IN HANGZHOU: President Clinton gave the keynote address at a 2005 conference organized by Alibaba, hailing the Internet as “an inherently cooperative instrument.”
Alibaba, which took over Yahoo's China operation in 2005 as part of a billion-dollar deal with the U.S.-based search engine, arranged for the former president to speak to a conference of Internet executives in Hangzhou in September 2005. Instead of taking his standard speaking fees, which have ranged from $100,000 to $400,000, Clinton accepted an unspecified private donation from Alibaba to his international charity, the William J. Clinton Foundation.
The former president's charity has raised more than $500 million over the last decade and has been lauded for its roles in disaster response, AIDS prevention and Third World medical and poverty relief. But his reliance on influential foreign donors and his foundation's refusal to release its list of donors have led to repeated questions about the sources and transparency of his fundraising -- even as Hillary Clinton has talked on the campaign trail about relying on him as a roving international ambassador if she is elected president.
Foreign contributions to American-based charities are allowed under U.S. law, but political and philanthropy ethics advocates worry that Bill Clinton's reliance on international businesses and foreign governments to finance his worldwide charity campaigns raise issues of potential conflicts of interest if he were to take an active role in his wife's administration.
"This is a perfect example of why it's critical for both Clintons to provide prompt and complete disclosure of all their sources of income, not just personal sources but also his foundation," said Sheila Krumholz, executive director for the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, a government reform advocacy group.
The Clinton foundation and the former president's library in Little Rock have received millions of dollars in donations from the Saudi royal family and the Middle East sheikdoms of the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Qatar, along with the governments of Taiwan and Brunei.
Fueled by such cash, the foundation has grown into a worldwide philanthropic dynamo, using its financial clout and influence with business leaders to streamline solutions for logistical logjams that have long plagued charity operations. The foundation has pressed to lower the price of expensive AIDS medications and set up long-term projects across the Third World.
But like many charities, the Clinton foundation maintains a strict policy of keeping its donations confidential to protect the privacy of donors. Still, partial lists have emerged in the foundation's tax filings and in press accounts, leading to growing scrutiny of the activities of some contributors.
Some human rights activists suggest that the Clinton foundation's contribution from Alibaba undermines his wife's outspoken stance on China's internal crackdown.
"A former president of the United States received a donation from a Chinese firm that is involved in censorship, and now his wife is running for president. This is a shame of the U.S.," said Harry Wu, an exiled Chinese activist based in Washington.
Wu was imprisoned by Chinese authorities in 1995, then released shortly before then-First Lady Hillary Clinton spoke out during an official Beijing visit about the government's role in abuses against women and dissidents.
A candidate's position
In recent months, Hillary Clinton has repeatedly referred to her 1995 speech in Beijing as a foreign policy accomplishment that showed her crossing "the commander-in-chief threshold." Clinton upbraided China's government for infanticide and other human rights abuses in her address to the U.N.-sponsored Fourth World Conference on Women.
Just last week, Hillary Clinton pressed the Bush administration to boycott the opening of the Summer Olympics. "The violent clashes in Tibet and the failure of the Chinese government to use its full leverage with Sudan to stop the genocide in Darfur are opportunities for presidential leadership," she said. "These events underscore why I believe the Bush administration has been wrong to downplay human rights in its policy toward China."
When asked to comment on the impact of Bill Clinton's dealings with Alibaba, Hillary Clinton's campaign deferred to her husband's foundation. A spokeswoman for the foundation stressed, "President Clinton is not involved with Alibaba and is opposed to censorship and the repression of political dissent." The spokeswoman added, "Sen. Clinton's position on human rights, both in China and elsewhere around the world, is unwavering."
But her husband brushed aside a similar opportunity to address China's jailing of dissidents when he spoke at the conference hosted by Alibaba in 2005. Days before his appearance, two prominent rights groups, Human Rights in China and Reporters Without Borders, asked Clinton to raise Internet freedom issues during his speech and address the plight of Shi Tao, a Chinese writer arrested in 2004 after Yahoo's China operation provided state security authorities with private Internet data.
In his keynote address, Bill Clinton hailed the Internet as "an inherently cooperative instrument and an inherently shared technology. The Internet has the potential to put power through information and communication in the hands of ordinary people."
But he said nothing about China's Web censorship or Shi Tao's arrest. Asked later why, he said he was unaware of Shi Tao's jailing. "Unfortunately, there was no discernible result or response" from Clinton, said Carol Wang, a program officer with Human Rights in China.
The Clinton Foundation spokeswoman would not divulge the amount of Alibaba's donation but said the firm "paid a portion of the travel expenses and contributed an amount beyond that to the foundation." Alibaba Vice President Porter Erisman declined to comment on the donation and the firm's dealings with the former president.
