Apr 07, 1999 · April 7, 1999. Web posted at: 1:18 p.m. EST (1818 GMT) WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, April 7) -- With ties between the U.S. and China strained and Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji in the United States for a nine-day visit, President Bill Clinton Wednesday defended his administration's policy toward Beijing and cautioned against a "campaign-driven cold war" that would lead to …
May 28, 1993 · The annual battles between Congress and the Executive divided our foreign policy and weakened our approach over China. It is time that a unified American policy recognize both the value of China and the values of America. Starting today, the United States will speak with one voice on China policy.
Sep 19, 2000 · The Clinton administration's support for the China trade bill opened a rift between unions and Vice President Al Gore's campaign for president—even leading the United Auto Workers, traditionally ...
Jun 03, 1994 · The Damage Done The main task for President Clinton now is to undo the damage caused by his confused China policy. Clinton's human rights …
Oct 10, 2000 · Clinton signs China trade bill. October 10, 2000. Web posted at: 6:28 p.m. EDT (2228 GMT) By Matt Smith/CNN. WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Clinton closed years of political and economic debate ...
China occupies an important place in our nation's foreign policy. It is the world's most populous state, its fastest growing major economy, and a permanent member of the Unit ed Nations Security Council. Its future will do much to shape the future of Asia, our security and trade relations in the Pacific, and a host of global issues, from the environment to weapons proliferation. In short: our relationship with China is of very great importance.
President Clinton linked MFN to progress on human rights in China.
Americans were outraged by the killing of pro-democracy demonstrators at Tiananmen square in June of 1989. Congress was determined to have our nation's stance toward China reflect our outrage.
The future of China and Hong Kong is of great importance to the region and to the people of America. We take some encouragement from the economic reforms in China -- reforms that by some measures place China's economy as the third largest in the world, after the United States and Japan.
Completing a free trade push supported by business groups but opposed by environmentalists and unions, President Clinton Tuesday signed into law a bill normalizing trade relations with China. The law, passed by the House by a 237-197 margin in May and the Senate by a vote of 83-15 in September, changes U.S.
The China trade bill: Normalizes trade relations with China, ending the annual congressional review of China's Most Favored Nation status. Allows new duties and restrictions on Chinese imports that "threaten to cause market disruption to the U.S. producers of a like or directly competitive product.".
Establishes a commission to monitor China's compliance with the trade pact and a task force to monitor and enforce the ban on importing products made with prison labor. States that the U.S. should ask the WTO to monitor China's performance annually as part of China's admission to the organization.
The UAW ultimately endorsed Gore, but cited continuing differences on trade. The legislation was backed by a powerful coalition of business and farm groups, was praised by U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky, who said it was "as important as any on China since 1972, with the opening of China" by President Nixon.
The House debate over the passage of the bill was contentious.
China is expected to join the WTO later this year or early next year, and the United States, in order to enjoy the benefits of China's commitment to WTO free market rules, must grant permanent trade status.
It symbolizes both the formal end of a diplomatic chill that began with the June 4, 1989 crackdown in Tiananmen Square and the culmination of a long, slow process of normalization of relations - "constructive ...
June 6, 1989: In protest over the killings, the Bush administration imposed sanctions, including a suspension of sales of military items, suspension of visits between US and Chinese military leaders; a "sympathetic review" of requests from Chinese students for asylum.
September 1992: Bush vetoes MFN legislation on September saying, "Our human rights dialogue gives us an avenue to express our views directly to China's leaders." U.S. officials at the Treasury Department confirm that despite Tiananmen sanctions mandating a U.S. veto on non-basic human needs loans to China from multilateral lending institutions, the administration was making no effort to lobby allies to slow down World Bank lending to China, which reached record levels.
In September, dissident Wei Jingsheng is released from prison in China's last-minute but ultimately unsuccessful lobbying effort for the games. November 1993: After a major China policy review within the U.S. administration in September, culminating in significant liberalization of controls on the export of supercomputers ...
November 15-17, 1991: Secretary of State James Baker goes to Beijing, bringing an official end to the ban on high-level exchanges imposed after the Tiananmen crackdown.
January 30, 1990 : President Bush signs into law a China sanctions bill that includes a ban on Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) insurance for US investment in China, a suspension of export licenses for the sale of munitions, crime control equipment and satellites, and a proibition on the liberalization of COCOM controls on the sale of high technology goods.
June 20, 1989: Bush administration announced decision to oppose loans to China in the World Bank and other international financial institutions and suspend all participation in high-level exchanges of government officials. (The last was violated almost immediately after Bush sent National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft on a secret visit to Beijing in July.)
That year, President Bill Clinton launches a policy of “constructive engagement” with China. However, after Beijing loses its bid to host the 2000 Olympic Games, the Chinese government imprisons Wei again. Four years later, Clinton secures the release of Wei and Tiananmen Square protester Wang Dan.
The 18th National Party Congress concludes with the most significant leadership turnover in decades as about 70 percent of the members of the country’s major leadership bodies—the Politburo Standing Committee, the Central Military Commission, and the State Council—are replaced. Li Keqiang assumes the role of premier, while Xi Jinping replaces Hu Jintao as president, Communist Party general secretary, and chairman of the Central Military Commission. Xi delivers a series of speeches on the “rejuvenation” of China.
