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On April 4, 2023, former US President Bill Clinton was interviewed by a British TV station, during which he mentioned two things that he regretted.
One is about Russia and Ukraine, and the other is about China.
It is easy to understand that Russia and Ukraine are concerned, and Clinton believes that it is precisely because he persuaded Ukraine to give up nuclear weapons that led to the current situation in which Ukraine is mired in war.
Is Clinton correct? What does he regret about China?
In front of the camera, Clinton looked serious, and he sincerely said that he had "personal responsibility" for the current situation in Russia and Ukraine. If Ukraine had even one nuclear warhead, it might not have fallen into war.
Ukraine's nuclear warheads came from the collapsed Soviet Union. Including 1,200 tactical nuclear bombs, 176 intercontinental missiles, and various air-dropped warheads that can be launched directly, the number reaches several thousand.
In addition to Ukraine, other allies of the former Soviet Union were also more or less divided, so there were suddenly many more nuclear countries in the world, and Ukraine became the third nuclear power at that time.
Many countries have found it difficult to accept this nuclear proliferation and have protested, especially the United States, which explicitly demanded that these nuclear warheads should only be inherited by a country in the former Soviet Union.
After all, nuclear weapons are such a thing, everyone is afraid of it, originally one Soviet Union was enough to give the United States a headache, and now there are so many more nuclear countries, once friction occurs, the consequences of moving out of control are unimaginable.
But Ukraine, as the successor, has no reason to have too much property, nuclear weapons are a heavy weapon to safeguard national sovereignty, of course, she will not easily give it up.
So Clinton took a public opinion offensive and instilled his cumbersome arguments in Ukraine, in order to make Ukraine voluntarily abandon nuclear weapons.
On the surface, the United States is best at putting on a "good for you" posture. They say that nuclear weapons are a drag on Ukraine, not only harmful to economic development, but also isolated by other countries.
Originally, Ukraine was not frightened. But the fundamental reason why the Soviet Union could not survive was that economic development was too weak.
Ukraine has found that it is indeed difficult to quickly recover its economy on its own, and under various pressures, Ukraine is not very peaceful, but there is a faint trend of more turmoil.
Countless factories in the country have closed down one after another, millions of workers have lost their jobs, and the people are running out of money, and the country is still short of materials.
For example, the price of meat products, dairy products, etc., hundreds of times higher, oil rose 40,000 times, natural gas 7,500 times, coal 3,400 times.
Even daily necessities such as a toothpaste and a toothbrush cannot be produced in sufficient quantities.
Ukraine's industry itself is very developed, inheriting thousands of various military factories, and there is no shortage of top scientific research talents, but these industries are single, mostly heavy industry, not only can not support a complete industrial chain, but has become a large energy consumer.
It is not an exaggeration to say that it may be as simple as eating a shell for Ukraine, but they just can't produce a rice cooker, a bottle of cheese.
So Ukraine found that what was taken out of the pocket of the USSR was really a burden. For example, 2,400 fighters, more than 8,000 main battle tanks, and countless ships, which have no money to maintain, are thrown aside as scrap copper and rotten iron.
Among them was the Varyag aircraft carrier that Continental later purchased.
Don't look at the weapon does not need to eat and drink, but maintenance is really a time-consuming and expensive thing, take a nuclear warhead as an example, every time you maintain it, you have to go down to the missile silo, but the elevator is broken and there is no money to repair it, you can only climb the stairs.
The treasure is put in his own hands, and it is also a violent thing, it is better to sell it for money, and everyone is happy.
Everyone agrees to sell, but some people think that some should be sold and some should be kept, after all, in terms of national defense, nuclear and non-nuclear are a gap across the ranks.
But others argue that getting rid of retaliation and burdensomeness altogether, just in exchange for some economic aid from the West, developing the economy and improving people's livelihood, is what Ukraine needs most.
It is clear that Ukraine stands at a crossroads of choice, and on the scales to the left and right, Clinton has made a big impact. He seemed to give a generous choice: Ukraine completely denuclearized, and the United States not only gave money for development, but also promised to ensure its national defense and security.
But if the destruction of nuclear warheads is not agreed, then not a penny of aid will be available, but economic sanctions will be incurred.
Under the Clinton stick and candy offensive, Ukraine finally decided to use the property of nuclear weapons in exchange for diplomatic initiative from Europe and the United States.
