By: ALISON MITCHELL of New York Times

Montreal, Wed 25 Oct 1995 - Montreal Gazette

Illustration: AP / Taiwanese expatriates march through New York City to site of meeting between Bill Clinton, China's Jiang Zemin.

Meeting on the sidelines of the UN anniversary celebration, President Bill Clinton and President Jiang Zemin of China made their best effort yesterday to repair a relationship that had been seriously strained by disagreements over Taiwan and human rights.

No concrete agreements emerged from the two-hour session at Lincoln Centre, and there was no public display of unity comparable to Clinton's joint appearance on Monday with President Boris Yeltsin of Russia at Franklin Roosevelt's Hudson Valley estate.

But White House officials expressed confidence that the momentum developed at the intense session yesterday would allow the two nations to move forward with further discussions in a range of areas of concern, from arms control to trade relations.

Michael McCurry, the White House press secretary, said that Clinton described his encounter with Jiang as a ``very good, very positive meeting and the best of three meetings he has held to date'' with the Chinese leader.

``He's confident that we have begun a process that will lead to a series of dialogues that will help improve the opportunity for comprehensive engagement with China,'' McCurry said.

Chen Jian, the spokesman for Jiang's delegation, told reporters at a separate briefing that the meeting had been ``candid, friendly, positive and useful.''

``It will be useful for the improvement and growth of the bilateral relationship,'' Chen said.

Clinton administration officials said the two leaders covered a range of issues, including Taiwan, human rights, China's desire to join the World Trade Organization and non-proliferation of weapons. The officials said that Clinton emphasized that while the two major powers were bound to have their differences, they can manage them better through honest dialogue.

``Neither side would claim that there aren't serious differences remaining,'' assistant U.S. secretary of state Winston Lord said after the meeting. ``There are serious differences.''

But he said the relationship had ``resumed momentum.''

The administration had hoped to capitalize on Russia's agreement on Monday to a ban on all nuclear testing in 1996 to bring China on board on the issue. But it received only a promise to pursue the issue further. While China has agreed to pursue a comprehensive test ban in 1996, it is the last of the five major nuclear powers not to sign on to the idea of zero testing.

Clinton raised the issue of human rights with China, bringing up specific cases as well as the issue of Tibet, which has been under Chinese control since 1950. But at a briefing after the meeting, Lord refused to name the specific human-rights cases that were raised. That was in marked contrast to Clinton's meeting with Jiang in Seattle in 1993, where the public announcement of names helped get dissidents free.

Clinton deflected questions about human-rights issues and Taiwan from reporters who quizzed him and Jiang at a picture-taking session before their meeting.

``The important thing is that we're going to have this meeting,'' he said. ``These are two great countries that have a real interest in maintaining a constructive dialogue with each other and wherever possible a partnership, and we need to go to work on it.''

Chen sidestepped a question about whether Clinton had raised individual human-rights cases with Jiang.

``It is true that both countries have different views'' on human rights, Chen said. ``We can have dialogue on it instead of confrontation.''

As expected, the Chinese brought up the issue of Taiwan, and Chen described it as ``the most major and sensitive issue affecting the relationship.'' But American officials said they were gratified to see that it did not dominate the agenda as it did in the aftermath of the United States' decision to allow the Taiwanese president, Lee Teng-hui, to make a private visit to the United States this spring.

Despite the administration's insistence that the visit did not constitute a break with Washington's long-standing ``one China'' policy, Beijing recalled its ambassador in protest.

Clinton's aides said that at the meeting yesterday, the president reaffirmed that the United States recognized only one China, but that the United States would not promise to ban any visits by Taiwan officials. He said such visits would remain ``unofficial, private and rare.''

Ever since Clinton took office, the relationship with Beijing has been one of the most difficult to keep on track. With the end of the Cold War and the Soviet Union's breakup, China and the United States no longer have the same pragmatic need to use each other as counterweights against the former adversary. China's leaders have been unsettled by a struggle over who will be the successor to the 91-year-old Deng Xiaoping. And the personal relationship between Clinton and Jiang has been cool, administration officials acknowledge.

The United States has also been concerned about China's arrest and trial of Harry Wu, an American human-rights advocate who was jailed in China and convicted of stealing state secrets.

Since then, both countries have moved back from the brink. Beijing released Wu; Hillary Rodham Clinton visited Beijing for a UN women's conference; and China announced in late September that it would suspended a contract to sell two nuclear power reactors to Iran.

Still, a successful meeting between Clinton and Jiang was not assured. At the last moment, the Chinese demanded that the meeting site be changed because the planned venue, the New York Public Library, was featuring an exhibit that included a handbill from the 1989 student democracy movement that was crushed in Beijing's Tiananmen Square. The exhibit also contains footage of the Chinese military suppression of the demonstrations, in which hundreds were killed.

And just hours before the two world leaders sat down together, Jiang used his speech at the UN celebrations to charge that ``certain big powers, often under the cover of freedom, democracy and human rights, set out to encroach upon the sovereignty of other countries, interfere in their internal affairs, and undermine their national unity and ethnic harmony.''

Jiang also repeated Beijing's long-standing position that Taiwan remains an ``inalienable part of China's territory.''

Nonetheless, both the American and Chinese officials were eager yesterday to bring relations back to the point where the two nations could have normal diplomatic exchanges.