Living History by Unknown (best non fiction books of all time .txt) 📕

Bill and I wished Chelsea were with us too. We were on our way to Botswana, a landlocked arid nation with the contrasting distinction of having one of the highest per capita incomes in sub-Saharan Africa and the highest AIDS infection rate in the world. The government was attempting to marshal its resources to combat the spread of the disease and trying to provide treatment, but the costs were prohibitive without international assistance.

This visit convinced Bill to push hard to triple U.S. funding for international AIDS

programs in just two years and to make a substantial financial commitment to fund efforts to develop a vaccine.

Although our trip thus far had been exhilarating, it had not yet included any chance for Bill to see the wildlife that Chelsea and I had marveled at the year before. During a brief visit to the Chobe National Park, Bill and I woke up before dawn for a morning game drive. After sighting elephants, hippos, eagles, crocodiles and a mother lion and four cubs, we spent the late afternoon floating down the Chobe River. We sat alone in the back of a boat as the sun went down on a day I’ll never forget.

At our final stop in Senegal, Bill went to Gorée Island, as I had. He saw the Door of No Return and delivered a moving apology for America’s role in slavery. The statement was controversial among some Americans, but I believed it was appropriate. Words matter, and words from an American President carry great weight around the world. Expressing regret for genocide in Rwanda and our legacy of slavery sent a message of concern and respect to Africans who confront the intertwined challenges of poverty, disease, repression, starvation, illiteracy and war. But Africa needs more than words; it needs investment and trade if its economies are ever going to develop. That requires both significant changes in most governments and a partnership with the United States. That’s why the African Growth and Opportunity Act, which Bill proposed and Congress passed, is so critical. It creates incentives for American companies to do business in Africa.

Within a month, still talking and thinking about Africa, Bill and I were off to China for a state visit. I was delighted that we could take Chelsea and my mother along and excited about returning for a longer stay that would allow me to see more than I had during my 1995 visit.

China was already modernizing its economy, and its future direction would have a direct impact on American interests. Bill favored engagement with China, but as I had learned in 1995, that was easier said than done. We embarked on a long-planned state visit that spring, hoping to confront China’s violations of human rights while opening up its huge market to American business and reaching some understanding about Taiwan. A difficult balancing act.

Because it was a state visit, the Chinese government insisted on a formal arrival ceremony in Beijing. We usually conduct these ceremonies on the White House South Lawn, and the Chinese usually con duct theirs in Tiananmen Square. Bill and I debated whether we should attend a ceremony in Tiananmen Square, where Chinese authorities had used tanks to forcibly suppress pro-democracy demonstrations in June of 1989. Bill didn’t want to appear to endorse China’s repressive tactics and violations of human rights, but he understood the square’s importance over centuries of Chinese history and agreed to respect the Chinese request. I was haunted by the events at Tiananmen, remembering the square as we had seen it in television footage in 1989―students constructing a makeshift “Goddess of Democracy” resembling our Statue of Liberty, in defiance of soldiers like the ones in the honor guard lined up in formation, waiting to be reviewed by the President of the United States.

I had met President Jiang Zemin in October of 1997 when he and his wife, Madame Wang Yeping, came to the United States for a state visit. Jiang spoke English and conversed easily. Before the visit, many of my friends had asked me to raise with him the issue of China’s suppression of Tibet. I had met with the Dalai Lama to discuss the Tibetans’

plight, and so I asked President Jiang to explain China’s repression of the Tibetans and their religion.

“What do you mean?” he said. “Tibet has historically been a part of China. The Chinese are the liberators of the Tibetan people. I have read the histories in our libraries, and I know Tibetans are better off now than they were before.”

“But what about their traditions and the right to practice their religion as they choose?”

He became passionate, even banging the table once. “They were victims of religion.

They are now freed from feudalism.”

Despite a developing global culture, the same facts can be and often are viewed through starkly different historical and cultural prisms and the word “freedom” is defined to fit one’s political perspective. Still, I didn’t think Jiang, who is quite sophisticated and had succeeded in opening up and modernizing the Chinese economy, was being quite straight with me on Tibet. The Chinese, for historical and psychological reasons, were obsessed with avoiding internal disintegration. In the case of Tibet, that led to overreaction and oppression, as obsessions often do.

During our visit to China, Bill and I again raised our concerns about Tibet and the general state of human rights in China. Predictably, the Chinese leaders were adamant and dismissive. When I’m asked why a U.S. President should visit any country with whom we have such serious differences, my answer is always the same: America, the most diverse nation in human history, now wields unparalleled power. But we can be quite insular and uninformed about other countries and their perspectives. Our leaders and our people benefit from learning more about the world in which we live, compete and try to cooperate.

Regardless of how much we have in common with people everywhere, deep differences are created by history, geography and culture and those can be bridged only―if at