China Issues - 2024

Disputes - international

China-India: continue their security and foreign policy dialogue started in 2005 related to a number of boundary disputes across the 2,000 mile shared border; India does not recognize Pakistan's 1964 ceding to China of the Aksai Chin, a territory designated as part of the princely state of Kashmir by the British Survey of India in 1865; China claims most of the Indian state Arunachal Pradesh to the base of the Himalayas, but the US recognizes the state of Arunachal Pradesh as Indian territory

China-Bhutan: continue negotiations to establish a common boundary alignment to resolve territorial disputes arising from substantial cartographic discrepancies, the most contentious of which lie in Bhutan's west along China's Chumbi salient

China-North Korea: certain islands in the Yalu and Tumen Rivers are in dispute with North Korea; both countries seek to stem illegal migration to China by North Koreans fleeing privation and oppression

China-Russia: in 2023, Russia rejected a new PRC map that laid claim to Bolshoi Ussuriysky Island in its entirety as Chinese territory; this move undermined a 2004 Agreement in which Russia and China demarcated long-disputed islands at the Amuri and Ussuri confluence and in the Argun River

China-Tajikistan: have begun demarcating the revised boundary agreed to in the delimitation of 2002

Southeast Asia: the decade-long demarcation of the China-Vietnam land boundary was completed in 2009; citing environmental, cultural, and social concerns, China has reconsidered construction of 13 dams on the Salween River, but energy-starved Burma, with backing from Thailand, continues to consider building five hydro-electric dams downstream despite regional and international protests

Maritime: Chinese maps show an international boundary symbol (the so-called “nine-dash line”) off the coasts of the littoral states of the South China Sea, where China has interrupted Vietnamese hydrocarbon exploration; China asserts sovereignty over Scarborough Reef along with the Philippines and Taiwan, and over the Spratly Islands together with Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, Vietnam, and Brunei; the 2002 Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea eased tensions in the Spratlys, and in 2017 China and ASEAN began confidential negotiations for an updated Code of Conduct for the South China Sea designed not to settle territorial disputes but establish rules and norms in the region; this still is not the legally binding code of conduct sought by some parties; both China and Vietnam continue to expand construction of facilities in the Spratlys, and in early 2018 China began deploying advanced military systems to disputed Spratly outposts; China occupies some of the Paracel Islands also claimed by Vietnam and Taiwan; the Japanese-administered Senkaku Islands are also claimed by China and Taiwan

Refugees and internally displaced persons

refugees (country of origin): 303,107 (Vietnam), undetermined (North Korea) (mid-year 2021)

IDPs: undetermined (2021)

Trafficking in persons

tier rating: Tier 3 — China does not fully meet the minimum standards for elimination of trafficking and is not making significant efforts to do so, therefore, China remained on Tier 3; the government took some steps to address trafficking, including adopting a Women’s Rights and Interests Protection Law, cooperating with foreign law enforcement to extradite Chinese nationals suspected of human trafficking abroad, and awarding restitution to a trafficking victim; however, the government continued its policy or pattern of widespread forced labor, including ongoing mass arbitrary detention of Uyghurs, ethnic Kazakhs, ethnic Kyrgyz, and members of other ethnic and religious minorities in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region; the government also implemented similar policies against other religious minorities and Tibetans in other provinces; Chinese nationals reportedly suffered forced labor in countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East hosting Belt and Road Initiative projects; for the sixth consecutive year, the government did not report complete law enforcement data, nor did it identify any trafficking victims or refer them to protection services (2023)

trafficking profile: human traffickers exploit domestic and foreign victims in China, as well as Chinese nationals abroad; state-sponsored forced labor persists under the government’s mass detention and political indoctrination campaign against Muslim and Turkic minorities in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region; a small number of ethnic Han and members of other religious minority groups reportedly are detained in the same system; authorities in some localities subject families, including some older children, of men arbitrarily detained in Xinjiang to forced labor; traffickers target adults and children with developmental disabilities and children whose parents have left them with relatives – estimated at 6.4 million – and subject them to forced labor and begging; highly organized criminal syndicates and local gangs subject Chinese women and girls to sex trafficking within China and abroad; crime syndicates also subject Chinese and foreign victims into forced criminal activities in cyber scam operations in Burma, Cambodia, and Laos; traffickers use China as a transit point to subject foreigners to trafficking in other countries throughout Asia and in the international maritime industry; Chinese men, women, and children are victims of forced labor and sex trafficking in more than 80 countries; some Chinese nationals, host country nationals, and other migrants are subjected to conditions indicative of forced labor at Chinese Government Belt and Road Initiative or other China-affiliated construction projects, mining, and factories in African, Asian and Pacific, Caribbean, European, Latin American, and Middle Eastern countries; women and girls from South Asia, Southeast Asia, and several countries in Africa experience forced labor in domestic service, forced concubinage leading to childbearing, and sex trafficking via forced and fraudulent marriage to Chinese men; African and Asian men reportedly experience conditions indicative of forced labor aboard Chinese-flagged fishing vessels; many North Korean refugees and asylum-seekers living in China illegally are particularly vulnerable to trafficking, while some North Korean women are forced into commercial sex, forced marriage, or forced labor; North Korea exploits some of its citizens in forced labor in China as part of its system for financing weapons development programs (2023)

Illicit drugs

a major source of precursor chemicals for narcotics such as fentanyl and methamphetamine, new psychoactive substances (NPS), and synthetic drugs; is a destination and transit country for methamphetamine and heroin produced in South east and Southwest Asia;  China remains a major source of precursor chemicals sold in North America via the internet and shipped to overseas customers; domestic use of synthetic drugs is prevalent; chemical alterations of drugs circumvent laws and hamper efforts to stem the flow of these

(2021)