logo
    • Magazine
    • Membership
    • Donate
  • Racial Justice
  • Economic Justice
    • Collections
  • Climate Justice
  • Health Justice
  • Leadership
  • CONTENT TYPES
  • Subscribe
  • Webinars
    • Upcoming Webinars
    • Complimentary Webinars
    • Premium On-Demand Webinars
  • Membership
  • Submissions

Behind the Screen: The Clinton/China Connection

Rick Cohen
April 28, 2008
Share
Tweet
Share
Email
Print

[April 28, 2008] The controversy over the status of Tibet has embroiled nonprofits around the world—and in the U.S., most curiously, one large nonprofit known as the William J. Clinton Foundation.

The Los Angeles Times recently revealed that President Clinton chose to forego his usual six-figure speaking fee for addressing a conference of Internet business people in Hangzhou in September of 2005. Instead, a Chinese firm called Alibaba, Inc. made an “unspecified” but clearly very large contribution to the Clinton Foundation.

Both Clintons—former president and current presidential candidate—have been less than forthcoming about formally revealing the names of donors to their private charities and sizes of the donations. Disclosing a huge donation from Alibaba is not simply a financial matter. It concerns politics.

Alibaba was founded by Chinese Internet mogul Jack Ma. Until the Tibetan crackdown, Alibaba and Ma encountered their sharpest controversy over whether Ma endorsed the sale of shark fin soup. But in 2005, Alibaba and Yahoo negotiated a billion dollar deal giving Yahoo a 40 percent stake in Alibaba and Alibaba operational control over Yahoo! China.

Since the Alibaba connection, Yahoo has found itself mired in serial controversies concerning the Chinese government’s unfriendly policies toward dissenters:

Sign up for our free newsletters

Subscribe to NPQ's newsletters to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

By signing up, you agree to our privacy policy and terms of use, and to receive messages from NPQ and our partners.

Shortly after the Alibaba deal, the Chinese government arrested and jailed a reporter working for Dangdai Shang Bao (Contemporary Business News) in Hunan province, purportedly for sending the text of a Chinese Communist Party document by email to a foreign website. According to Reporters Without Borders (RWB), Yahoo! China helped Chinese authorities find and identify the reporter’s email account and computer, leading to his 10 year jail sentence. RWB’s conclusion? “We already knew that Yahoo! collaborates enthusiastically with the Chinese regime in questions of censorship, and now we know it is a Chinese police informant as well.” According to Yahoo!, the company was only respecting the laws of its host country. The late Congressman Tom Lantos found Yahoo!’s explanation unconvincing, telling Yahoo! Founder Jerry Yang, “While technologically and financially you are giants, morally you are pygmies.”

More recently, Yahoo! China apparently published “wanted posters” of 24 Tibetan activists sought by the Chinese government for their involvement in protests. Although worldwide protests forced the removal of the pictures of the Tibetan activists, the deed had been done (the fabulous “cache” link on Google and various Internet archive sites keep even momentary postings accessible to cognoscenti).

One doesn’t need to spin conspiracy theories about the Clintons to suggest that they might want to be careful about their financial and philanthropic connections. President Clinton has earned many millions from his association with Ron Burkle’s Yucaipa investment operations. The problem is not the money, but that during Clinton’s tenure at Yucaipa, the firm bought into and consistently increased its ownership of Xinhua Finance Media, an international media and financial services firm. Until this year, apparently, Xinhua Finance had been established by and a subordinate arm of Xinhua News Agency, the Chinese government-run press agency. Chinese government law has codified the Xinhua agency’s role in suppressing dissent, designating another Xinhua affiliate with the responsibility of screening foreign news reports for information that might be deemed “detrimental to ‘China’s national security interests.’” Besides contributing substantially to Clinton’s income for the past few years, Burke and Yucaipa have been associated with Clinton’s philanthropic dealings, notably the Clinton Global Initiative.

This is high stakes politics on an international scale. The dynamic between Tibet and China, which most of the public knows from the public appearances of the Dalai Lama and the protests surrounding the Olympic Torch relay, is being played out over the Internet, with nonprofits in the crossfire. Pro-Tibet nonprofits have been reporting aggressive cyber campaigns of viruses and Trojans, targeting e-mails and stealing encryption keys. These aren’t ordinary, small scale hackers doing the dirty work, but big time campaigns directed against organizations such as the Tibet Support Network, Human Rights in China, and Students for a Free Tibet.

While the Tibetan struggle should not be used to enflame anti-Chinese attitudes, opposition to the Chinese government’s repression of free speech through the Internet and by nonprofits should concern everyone. It should concern Yahoo! and it should concern the business and philanthropic operations of Bill and Hillary Clinton.

Share
Tweet
Share
Email
Print
About the author
Rick Cohen

Rick joined NPQ in 2006, after almost eight years as the executive director of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP). Before that he played various roles as a community worker and advisor to others doing community work. He also worked in government. Cohen pursued investigative and analytical articles, advocated for increased philanthropic giving and access for disenfranchised constituencies, and promoted increased philanthropic and nonprofit accountability.

More about: OpinionPhilanthropyThe Cohen Report

Become a member

Support independent journalism and knowledge creation for civil society. Become a member of Nonprofit Quarterly.

Members receive unlimited access to our archived and upcoming digital content. NPQ is the leading journal in the nonprofit sector written by social change experts. Gain access to our exclusive library of online courses led by thought leaders and educators providing contextualized information to help nonprofit practitioners make sense of changing conditions and improve infra-structure in their organizations.

Join Today
logo logo logo logo logo
See comments

Spring-2023-sidebar-subscribe
You might also like
Beyond Identity Funding: Rethinking Social Justice Philanthropy
Catherine Hyde Townsend and Diana Samarasan
Leadership Is Voice
Cyndi Suarez
Action Steps to Grow Climate-Driven Philanthropy in Rural Communities
Ann Mei Chang and John Simpkins
Toward a New Philanthropy: Advancing the Genius of Black-Led Change
Lulete Mola, Repa Mekha and Chanda Smith Baker
Living Beyond the Constructs: A Conversation with Cyndi Suarez and Marcus Walton
Cyndi Suarez and Marcus Walton
Recentering Philanthropy toward Social Justice
Cyndi Suarez and Isabelle Leighton

NPQ Webinars

Group Created with Sketch.
June 14th, 2:00pm ET

Remaking the Economy

Race for Profit

Register Now
June 22nd, 12:30 pm ET

Making Co-CEOs Work

Insights from Leaders Sharing Leadership Successfully

Register Now
You might also like
A mural of blue hands tinkering with the ropes of a net
Beyond Identity Funding: Rethinking Social Justice...
Catherine Hyde Townsend and Diana Samarasan
Leadership Is Voice
Cyndi Suarez
Many, different-colored hands, reaching up to the sky, in a field of wheat.
Action Steps to Grow Climate-Driven Philanthropy in Rural...
Ann Mei Chang and John Simpkins

Like what you see?

Subscribe to the NPQ newsletter to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

See our newsletters

By signing up, you agree to our privacy policy and terms of use, and to receive messages from NPQ and our partners.

NPQ-Spring-2023-cover

Independent & in your mailbox.

Subscribe today and get a full year of NPQ for just $59.

subscribe
  • About
  • Contact
  • Advertise
  • Copyright
  • Careers

We are using cookies to give you the best experience on our website.

 

Non Profit News | Nonprofit Quarterly
Powered by  GDPR Cookie Compliance
Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

Strictly Necessary Cookies

Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.

If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.