Clinton's Visit Research Articles

EGYPT – US: Clinton Visit

Africa Research Bulletin: Political, Social and Cultural SeriesVolume 49, Issue 7 p. 19362A-19363C EGYPT – US: Clinton Visit First published: 13 August 2012 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-825X.2012.04613.xRead the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onEmailFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume49, Issue7August 2012Pages 19362A-19363C RelatedInformation

New Capitols of Capital

New Capitols of Capital

Political Culture and Participation in the Chinese Countryside: Some Empirical Evidence

Democracy in rural China has attracted much attention in recent years. During President Bill Clinton's visit to China in 1998, he made a public stop at a village outside Xian to chat with a few Chinese villagers about village elections in China. In fact, village democracy has become one of the rare subject matters that the Chinese government is eager to publicize and the Western academia and media are interested to investigate. The Chinese government, often through the Ministry of Civil Affairs, has organized and allowed foreign journalists, social scientists, dignitaries, diplomats, and political, academic, and social organizations (such as the U.S. International Republican Institute, the Ford Foundation, the Carter Center, and the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations) to go to Chinese rural areas to observe village selfgovernment and elections. There is no doubt that the Chinese government intends to showcase its village selfgovernment to the outside world, hoping to improve its tarnished image from the Tiananmen crackdown in 1989. Western media and governments are interested in this new development in China in the hope that this will be the beginning of the long-delayed democratic transition in the most populous country in the world.

US security policy towards South Asia after September 11 and its implications for China: A Chinese perspective

American security policy towards South Asia can basically be divided into three stages: balance of power in the Cold War era, beyond balance of power after the end of Cold War, and new balance of power after September 11. The Cold War saw an allied US and‐Pakistan rival the close relations between the Soviet Union and India in the subcontinent. Yet, South Asia became a low priority in US Asia policy in the early years of the post‐Cold War era compared to other regions, especially East Asia and the Middle‐East. Three events, however, drew US attention to the region in the late 1990s. First, India and Pakistan exploded a total of eleven nuclear devices in May 1998. Then the two powers came into conflict in Kargil from May to July 1999 which resulted in a bloodless military coup in Pakistan in October 1999. Third, President Clinton's visit to South Asia in March 2000 topped off a changing US South Asia strategy with a warm Washington‐New Delhi rapprochement. The Bush Administration continued to transform the US‐Indian relationship. This paper begins with a brief analysis of the significant changes in US policy towards India and Pakistan during the second term of the Clinton Administration by way of case studies of the three aforementioned events that transpired in the late 1990s. The second part addresses US security policy towards India and Pakistan after September 11. And, after some observations about US policy options in post‐9/11 South Asia, the implications for China of the changing US strategy in the region is discussed from the lens of ‘triangles’ (which include a US‐China‐India triangle, a US‐India‐Pakistari triangle and a India‐China‐Pakistan triangle).

The Rise of Liberal Economics in South Africa

BETWEEN 21 AND 28 MAY 2000, THABO MBEKI paid his first visit to the United States since his election as president of South African. Though he stressed the many positive dimensions of United States-South Africa bilateral relations, he lamented the absence of foreign investment in Africa, where 'wars, military coups, and instability within countries cannot but contribute to the dampening of investors' appetites.'(f.1) In particular, he stressed globalization's failure to address effectively the needs of developing countries. Indeed, in one speech he noted that developing countries were constantly told to undertake economic and trade reforms to become more compatible with, and attractive to, the developed world. In South Africa, where the government had endorsed and pursued liberal economics aggressively, and where the country's political and economic fundamentals were stable and sound, Mbeki said: 'in spite of this, investment flows into South Africa have been disappointing, helping keep poverty and unemployment levels high.' 'Many of us [in Africa] are punished,' he continued, 'by the development and trade structures in place, which benefit the wealthy countries that wrote them and continue to impact negatively on us.'(f.2)THINGS AREN'T ALWAYS QUITE WHAT THEY SEEMThis was not the first time in recent memory that a South African official had made disparaging remarks about the prevailing economically liberal international order, of which the United States is a major champion and proponent. During President Bill Clinton's historic visit to Africa in March 1998, the president of South Africa at the time, Nelson Mandela, said, with Clinton at his side: 'Our people have welcomed President Clinton with open arms. This is one of our proudest moments ... I hold him in high respect. [But] the fact that we have respect for him does not mean we have no differences.'The contentious issue to which Mandela was referring was the very thing American officials hoped would be at the heart of United States engagement with Africa: the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). In brief, the 1997 AGOA sought to: 1) lift American import duties on African apparel and textiles; 2) expand the number of subsaharan African countries eligible for the United States general system of preferences for developing nations; 3) create a US$650 million investment fund (to be administered by the Overseas Private Investment Corporation); and 4) establish a United States-Africa trade and co-operation forum to improve communication on trade issues. All, however, would hinge on the willingness of African countries to undertake economic reform and to increase trade. 'This [requirement] is a matter over which we have serious reservations,' Mandela said. 'To us it is not acceptable.'(f.3)Mbeki, Mandela's deputy president, laid out exactly what was unacceptable in an interview with the French quarterly, Politique Internationale, some of which was broadcast on South African radio during Clinton's visit. In that interview, Mbeki insisted that Africa and South Africa alike needed trade and aid, not trade instead of aid, as the AGOA emphasised. 'It [the AGOA] is wrong,' Mbeki said bluntly. 'Africa needs both.'(f.4) Mbeki argued that if the South African 'economy today cannot generate the resources that are required to address all these urgent problems of poverty which face us,' South African businesses could not be expected to compete against American producers, with infinitely more resources, in American markets. It stood to reason, Mbeki added, that if this were the case with South Africa, subsaharan Africa's largest and most advanced economy, then it would also be true for other African countries.(f.5)All contention aside, however, South African policy-makers had begun to pursue economic reform and increased trade long before Clinton's 1998 visit.GEAR AS THE WAY FORWARDIn June 1996, the South African government unveiled its Growth, Employment, and Redistribution (GEAR) strategy. …

