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With trouble brewing in the Balkans again, we needed him Hillary, Chelsea, and I arrived in China on the night of June 25, along with Hillarys mother, Dorothy, and a delegation that included Secretary Albright, Secretary Rubin, Secretary Daley, and six members of Congress, including John Dingell of Michigan, the longest-serving member of the HouseJohns presence was important because Michigans dependence on the automobile industry made it a center of protectionist sentimentI was gratified that he wanted to see China firsthand, to make his own judgment about whether China should join the WTO We began the trip at the ancient capital of Xian, where the Chinese put on an elaborate and beautiful welcoming ceremonyThe next day we had the opportunity to walk among the rows of the famous terra-cotta warriors, and to have a roundtable discussion with Chinese citizens in the small village of Xiahe We got down to business two days later, when President Jiang Zemin and I met and held a press conference that was televised live all over ChinaWe frankly discussed our differences as well as our commitment to building a strategic partnershipIt was the first time the Chinese people had ever seen their leader actually debate issues like human rights and religious liberty with a foreign head of stateJiang had grown more confident in his ability to deal with such issues in public and he trusted me to disagree in a respectful way, as well as to stress our common interests in ending the Asian financial crisis, advancing chanel black bucket tote bag nonproliferation, and promoting reconciliation on the Korean peninsula When I advocated more freedom and human rights in China, Jiang responded that America was highly developed, while China still had a per capita income of $700 a yearHe emphasized our different histories, cultures, ideologies, and social systemsWhen I urged Jiang to meet with the Dalai Lama, he said the door was open if the Dalai Lama would first state that Tibet and Taiwan were part of China, and added that there were already several channels of communication with the leader of Tibetan BuddhismI got a laugh from the Chinese audience when I said I thought that if Jiang and the Dalai Lama did meet, they would like each other very muchI also tried to make some practical suggestions to move forward on human rightsFor example, there were still Chinese citizens in prison for offenses no longer on the booksI suggested they be released The main point of the press conference was the debate itselfI wanted Chinese citizens to see America supporting human rights that we believe are universal, and I wanted Chinese officials to see that greater openness wouldnt cause the social disintegration that, given Chinas history, they understandably feared After the state dinner hosted by Jiang Zemin and his wife, Wang Yeping, he and I took turns conducting the Peoples Liberation Army BandThe next day my family attended Sunday church services at Chongwenmen Church, Beijings earliest Protestant church, one of the few houses of worship the government louis vuitton replica handbags had sanctionedMany Christians were meeting secretly in homesReligious liberty was important to me, and I was pleased when Jiang agreed to let me send a delegation of American religious leaders, including a rabbi, a Catholic archbishop, and an evangelical minister, to pursue the matter further After we toured the Forbidden City and the Great Wall, I held a question-and-answer session with students at Beijing UniversityWe discussed human rights in China, but they also asked me about human rights problems in the United States and about what I could do to increase the American peoples understanding of ChinaThese were fair questions from young people who wanted their country to change but were still proud of it Premier Zhu Rongji hosted a lunch for the delegation in which we discussed the economic and social challenges facing China, as well as the remaining issues we still had to resolve in order to bring China into the World Trade OrganizationI was strongly in favor of doing so, in order to continue Chinas integration into the global economy, and to increase both its acceptance of international rules of law and its willingness to cooperate with the United States and other nations on a whole range of other issuesThat night President Jiang and Madame Wang invited us to dine alone with them at their official residence, which lay beside a placid lake inside the compound that housed Chinas most important leadersThe more time I spent with Jiang, the more I liked himHe was intriguing, funny, and fiercely proud, tiffany co jewellery but always willing to listen to different points of viewEven though I didnt always agree with him, I became convinced that he believed he was changing China as fast as he could, and in the right direction From Beijing we went to Shanghai, which seemed to have more construction cranes than any other city in the worldHillary and I had a fascinating discussion about Chinas problems and potential with a group of younger Chinese, including professors, businesspeople, a consumer advocate, and a novelistOne of the most enlightening experiences of the entire trip was a radio call-in show I did with the mayorThere were some good but predictable questions for me on economic and security matters, but the mayor got more questions than I did; his callers were interested in better education and more computers, and worried about the traffic congestion as a result of the citys growing prosperity and expansionIt struck me that if citizens were complaining to the mayor about traffic jams, Chinese politics was evolving in the right direction Before going home, we flew to Guilin for a meeting with environmentalists concerned about the destruction of forests and the loss of unique wildlife, and a leisurely boat trip down the Li River, which flows through a stunning landscape marked by large limestone formations that looked as if they had burst up through the landscape of the gentle countrysideAfter Guilin, we made a stop in Hong Kong to see Tung Chee-hwa, the chief executive chosen by the Chinese after the British watch chanel j12 black with diamonds leftAn intelligent, sophisticated man who had lived in America for several years, Tung had his hands full balancing the boisterous Hong Kong political culture with the much more conformist Chinese central governmentI also met again with democracy advocate Martin LeeThe Chinese had promised to let Hong Kong keep its much more democratic political system, but I had the clear impression that the details of their reunion were still being worked out, and that neither side was fully satisfied with the present state of affairs In mid-July, Al Gore and I held an event at the National Academy of Sciences to highlight our administrations efforts to avoid computer meltdowns at the dawn of the new millenniumThere was widespread concern that many computer systems would not make the change to the year 2000, which would cause havoc in the economy and disrupt the affairs of millions of AmericansWe organized an exhaustive effort led by John Koskinen to make sure all government systems were ready for the new millennium and to help the private sector make the adjustmentWe wouldnt know for sure whether we had been successful until the date arrived On the sixteenth, I signed another of my priorities into law, the Child Support Performance and Incentive ActWe had already increased collections 68 percent since 1992; 1 million more families were now receiving child supportThis bill penalized states that did not automate their child-support files and gave financial rewards to those that were successful in meeting performance balenciaga blue goal

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