policies. 

This report will be updated as circumstances warrant.


Date of Report: February 4, 2010
Number of Pages: 27
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Human Rights in China: Trends and Policy Implications

Thomas Lum
Specialist in Asian Affairs

Hannah Fischer
Information Research Specialist

Human rights has been a principal area of U.S. concern in its relations with the People's Republic of China (PRC), particularly since the violent government crackdown on the Tiananmen democracy movement in 1989. Some policy makers contend that the U.S. policy of engagement with China has failed to produce meaningful political reform. Others argue that U.S. engagement has helped to accelerate economic and social change and build social and legal foundations for democracy and human rights in the PRC. This report analyzes China's mixed record on human rights – major human rights issues, PRC human rights legislation, and the development of civil society, legal awareness, and social and political activism. This report discusses major areas of interest but does not provide an exhaustive account of all human rights abuses or related incidents. 

Fear of social unrest appears to be a large factor behind the PRC government's resistance toward major political reform. The PRC government has attempted to respond to public grievances and popular calls for redress while subduing activists who attempt to organize mass protests and dissidents who openly call for fundamental change. This approach has both produced incremental improvements in human rights conditions and allowed for continued, serious abuses. Major, ongoing problems include excessive use of violence by security forces or their proxies, unlawful detention, torture, arbitrary use of state security laws against political dissidents, coercive family planning policies, state control of information, and religious and ethnic persecution. Tibetans, ethnic Uighur (Uygur) Muslims, and Falun Gong adherents have been singled out for especially harsh treatment. 

China's leadership has addressed rising public expectations through a combination of economic growth policies and carrot-and-stick political tactics. In so doing, it has planted seeds of potential change. China's developing legal system, while plagued by corruption and political interference, has provided activists with new means of defending rights. Although generally supportive of the status quo, the urban middle class has begun to engage in narrowly targeted protests against local government policies, following over a decade of social unrest among wage laborers and farmers. Despite a massive censorship effort, the Internet and other communications technologies have made it impossible for the government to clamp down on information as fully as before. 

On July 5, 2009, a peaceful demonstration involving hundreds of Uighur residents in Urumqi, Xinjiang region, turned into an anti-government and inter-ethnic riot after armed police attacked the demonstrators. The state media reported over 200 deaths and nearly 1,700 injuries, mostly ethnic Han Chinese, while Uighur residents claimed that many Uighur deaths were not reported. PRC authorities reportedly arrested 400 people, predominantly Uighur, and imposed death sentences upon 17. 

The U.S. government's efforts to promote human rights and democracy in China have included open or formal criticisms of PRC human rights conditions, bilateral dialogue, sanctions, and congressionally sponsored legislation, hearings, and investigations. Members of the 111th Congress have called upon the PRC leadership to release political prisoners, cease persecution of Falun Gong and "house churches," and respect the rights of ethnic minorities; introduced various resolutions supporting human rights in China; and passed legislation upholding Tibetan rights, commemorating the 1989 democracy movement, and supporting human rights activists. The U.S. government also provides funding for rule of law, civil society development, participatory government, labor rights, Tibetan culture, Internet access, and other programs in the PRC. .


Date of Report: January 25, 2010
Number of Pages: 44
Order Number: RL34729
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U.S.-South Korea Beef Dispute: Agreement and Status

Remy Jurenas
Specialist in Agricultural Policy

Mark E. Manyin
Specialist in Asian Affairs

South Korea's commercial significance for U.S. beef is reflected in the position taken by several Members of Congress, who have stated that congressional consideration of, and support for, the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA) depends on South Korea fully opening its market to U.S. beef. In 2003, South Korea was the third-largest market for U.S. beef exports, prior to the ban its government imposed after the first U.S. cow infected with mad cow disease, or BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy), was discovered. 

On April 18, 2008, U.S. and South Korean negotiators reached agreement on the sanitary rules that Korea is to apply to beef imports from the United States. It allows for imports of all cuts of U.S. boneless and bone-in beef and other beef products from cattle, irrespective of age, as long as specified risk materials known to transmit mad cow disease are removed and other conditions are met. However, both sides revised this deal on June 21, 2008, to limit sales of U.S. beef to cattle less than 30 months old. Within a few days of the revised agreement, South Korea published rules to put this agreement into effect, and quickly began to inspect U.S. beef sitting in cold storage. The U.S. Department of Agriculture similarly began to implement a new program to verify that the beef sold is processed from cattle under 30 months old. 

While the U.S. beef industry and U.S. policymakers welcomed the initial April deal, Korean TV coverage of the issue and Internet-spread rumors that questioned the safety of U.S. beef resulted in escalating protests and calls for the beef agreement to be renegotiated or scrapped. U.S. officials countered that measures already in place to prevent the introduction of BSE in U.S. cattle herds meet international scientific standards. To address rising public pressure, the Korean government twice pursued talks with the United States to find ways to defuse these concerns without "renegotiating" the beef agreement. In late June 2008, both governments confirmed a "voluntary private sector" arrangement that allows Korean firms to import U.S. beef produced only from cattle less than 30 months old. Both governments view this as a transitional step until Korean consumer confidence in the safety of U.S. beef improves. 

U.S. beef exporters have since worked to recapture this key overseas market. Exports of U.S. beef (including bone-in cuts) to South Korea resumed in mid-July 2008, and by year-end reached almost $300 million, slightly more than one-third of the record 2003 sales level. For 2009, despite a drop-off in beef sales worldwide due to the economic recession, sales to Korea may still reach the 2008 level. Though Australia is the main competitor, U.S. beef exporters have gained noticeable market share since the Korean market reopened to U.S. beef. The U.S. share (in quantity terms) rose from 15% in 2008 to 27% in 2009. Future sales will depend on the price competitiveness of U.S. beef compared to Australian beef (largely influenced by changes in their respective exchange rates relative to the Korean won), and signs that Korean consumers are more willing to eat beef away from home as the country's economy begins to recover. 

The anti-beef agreement protests in South Korea have subsided. However, their size and intensity likely have eroded the Korean President's willingness and ability to accept the changes the Obama Administration has said would be necessary before it will consider submitting the KORUS FTA to Congress. Presidents Obama and Lee Myung-bak met in November 2009, and the two presidents agreed to "move the agreement forward." However, the prospect of congressional action on the KORUS FTA in 2010 appears slim. .


Date of Report: January 26, 2010
Number of Pages: 14
Order Number: RL34528
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CRS Issue Statement on China and Taiwan

Thomas Lum, Coordinator
Specialist in Asian Affairs

The U.S.-China bilateral relationship is one of the world's most important, touching on a wide range of issues, including global security threats, trade and economics, the environment and climate change, energy, and human rights. The emergence of the People's Republic of China (PRC) as a global economic power has added considerably to the complexity of U.S. policy toward China. The United States and the PRC are becoming increasingly interdependent, which means that the two countries must cooperate in many areas even when they disagree in others. 

Ongoing U.S. interests regarding its relationship with China include promoting bilateral trade, economic liberalization, and human rights in China as well as helping to defend Taiwan. Increasingly, the United States has sought cooperation with the PRC, a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, on global and regional issues, such as sanctions against North Korea and Iran, the international financial crisis, and climate change, often with mixed results. The two countries also have engaged in limited cooperation on counterterrorism efforts. The Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED), established in 2009, is a flexible diplomatic mechanism that brings together senior officials from the United States and China on an annual basis to maintain dialogue and build trust on an array of issues.


Date of Report: January 15, 2010
Number of Pages: 3
Order Number: IS40306
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