Brand New US State Department Background Notes on China!

Back in early February I had a post on the new US State Department Background Notes on Macau and Hong Kong. The most interesting part of the post was a comparison between the State Department's Notes on Hong Kong and China. Today the State Department issued a new set of China Background Notes. I thought it would be interesting to see how the State Department's Notes on China have changed since the October, 2007 Notes were released.

The mundane:

• Total GDP and GDP/capita are both up in 2007 on 2006.
• Same for exports and imports.
• Many of the "Principal Government and Party Officials" are new after the 11th NPC.
• Some numbers that were previously spelled have been are now just written.

Some adjustments on the Human Rights front:

• Though the State Department's 2007 Human Rights Practices and International Religious Freedom Reports on China appears to use the exact same language to report on abuses in China as the 2006 report did, "the United States and China agreed to resume ... formal human rights dialogue, with the understanding that the discussions need to be constructive [emphasis added, but unsure if it actually means anything]."

Updates in the Regulatory Environment:

• China is "undertaking efforts in coordination with the United States and others to better regulate the problem" of tainted or substandard goods. In the old Notes, China had only recognized "that up to 20% of the country's products are substandard or tainted."
  

Environment updates:

• Added, "China has pledged to hold the first-ever carbon-neutral Olympic Games."

Foreign Relations updates:

• The number of countries maintaining diplomatic relations with Beijing has risen from 167 to 171, and the number of countries maintaining diplomatic relations with Taiwan has fallen from 24 to 23.

U.S.-China Economic Relations updates:

• They corrected the stat to the US being the "sixth-largest foreign investor in China." Question, what are the British Virgin Islands doing at the number 2 spot? Tax shelter investments?

Basically, there's not much of any consequence that it is new... Maybe the increases and decrease in diplomatic relations, and maybe the new constructive approach to human rights are interesting enough for an expansion. Maybe...