Continued U.S. forward presence in Asia is in our interest. Turning to China China faces severe challenges. Following 15 years of double-digit growth, China has experienced seven consecutive years of economic slowdown, accompanied by high levels of rural and urban unemployment. Its population is aging rapidly, and most elderly have no safety net beyond their family. China is facing a fiscal crisis, and is increasingly dependent upon international capital to finance its massive infrastructure needs.
China has many gleaming new buildings in Shanghai and Beijing, but large areas of underdevelopment.
I understand that two years ago, together with Rotary Clubs in Australia, Hong Kong and Japan, this club built and supplied the materials for a new primary school in a little village named Shuiyu. Much of China is like that. WTO membership for China should accelerate the growth of an urban middle class that has already increased by two orders of magnitude over the past five years. We hope that this and other aspects of social change will contribute to political reforms. It certainly will increase pressures upon the Communist Party to open up.