U.S. relations with the People's Republic of China (PRC) remained remarkably smooth during the 110 th Congress, as they were throughout most of the George W. Bush Administration. The two governments continued to have regular and robust high-level visits and exchanges of working level officials. Washington and Beijing also continued to develop military-to-military relations, cooperated on anti-terror initiatives, and worked together on a multilateral effort to restrain and eliminate North Korea's nuclear weapons activities. U.S. companies continued to invest heavily in China, and the Chinese central government overtook Japan to become the largest holder of U.S. Treasuries used to finance the federal budget deficit, holding about $600 billion in Treasuries by the end of 2008. Despite these growing connections, thorny problems continued to be factors in the relationship, including difficulties over China's intentions toward, and U.S. commitments, to democratic Taiwan, various disputes over China's failure to protect U.S. intellectual property rights, the alleged economic advantage China gains from managing its exchange rate, and growing concerns about the quality and safety of some exported Chinese products. In addition, some U.S. policymakers expressed growing concern about the significant long-term implications that China's accelerating rise in the world had for U.S. global power and influence. Some U.S. lawmakers suggested that U.S. policies should be reassessed in light of the PRC's continued strong economic growth and more assertive international posture. As the U.S. financial system deteriorated during the 110 th Congress, it became clear that the PRC was positioned to play a crucial role in any policy designed to address the problems. In order to mitigate the renminbi's appreciation against the dollar, China's central bank was forced to make heavy purchases of U.S. dollars. As a result, China by the 110 th Congress had amassed a huge level of foreign exchange reserves, totaling $1.9 trillion as of December 2008, and the Chinese central government had become an ever more important purchaser of U.S. Treasuries and other U.S. debt. Some U.S. policymakers expressed concern that this posed an economic risk to the United States should China's foreign exchange purchase patterns change, and a political risk should China use this position to seek advantages on other diplomatic issues. The financial crisis unfolding in the United States in 2008 and the Bush Administration's (and the incoming Obama Administration's) proposed financial rescue programs each required a substantial level of new U.S. government borrowing, with China positioned to be a major purchaser of this new U.S. government debt. In addition, the scope of the financial crisis suggested that global economic decision-making in the future would be moving beyond the confines of the developed "G-7" countries, where China does not participate, and into the broader arena of the "G-20" countries, where China does participate, making Beijing a more important potential player in the global economic decision-making process. The G20 countries met in Washington DC on November 15, 2008, in an attempt to address the financial crisis, and scheduled another G20 meeting in London on April 2, 2009. Beginning in March and April 2007, reports began to surface about tainted and unsafe food and consumer products in China, and concerns about product safety continued to plague U.S.-China relations throughout the rest of the 110 th Congress. An investigation by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) early in 2007 linked tainted exports of pet food with wheat gluten from China to reports of pet deaths from kidney failure in the United States. The Canadian company that had imported the product, Menu Foods, initiated a massive recall of its products on March 16, 2007, and the recall effort later expanded to more brands of pet foods and other pet food manufacturers. On April 3, 2007, the FDA began halting imports of wheat gluten from a PRC company, the Xuzhou Anying Biologic Technology Development Co. Ltd., saying it had tested positive for the tainted wheat gluten. Although the PRC government initially denied its pet food products were tainted, it later reversed that position, admitting on April 26, 2007, that PRC companies had exported melamine-laced wheat gluten to the United States. The pet food contamination was the beginning of a series of well publicized recalls of PRC imported products including fish, tires, toothpaste, and toys. Two of these—Menu Foods pet food recall and Mattel's voluntary recall of over 18 million toys, announced on August 14, 2007—were reported on most widely. But by August 17, 2007, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) had issued nearly 150 recall notices in 2007 for Chinese-manufactured products, including electric throws, ceramic heaters, folding recliner chairs, children's jewelry, kayak paddle floats, baby cribs, candles, oil-filled electric heaters, boom