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What the funding actually was, according to the agencies that tracked it.

1999–2025 · Case 13 of 15

A 2004 Government Accountability Office report put total US bilateral support for democracy-related programs in China at more than $39 million across fiscal years 1999 through 2003, rising from about $2.3 million a year at the start of that window to about $14.4 million a year by the end of it. The National Endowment for Democracy provided roughly 38 percent of that total, the Department of Labor about 17 percent.

A 2008 Congressional Research Service report tracked the next phase: $65 million in NED-administered Human Rights and Democracy Fund grants between 2003 and 2007, of which China-focused programs took roughly a quarter. By fiscal year 2007, NED's core fund stood at $50 million, with about $2 million of it going to China.

NED's own 2025 annual report gives the most recent figure: $10.52 million allocated to China-related projects, more than $6 million of it aimed at the mainland, split further into roughly $2.06 million for Xinjiang-focused work, $1.48 million for Tibet, and $500,000 for Hong Kong.

$10.52 million NED's 2025 allocation to China-related civil society projects, against a total NED congressional appropriation of $315 million that year.

Sources: US Government Accountability Office, GAO-04-445R, 27 February 2004; Congressional Research Service, RS22663, 28 January 2008; National Endowment for Democracy, 2025 Annual Report. An earlier internal draft's figure of "$100+ million annually" is not supported by any of these sources and has been replaced.