The October 1997 United States visit and summit between Chinese President Jiang Zemin and US President William J. Clinton yielded concentrated, daily, and prominent debate on the status of US-China relations Despite ongoing investigation into Democratic National Committee soft money practices, and the criticism that "Chinese campaign money may be Influencing US policy, "1 the President stands firmly by his 29 May 1997 decision to continue China's Most Favored Nation (MFN) Status waiver and a more moderated approach to US-China relations US-China policy critics, such as Bill Bauer, president of the Washington DC based Family Research Council, mounted a prominent campaign during the week of the summit. Citing continued human rights violations, religious persecution, trade inequities, and intellectual property rights differences as overwhelming justification for MFN revocation, critics, including Congress, called for a tougher stand. The opposition repeatedly raised the issue of US policy towards China, and the US President, as being subservient to big business and political monetary gain rather than national interest or principle. It is this issue that merits further investigation.

This title was first published in 2002: Utilizing the case of the 1994 US decision to delink China’s human rights record from most favoured nation status, Susan C. Morris addresses the critical issues where commercialism and human rights converge. This insightful addition to the literature on US foreign policy on human rights draws on both political and economic theory, touching upon the relationships between labour conditions and production, business and freedom of association, management and bargaining and ultimately the relationship between economics and human justice. Empirically, the work draws on US Congressional proceedings and debates throughout the decade of the 1990s. Although the trade and human rights debate has long been ingrained in the rhetoric of scholars, the research approaches the issue within the context of communism’s last major threshold, making it a valuable contribution to the field of international relations.