The Bush administration continues to coddle China, despite its continuing crackdown on democratic reform, its brutal subjugation of Tibet, its irresponsible export of nuclear and missile technology... Such forbearance on our part might have made sense during the Cold War when China was the counterweight to Soviet power. It makes no sense to play the China card now when our opponents have thrown in their hand.
Interpretation
The quote criticizes the U.S. policy towards China, suggesting that it no longer makes sense to support China given its actions against democracy and human rights.
William J. Clinton's quote reveals a critical perspective on the foreign policy of the Bush administration toward China. It suggests that the U.S. is being overly accommodating to China, despite its ongoing suppression of democratic movements and human rights violations, particularly in Tibet. Clinton argues that while it may have been strategic to engage with China during the Cold War as a counterbalance to the Soviet Union, contemporary geopolitical dynamics do not justify such leniency, especially as other global powers have shifted their strategies.
In practice
During a debate on U.S.-China relations, this quote can underscore the importance of accountability in foreign policy.
You know, there was a recent poll which said that young people in the generation of the students here felt it was far more likely that they would see a UFO than that they would draw Social Security... It's very important you understand this. Once you understand this, you realize this is not an episode from the X Files, and you're not more likely to see a UFO if you do certain specific things.
When we got organized as a country, [and] wrote a fairly radical Constitution, with a radical Bill of Rights, giving radical amounts of freedom to Americans, it was assumed that Americans who had that freedom would use it responsibly...When personal freedom is being abused, you have to move to limit it.
For too long we've been told about 'us' and 'them.' Each and every election we see a new slate of arguments and ads telling us that 'they' are the problem, not 'us.' But there can be no 'them' in America. There's only us.
There is a huge body of business evidence now showing that energy savings give better service at lower cost with higher profit. We have to tear down barriers to successful markets and we have to create incentives to enter them.
Demand that your government pays more attention. It's immoral that people in Africa die like flies of diseases that no one dies of in the United States. And the more disease there is, the more political unrest there will be, leading to more Darfurs, which the U.S. will have to pay to fix.
I was not elected to produce a pile of vetoes.
Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable.
It has been the political career of this man to begin with hypocrisy, proceed with arrogance, and finish with contempt
Russian Parliament today is a bunch of puppets that just fall in with the instructions from Kremlin.
Behold a republic standing erect while empires all around are bowed beneath the weight of their own armaments - a republic whose flag is loved while other flags are only feared.
Imagine a political system so radical as to promise to move more of the poorest 20% of the population into the richest 20% than remain in the poorest bracket within the decade? You don't need to imagine it. It's called the United States of America.
The era when the United States was the dominant global power is steadily coming to an end, and it must find a way of acknowledging this and framing its ambitions and interests accordingly. Instead of claiming the right to continuing primacy in east Asia, for example, it should seek to share that primacy with China.
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