New York Times on Chen, May 12, 2012

choi

(1) Jane Perlez and Michael Wines, deal Would Let Chins Dissident and Family in US; Reverses earlier pact; Last-minute diplomacy by Clinton helped to seal agreement.  
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/0 ... dy-abroad-china.htm

(2) Andrew Jacobs, For China, a Dissident in Exile Is One Less Headache Back Home.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/0 ... dache.html?ref=asia
("Chinese government was widely seen as making a major concession on Friday by agreeing to allow Mr. Chen to apply to leave for the United States. The bigger concession would have been allowing him to stay")

Excerpt in the window of print: 'The Chinese will be happy to get their No. 1 troublemaker out of their hair'

Note: in (or out of) someone's hair: "informal annoying (or ceasing to annoy) someone <I’m glad he’s out of my hair>"
Hair. Oxford Dictionaries, undated.
http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/hair?region=us

(3) Wei Jingsheng, Don’t Believe China’s Promises. Like Chen Guangcheng, I was jailed for defending human rights (op-ed)
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/0 ... hinas-promises.html
("No matter what he has decided, whether to stay in China or to leave, he has made both the right choice and the wrong choice. I faced a similarly difficult situation")

My comment:
(a) I only remember President wanted to persuade Congress to grant permanent "most favored nation" status to China--instead of annual renewal--as a key step to bring China to World Trade Organization.
Permanent normal trade relations
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permanent_normal_trade_relations
( In the U.S. the name was changed from most favored nation (MFN) to PNTR in 1998; section 3 US and China)
(b) In this article, Mr Wei is right, both about the year (1994) and the fight (delinking MFN and human rights). However, he appears to be wrong by saying Clinton and Congress gave "permanent" MFN to China in 1994: "This also coincided with President Bill Clinton’s efforts to persuade Congress to delink human rights and trade by making China’s most-favored-nation trade status permanent."

Ann Devroy, Clinton Reverses Course on China; MFN Action Separates Human Rights, Trade. Washington Post, May 27, 1994
http://tech.mit.edu/V114/N27/china.27w.html
("President Clinton Thursday reversed course on China and renewed its trade privileges despite what he said was Beijing's lack of significant progress on human rights. * * * Clinton said he was convinced the Chinese would take more steps to improve human rights if the issue were separated from the threat of trade sanctions")

The above titleis that of the Post, whereas The Tech editor shortened it to "Clinton Grants China MFN, Reversing Campaign Pledge."


(4) Michael Wines and Annie Lowrey, Progress Seen on Economic Issues in US-China Talks. (in Business section)