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More interesting than the formal, official meetings Clinton had with Chinese leaders during his
1998 visit to China, were the more informal encounters with Chinese people.
His visit to Beijing's prestigious Beita or Beijing University was one of the highlights
of Clinton's China visit. The University had been a political hot-bed in 1988-1989.The campus
that Clinton visited was very different.
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I had covered two previous summits between American Presidents and Chinese leaders:
Ronald Reagan in 1984 and George Bush in early 1989.
The Bush visit was remembered principally for a diplomatic incident whereby a leading
Chinese Physicist (who also happened to advocate democratic reform in China) Fang Lizhi
was prevented by Chinese police from attending a dinner hosted by Mr. Bush at the Beijing
Great Wall Sheraton Hotel. .Bush's visit came as the Chinese student movement was beginning
to strengthen; the movement surfacing in its most dramatic form in the spring of 1989.
The Ronald Reagan visit from April 26 to May 3, 1984 was a quieter affair. Reagan
traveled to
Beijing, Xian and Shanghai, becoming the first sitting President to visit China since Richard
Nixon 12 years earlier.
The contrast in the China visits - 1984 and 1998 - could not be more striking-S China trade and investment in 1984 was just beginning to take off.
U-S-China trade volume in 1983 stood at a touch over $4.4 billion. American
farmers
were grumbling that China was failing to meet obligations to buy US grain - a six million
ton commitment.
By 1998, two way trade had soared to more than $ 60 billion, a more than twelve fold increase.
U-S officials grumbled about a substantial trade deficit which was certain to increase trade
frictions in the future. And China was close to joining the World Trade Organization; an event
when it happened would signal another significant opening up of the Chinese economy.
And in China's domestic economy, on May 1st, President Reagan and myself among the gaggle of
reporters following him, trundled out to the Hong Qiao or Rainbow commune just outside Shanghai. The big news then was that Hong Qiao was no longer being run as a commune and farmers were now experiencing the agricultural benefits of limited private farming in what was then called the "contract system."
Communes and contract systems. Words no one in China uses
today.
It seems so long ago.
A footnote.
Since 1979, U-S China relations have seemed to have adopted an roller-coaster
pattern. Periods of unrealistic optimism and good-will, followed by those of pessimism and
antagonism.
Shortly after the Jiang visit to America and Clinton China tour, relations again suffered a
serious setback.
All the high-sounding rhetoric of the two summits seemed hollow indeed when relations in 1999
plunged into crisis after U-S missiles hit China's embassy in Belgrade during the Kosovo
intervention.
The issue of Beijing's desire to bring Taiwan into the fold of a united China also fostered
continued tensions.It seemed clear that the recovery of relations would be slow.
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For much of the 1990's, Beijing's leaders have proclaimed their desire for and their recognition
of the need for legal reform.
Human rights advocates have denounced and international business investors have feared the
arbitrary nature of law set by communist party edict.
While equitable laws to safeguard human rights may be years away, some progress appears to have
been made in reforming the laws governing investment, copyright, and other commercial transactions.
In July 1998, in a Chinese legal first, China Central Television cameras broadcast live a court
trial involving a copyright infringement case. It was part of a wider effort by China to promote
the rule of law and lift a veil of secrecy over communist state's judicial system.
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