Published by: World Tibet Network News Thursday - October 9, 1997

WASHINGTON, Oct 10 (AP) - In Harvard Square, the cry could be, ``Remember Tiananmen Square.'' Across from the White House, Tibetan refugees plan to chant, protesting 47 years of Chinese occupation in their homeland.

Wherever Chinese President Jiang Zemin goes, demonstrators say they will follow him across America during a state visit and U.S. tour.

``We will be there,'' said Bhuchung Tsering, whose family fled Tibet 10 days after he was born in 1960. ``We want to remind him that we're working for the survival of the Tibetan identity and culture.''

Tsering, a spokesman for the International Campaign for Tibet, said human rights groups will stage a robust demonstration opposite the White House on Oct. 29, the day of Jiang's summit with President Clinton.

In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Shen Guofang today urged the U.S. government to keep protesters in line. ``The Chinese side will not interfere in any way. But we hope that the U.S. side will take a few steps to ensure that President Jiang Zemin's state visit goes smoothly,'' he said.

Christine Haenn of Amnesty International said the coalition expects at least 1,000 people to crowd into Lafayette Park, including actor Richard Gere, a student of Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.

Gere's new movie, ``Red Corner,'' about an American caught in the Chinese legal system, premieres in Washington a week before the summit.

``Our intention is to make sure this summit is not allowed to just be a red-carpet affair,'' Haenn said. ``We don't want all the human rights violations, the jailing of dissidents, to be glossed over.''

Clinton and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright have brought up human rights cases, including those of specific dissidents, at high level meetings with China, but no major progress is expected at the summit.

Members of Congress, set to meet Jiang Oct. 30, the morning after a state dinner, will talk frankly, too, said Christina Martin, a spokeswoman for House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga. Jiang will sit down with 50 to 60 members of the House and Senate from both parties, she said.

The White House and the Chinese Embassy are expected to announce details of Jiang's visit as early as today. It will be the first state visit by a leader of China since 1985 and the most important since Deng Xiaoping, who died this year, met with President Carter in 1979 after U.S.-Chinese relations were normalized.

During his U.S. tour, Deng visited plants and donned a cowboy hat in Texas. Jiang will visit historic sites and deliver speeches at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., and the Council on Foreign Affairs in New York City.

The Chinese leader, who has been known to quote from the Gettysburg Address - ``government of the people, by the people, for the people,'' - will see colonial Williamsburg, Va., and Philadelphia, home of the Liberty Bell.

At Drexel University in Philadelphia, Jiang will visit on the afternoon of Oct. 30 with former classmates of his eldest son, Mian, who earned a doctorate in electrical engineering there in 1991.

He'll get advice from people on the sidelines, too. ``Harvard is a university and it's an open place,'' said school spokesman Joe Wrinn. ``There's also a dissident community here. For anyone who speaks at Harvard, there's a question-and-answer session. So, he'll get a few.''

Jiang, who will stop in Honolulu on the way to Washington, plans to make his last U.S. stop on the West Coast in Los Angeles, where the movie, ``Seven Years in Tibet,'' was just released. Jiang is expected to visit Hughes Space & Communications Co. in El Segundo, and perhaps the Douglas Aircraft Co. factory in Long Beach, now owned by Boeing, which is negotiating a $1.5-billion aircraft deal with China.

Publicists for the film, which debuted Wednesday, are handing out ``action kits'' to moviegoers with tear-out postcards to Clinton and Jiang, appealing for an end to China's repression of Buddhists in Tibet. Not everyone touched by the movie is a convert, though, including the star, Brad Pitt, who doesn't plan to take part in any protests.

``Reporters ask me what China should do about Tibet,'' Pitt told Time magazine. ``Who cares what I think? I'm an actor!''