Americans disagree as to whether or not China poses a serious security concern for U.S. interests in peace and security in Asia and the Pacific. Many point to rising Chinese defense capabilities and assertive rhetoric to warn of Chinese military- backed expansion. Others judge that the main danger comes from China's weakness. They argue that the possibility of an emerging breakdown in government authority in China could prompt regional disorder and refugee flows seriously undermining Asian stability. Still others see the Chinese "threat" as grossly exaggerated. They stress that Beijing leaders are in control of the country and see their interests best served by accommodation to their richer and generally better armed neighbors.

While the United States accords most-favored-nation (nondiscriminatory) treatment to many foreign countries on the basis of bilateral trade treaties or agreements, and to many more by virtue of being a signatory of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, MFN treatment is applied mostly as a matter of statutory policy generally to all trading partners except those whose MFN status has been suspended by specific legislation. Virtually all suspensions have been carried out under the mandate of the Trade Agreements Extension Act of 1951.

In the uncertain security environment of the post-Cold War world, the Clinton Administration has expressed interest in proposals that would create forums for regional security consultations in East Asia.

Japan's politics and government are undergoing a historic transition. The 38-year one-party rule of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) came to an end on July 18, 1993, when the party was voted out of power, even as it remained the single largest party in the lower house of Japan's bicameral Diet, or parliament. Seven non-communist parties, with little in common save their shared interest in dethroning the LDP, formed a shaky coalition.

A prominent feature of Japan's capitalism consists of families of companies called keiretsu that are linked by crossholdings of stock shares, intra-group financing, and certain coordinating mechanisms. Two types of keiretsu exist: large horizontally organized industrial conglomerates, such as Mitsubishi, Mitsui, and Sumitomo, and vertically integrated manufacturers, such as Toyota, Nippon Steel, and Matsushita Electric. They have become a contentious issue in U.S. trade negotiations with Japan for several reasons.

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This report identifies the colleges and universities attended by Senators elected to the 103rd Congress.

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In the months following China,s 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, both the President and the Congress took a number of initiatives protesting Beijing's actions. These initiatives centered around U.S. concerns related to trade, human rights, and non-proliferation. In intervening years, the United States has periodically imposed, lifted, or waived other sanctions and concluded several trade- related agreements with China relating to these concerns. Those measures that remain in place in 1994 are detailed in the accompanying tables.

The rise of the multinational corporation and the increased flow of capital across national borders have raised anew the question of how to treat foreign direct investment, both inward and outward. The U.S. government and, increasingly, other governments advocate that, with some exceptions, economic policies should be neutral in the treatment of investment, foreign and domestic, inward and outward. This report discusses the changing view of foreign investment, both nationally and internationally.

An examination of estimates of saving published by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) reveals that the U.S. is one of the least thrifty of the major industrial nations. But, the data also indicate that the U.S. is not the only country to experience a falling rate of saving in recent years. It may be that the large difference between the rates of saving in the U.S. and abroad depends on how saving is defined. A broader definition of saving than the one employed by the OECD suggests that the saving rates in the U.S. and abroad may be closer than official measures suggest.

There is a wide range of arguments regarding the Clinton Administration's proposal to spend about $2 billion in FY 1995 on developing an advanced theater missile defense (TMD) system. Arguments also center on whether or not interpretations of the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty allow for development and deployment of Advanced Antimissile Systems.

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This report reviews some of the concerns surrounding the environment work program and other environmental issues. It briefly describes work underway in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), and current thinking underlying development of U.S. positions on trade and the environment in the GATT.

The World Bank and other multilateral development banks (MDB) have come under increasing pressure to assess the environmental impacts of bank-sponsored projects. The U.S. Congress has required that U.S. participation be based on policies that encourage the banks to raise the priority of environmental protection in their operations and to address environmental impacts; however, major issues continue to revolve around the effectiveness of all the MDBs in promoting environmentally sustainable development. Additionally, increasing concern over global environmental problems led to the creation in 1990 of a new multilateral fund -- the Global Environment Facility (GEF) -- to fund environmental projects of global concern that were generally not being funded by the MDBs. The pilot phase of the GEF ended in December 1993, and participants are currently in the process of determining how, or if, it should function as a permanent entity.

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Increasingly, efforts to protect integral features of the natural environment that are essential to human well being face a double challenge. First, the magnitude of some conventional and emerging threats to environmental quality is growing, despite solid progress in controlling some causes. This is particularly the concern on a global scale in terms of atmospheric changes and loss of biological diversity. Second, easily-implemented uniform control methods using feasible technologies or other direct regulatory approaches are already in place for many pollution and resource management problems in the United States. Additional progress with so-called command and control policies can be expensive and disruptive, and thus counter productive to overall economic well being. This type of dilemma is common where environmental deterioration results from diffuse and complex causes inherent in technically-advanced high-consumption industrial societies such as the U.S. Solutions to these types of environmental problems are complicated by the diffuse benefits which obscures the net gains of additional controls that have concentrated and highly visible costs. Given this double bind, many policy analysts and academics have for years advocated more cost-effective and flexible approaches relying on market forces to further some environmental management objectives. Although market-based theory and practical environmental policy are …

A cigarette excise tax increase of 75 cents per pack has been proposed to finance part of the President's universal health care program. The tax enjoys considerable public support, would raise about $11 billion per year, and would be relatively simple to administer because it would increase an existing manufacturer's excise tax. This report discusses these rationales, as well as other effects of and concerns about the tax, organized into topics of market failure as a justification for the tax (i.e., economic efficiency); potential for revenue; equity; and the job loss the tax might cause in tobacco growing regions.

In the 1980s, Japan's economy posted strong economic growth, in stark contrast to the more pedestrian growth other developed economies experienced. In this period, referred to as the "bubble" economy, Japan experienced a sharp increase in the values of land and stocks. The fast paced growth came to a halt in 1991, however, as the Ministry of Finance grew concerned over prospects of a rising rate of inflation, and, accordingly, tightened the nation's money supply. Since then, Japanese economic growth has fallen sharply and the economy has experienced asset deflation, rising levels of unemployment, and falling corporate profits and investments.

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As many countries enjoy growing financial economies, American banking and securities firms feel excluded from them. Asian countries are perceived as being especially discriminatory against U.S. financiers. Conversely, foreign financiers face few barriers against entry into the United States. Their share of U.S. finance has reached very significant amounts--especially that of Japan in U.S. commercial banking. Both pressures have induced consideration of legislation that could require reciprocity for foreign direct investment in financial companies in America, intended to open up corresponding nations' financial markets. The proposed legislation also reflects final collapse of multilateral negotiations in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade seeking to open up financial services in many nations to U.S. providers. It would apply sanctions against such countries similar to those opening up government securities markets abroad, but might result in some retaliation.

The Department of Energy (DOE) established the Office of Technology Development in 1989 to develop faster and less expensive technical solutions to the Department's widespread environmental problems, primarily the legacy of decades of nuclear weapons production. Without new environmental technologies, DOE contends, some types of contamination may prove impossible to clean up. The Office of Technology Development, which is part of DOE's Environmental Management Program (EM), manages all stages of the development of new environmental restoration and waste management technologies, from basic research and development through final testing, demonstration and evaluation.

This report discusses the Ministerial and Leaders' Meetings of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, set to be held in Indonesia. APEC is a consultative body with membership of seventeen Pacific Basin economies that includes both China and Taiwan. The body is working toward trade liberalization (but not a free-trade area) in the most dynamic economic region of the world.