In April 1999, Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji made a visit to Washington, D.C., to meet with President Bill Clinton. A few days earlier, the American president had delivered a speech voicing strong support for China’s admission into the World Trade Organization, a long held priority for Beijing. While acknowledging the Chinese Communist Party’s human rights abuses and other problems, Clinton stressed the hope that economic development would liberalize China.
“Is this a country to be engaged or isolated? Is this a country beyond our power to influence or a country that is ours to gain and ours to lose?” the president asked. Zhu was there to be gained.
From left to right, Zhu Rongji, Bill Clinton, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and Yo-Yo Ma. April 8, 1999. Credit: Reuters/Alamy Stock Photo via Alamy
At a White House dinner, Clinton introduced the Chinese premier to some of the 224 dignitaries in attendance: novelist Amy Tan, the Rev. Billy Graham, cellist Yo-Yo Ma and Janet
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When China announced it was ending quarantine requirements for incoming travelers, Chinese people collectively picked up their phones to search popular travel apps like Ctrip and Qunar. Owned by travel giant Trip.com, these apps helped Chinese travelers explore the world pre-pandemic and facilitated the human-to-human interactions that drove China's rise. But many of today's travelers seem to be sticking closer to home, and their hesitation to get back to the jetsetting habits of the past 20 years has far-reaching implications — especially for Trip.com.
The professor talks about China's real estate bubble; if China can develop a modern financial system without rule of law; and why it's not China that is reshaping the global order, but the world's response...