Otherizing Space and Cultures: The American Media's Coverage of President Bill Clinton's Visit to Ghana in 1998

Against the backdrop of the historical images of Africa in the West, this article explores the experience of contemporary Ghana in the American media. It focuses especially on the media's coverage of President Bill Clinton's visit to Ghana in 1998 and uses same to portray how space is otherized and concrete cultures fictionalized. It argues that to a large extent, the role of the American media in Africa is founded on myths, stereotypical images, and racial bias. These elements constitute the epistemological basis of the Western media's production of knowledge on Africa. With ample examples, the paper establishes the various forms of otherness which Africa is made to assume, all of which situates the continent in a Hobbesian world, thus distorting the essentially holistic image of Africa's rich cultural heritage and the many positive elements of its contemporary society. (The Journal of Cultural Studies: 2001 3(1): 74-89)

Clinton's visit and the nuclear narrative

Clinton's visit and the nuclear narrative

Confucianism and Human Rights (review)

Reviews 85 erous time frame ofone or two centuries. In an era ofincreasing globalization, they are left with perhaps only two choices: to become or not to become a member ofthe capitalist world system while under heavy pressure from without—and from within, in the form ofrising expectations among their own impatient citizens. This is a big challenge and presents LDC planners and policy makers with cruel choices—as Denis Goulet succinctly illustrated in a succession of studies back in the 1970s. Thus Fengshui JIUJC may not necessarilybe the perfect example ofEastern tradition, just as the computer may not be the ideal symbol of the totality ofWestern civilization. In other words, in the struggle to reach the top, what room is left for latecomer developing countries in an ever-expanding capitalist hegemonic world system? Can they afford the luxury ofholding to tradition at the cost ofmodernization, however defined? Altogether, Anywise is a book about architecture, but it is also a book about urbanization, modernization, and development, viewed particularly from the standpoint ofthe contrast between East and West. Globalization, growth, the information age, modernity, postmodernity, technology, and tradition are all touched upon. Scholars in architecture, planning, sociology, and development— and policy makers as well—should all be able to draw both theoretical and practical inspiration from this book. Hsiao-hung Nancy Chen Hsiao-hung Nancy Chen is a professor in the Department ofSociology and the Dean ofthe College ofSocial Sciences, National Chengchi University, Taipei; she specializes in studies ofdevelopment and urban sociology and planning. Wm. Theodore de Bary and Tu Weiming, editors. Confucianism and Human Rights. New York: Columbia University Press, 1998. xxiii, 327 pp. Hardcover $40.00, isbn 0-231-10936-9. In their highly publicized media events in both the United States (October 1997) and China (June 1998), Presidents Jiang Zemin and Bill Clinton expressed disagreement on their respective views on human rights. Reporting on these summit y mversity meetings, the American news media further exacerbated the difference by using the Tiananmen Square mass demonstrations of Spring 1989 and the subsequent Beijing massacre on June 4 as convenient points of reference. Granted that the television image of government tanks and guns against helpless Chinese students 86 China Review International: Vol. 6, No. ?, Spring 1999 and civilians had been indelibly seared into the minds of the American viewing public in particular and the people of the world generally, China has nonetheless indeed made great strides in improving the lives of a large portion of its populace since that tragedy of almost a decade ago. Still, manifesting a kind of sleeping beauty syndrome, Dan Rather of CBS, for example, implied during the Clinton visit that until the arrival ofthe American president, China had not even considered the issue ofhuman rights. In fact, prior to the Clinton visit, Vice Premier Qian Qichen announced that China will sign the main United Nations human rights convention, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), just as it did the companion convention, the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) shortly before the arrival of President Jiang in Washington, D.C, in October 1997.1 Confucianism and Human Rights consists largely of the proceedings ofthe first across-the-Pacific conference (at the East-West Center, University of Hawai'i, August 1995) to address the Universal Declaration on Human Rights of 1948, subsequent developments, and the expansion, especially in recent decades, from its original focus on civil and political rights (1948) to economic, social, and cultural rights (mid-1970s) to the group rights of a people for survival and self-determination in a shrinking planet (1990s). At the Hawai'i conference these different generations of interdependent and mutually potentiating human rights were all carefully examined from the perspective of one of China's own cultural traditions, namely Confucianism. In addition to such organizations as the American Council of Learned Societies, the East-West Center, the Heyman Center for the Humanities, and the Human Rights Center of Columbia University, a major sponsor was the China Confucius Foundation (established in Beijing in 1984). The conference brought together a high-powered coterie of East Asian studies specialists, philosophers, historians, political scientists, and law professors—most ofwhom...