Alibaba, which took over Yahoo's China operation in 2005 as part of a billion-dollar deal with the U.S.-based search engine, arranged for the former president to speak to a conference of Internet executives in Hangzhou in September 2005. Instead of taking his standard speaking fees, which have ranged from $100,000 to $400,000, Clinton accepted an unspecified private donation from Alibaba to his international charity, the William J. Clinton Foundation.
The former president's charity has raised more than $500 million over the last decade and has been lauded for its roles in disaster response, AIDS prevention and Third World medical and poverty relief. But his reliance on influential foreign donors and his foundation's refusal to release its list of donors have led to repeated questions about the sources and transparency of his fundraising -- even as Hillary Clinton has talked on the campaign trail about relying on him as a roving international ambassador if she is elected president.
Foreign contributions to American-based charities are allowed under U.S. law, but political and philanthropy ethics advocates worry that Bill Clinton's reliance on international businesses and foreign governments to finance his worldwide charity campaigns raise issues of potential conflicts of interest if he were to take an active role in his wife's administration.
"This is a perfect example of why it's critical for both Clintons to provide prompt and complete disclosure of all their sources of income, not just personal sources but also his foundation," said Sheila Krumholz, executive director for the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, a government reform advocacy group.
The Clinton foundation and the former president's library in Little Rock have received millions of dollars in donations from the Saudi royal family and the Middle East sheikdoms of the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Qatar, along with the governments of Taiwan and Brunei.
Fueled by such cash, the foundation has grown into a worldwide philanthropic dynamo, using its financial clout and influence with business leaders to streamline solutions for logistical logjams that have long plagued charity operations. The foundation has pressed to lower the price of expensive AIDS medications and set up long-term projects across the Third World.
But like many charities, the Clinton foundation maintains a strict policy of keeping its donations confidential to protect the privacy of donors. Still, partial lists have emerged in the foundation's tax filings and in press accounts, leading to growing scrutiny of the activities of some contributors.
Some human rights activists suggest that the Clinton foundation's contribution from Alibaba undermines his wife's outspoken stance on China's internal crackdown.
"A former president of the United States received a donation from a Chinese firm that is involved in censorship, and now his wife is running for president. This is a shame of the U.S.," said Harry Wu, an exiled Chinese activist based in Washington.
Wu was imprisoned by Chinese authorities in 1995, then released shortly before then-First Lady Hillary Clinton spoke out during an official Beijing visit about the government's role in abuses against women and dissidents.
A candidate's position
In recent months, Hillary Clinton has repeatedly referred to her 1995 speech in Beijing as a foreign policy accomplishment that showed her crossing "the commander-in-chief threshold." Clinton upbraided China's government for infanticide and other human rights abuses in her address to the U.N.-sponsored Fourth World Conference on Women.
Just last week, Hillary Clinton pressed the Bush administration to boycott the opening of the Summer Olympics. "The violent clashes in Tibet and the failure of the Chinese government to use its full leverage with Sudan to stop the genocide in Darfur are opportunities for presidential leadership," she said. "These events underscore why I believe the Bush administration has been wrong to downplay human rights in its policy toward China."
When asked to comment on the impact of Bill Clinton's dealings with Alibaba, Hillary Clinton's campaign deferred to her husband's foundation. A spokeswoman for the foundation stressed, "President Clinton is not involved with Alibaba and is opposed to censorship and the repression of political dissent." The spokeswoman added, "Sen. Clinton's position on human rights, both in China and elsewhere around the world, is unwavering."
But her husband brushed aside a similar opportunity to address China's jailing of dissidents when he spoke at the conference hosted by Alibaba in 2005. Days before his appearance, two prominent rights groups, Human Rights in China and Reporters Without Borders, asked Clinton to raise Internet freedom issues during his speech and address the plight of Shi Tao, a Chinese writer arrested in 2004 after Yahoo's China operation provided state security authorities with private Internet data.
In his keynote address, Bill Clinton hailed the Internet as "an inherently cooperative instrument and an inherently shared technology. The Internet has the potential to put power through information and communication in the hands of ordinary people."
But he said nothing about China's Web censorship or Shi Tao's arrest. Asked later why, he said he was unaware of Shi Tao's jailing. "Unfortunately, there was no discernible result or response" from Clinton, said Carol Wang, a program officer with Human Rights in China.
The Clinton Foundation spokeswoman would not divulge the amount of Alibaba's donation but said the firm "paid a portion of the travel expenses and contributed an amount beyond that to the foundation." Alibaba Vice President Porter Erisman declined to comment on the donation and the firm's dealings with the former president.
