Just nine weeks before President Clinton's planned visit to China, the Beijing government yesterday released Mr Wang Dan, a student leader of the 1989 Tiananmen Square democracy protests, and sent him into exile in the US.
While China denies any connection between the two events, few doubt that the release, on medical parole, of the country's leading dissident was calculated as a goodwill gesture ahead of Mr Clinton's visit in late June.
Six months ago another leading dissident, Mr Wei Jingsheng, was sent into exile in the US just after the first visit to Washington by President Jiang Zemin of China.
"This is something we have been urging them to do for quite some time, and it is a positive sign," said a White House spokesman, Mr Eric Rubin.
Mr Wang, a former history undergraduate, was serving an 11-year sentence on charges of plotting to overthrow the government.
All three of the student triumvirate which led the pro-democracy demonstrations in 1989 have now ended up in the US. Mr Wang's colleagues, Mr Wu'er Kaixi and Ms Chai Ling, escaped from China after the 1989 crackdown - Mr Wu'er to become manager of a California steak house.
The thinker and tactician of the protest organisation, the Autonomous Student Federation, Mr Wang became nationally known in China as the bespectacled student in leather jacket and dirty blue T-shirt who confronted the then premier, Mr Li Peng, on national television at the height of the 1989 student protests.
Mr Wang was captured after four weeks on the run following the bloody crackdown of June 3rd to 4th, 1989. He was kept in solitary confinement for 17 months and then sentenced to four years imprisonment for counter-revolutionary propaganda and incitement.
He was released four months early in 1993, apparently as part of China's failed effort to win the 2000 Olympic Games for Beijing.
Describing himself on his job papers as "free man" he continued to speak out in favour of democracy and in May 1995 was jailed after a daring appeal for the release of those still jailed for their part in the 1989 protests.
Mr Wang, now 29, was taken from a prison in north-east Liaoning province on Saturday and driven overnight to Beijing with his parents. He was put on board Northwest Airlines flight NW88, which left at 8.55 a.m. (1.55 a.m. Irish time) bound for Detroit.
Correspondents were prevented by plain clothes police from approaching his parents' house in Beijing yesterday and several, including a CNN camera crew, were detained for two hours.
However in telephone interviews, his mother, Mrs Wang Lingyun, said he hoped to get medical treatment and to complete his studies in the US, and "to return one day to his own country".
The release comes during a dialogue on human rights between China and several countries, including Australia, the EU and the US, which has created a perceptible dynamic of change in the political climate.
It also helps pave the way for the visit in September of the UN Human Rights Commissioner, Mrs Mary Robinson, which arose from the dialogue, and the expected signing by Beijing this year of the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, guaranteeing political and religious freedom.
Other releases of dissidents have taken place without fanfare, including Tiananmen activists Mr Hao Fuyuan, Mr Chen Zhixiang and Mr Yu Jiangbin.
However Mr Martin Lee, leader of Hong Kong's Democratic Party, said: "It seems to me that Chinese leaders are making use of our compatriots as chips in the bargaining for more connections with foreign countries. Why should the Chinese people be used like this?"
Human rights groups called for freedom for all Chinese prisoners of conscience. "It's good news for Wang Dan as an individual, except that once again it's a release conditional on exile," said Ms Catherine Baber, a Hong Kong-based researcher on China for Amnesty International.
She said more than 2,000 people were in prison in China for counter-revolutionary crimes.
Within an hour of arrival at Detroit airport Mr Wang entered Henry Ford Hospital for medical evaluations.
The hospital's chief medical officer, Dr Thomas Royer, said he was in "stable and good condition" and should be discharged later today or tomorrow morning.