boxes, bicycles, clothing, gas lighters, remote controls, lamps, curling irons, and hair dryers. In September 2008, concerns began to mount about infant formula and milk powder in China tainted with melamine, an industrial chemical that appears to make products more protein-rich. Amid a widening scandal and an extensive public outcry after thousands of babies sickened and some died, the PRC government took increasingly assertive measures to close down suspect producers and make arrests. On October 9, 2008, Beijing announced it was setting its first standards on melamine in milk, imposing a limit of 1 milligram per kilogram in infant formula and 2.5 milligrams per kilogram in liquid milk. On October 14, 2008, the PRC government ordered a recall of all milk products produced before September 14, 2008. Members of the 110 th Congress addressed the safety of products from China in several ways. These included: Legislation targeted on the Chinese government to condemn poor product safety ( H.Res. 925 ), which died in the House Foreign Affairs Committee); Legislation targeted on the U.S. government and on U.S. consumers, such as a request for the resignation of the Chairwoman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission ( H.Res. 803 ); a bill urging Americans to buy American-made products ( H.Res. 831 ); and legislation directing the Consumer Product Safety Commission to increase safety standards for infants and toddler products ( H.R. 1698 ), all of which died in the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Bilateral efforts on the quality of Chinese exports to the United States had been underway for several years by the 110 th Congress. In 2004, the CPSC and China's General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection, and Quarantine (AQSIQ) signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to cooperate on increasing the safety of specific consumer products, including clothing, toys, cigarette and multipurpose lighters, home appliances, hazardous chemical consumer products, and bicycle helmets. The two agencies held a Consumer Product Safety Summit (CPSS) in Beijing in 2005, and a second CPSS meeting in Washington D.C. on September 11, 2007. The United States, China, and the European Union launched a "Joint U.S.-EU-China Initiative on Consumer Product Safety Compliance" in Beijing from September 19-24, 2008, followed by a "High-Level Consumer Product Safety Trilateral Meeting" in Brussels in November 2008. Concerns about Chinese products also led the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to open an office in Beijing on November 18, 2008, to increase inspections of PRC food and medicine. From August 8-24, 2008, China hosted the 2008 Summer Olympic Games. The opening ceremony and most of the athletic events were held in Beijing, but six other PRC cities co-hosted Olympic competitions as well, including Qingdao (sailing); Shanghai, Tianjin, Shenyang, and Qinhuangdao (soccer), and Hong Kong (equestrian events). Beijing reportedly spent $43 billion, more than any other Olympic host city, to prepare for the games. A number of controversies surfaced in the run-up to the 2008 Games. Multiple interest groups opposed to various PRC behaviors saw China's hosting of the games as an excellent opportunity to put pressure on leaders in Beijing to reform PRC policies. These groups included: Tibetan activists pushing either for Tibetan independence or for more enlightened Chinese policies in Tibet, actions which may have led to the March 2008 protests in Tibet and China's crackdown there; activists for Darfur seeking to pressure China to withdraw its support for the Sudanese government (Steven Spielberg resigned in February 2008 as artistic advisor for the Beijing Olympics over this issue); and a number of groups, such as Reporters without Borders and Human Rights Watch, arguing that China had not kept its promises to the International Olympic Committee to provide journalistic freedom to reporters and a cleaner environment for the athletes during the games. Members of the 110 th supported some of these initiatives. Among the measures Members introduced were: Legislation calling on the PRC to use its leverage with Sudan to stop the violence in Darfur and to comply with U.N. directives. ( H.Res. 422 and S.Res. 203 , both of which passed their respective bodies.) The measures stated that the spirit of the Olympics is incompatible with acts supporting genocide. Legislation expressing the sense of the House that the President boycott the summer 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing because of PRC activities in Sudan. ( H.Res. 628 , which died in the House Foreign Affairs Committee.) Legislation expressing the sense of the House that the United States boycott the summer 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing unless the PRC stops human rights abuses against its own citizens and stops supporting human rights abuses by the governments of Sudan, Burma, and North Korea. ( H.Res.