Need some Clinton/China help...

[JHB]

At a get-together with my mostly-Republican family, politics (fortunately) mostly stayed out of it, but it did veer in that direction once, and one of my uncles opined "What I really want to know is: What did China get for its contribution (to the Clinton campaign)?"

I've tried researching this for more than a quickie comback, but as you might expect most Google hits turn up assorted Newsmax quotes and freeper/dittohead sites.

Does anyone know where one can find nice, succinct rebuttals to clear away the obscuring steam rising from all that elephant dung?

[Kahuna]

1. He should be answering his own question. Why is he asking you?

All the repukes have thrown out is innuendo. Why should we be expected to prove a negative?

[JHB]

7. He wasn't asking me...

...he sort of just tossed that out in the air, apparently expecting everyone around to pretty much agree.

[redqueen]

2. His hard work to get them MFN trade status?

Did he lobby to get them into the WTO? When did that happen?

[JHB]

3. DID they contribute anything?

I'd like to verify even that much.

[redqueen]

6. lol... yeah, given the lying and dissembling done by the right

that would be the appropriate place to start... good call.

[cushla_machree]

4. all have heard is..

Clinton sold nuclear secrets to the chinese.

???

its hard to find the truth about it without turning up newsmax sites.

[JHB]

10. Naw, they just try to pin it on him.

Any nuclear secrets stolen by the Chinese occured during the Reagan/Bush administrations, especially during the period when the Reaganaughts were cozying up to Beijing as a counterweight to the "Evil Empire" Soviets, and to help aid the Contras (e.g., Ollie & the Gang's Contra-supply network would buy Chinese-made AK-47s to arm the Contras, since if they used M-16s they'd lose even the fig-leaf of legitimacy.

[underpants]

5. Not the best source but here is some clarification

12th or 13th page on a "CLinton China" google search, you are right it is all RW sites at the beginning. This IS a huge point that they love to make but:
http://www.wsws.org/news/1998/may1998/clin-m19.shtml

There is hypocrisy and cynicism on all sides in this latest round of political warfare. It was the Bush administration which first granted a waiver to China allowing the launching of US satellites on Chinese rockets, only two years after Tiananmen Square. It was then the Democrats who denounced the decision, with Al Gore, the party's vice-presidential candidate, branding Bush "an incurable patsy for these dictators."

The notion that the Clinton administration was "bought" by China for a $100,000 contribution is of course absurd. Even if China was the source of the money donated by Chung, this was a drop in the bucket for a campaign in which the Democratic Party and Democratic candidates spent more than $1 billion, while the Republicans spent nearly twice as much. Beijing simply cannot compete with the vast sums poured into both parties by corporate America.

[JHB]

13. Thanks

You're right in that he'd just brush off the source, but it does bring up the important points.

[Festivito]

19. The satellite company sent to China was Uncle Prescott Bush's.

Prescott was sent by his brother the president. I gather that intelligent people concur that the rocket secrets were transferred before Clinton's time, i.e. during Bush/Reagan, i.e. when Bush I presided. But, unrefuted attacks by the RepubliCONNING keep the RepubliCONNED in line to this day. Assured that the left-wing press would correct them if wrong.

Clinton's connection came up with Wen Ho Lee being vilified, then somewhat quietly and confusingly dropped with a wink and nudge for the CONNEDservatives, convinced it connects to Clinton.

Taiwangate disappeared.

RepubliCON fundraiser, money funneling, Ms. Yeung from the California RepubliCONS disappeared too behind hundreds of yeung names added to news.

It all leaves the RepubliCONNED certain of their own in-errancy.

[Tempest]

8. Google "Taiwangate"

That'll shut him up.

[JHB]

11. You don't know your enemy. It wouldn't...

He wouldn't like it, but I can already hear the counterclaim:

"Granted influence peddling is a bad thing, but are you comparing peddling by Taiwan with peddling by a billion-people nuclear-armed potential enemy?

[frankly_fedup2]

9. Do you not remember Cheney's little Asian trip and they claimed . . .

it was regarding North Korea but Cheney was in China all the time. Well guess what?

The Chinese are financing our trade deficit. Yeah, sit down. One of the few communist countries is supplying us with money so Bush can continue to increase the deficit.

Also, Cheney promised to help them with their nuclear reactors. Can you spell Stupid? So who is right here and who is wrong?

Do a search on deficit, China, Cheney. Learn a lot.

[Cassandra]

12. When Fred Thompson's China hearings...

were just getting somewhere (maybe) on Face the Nation, Bob Scheiffer asked Haley Barbour if the Republicans hadn't also solicited Chinese money and Barbour had to admit that they had. The plug was pulled on the hearings and I remember Thompson being pissed. Repukes are only interested in scandals they can pin on Democrats.
I know this to be a fact because I was watching Face the Nation when he said it. Whether you can find the transcript, I don't know.

[JHB]

16. Any idea of the timeframe?

Year, month? Anything to narrow down the search.

And thanks.

[Cassandra]

18. 1997 - July

From our friends at the Spectator:
http://www.mega.nu:8080/ampp/china/j124.html

And from our friends at Slate:
http://slate.msn.com/id/3808/entry/24371/

[NewJeffCT]

14. I asked this a while back

And, unfortunately, I cannot find the links again. I remember a good article in the Consortium News that details Reagan as being the one that initially gave nuclear secrets to China. He was so obsessed with the Soviets that he gave the Chinese nuclear secrets so the Soviets would have to worry about nuclear armed foes on their Eastern borders as well as from NATO in the West.

I believe when the Senate investigated Wen Ho Lee, his alleged spying went back into the 1980s... so, the Republican Senate quickly stopped the investigation and declared nobody was at fault. I'm not sure if Lee was an underling of Republican fundraiser, and accused double agent, Katrina Leung, though. My memory is foggy on that one.

[sangh0]

15. Chinese Espionage Was a Reagan-Bush Scandal

Chinese Espionage Was a Reagan-Bush Scandal

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2001/021601a.html

[sangh0]

17. Spy case arrest shocks GOP friends

Spy case arrest shocks GOP friends
http://www.sacbee.com/content/politics/story/6435627p-7...

"Katrina Leung seemed just the sort of woman the California Republican Party wanted in its ranks.
A Chinese American business consultant from Southern California, Leung spoke Cantonese, Mandarin and English with ease, was well connected and was eager to donate her energy and money to the GOP.

She gave thousands of dollars last year to gubernatorial candidates Richard Riordan and Bill Simon, and they thanked her by name in speeches and on Web sites. U.S. Rep. David Dreier liked his San Marino constituent so much that he recently appointed her as a voting member on the state party's central committee.

Leung's beneficiaries were stunned Thursday to learn federal officials had arrested her the day before, alleging the 49-year-old woman, code named "Parlor Maid," was a double agent who used a romance she'd carried on with an FBI agent since the 1980s to obtain secrets for the Chinese government..."