In May 1993, U.S. President Bill Clinton tested whether economic leverage could be converted into political influence over China. Having campaigned on a promise to link trade to human rights, he signed an executive order conditioning the annual renewal of China’s “most favored nation” (MFN) trading status on “substantial progress” across a set of human rights benchmarks. The initiative immediately met resistance: U.S. businesses warned that the order would harm American economic interests,