China Miffed At United States Over UN Population Funding

President Threatening to Cut off Funds to UNFPA for China Program

NEW: An analysis of the FY2003 Budget Request from Population Action International

UNFPA web site LATEST MEDIA COVERAGE Letters in favor of UNFPA funding Editorial Board Memo For more information: Sarah Craven, U.S. Committee for UNFPA FACTS: U.S. Contributions to UNFPA 1965-2001 UNFPA and China Potential Impact of Increased Funding on Women and Families Overseas Family Planning Funding 2001: USAID programs

Feb. 21 – President Bush’s decision to withhold US funding for the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) has emerged as a point of conflict in the United States’ relationship with the People’s Republic of China. In the lead-up to the President’s visit to China, press reports have indicated that Chinese authorities are miffed at the President over accusations that UNFPA assists the Chinese on coercive population policies.

London’s Sunday Telegraph reported on February 3 that “Beijing is furious with Mr. Bush by reports implicating the UNFPA in abuses of the one-child policy.” The report went on to note that the Bush Administration’s decision in January to halt UNFPA funding is set to inject a sour note into his China visit on February 21.

Despite a carefully crafted, bipartisan compromise in Congress late last year to provide up to $34 million to the UN Population Fund, it was revealed January 12th that the Bush Administration has frozen funding to the world leader in the field of international family planning. A decision to cut or eliminate UNFPA funding by the Administration would represent a startling reversal not only of legislation passed unanimously in the US Senate and by a 3-to-1 margin in the House, but also of previous Administration policy.

In his first budget proposal to Congress in early 2001, President Bush requested $25 million in funding for UNFPA. The Administration also approved the release of $21.5 million in fiscal 2001 funds for UNFPA after determining that UNFPA was in compliance with US law. In May, Secretary of State Colin Powell testified to Congress that UNFPA “provides critical population assistance to developing countries” (testimony before the House Foreign Operations Subcommittee, May 10, 2001). Again in late 2001, the Administration signaled its support for UNFPA’s life-saving work by providing $600,000 in funding to support the agency’s work in support the health of Afghan refugees.

The loss of U.S. funding will have a devastating impact on UNFPA’s efforts to save women’s lives and provide family planning in more than 140 countries around the world. Experts indicate that $34 million in family planning funding is enough to prevent 2 million unwanted pregnancies, nearly 800,000 abortions, 4,700 maternal deaths; almost 60,000 maternal illnesses and more than 77,000 infant and child deaths.

More than 130 Members of Congress – Republicans and Democrats alike – wrote to President Bush on January 30, urging him to fully fund the United Nations Population Fund in the current fiscal year. The Congressional letter, spearheaded by Congresswoman Nita Lowey, the ranking member on the Appropriation’s Committee’s Foreign Operations Subcommittee, urges the President to fulfill Congressional approval of $34 million for UNFPA.

“As strong supporters of international family planning, we were pleased to endorse a bipartisan agreement to build on your Fiscal Year 2002 request for $25 million in US contributions to the UNFPA, providing a total of $34 million. The overwhelming majority of our colleagues on both sides of the aisle supported this increase, and the Foreign Operations funding bill passed the House of Representatives by a margin of 357-68. Congressional intent with regard to UNFPA funding is clear,” the Congressional members wrote.

The diverse, bipartisan group of signatories to the letter is consistent with broad consensus among the public outside the Beltway. From Tulsa and Trenton to Seattle and St. Petersburg, editorial writers are urging the President to uphold the carefully-crafted, bipartisan compromise reached by Congress to fund the world’s most important multilateral family planning effort. The Philadelphia Inquirer wrote that, “If the Bush administration is truly antiabortion, it will not block the U.S. appropriation to the United Nations' family planning program. When family planning funds are denied, abortions are likely to increase.”

The Tulsa World explores the weak foundations of the Administrations deliberations, writing that “a handful of conservative members of Congress has asked Bush to withhold the money because the U.N. Population Fund operates programs in China, where the regime's one-child policy is brutally enforced, including coerced abortions in some provinces. However, even in China, the fund has elicited an agreement that the one-child policy will not be enforced in countries where its programs operate. Voluntary, education-based family planning actually can reduce the brutish excesses of the one-child policy in China, just as it can reduce abortions in other poor countries by helping to make sure that every child is a wanted child.”

The Seattle Times notes the apparent contradiction between the Administration’s advocacy of women’s rights in Afghanistan on the one hand and the withholding of funds to help save women’s lives around the world on the other. “First Lady Laura Bush and others in the administration have talked about the deplorable conditions under which Afghan women live. They note, correctly, that an important victory in America’s war on terrorism will be the chance for women to assert greater control over their own lives. But when it comes to overseas family planning, which also helps women gain control of their lives, politics has eclipsed the White House’s fair-mindedness.”