Current Sino‑U.S. Relations in Strategic Perspective

After 1995-96 Taiwan Strait crisis pushed Sino-U.S. relations to their lowest point since Chinese Government's crackdown on demonstrators in and around Tiananmen square in 1989, U.S. President Bill Clinton's visit to in June 1998 carried unusually high hopes and expectations for an improvement in this key bilateral relationship. Many observers therefore exaggerated accomplishments of Clinton's trip, saying that it heralded a major positive geopolitical change. A deeper, longer-term analysis of relationship, however, yields conclusion that while Clinton visit produced more than typical summit meeting, U.S.-China relations have undergone no major shift, and fundamental political and strategic contradictions persist. First, we should establish some interpretive parameters: what constitutes a major change in a bilateral relationship? Simply put, such a relationship may fall into one of three categories: adversarial (the dominant consideration in relationship is possibility of military conflict), neutral (few diplomatic interactions, or a rough balance between co-operative and discordant interactions), or friendly (frequent and mainly co-operative interactions). In this writer's view, a shift in nature of a bilateral relationship from one of these categories to another qualifies as a major change. For example, change in America's relationship with Japan and (West) Germany from World War II to post-World War II (adversarial to friendly) was fundamental. Less profound, but still momentous, was shift in U.S.-Soviet/Russian relations from Cold War to post-Cold War (adversarial to neutral), although dust has not yet completely settled. The ASEAN-era relationship between Indonesia and Malaysia represents a fundamental shift from Konfrontasi period, and relationship of original ASEAN states with Vietnam has similarly undergone a major transformation. By this standard, relationship between and United States has undergone no major change. In terms set out above, relationship is probably best characterized as neutral, both before and after Clinton's visit to China.(1) Perhaps a good analogue is slight improvement in U.S.-Soviet relations (manifested in signing of Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in 1963) that followed 1962 Cuban missile crisis, although both level of tension and stakes involved then were higher than in case of current U.S.-China relations. Background of Summit The break-up of Soviet Union left United States as China's most worrisome potential adversary and, in Foreign Minister Qian Qichen's words, the major obstacle to our foreign relations(2) for short-term and perhaps medium-term (many Chinese strategists believe Japan will eventually succeed U.S. in this role). From PRC's (People's Republic of China's) point of view, not only does Washington remain committed to its goals of weakening, dividing and Westernizing China, but end of Cold War has left America sole superpower, enjoying even greater political freedom of manoeuvre without balancing and restraining effect of Soviet influence. The Chinese therefore perceive that United States has become pushier and more arrogant this decade, as illustrated by a host of unpleasant interactions, including U.S. State Department's annual condemnation of Chinese Government's human rights record, public opposition by U.S. Congress to Beijing's bid to host 2000 Olympic Games, U.S. Navy's fruitless search for chemical weapons precursors on Iran-bound Chinese ship Yinhe, tough conditions put forth by American negotiators for Chinese entry into World Trade Organization, and Chinese complaints that American scholars and journalists have attempted to drive a wedge between Beijing and its neighbours by emphasizing a China threat to Asian security. These developments have contributed to tension between two schools of thought among Chinese elites. …

Clinton Visit to Mexico Focuses on Drug Control and Immigration Policies

President Clinton, ladies and gentlemen from the media from the United States and from Mexico, once again I would like to express the satisfaction of my government and the people of Mexico for the visit of President Clinton. We are truly very pleased that President Clinton is beginning his tour here in Latin America starting in Mexico. We are also especially pleased by the results of the work of the Mexico-U.S. Binational Commission and by the agreement that will be materialized today.

Unique, All-Taxa Survey in Costa Rica "Self-Destructs"

BiodiversityPresident Bill Clinton's visit this past week to Costa Rica has thrown a spotlight on this small Central American country, which has been hailed as a model for how poorer nations can develop sustainably. But off the front pages, many scientists are lamenting the demise of a $90 million project that would have cataloged every single species in a Costa Rican conservation area. According to officials, the project was canceled because it seemed to benefit science more than the Costa Rican people. But other factors may also have played a role.

Focus is on Security Issues In Clinton Visit to Japan

Prime Minister Hashimoto. Right in front of you, I and President Clinton signed two documents. One is the message to the peoples of Japan and the United States that lays down the direction in which the two countries should, together, proceed towards the 21st century. And the second is the Japan-U.S. Declaration on Security.