After several rounds of negotiations, Europe and the United States drew a big pie for Ukraine and led Ukraine on the road of nuclear denuclearization.
In 1992, Ukraine, Russia and the United States signed the first phase of the treaty on strategic arms reduction, which stipulates that Ukraine must transport nuclear weapons in its territory to Russia and supervise their destruction.
In exchange, Ukraine will receive $3 billion in economic compensation and written commitments that the country's territory and sovereignty will be guaranteed.
Of course, Ukraine also left an eye, saying, if you want to dismantle the nuclear bomb, you can agree to my conditions first; And you need to pay for the demolition yourself, I don't have money anyway.
The United States is also notoriously unscrupulous for not seeing rabbits and not spreading eagles, and must let Ukraine fulfill its destruction commitments first, and then they will give compensation and assistance.
Ukraine has fallen behind everywhere, and now it can only obey, but it is unwilling, so it shipped thousands of nuclear warheads to Russia, while leaving 46 of them.
From a certain point of view, the consequences of having one and a hundred nuclear warheads are no different, and Clinton, seeing that Ukraine was not obedient enough, immediately imposed sanctions and froze all aid.
On the other hand, Ukraine, which is sitting and waiting for the United States to send money, waits and looks at the account and receives only $170 million, which is far from the $3 billion they demanded.
Moreover, the $170 million was deducted from the proceeds from the sale of uranium raw commodities for the destruction of nuclear bombs.
In 1993, Ukraine's parliament passed a resolution that 46 nuclear bombs were the bottom line, condemned the United States for its insincerity, and announced that it would stop destroying.
So the United States paid Ukraine another $1 billion, and as for the rest, as long as Ukraine destroys the 46 nuclear bombs, the United States can pay immediately.
In 1994, Kuchma was elected president of Ukraine, and he demanded that 10 to 15 nuclear bombs be kept, but Clinton still disagreed and pressured Ukraine.
At this time, the United Nations could not stand it, and set up a nuclear denuclearization fund specifically for this purpose, with Japan and Germany as the main culprits, which slightly appeased Ukraine.
Finally, under the witness of the United States, Russia and the United Kingdom, Ukraine announced its accession to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and it finally became a non-nuclear country as the United States wished.
However, Ukraine cut off its arms and abandoned its nuclear weapons, and eventually failed to receive enough assistance to become a developed country, and to put it mildly, it is still among the poorest countries in Europe.
Today, not only is it not rich, but it is also bullied by neighbors, and Clinton said that he blamed himself for this result.
It's just that his regret of twenty years belatedly will not help Ukraine, the only use is that it can block Russia and shape it into the image of an aggressor.
The purpose is nothing more than to throw the pot at Russia and shape Russia into the image of an aggressor.
In fact, the contradictions between Russia and Ukraine actually have a long history, and the biggest reason is not that the Ukrainian war is scum, but that NATO is too arrogant.
At that time, there were also Belarus, Kazakhstan and other countries that abandoned nuclear weapons, and Russia did not have two punches because the other side was weak.
Besides, the destruction of nuclear weapons itself is in line with the purposes of the UN Charter, and since Clinton promoted Ukraine's abandonment of nuclear weapons, he now regrets it, which has exposed the unprincipled nature of US politicians to achieve their goals.
In addition, in this interview, Clinton also regretted allowing China to join the WTO in the first place, because this wave of the United States lost.
After China joined the WTO, the United States not only did not get any benefits from China, but also brought itself a strong opponent, making the United States very passive today.
To put it bluntly, the United States cannot do business as well as China, so the United States is like rewinding, returning to the starting point and making another choice.
However, China's accession to the WTO may be the trend of the times, and it is not something that can be really prevented by anyone who does not agree.
As early as the eighties of the last century, China had the idea of entering the WTO. However, at that time, the drastic changes in Eastern Europe also affected the mainland, and the process of joining the WTO was delayed.
Later, the United States did not have the Soviet Union as an opponent, and once seemed a little lonely and lonely, and turned around and began to clean up the domestic economy, which also had many problems.
Clinton won most of the presidential vote in the name of restoring the US economy, so when he wanted to open up the market, China, with its population of 1.2 billion, was the obvious choice.
So Clinton intends to develop Sino-US relations and establish an economic partnership with China.
The olive branch thrown by the United States was something that China could not seek for many years at that time, so the two countries began to hold informal meetings on various occasions to exchange some views on economic cooperation.
