By Ann McFeatters

Scripps Howard News Service

From: WTN, 24 July 1995

WASHINGTON -- First lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, who arrives in Denver Wednesday for a summit on economic security for women, says she hopes to be able to go to China in September for international women's gatherings but that trip hasn't been finalized yet.

After the collapse of her health care reform package last year, Mrs. Clinton said earlier this year she would devote much of her time to improving conditions for women, children and families. Last April she made a successful trip to India and Pakistan with her 15-year-old daughter, Chelsea, focusing on the needs of women.

Because the Chinese government is holding Chinese-American human rights advocate Harry Wu on charges he is a spy, the Clinton administration worries that if Mrs. Clinton travels to China while Wu is still in custody it would send a wrong signal. The administration has sharply protested the Chinese action and denies Wu was spying. The National Security Council and the State Department will decide in mid-August about whether to permit Mrs. Clinton to go.

There are two huge groups of women meeting in China. The largest gathering of activist women in history will take place in Huairou, a rundown resort town about 40 miles outside of Beijing. It will be held Aug. 30-Sept. 8. About 36,000 women from non-governmenpam organizations are expected. Mrs. Clinton attended an earlier meeting of those groups in Copenhagen late last winter.

In addition, the United Nations is holding its fourth conference on women in Beijing Sept. 4 to 15. About 7,000 women from 180 countries are scheduled to attend. The last U.N. women's conference was held in Nairobi, and China lobbied hard for the right to host the 1995 conference to show it has become modern and to thumb its nose at those who denied China's bid to host the 2000 Olympic Games. But many women feel the United Nations and coordinating women's groups should have protested the remote site chosen by the Chinese for the larger forum and taken both elsewhere.

The Huairou confmrdnce is expected to be lively and controversial -- the Vatican is upset that abortion will be on the agenda -- and Chinese officials decided to put it in the boondocks. Chinese Prime Minister Li Peng reportedly did not want female demonstrators in Tiananmen Square talking about rights for women and protesting China's policy of limiting married couples to one child. Also, China has refused to permit women's groups from Taiwan and Tibet from attending.

The controversial nature of the gatherings in China is a blow to Mrs. Clinton, who has spent the last year trying to be seen more as a traditional first lady while also maintaining her own crusades. She has focused lately on breast cancer -- doing public information commercials and urging women to get mammograms -- but the international gatherings in China, with their emphasis on improving the economic security of women, would be right up her alley.

Although White House aides still wince at the damage done by the first lady's mammoth health care reform package, soundly rejected by the American people, Mrs. Clinton says her campaign for mammography is an outgrowth of that campaign. She feels that her message has prompted many women to get mammograms and she would like to spread that message -- and the need for more emphasis on women's health and financial security -- abroad.

Mrs. Clinton also is championing children's issues and has co-written a a new book with Barbara Feinman, published by Simon & Schuster, called ``It Takes a Village.'' The idea is that it takes an entire African village to rear a child; it consists of her thoughts about children's needs in today's world.

As her predecessors Eleanor Roosevelt and Barbara Bush did, Mrs. Clinton is writing a folksy syndicated newspaper column about her life and issues of importance to her. The first column was for Sunday release. As with her book, profits will go to charity. On her trip to Asia, she told reporters that by focusing more on girls and women she is really emphsizing human rights.

``I don't think girls and women get as much attention on a regular basis as some of the well-publicized other instances of human rights concerns. And I believe we have to emphasize as much as possible that the denial of education, the denial of basic health care, the denial of choices to girls is a human rights issue,'' she said. ``Because it is the human potential that we are attempting to develop, and the denying of it, I think, does violence to the spirit of the person and to the larger community.''

(Ann McFeatters covers the White House for Scripps Howard News Service.)

Forwarded by: Dan Hodel