Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World

by Anne Applebaum

More than a decade later, Bill Clinton, a president of a different generation and a different political persuasion, declared that “growing interdependence would have a liberalizing effect in China…. Computers and the Internet, fax machines and photo-copiers, modems and satellites all increase the exposure to people, ideas, and the world beyond China’s borders.” In 2000, when arguing for China to be admitted to the World Trade Organization, he stated this case even more emphatically. “I believe the choice between economic rights and human rights, between economic security and national security, is a false one,” he told an audience at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. The transcript records the audience reactions: Now there’s no question China has been trying to crack down on the Internet. (Chuckles.) Good luck! (Laughter.) That’s sort of like trying to nail jello to the wall. (Laughter.) Clinton’s optimism, in retrospect, was extraordinary. “In the knowledge economy,” he said, “economic innovation and political empowerment, whether anyone likes it or not, will inevitably go hand in hand.”