President Clinton left Beijing for Shanghai last night as the implications of a dramatic leap forward in US-China relations began to sink in.
The two days Mr Clinton spent in the Chinese capital turned into an unprecedented love-in between the White House and President Jiang Zemin's regime. Both sides now appear to attach supreme importance to developing their "partnership" for years and indeed decades ahead. And both presidents have conceded grounds on human rights to consummate their new relationship.
What has tipped the balance, according to senior diplomatic sources in Beijing, is the combined effect of the Asian economic crisis and the new nuclear threat in South Asia. They believe that the "internationalist" tendency in the Chinese leadership, headed by Mr Jiang, has now triumphed against the "regionalists" who remain wary of Sino-US entente.
Both countries share a common interest in shoring up the economic stability of Asia and, in a global age, of the world. Both countries claim special responsibility as nuclear powers in acting together to deter proliferation.
Mr Clinton set out US views on human rights again yesterday morning. On Saturday he had spoken forthrightly on the 1989 Beijing massacre in a statement which Mr Jiang authorised to be broadcast on Chinese television.
Yesterday's speech by Mr Clinton at Peking University, home of many past student protests, was much more restrained. US officials said they had decided not to take advantage of Mr Jiang's goodwill by making further explicit reference to 1989: "We've made the point, so there's no need to rub it in." Mr Clinton set his insistence that human rights were indivisible in a generally acceptable context, saying the US had no wish to "impose its vision" on China.
Diplomatic observers believe that a strong anti-US faction can no longer be identified in the Chinese political leadership, but say there are still doubts in the armed forces. Strategists in some military academies take a dark view of Japan which can easily spill over into hostility towards the US. The suggestion has even been made that the US incited the Indian nuclear test against China's traditional ally in south Asia, Pakistan.
There are minor currents against the dominant view that China can maximise its international strength through a fruitful partnership with the US. At times, however, the Chinese stress the need for "multi-polarity", while at others they talk as if the relationship with the US was an exclusive one.
The emphasis of Mr Clinton's visit will now shift to economic and cultural aspects of US-China relations.