International Herald Tribune

Monday, March 16, 1998

U.S. Backs Away From Anti- China Vote

Washington Ends Support for UN Resolution on Human Rights

By Philip Shenon

New York Times Service

WASHINGTON - After deciding last week to move up a presidential trip to Beijing, the administration has given China another important boost by dropping American sponsorship of an annual United Nations resolution condemning China's record on human rights.

The move, which effectively kills a resolution before the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva, was described by senior officials as a response to Beijing's recent efforts to improve its rights record, including its decision this week to sign an important international human rights treaty.

"China still has an enormous way to go, and we intend to press them at every opportunity," a senior administration official said. " But in light of these steps, we have decided not to sponsor the resolution. It's certainly not a reward. It is being done as a calculation. It is being done because we believe it is the way to make progress in the future."

The official hinted strongly that China had agreed to release a number of prominent political prisoners if the United States dropped its sponsorship of the resolution. "I believe there will be further releases," he said, declining further comment. "Lives are at stake."

The administration's decision was denounced by human rights groups, which said the administration was abandoning one of its best tools to press Beijing to end what the administration agrees are widespread human rights violations.

The annual resolution, first introduced at the commission in 1990 after the massacre of unarmed civilians near Tiananmen Square the year before, has infuriated China, even though it has never been adopted by the 53-member commission. The commission is to open its annual meeting in Geneva next week.

" If the president visits China without clear human rights preconditions and also drops any resolution at the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva, what leverage will the United States use to press for concrete progress?" asked Mike Jendrzejczyk, Washington director of Human Rights Watch Asia. "They've caved."

The White House announced last week that President Bill Clinton, who would be the first U.S. president to visit China since the 1989 crackdown, had moved up his trip to June from November in order to build on progress made during the visit by President Jiang Zemin of China to the United States last autumn. Chinese officials leaped at the proposal for an earlier meeting.

The administration's steps to improve relations with China came as Mr. Clinton sought to play down the importance of new evidence that China had tried to sell nuclear technology and equipment to Iran.

The president said that the sale, first disclosed by the U.S. State Department in testimony before Congress on Thursday, was halted in response to an American protest last month. "The Chinese followed through on it and kept their agreement to the letter," Mr. Clinton said. "I am well pleased, actually, with the way that issue came out."

Administration officials said that soon after Mr. Jiang agreed during summit talks last year to halt nuclear cooperation with Iran, the United States learned about negotiations concerning the sale to Iran of tons of chemicals that could enrich uranium for nuclear weapons.

Far from seeing the incident as a violation of the American-Chinese pact, administration officials said that only low-level Chinese officials had negotiated with the Iranians and that senior Chinese government leaders had blocked the sale as soon as it was brought to their attention by the United States. "Chinese authorities investigated the matter and promptly informed us that a transaction like that had not been agreed to and that China had no intention of making such a transaction," said James Rubin, the State Department spokesman. "This is a case that demonstrates how nonproliferation works. "

The administration's critics on Capitol Hill, however, viewed the incident as fresh evidence that China's commitment to its nuclear agreement with the United States was still in question.

Senator John Ashcroft, Republican of Montana, who is a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, described the potential deal as troubling and said Mr. Clinton had a "policy of blind engagement" toward Beijing.

Administration officials said - and - human rights groups agreed - that the decision to drop sponsorship of the human rights resolution probably meant that no resolution against China would be offered this year.

Last year, the resolution, sponsored by the United States and Denmark, was defeated, 27 to 17, after a vigorous lobbying campaign by the Chinese government, which labeled the resolution "an outrageous distortion of China's reality."