The result was a foreign policy that put U.S. interests and values first, where they belong. China clearly has more to gain from the relationship than the United States does, which is why China should be willing to make concessions, not the other way around. While the United States needn't go out of its way to antagonize China, there's no reason to kowtow either. For all the talk of China as the new economic leader of Asia, the economy may be in far more precarious position than the Clinton administration acknowledges. Unemployment is rising, reaching 30 percent in the industrial northeast and causing dangerous unrest.
Skyscrapers look impressive from the outside but are empty.
And none of the problems China faces is likely to get better so long as the country is ruled by autocrats, who may have abandoned communist economic theories, substituting corruption and greed, but have kept their authoritarian instincts. Bill Clinton should forget having the United States play the suitor and let his Chinese hosts do the wooing on this trip. If there are to be any risks in this relationship, let China wear the firecrackers, not the United States. Clinton, Lewinsky, and Politics Vs.