Under all previous Presidents, Red China was considered the Communist Horde and was barred from transfers of virtually all modern technology. Chinese weapons and Chinese manufacturing at this time were generally at 1950s level American technology at best. Look for instance at 1980s Chinese MBTs - they mostly still used manual turret rotation and cannon elevation! We also applied a great deal of pressure to other countries to enforce similar bans. Clinton removed almost all bans and barriers to technology transfers to China, even relocating the veto power from State to Ron Brown's Commerce Department. You may or may not recall Clinton's approval after the fact when Loral Space & Communications got caught in 1996 passing highly classified missile technology to Red China, which allowed Loral to benefit from cheap satellite launches but also transformed China's ICBM program overnight from a system which failed to even reach the stratosphere more than half the time (not an admirable platform for a nuclear deterrent!) to a modern Western-style system capable of 90%+ reliability AND capable of the pin-point inertial reckoning and split-second release accuracy necessary for stable satellite orbits - or for a nuclear re-entry vehicle to actually hit its target. Loral finally agreed to pay a $14 million dollar for this technology transfer, but its management was facing serious prison time before Clinton retroactively approved dropped the barrier. Clinton went on to drop almost all such barriers, even going so far as to approve the sale to Communist China of our cruise missile manufacturing line - a system at the time was so classified that ordinary American employees were not allowed in the building that housed it.
This very rapidly led to all Western nations dropping their transfer barriers, less their companies lose out to American companies in trading with China. Within a handful of years, Red China went from an international pariah to a country possessed of the highest technology available. Within a decade, the technology was so widely available that no company in Red China need go without the latest technology in their field. Clinton's actions and China's embrace of capitalism - and the Chinese' great work ethic and native intelligence - are the "secrets" of its explosive growth.
Coupled with the theft of nuclear secrets during Clinton's tenure - remember making all the badges the same at nuclear facilities, so that you could not tell at a glance a person's clearance but supposedly lower clearance people felt better about themselves? - Red China also went from a country armed with 60s nuclear technology to a country possessing cutting edge nuclear weapons, including some (like the neutron bomb) that we developed but never fielded! Clinton literally made Red China a world power - soon to be THE world power. China's purchase of Clinton will surely go down in history as the best investment in recorded history. Mexico wishes it had done so well with Bush!
