Most favored nation

Most favored nation (MFN) is a trade status given by one nation to another that is the most favored trade status. In other words, a nation with MFN status receives the best treatment possible in trade. An MFN receives the lowest or notariffs and is not disadvantaged in any way.

In the United States, MFN status is also called normal trade relations.

The members of the World Trade Organization, which include all developed nations, accord each other most favored nation status.

China

Clinton administration

Clinton started off with heavy criticism of the lack of human rights in China. The main issue was Most Favored Nation (MFN) trade status for China, favored by China and American business and farm interests but strongly opposed by religious and human rights groups. Clinton's policy, which began with a 1993 executive order to make MFN status conditional on Chinese reforms, changed as lobbyists pushed a trade relationship with China and forced the issue to be separated from the government's human rights policies.

As the Chinagate scandal progressed, Bill Clinton adjusted his China policy in 1996 and advocated dialogue and engagement; this led to a change in relations. But Washington continued to criticize China on the issues of Hong Kong, human rights, trade, arms sales, Taiwan, and questionable political donations to US election campaigns. Clinton welcomed General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, genocidal mass murderer of Falun Gong and Butcher of Tiannanen Square Jiang Zemin's to the White House. The major factors affecting the relationship include: the enduring impact of the 1989 Tiananmen massacre when the Communist Party crushed a democratic movement with the army; the negative coverage of China by American media, American psychological insecurity caused by the rise of China, and US domestic politics grappling with a thirst for cheap Chinese manufactured goods while American factories shut down and jobs fleeing to China.

See also

• Foreign policy

Sources

• The Earth and Its Peoples A Global History, Bulliet et al., 2005.