n the Conduct
of Parties in the South China Sea" has eased tensions in the
Spratlys but is not the legally binding "code of conduct" sought by
some parties; Vietnam and China continue to expand construction of
facilities in the Spratlys and in March 2005, the national oil
companies of China, the Philippines, and Vietnam signed a joint
accord on marine seismic activities in the Spratly Islands; China
occupies some of the Paracel Islands also claimed by Vietnam and
Taiwan; China and Taiwan have become more vocal in rejecting both
Japan's claims to the uninhabited islands of Senkaku-shoto (Diaoyu
Tai) and Japan's unilaterally declared equidistance line in the East
China Sea, the site of intensive hydrocarbon prospecting; certain
islands in the Yalu and Tumen rivers are in an uncontested dispute
with North Korea and a section of boundary around Mount Paektu is
considered indefinite; China seeks to stem illegal migration of tens
of thousands of North Koreans; China and Russia prepare to demarcate
the boundary agreed to in October 2004 between the long-disputed
islands at the Amur and Ussuri; demarcation of the China-Vietnam
boundary proceeds slowly and although the maritime boundary
delimitation and fisheries agreements were ratified in June 2004,
implementation has been delayed; environmentalists in Burma and
Thailand remain concerned about China's construction of
hydroelectric dams upstream on the Nujiang/Salween River in Yunnan
Province

Refugees and internally displaced persons:
refugees (country of origin): 300,897 (Vietnam) estimated
30,000-50,000 (North Korea)
IDPs: 90,000 (2006)

Trafficking in persons:
current situation: China is a source, transit, and destination
country for women, men, and children trafficked for purposes of
sexual exploitation and forced labor; the majority of trafficking in
China is internal, but there is also international trafficking of
Chinese citizens; women are lured through false promises of
legitimate employment into commercial sexual exploitation in Taiwan,
Thailand, Malaysia, and Japan; Chinese men and women are smuggled to
countries throughout the world at enormous personal expense and then
forced into commercial sexual exploitation or exploitative labor to
repay debts to traffickers; women and children are trafficked into
China from Mongolia, Burma, North Korea, Russia, and Vietnam for
forced labor, marri