WASHINGTON, October 18, 1995 (AP) -- There won't be any 21-gun salutes. No trumpet fanfares like those that once heralded the days of superpower summits. Instead, when President Clinton sits down with the leaders of Russia and China next week, the underlying theme will be this: The extraordinary has become the ordinary.

Forget grand hopes for big missile deals or space pacts or economic agreements. That was the formula for Cold War-era meetings. Now the drill is to keep expectations low as the leaders of the great powers conduct businesslike talks to try to resolve difficult and contentious issues.

"A lot of this is what you would place in the category of preventive diplomacy," White House press secretary Mike McCurry said. "You sit face to face with the leaders of these countries with whom you've had confrontation in the past and you work through difficult issues.

"It's far wiser to work in a more patient, disciplined way, to try to manage these problems rather than try to go for the long bomb and solve them all," McCurry added. "It's the reality of the new world era."

And by keeping expectations low, it's tougher for critics to accuse the president of failing.

Clinton will meet with Russian President Boris Yeltsin on Monday and Chinese President Jiang Zemin on Tuesday as part of a trip to New York for the 50th anniversary of the U.N. General Assembly.

Basking in a string of foreign policy successes, from a cease-fire in Bosnia to a new Middle East peace signing, Clinton will address the United Nations on Sunday. Over the course of three days, he also will squeeze in meetings with leaders of South Africa, Croatia, Bosnia, Slovenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Ethiopia and Eritrea.

Jiang had wanted a red-carpet welcome to the White House and a formal state visit. Clinton decided that relations weren't good enough to warrant a big ceremony, so the Chinese leader will have to settle for a two-hour chat at the New York Public Library.

Yeltsin will fare better. The Russian president will meet Clinton over lunch at the riverside mansion of Franklin D. Roosevelt in Hyde Park, N.Y. The setting is supposed to evoke the spirit of Russian-American cooperation during World War II.

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China is a different case.

There is a canyon of mistrust between Washington and Beijing over human rights, trade, arms sales to Iran and Pakistan and nuclear proliferation.

Relations plunged to their lowest level in years last summer when the United States allowed Taiwan's president, Lee Teng-hui, to visit Cornell University, his alma mater. China saw the visit as a violation of America's one-China policy.

While relations have begun to mend, China also was angered when Clinton visited briefly with the Dalai Lama. Beijing objected that the meeting implied support for Tibetan independence.

The administration believes that any hope for progress with China is frozen for the time being during the uncertain transition of power from 91-year-old Deng Xiaoping. The denial of a White House invitation, coupled with Jiang's political need to take a tough stand with Washington, suggests there's little chance of any breakthrough. McCurry says the very fact that Jiang and Clinton are meeting "represents in and of itself one small step forward in trying to constructively engage China."

* EDITOR'S NOTE -- Terence Hunt has covered the Reagan, Bush and Clinton presidencies.

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