Living History (49 page)

Although he had a valid visa to visit China, he was charged with espionage and thrown in jail to await trial. Overnight, Harry Wu became widely known, and U.S. participation in the women’s conference was cast into doubt as human rights groups, Chinese American activists and some members of Congress urged our nation to boycott. I sympathized with their cause, but it disappointed me that, once again, the crucial concerns of women might be sacrificed.

Typically, governments (including that of the U.S.) limit their foreign policies to diplomatic, military and trade issues, the staple of most treaties, pacts and negotiations. Seldom are issues such as women’s health, the education of girls, the absence of women’s legal and political rights or their economic isolation injected into the foreign policy debate.

Yet it was clear to me that in the new global economy, individual countries and regions would find it difficult to make economic or social progress if a disproportionate percentage of their female population remained poor, uneducated, unhealthy and disenfranchised.

The U.N. women’s conference was expected to provide an important forum for nations to address issues such as maternal and child health care, microfinance, domestic violence, girls’ education, family planning, women’s suffrage, property and legal rights.

It would also offer a rare opportunity for women from around the world to share stories, information and strategies for future action in their own countries. The conference is held roughly every five years, and I hoped my presence would signal the U.S. commitment to the needs and rights of women in international policy.

I had been working on women’s and children’s issues in the United States for twentyfive years, and, although women in our own country had made gains economically and politically, the same could not be said for the vast majority of women in the world. Yet virtually no one who could attract media attention was speaking out on their behalf.

At the time of Harry Wu’s arrest, my staff and I were deeply involved in planning for the conference. But there were already grumblings from the usual suspects in Congress who felt the United States should not participate. Among them were Senators Jesse Helms and Phil Gramm, who announced that the conference was “shaping up as an unsanctioned festival of anti-family, anti-American sentiment.” Some members of Congress were skeptical of any event sponsored by the United Nations and were equally dismissive of a gathering focused on women’s issues. The Vatican, vociferous on the subject of abortion, joined forces with some Islamic countries concerned that the conference would become an international platform to promote the women’s rights they opposed. And some on the American political left were unhappy about the prospect of U.S. participation because the Chinese government was indicating that nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) advocating maternal health, property rights for women, microfinance and many other issues might be excluded from the official gathering. Chinese authorities made it difficult for Tibetan activists and others to get visas to enter China. Furthermore, there was widespread discomfort, which I shared, about the host nation’s dismal record on human rights and its barbaric policy of condoning forced abortions as a means of imposing its “one child policy.”

Sensitive to concerns across the political spectrum, I worked with Melanne Verveer and the President’s staff to assemble a delegation for Beijing. Bill named people from varied backgrounds to represent our nation, including Republican Tom Kean, the former Governor of New Jersey; Sister Dorothy Ann Kelly, President of the College of New Rochelle; and Dr. Laila Al-Marayati, Vice-Chair of the Muslim Women’s League. Madeleine Albright, then U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, was the official head of the delegation.

Months of meetings and strategy sessions with representatives from the United Nations and other countries were thrown into limbo after Wu’s imprisonment. Over the next six weeks, there was no short age of opinions about whether the United States should send a delegation to the conference and whether I should be part of it. I was particularly troubled by a personal letter from Mrs. Wu, who was understandably worried about her husband’s fate and felt that my participation in the conference “would be sending a confused signal to the leaders in Beijing about the resolve of the U.S. to press for Harry’s release.”

It was a legitimate concern for me and for others in the White House and State Department.

I knew the Chinese government wanted to use the conference as a public relations tool to improve its image around the world. If I went, I helped China look good. If I boycotted, I triggered bad publicity for the Chinese leadership. We were in a diplomatic bind in which Harry Wu’s imprisonment and my attendance at the conference were linked. Our government continued to state privately and publicly that I would not attend if Mr. Wu remained under arrest. When the disagreements became more vehement and resolution seemed unlikely, I considered going anyway, as a private citizen.

