The main sticking point was the conflict between our efforts to limit the spread of nuclear weapons and India’s drive to develop them, which the Indians saw as a necessary deterrent to China’s nuclear arsenal and a prerequisite to its becoming a world power. Pakistan had developed a nuclear program, too, creating a dangerous situation on the Indian subcontinent. I believed that their nuclear arsenals made both India and Pakistan less secure, but the Indians didn’t see it that way and were determined not to let the United States interfere with what they saw as their legitimate prerogative to proceed with their nuclear program. Even so, the Indians wanted to improve our relations as much as I did. While we didn’t resolve our differences, Prime Minister Rao and I broke the ice and began a new chapter in Indo-U.S. relations, which continued to warm throughout my two terms and afterward. On the day I met with Prime Minister Rao, Jackie Kennedy Onassis died after a battle with cancer. She was only sixty-four. Jackie was the most private of our great public icons, to most people an indelible image of elegance, grace, and grieving. To those lucky enough to know her, she was what she seemed to be, but much more—a bright woman full of life, a fine mother and good friend. I knew how much her children, John and Caroline, and her companion, Maurice Tempelsman, would miss her. Hillary would miss her, too; she had been a source of constant encouragement, sound advice, and genuine friendship. At the end of May, I had to decide whether to extend most-favored-nation status to China. MFN was actually a slightly misleading term for normal trade relations without any extra tariffs or other barriers. America already had a sizable trade deficit with China, one that would grow over the years as the United States purchased between 35 and 40 percent of Chinese exports annually. After the violence in Tiananmen Square and the crackdown on dissidents that followed, Americans from across the political spectrum felt the Bush administration had been too quick to reestablish normal relations with Beijing. During the election campaign I had been critical of President Bush’s policy, and in 1993 I had issued an executive order requiring progress on a range of issues from emigration to human rights to forced prison labor before I would extend MFN to China. In May, Warren Christopher sent me a report saying that all the emigration cases had been resolved; that we had signed a memorandum of understanding on how to deal with the prison labor issue; and that for the first time China had said that it would adhere to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. On the other hand, Christopher said, there were still human rights abuses in the arrest and detention of peaceful political dissidents and the repression of Tibet’s religious and cultural traditions.
China was extremely sensitive to other nations “interfering” in its political affairs. The Chinese leaders also felt that they were managing all the change they could handle with their economic modernization program and attendant huge population shifts from inland provinces to booming coastal cities. Because our engagement had produced some positive results, I decided, with the unanimous support of my foreign policy and economic advisors, to extend MFN and, for the future, to delink our human rights efforts from trade. The United States had a big stake in bringing China into the global community. Greater trade and involvement would bring more prosperity to Chinese citizens; more contacts with the outside world; more cooperation on problems like North Korea, where we needed it; greater adherence to the rules of international law; and, we hoped, the advance of personal freedom and human rights. In the first week of June, Hillary and I went to Europe to honor the fiftieth anniversary of D-day, June 6, 1944, when the United States and its allies crossed the English Channel and stormed the beaches of Normandy. It was the largest naval invasion in history and marked the beginning of the end of World War II in Europe.