The U.S. Justice Department alleges Huawei and Meng violated trade sanctions against Iran and committed fraud and requests her extradition . In apparent retaliation, China detains two Canadian citizens, who officials accuse of undermining China’s national security. Calling Meng’s arrest a “ serious political incident ,” Chinese officials demand her immediate release. U.S. officials emphasize an unbiased and apolitical legal process, but Trump implies Meng’s charges could be used as leverage in ongoing U.S.-China trade talks.
However, in April, Congress approves the Taiwan Relations Act, allowing continued commercial and cultural relations between the United States and Taiwan. The act requires Washington to provide Taipei with defensive arms, but does not officially violate the U.S.’s One China policy. 1982.
President Richard Nixon spends eight days in China in February 1972, during which he meets Chairman Mao and signs the Shanghai Communiqué with Premier Zhou Enlai. The communiqué sets the stage for improved U.S.-Sino relations by allowing China and the United States to discuss difficult issues, particularly Taiwan.
First Taiwan Strait Crisis. President Dwight Eisenhower lifts the U.S. navy blockade of Taiwan in 1953, leading Chiang Kai-shek to deploy thousands of troops to the Quemoy and Matsu islands in the Taiwan Strait in August 1954. Mainland China’s People’s Liberation Army responds by shelling the islands.
In July of 1971, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger makes a secret trip to China. Shortly thereafter, the United Nations recognizes the People’s Republic of China, endowing it with the permanent Security Council seat that had been held by Chiang Kai-shek’s Republic of China on Taiwan since 1945. 1972.
The Clinton Presidency: A Foreign Policy for the Global Age. President Clinton understood from the beginning of his presidency that the most pervasive force in our world is globalization. He also understood that while globalization is inexorable, its benefits must be harnessed to advance our objectives of democracy, shared prosperity and peace.
These core alliances are today stronger and arguably more durable because they are organized to advance an enduring set of shared interests, rather than to defeat a single threat. President Clinton broke new ground in 1993 by welcoming our European and Asian allies' desire to play a more responsible role while maintaining our troops and adapting our alliances in both regions.
Normalized our relationship with Vietnam, culminating in the completion of a Bilateral Trade Agreement that will serve as a roadmap for economic restructuring in this country of 80 million people. This builds upon our longstanding cooperation for a full accounting of all U.S. missing in action.
As they looked on, President Clinton signed an order that, for the first time, required China to take steps toward easing political repression if it wanted renewal of its trade benefits in the United States.
In the fall of 1993 , as Clinton was preparing for his first meeting with Chinese President Jiang Zemin, China indicated that it was prepared to work out a milestone agreement to let the International Committee of the Red Cross visit its prisons. But Beijing backed off soon afterward, and there has been no progress since.
And so the new administration negotiated a deal with Mitchell and Pelosi. Clinton would impose an executive order establishing the linkage. Mitchell and Pelosi would drop their insistence on including conditions covering trade practices and arms and would also hold off on introducing legislation that went beyond Clinton’s executive order.
In Indonesia, for example, President Suharto’s authoritarian regime took a harder line toward opposition groups pressing for democratic reforms. On June 21, 1994, a month after Clinton’s China reversal, the Indonesian government closed three of the nation’s most important newsmagazines, and during the following year it employed arrests and gag orders to restrict freedom of expression.
During his first year in office, in 1993-94, Shattuck--the administration’s top human rights official--was dispatched to China three times. Since then, he has returned only once. He has devoted much of his energy and travel time to supporting efforts to uncover and prosecute war crimes in Bosnia.
At the time, those conditions covered not only human rights but also China’s trade practices and its proliferation of weapons. In 1992, both Clinton , as the Democratic presidential candidate, and Democratic National Committee Chairman Ronald H. Brown strongly supported the idea of linking China’s trade status to human rights.
Under current law, China’s MFN status needs to be renewed each year. That is an outgrowth of what is called the Jackson-Vanik amendment--a provision that was originally designed to foster Jewish emigration from the Soviet Union but that requires review each year of the trade benefits of all Communist countries.
The Clinton Presidency: Eight Years of Peace, Progress and Prosperity. 1993. January 22. Abolished Restrictions on Medical Research and the Right to Choose. As his first executive actions, President Clinton revoked the Gag Rule, which prohibited abortion counseling in clinics that receive federal funding to serve low-income patients.
President Clinton ordered the Federal Government to make it easier for states to receive waivers from government regulations in order to implement innovative welfare reform projects. Between 1993 and the signing of the Welfare Reform bill in 1996, the Administration granted waivers to a record 43 states.
The Clinton Administration's strategy of encouraging parental responsibility and increasing child support enforcement efforts has doubled collections of child support from $8 billion in 1992 to $16 billion in 1999.
The National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy was formed in response to the President's 1995 State of the Union. Since President Clinton took office, teen birth rates have dropped 18 percent, to the lowest level on record. February 8.
The Clinton-Gore Administration fought for and signed this bill, which contains new penalties, resources to prosecute more domestic violence offenders, and quadrupled funding for battered women's shelters. The Administration also established a nationwide 24-hour Domestic Violence Hotline.
The President launched a major childhood immunization effort to increase the number of children who were being immunized. Since 1993, childhood immunization rates have reached all-time highs, with 90 percent or more of America's toddlers receiving critical vaccines for children by age 2.
President Clinton created the National Commission on Health Care Quality and charged it with studying the need for consumer protections and ways to guarantee the quality of care. Commission members represented government, consumers, health care providers, insurers, and businesses.