While US forces were rolling into Baghdad on April 9, I was visiting villages afflicted by AIDS on China's border with Burma.

As unprofitable state owned enterprises are closed and others are transformed into independent economic entities, the foundation of the Chinese political and social system in urban areas — the danwei (work unit) — is becoming irrelevant. Millions of people no longer have access to the social services the danwei used to provide.

These simple words that encapsulate the empowering effect of self-expression are used by Wan Yanhai (万延海) to describe his first 'coming out' in a conversation with an academic researcher in 1994.¹

'Health Topics - 2923 2923' announces one of many similar advertisements in the Labourers' Post (Laodong Wubao). Calls to this number are rated at CNY 3 (USD 37 cents) per minute, but callers will not find a doctor on the other end of the line. After a recorded pop song, we got through to a young woman who offered personal services of a rather different kind. Telephone sex has arrived in China.

Social and economic reform, governance and environment sector projects will be the strategic priorities for European Union development cooperation with China over the next five years. Around EUR 50 million (USD 46 million) per year is allocated for technical assistance projects, reaffirming the EU's place as one of China's most important donor agencies; and an ongoing decentralisation process is expected to reduce the bureaucratic delays for which it has in the past been notorious.

To what extent will political reform in China prove a necessary counterpart to and /or natural consequence of economic reform? Few questions are more central to the country's future.

A conference on the role of the non-state sector in the development of China's western regions, held in Guiyang in June, came up with a number of recommendations (summarised in the supporting article linked above) that broadly echo appeals made by numerous Chinese scholars and economists in recent years. These add up to a resounding vote in favour of private sector development in the west, as the likeliest motor of future growth.

With the increased competitive pressures that WTO will bring, many Chinese and inter-national experts believe that Chinese agriculture will need to move towards greater regional and sectoral specialisation, with improved production, storage and processing technologies and better market information and analysis.

If in nothing else, China is extremely rich in data. Each year, agencies under the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and the statistical departments of line ministries collate a vast array of figures on matters ranging from the average distance of road freight journeys (58 kilometres) to the number of notarised documents authenticating photocopies (12,526 in 1999, apparently, representing 0.2% of all notarised documents). An increasing proportion of this information is published.

A long awaited Law on Foundations will raise the minimum funding threshold for registration to CNY 5 million (from 200,000 at present) and allow up to 50% of capital to be invested in businesses and securities provided that risk is spread and funds are professionally managed, according to Dr. Wu Zhongze, head of the Ministry of Civil Affairs Bureau of Non Government Organisations, which has been closely involved in drafting the law.