U.S. and P.R.C. Strengthen Enforcement Cooperation and FBI Opens Beijing Office

On October 24, 2002, United States Attorney General John Ashcroft announced the opening of a liaison office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Beijing and other steps to strengthen law enforcement relations between the U.S. and the Peoples Republic of China. In his announcement Mr. Ashcroft said the office would deal, inter alia, with transnational terrorism, trafficking in human beings, and money laundering. After many years of seeking to establish a liaison office for the FBI in Beijing, the P.R.C. did not give approval until February 2002 during Mr. Bush?s visit to Beijing.