Among them is China's plan to join the WTO, although the United States does not directly reject it, but always sets limits on various issues to satisfy China's taste.
In order to meet the standards, China has been busy and has done everything in its power, but it has never seen real results.
After round of negotiations, the mainland finally understood that the United States just wanted China to make concessions on issues of principle and interfere in China's internal affairs. For this reason, the Chinese leader refused, and Sino-US relations suddenly became cold.
Fortunately, the cold has turned cold, the relationship has not broken down, the mainland has been working hard, and Clinton has not yet opened the Chinese market, he is not willing to stop here, so he has been playing the role of mediator.
China's road to WTO entry is quite difficult, but the general resistance comes from the United States.
At that time, the mainstream attitude of the United States towards China still tended to suppress, always treating China as an imaginary enemy, and many opponents in the US Congress believed that it was wrong to let China join the WTO, and they feared that China's rise would threaten US hegemony.
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So in the first four years of Clinton's term, Sino-US relations were lukewarm.
After Clinton's re-election, he began to pursue his policy of economic globalization, and he believed that if the United States wanted to revitalize its economy, it had to push commodities to the world, especially China.
Based on the previous setbacks in Sino-US relations, the Clinton administration gradually realized how to deal with China, and he called for improving Sino-US relations as soon as possible, regardless of whether any political party should put aside prejudice and should not reject China.
At the same time, Clinton also toured all continents and made many efforts to eliminate the prejudice of the United States against China.
In November 1997, at the invitation of Clinton, mainland leaders paid an eight-day state visit to the United States.
During this period, the two countries finally reached cooperation in many fields and jointly issued a joint statement.
This visit to the United States not only broke the situation that no Chinese leaders have visited the United States for more than 10 years, but also set off a great debate in the United States on how to view China.
Since then, the United States' prejudice against China has gradually begun to decrease and gradually become rational.
The United States has also sparked feverish discussions on topics such as the Chinese threat and China's kindness, containment or acceptance.
The final conclusion was still controversial, but at the time most Americans believed that China was not enough to pose a direct threat to the United States, now and for the foreseeable future.
Therefore, agreeing to China's accession to the WTO is in the interests of the United States and the need of world trade, not a "gift" to China.
The cost to the United States may be huge and dangerous compared to curbing China's accession to the WTO and creating uncertainty about the future evolution of the global economy.
Therefore, the parliament believes that the approval of China's accession to the WTO is more out of checks and balances. Instead of excluding China and creating a lot of uncertainty, it is better to let China join in and bind the other side with American-style rules.
The United States thinks even further, hoping that China will be silently westernized in their rules. Of course, the mainland is aware of the intentions of the United States, but joining the WTO is also imperative, so this road must be followed.
Clinton's visit to China in 1998 was not only a return visit to Chinese leaders, but also a step forward in the process of China's integration into the world economic system.
In 1999, after difficult negotiations between the two countries, the United States finally supported China's accession to the WTO.
After more than 40 rounds of negotiations with European and American countries, the accession to the WTO, which lasted for 15 years, was finally declared successful.
In 2001, in Doha, the capital of Qatar, the mainland formally signed the WTO accession agreement. But in such a win-win situation, why did Clinton say that the United States lost money and now claim to regret it?
After China's accession to the WTO, its economic growth rate has exceeded 8 percent every year, and it has quickly caught up with Japan and Germany and become the world's second largest economy.
The volume of import and export trade has also reached $4 trillion in 14 years, accounting for 15% of the world's total trade, from $500 billion in 2001 to $4 trillion.
At the same time, from the perspective of US exports to China, in the 10 years since 2009, the annual growth rate of US exports has reached 6.3%, a cumulative increase of 73.2%, while the United States to other countries is only 56.9%.
In order to meet the needs of the Chinese market, the United States has added at least 1.1 million jobs. In addition, the benefits brought by China's exports to the United States and other related activities are also a large amount.
If we have to say that the United States has lost, it can only be said that in the face of China's big cake, the United States has not achieved the sole dominance.
The world is changing and seeking development, and even without the rise of China, it does not mean that other countries will not rise.
Just like the track and field competition, the second place is changed, does not mean that there will be no second place, so Clinton's regret is a typical "taking advantage is not enough is a loss" psychology.
So everyone thinks that when China joins the WTO, the United States has lost or gained?
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