He was very much hippiefied and total a 1960s anti war person.
While I am not 100% sure of his exact role, this professor set the tone of the Clinton Admin.
He saw China in all kinds of interesting ways. Among them: China is the next big thing. They have the best economy, they are going to surpass the the US, he used the idiotic vision of 'purchase power parity' to an extent it should never be used...
He also totally took on the victim mentality of China to some extent. Sympathizer wouldn't be a strong enough term.
Of course he thought all this to be morally correct and that the US should atone for its sins in harming China. Seriously. That includes our stance on Taiwan.
Hence we ended up with people like Admiral Pruher, as well as a gas station attendant being named to the AIT in Taiwan.
China was instutionally viewed as a benign place with no bad intentions (on top of supposedly being OUR economic savior). Its all rediculous.
If though you challenged any of their basic assumptions though you would PAY. Yes you would.
The Chinese saw this and took advantage. They knew he wasn't being realistic. Certain events though shook the table regarding the Clinton's. When the 'benign' Beijing starting shooting missiles over Taiwan they probably had a meeting "I thought you said they were harmless???!!!"
The answer to that was probably "its the US's fault...we must have done something....let me go talk to them...."
Clinton's China policy from tip to tail was incoherent and full of problems. BIG problems. The framework which he believed in was flawed from the start.
The thing is the table shaking events didn't take place until relatively later in his Admin. Even after that though they still didn't change anything.
When our businesses started looking at the laws like 'look at this outdated piece of crap... I am NOT going to follow that...' Clintion actually agreed.
He approved so many technology transfers without so much as a security review.
The Clintonites were bound by a non reality based ideology.