Bill Clinton: “Well, we are going to have a U.S.-China business meeting in Shanghai, and a lot of American CEO's are going to be there.…”

“Well, we are going to have a U.S.-China business meeting in Shanghai, and a lot of American CEO's are going to be there. And I have--some who have mentioned to me their interest in this trip, just in passing, I've encouraged, if they've got an interest in China, to participate in that. But frankly, since this is the first trip an American President has made in quite a long while and since there are issues other than economic issues that also have to be front and center, I thought it was better this time just to take our delegation. There is another practical problem; it would probably be impolitic for me to admit it, but there is a practical problem here, which is that there are now so many American businesses involved in China, you'd have a hard time figuring out who to take and who to leave if we did it. [Laughter] So we decided since we had this big event planned in Shanghai, we would just tell everyone to please come and try to do the trip with a smaller delegation. Most-Favored-Nation Status for China”