Complicating the decision were equally serious concerns about the overall status of U.S.-China relations. Tensions were running high over disagreements about Taiwan, nuclear proliferation, China’s sale of M-11 missiles to Pakistan and ongoing human rights abuses. Relations deteriorated even further in mid-August when the Chinese engaged in the bravado of military exercises in the Taiwan Straits.

Less than a month before the start of the conference, the Chinese government evidently decided that it couldn’t afford to generate more bad publicity. In a sham trial in Wuhan on August 24, a Chinese court convicted Harry Wu of spying and expelled him from the country. Some media commentators, and Wu himself, were convinced that the United States had made a political deal with the Chinese: Wu would be released, but only if I agreed to come to the conference and refrain from critical remarks about the host government. Clearly it was a delicate diplomatic moment, but there was never a quid pro quo between our government and China. Once the Wu case was resolved, the White House and State Department determined that I should make the trip. Back home in California, Mr. Wu criticized my decision, reiterating that my attendance might be construed as a tacit approval of China’s record on human rights. His Congresswoman, Nancy Pelosi, called to tell me that my presence would be a public relations coup for the Chinese.

Bill and I were vacationing in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and we discussed at length the pros and cons. He supported my view that once Wu had been released, the best way to confront the Chinese about human rights was directly, on their turf. At an event in Wyoming celebrating the seventy-fifth anniversary of America’s constitutional amendment extending to women the right to vote, Bill defused the issue and defended U.S. participation as important for women’s rights. His message was: “The conference presents a significant chance to chart further gains in the status of women.”

By the end of August, our family vacation in the Tetons was winding down. We stayed at the comfortable Western-style home of Senator Jay Rockefeller and his wife, Sharon, where I spent much of my time working on my book, watching enviously as Bill and Chelsea went hiking and horseback riding in one of our nation’s most majestic settings.

Chelsea, who had spent five weeks at a rigorous camp in southern Colorado, shooting rapids, climbing mountains, building shelters above the tree line and developing other outdoor skills, persuaded us to go camping. I hadn’t camped out since college, and Bill never had, unless you count the one night we spent sleeping in his car in Yosemite Park while driving across the country. We were game, but clueless. When we told the Secret Service we wanted to hike and camp in a secluded spot in the Grand Teton National Park, they went into overdrive. By the time we arrived at our campsite, they had staked out the perimeter and had agents patrolling with night-vision goggles. Chelsea laughed at our idea of “roughing it”―a tent with a wooden floor and air mattresses!

We left Wyoming for Hawaii, where Bill spoke at the observance of the fiftieth anniversary of V-J Day at Pearl Harbor and at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific on September 2, 1995. The cemetery, better known as the Punchbowl for its location in the middle of a crater of an extinct volcano, is the site of more than 33,000 graves of those who lost their lives in the Pacific Theater during World War II, including those killed at Pearl Harbor and later in Korea and Vietnam. The sight of those graves and the thousands of World War II veterans and their families who attended the service was a solemn reminder of the extraordinary sacrifices made for our freedoms.

I stayed up all night in the little cottage we occupied at Kaneohe Marine Base, working on my book and the latest draft of my speech for Beijing. One happy by-product of the Harry Wu incident was that it generated huge publicity for the UN conference. All eyes were now on Beijing, and I knew that all eyes would be on me too. My staff and I had been working on remarks that would forcefully defend the U.S. position on human rights and expand conventional notions of women’s rights. I would criticize Chinese government abuses, including coerced abortions and the routine squelching of free speech and free assembly. Soon enough I was on an Air Force jet for the nearly fourteen-hour flight to Beijing, but without my favorite traveling companion. Chelsea had to go back to Washington with her father to start school.

After we ate dinner on the plane, the cabin lights were turned off and most of the passengers bundled themselves in blankets and curled up to sleep as we crossed the Pacific.

