China has suddenly gone sour for President Clinton. As he prepares for the first visit to Beijing next month of an American president since the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, he suddenly finds himself embroiled in yet another fine mess.
Even his own Democrats on Capitol Hill who have defended him in the Monica Lewinsky affair have fled for cover on China. This week they joined Republicans and voted to prevent Mr Clinton from allowing the transfer of US satellites for launching in China or from signing any space technology agreements during his visit.
He was rebuked in the House of Representatives resolutions for "failing to act in the national interest" by easing rules on the transfer of satellites to China. Behind these votes are charges that the rules were eased for one US company because its owner was the biggest contributor to the 1996 Democratic election campaign which brought Mr Clinton back to the White House for a second term.
An even more serious allegation is that China's People's Liberation Army channelled funds to the Democrats in the same campaign. Nothing is yet proved, but charges that the President was playing fast and loose with national security are potentially more serious for him than the Monica Lewinsky allegations and give the Republicans better ammunition in an election year.
Johnny Chung, once described by a White House aide as "a hustler" who yet managed to make 49 visits to the presidential mansion in two years, is at the origin of the President's latest troubles. This goes back to the election contributions scandal which blew up at the end of the Clinton-Gore election campaign and is said to have prevented Clinton getting the overall majority he badly wanted.
Chung, a US citizen born in Taiwan, was running a now-bankrupt fax machine business in California but was able to donate $360,000 to the Democratic campaign. He was also able to hop in and out of the White House during election year.
The Democrats later returned the money when they found it was an illegal donation as it came from outside the US. Chung was then caught up in the Justice Department investigation into illegal contributions which is still going on.
He left the country in time but returned voluntarily, pleaded guilty to various fraud charges and offered to co-operate in return for a lighter sentence. Last week the New York Times reported Chung as saying he was given $300,000 by a senior Chinese military officer to be passed to the 1996 Democratic campaign.
The officer was Lieut Col Liu Chao-Ying who is also a vice-president in China Aerospace International, deeply involved in satellites, missile technology and rocket launches.
She is also the daughter of Gen Liu who until last year was China's senior military officer and a Politburo member. She has now issued a statement denying she ever passed any money to Mr Chung.
This revelation about Johnny Chung's China contact set alarm bells ringing all over Washington. Last year a Senate committee spent months investigating if there was a China plot behind the election campaign abuses. The chairman, Senator Fred Thompson, claimed US intelligence had proof the Chinese government intended to spend $2 million to influence the outcome of the election, but this was never substantiated in the hearings.
The passing of sensitive missile technology to China from two US firms is also being investigated. Mr Bernard Schwarz, chairman of one of the firms, Loral Space and Communications, is said to have been the biggest individual contributor to the 1996 Democratic campaign with donations of $630,000.
Republicans claim this generosity helped to persuade President Clinton to ease rules for getting licences to export US satellites to China.
The White House says the practice of allowing US communications satellites to be launched by Chinese rockets began under the Reagan and Bush administrations. It is cheaper to do it this way and quicker. But the danger is that the Chinese can learn from the launches how to improve the accuracy of their long-range missiles, some of which are pointed at the US itself.
Calls for President Clinton to cancel his China visit or at least avoid Tiananmen Square are firmly rejected by the White House, which has been uncomfortable with the charges of threats to national security. The coincidence of the President going against official advice to ease the rules for US satellites being launched by Chinese rockets and huge contributions by Mr Schwarz has yet to be explained.