August 2010

Acting jointly, China's Ministry of Public Security and the United Front Work Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China have tightened up their control over the Buddhist monasteries in the Tibetan areas of China and over the mosques in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region.

China's ascension to the world's second-largest economy, surpassing Japan, has led to predictions that it will inevitably snatch the No. 1 spot from the United States.

The Obama administration's hopes that its warmer approach to Beijing would yield a more fruitful Sino-American relationship have been disappointed. Rather than adopting a more cooperative bearing, Beijing has become increasingly assertive over the past year.

China's human rights record is dismal and not improving. Successive editions of the U.S. Department of State's annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices have documented China's lack of progress in human rights, ranging from continued abuses in Tibet to imprisonment and harsh treatment of political prisoners to a general crackdown on religious groups that are not sanctioned by the government.