But the speech team still had work to do. We were on our fifth or sixth draft, and we needed to show the text to our resident foreign policy experts, who had joined us in Honolulu along with other administration officials and support staff. Winston Lord, the gentlemanly former Ambassador to China whom Bill appointed Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs; Eric Schwartz, a human rights specialist on the National Security Council; and Madeleine Albright huddled at a dimly lit worktable and pored over the text. Their job was to catch any inaccuracies or inadvertent diplomatic gaffes. Given all that had preceded it, one wrong word in this speech might lead to a diplomatic brouhaha. Their review was critical, I knew, but I was always wary whenever the experts weighed in. Often they were so intent on leaving their carefully nuanced, diplomatic imprint on a draft that they turned a good speech into mush. Not so in this case.

“What do you want to accomplish?” Madeleine had asked me earlier.

“I want to push the envelope as far as I can on behalf of women and girls,” I said.

Madeleine, Win and Eric recommended that I strengthen a section defining human rights and refer to a recent affirmation of those rights at the World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna. They suggested beefing up passages about the effects of war on women, particularly the devastating proliferation of rape as a tactic of war and the increasing number of women refugees resulting from violent conflict. Most important, they understood that the power of the speech lay in its simplicity and emotion. They kept me out of trouble but were careful not to intrude with a heavy hand.

Brady Williamson, a Wisconsin lawyer who led my advance team, received daily inquiries from Chinese officials as to what I was going to say in my speech. They made it clear that while they welcomed my physical presence at the conference, they didn’t want to be embarrassed by my words and hoped that I “appreciated China’s hospitality.”

On trips such as these, sleep is a precious commodity. We rarely got enough and became accustomed to attending meetings, dinners and other events with eyelids drooping and heads nodding. When we finally arrived at the China World Hotel, one of Beijing’s luxury establishments for foreign visitors, it was after midnight. I had time for only a few hours of sleep before heading off to my first official event on Tuesday morning, a colloquium on women’s health sponsored by the World Health Organization, where I spoke about the gap in health care between women in rich countries like ours and those in poor countries.

Finally, it was time to enter the Plenary Hall, which looked like a mini United Nations.

Although I had delivered thousands of speeches, I was nervous. I felt passionately about the subject, and I was speaking as a representative of my country. The stakes were high―for the United States, for the conference, for women around the world and for me.

If nothing came out of the conference, it would be viewed as another missed opportunity to galvanize global opinion on behalf of improving conditions and increasing opportunities for women and girls. I didn’t want to embarrass or let down my country, my husband or myself And I didn’t want to squander a rare opportunity to advance the cause of women’s rights.

Our delegation had been busy negotiating with other delegations over the language in the conference’s plan of action. Some delegates clearly disagreed with the American agenda for women. The fact that women’s rights was an emotional issue made the delivery of my speech harder for me. I had learned during health care reform that my own strong feelings rarely help me in my delivery of a public address. Now I had to make sure that the tone or pitch of my voice would not confuse the message. Like it or not, women are always subject to criticism if they show too much feeling in public.

Looking out into the audience, I saw women and men of all complexions and races, some in Western garb and many dressed in their nation’s traditional clothing. The majority wore headphones to listen to simultaneous translations of the speeches. That was a curveball that I hadn’t anticipated: as I spoke, there was no response to my words, and I found it difficult to get into a rhythm or gauge the crowd’s reaction because the pauses in my English sentences and paragraphs didn’t coincide with those in the dozens of other languages the delegates were hearing.

After thanking Gertrude Mongella, the Secretary-General of the conference, I began by saying that I appreciated being a part of this great global gathering of women: This is truly a celebration―a celebration of the contributions women make in every aspect of life: in the home, on the job, in the community, as mothers, wives, sisters, daughters, learners, workers, citizens and leaders…. However different we may appear, there is far more that unites us than divides us. We share a common future. And we are here to find common ground so that we may help bring new dignity and respect to women and girls all over the world-and in so doing, bring new strength and stability to families as well.