Clinton delinked human rights from trade in 1994, conceding leverage over China

Evidence

First, in effect conceding that it lacked the will and/or the ability to pressure Asian societies, the United States separated issue areas where it might have leverage from issue areas where it had conflicts. Although Clinton had proclaimed human rights a top priority of American foreign policy toward China, in 1994 he responded to pressure from U.S. businesses, Taiwan, and other sources, delinked human rights from economic issues, and abandoned the effort to use extension of most favored nation status as a means of influencing Chinese behavior toward its political dissidents. In a parallel move, the administration explicitly separated security policy toward Japan, where presumably it could exert leverage, from trade and other economic issues, where its relations with Japan were most conflictual. The United States thus surrendered weapons it could have used to promote human rights in China and trade concessions from Japan. — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 609

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s interest in power and leverage as predictable structural forces — a president’s proclaimed moral priority being abandoned under business pressure. — connects to: Clinton reframed US post-Cold War power as democracy promotion through free trade — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 459; Clinton’s foreign policy fused free trade with a claimed humanitarian mission