July 1998
AMERICAN BULL IN A CHINA SHOP

Late last month, the people of China and the people of the United States were treated to the same spectacle, television images of the Communist Chinese leading the American president around by the nose, as they would their prized ox.

Clinton paid a heavy political price for caving in to all of the Chinese demands regarding the details of his state visit. He insulted our ally Japan by flying all the way across the Pacific Ocean and refusing to stop in Tokyo. American Asia experts told him he should make the stop, but the Peoples Republic of China said "no!" and Clinton had to obey. After all, they not only laundered approximately $3 million into his reelection campaign, they also control 94 witnesses who have, to date, refused to cooper-ate with the congressional and Justice Department investigations into the foreign campaign contributions scandal. The first stop in China for our president was in the ancient city of Xian, where he received the keys to the city. That was the least the Chinese government could do, considering Clinton gave them the keys to the Pentagon.

The Chinese coup de grace was their insistence that Clinton sanitize Tiananmen Square, soiled with the blood of thousands of killed and wounded Chinese whose only crime was that they freely assembled to express their hopes and dreams for freedom for the Chinese people. This slaughter was especially bitter for Americans, for it was to our style of democracy that they aspired.

Gangs of Communist secret police moved through China ahead of our president, arresting political dissidents who wanted to express their views of life in a totalitarian state to the Western reporters accompanying Clinton. This was an intentional slap in the face of Clinton by the Chinese, in case their boy from Arkansas forgot who was the boss.

The trip to China was very uncomfortable for Clinton. The American people expect their president to travel to the lands of our rivals from a position of strength. Clinton could not. He is weak, because he is bought and paid for.

Prior to his arrival on the Chinese mainland, the bestselling books in Beijing bookstores were exposes of Clintons sex scandals, complete with pictures of Monica Lewinsky and Gennifer Flowers. A government that officially lies about its slaughter of political dissidents, prison labor practices, oppression of Tibet, forced abortions, and sale of nuclear and missile technology to Pakistan and Iran, the Chinese laughed at the moral judgments voiced by the American president, who took their money and is being investigated by his own people for perjury and obstruction of justice.

Clintons China trip was a low point in American foreign affairs in the post World War II era. Clinton can stop worrying about his legacy. There is nothing he can do to change it now.

Clinton was able to speak to the Chinese people, and he used the occassion to declare the massacre at Tiananmen Square wrong. This was no small feat, given the Chinese obsession with preventing any criticism of the government from disseminating to the people of Red China.