in the significance of China Japan trade. By the end of the 1970s, Japan was China's leading trade partner; a position it has maintained. By 1988, the PRC's leading trading partners were Japan, Hong Kong, and the United States, in that order. Japan is an important trading partner with respect to both imports and exports, while Hong Kong is more important to China as an outlet for its exports, and the United States is more important as a source of imported products, particularly technology. The popular uprising in Beijing in 1989 and the PRC government's crushing of that uprising before the television cameras of the world led the Chinese government to temporarily suspend some of its economic readjustments, and to generally slow down the pace of economic reform in the country. For the most part, however, the PRC government wanted to continue its economic interaction with other countries, and, as the events of the summer of 1989 were pushed out of the public mind outside China by the Gulf War of 1991, economic recession, and American and British general elections, the trading climate between the PRC and other countries returned generally to pre Tienamen conditions. By the fall of 1991, most non Chinese firms had overcome the fears induced by the suppression of the uprising, and were once again desirous of doing business with China (De Voe, 1991, pp. 51 52).
Concerns of the American government continued, however, to impede the development of U.S. Chinese trade. Generally, the Administration (first Bush and then Clinton) favored extension of most favored nation status for the PRC, while strong opposition to that designation for the PRC existed in the Congress. Through mid 1994, the Administration position h
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