Still, administration officials are worried that China is becoming a tinderbox. There was no immediate response by the Chinese government to the State Department report. Clinton administration officials, scholars and leaders of human rights groups all agree that underlying the Chinese government's fears about social unrest is the downturn in the country's economy. China's annual double-digit economic growth is a thing of the past, and Chinese leaders are worried that the growing ranks of the unemployed will join forces with political dissidents and angry farmers and create a situation beyond their control. Their economy is flat.
Exports are flat and there is a real increase in labor unrest.
That's why the regime is very very anxious about political unrest. The report gave China high marks for continuing to open up the economy and thereby opening up society. In recent years the Chinese earned praise from the administration for signing two major international conventions on economic, cultural, civil and political rights that include guarantees of the freedom of association, speech, assembly and religion. China's leaders have said they would respect the spirit of the law until the national legislature ratified the treaties, a promise they broke with this year's violations. The Pentagon's report to Congress on the military balance between China and Taiwan highlighted how Beijing's deployment of short range missiles aimed at the Taiwan Straits was meant to intimidate and threaten Taiwan.