World Tibet Network News Friday, May 1, 1998 (I)

By JIM MANN, Times Staff Writer

BEIJING, Friday, May 1, 1998 (LA Times) -- China took a hard line Thursday in intense negotiations over President Clinton's upcoming trip here, turning aside requests by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to make concessions timed to the presidential visit.

Albright, joined by a host of other U.S. officials, appealed for changes in China's policies on issues such as Tibet, human rights, trade and weapons proliferation. But after two days of meetings, she and her aides could point to little or no progress in these areas. Instead, the Chinese adopted uncompromising positions, often returning to old words and formulas. On Tibet, for example, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Tang Guoqiang unleashed a lengthy denunciation of the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader. The Clinton administration is urging China to begin talks with the Dalai Lama, who fled his homeland four decades ago and has campaigned from exile against Chinese rule there. But Tang said Thursday that the Dalai Lama should "size up the situation [and] forgo his illusions." Rather than easing their policies, Chinese officials told the administration to give ground by lifting all remaining sanctions imposed on China after the bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square nine year

s ago. Tang repeated Beijing's oft-stated view that the regime was right to call in the army and end the demonstrations.

Clinton's trip to China, scheduled for late June, will be the first presidential visit since the 1989 crackdown. Albright and other U.S. officials came here to see what agreements can be reached in time for Clinton's trip. While China may be unyielding now, it could still make concessions, and officials traveling with Albright said negotiations on subjects such as arms control and human rights continue. But some experts believe that there won't be significant or far-reaching agreements for Clinton--because his visit alone will be a great success for the Chinese. "All the Chinese need is for Clinton to be there. They don't need anything else," said Nancy Bernkopf Tucker, a China scholar at Georgetown University in Washington. U.S. officials, though, "need something concrete to explain why the president is going to China and is going in June," the month of the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown.

Albright met Thursday with China's two top leaders, President Jiang Zemin and Premier Zhu Rongji. Afterward, both Chinese and American officials characterized the talks as friendly. When Clinton met with the Chinese president in Washington in October, he offered forthright, public denunciations of China's Communist system. At a news conference, the president told Jiang that the Chinese regime is on "the wrong side of history." By contrast, Albright--often regarded as one of the strongest human rights advocates in the administration--seemed to go out of her way here this week to avoid confrontation with Chinese leaders. At a news conference, she emphasized the importance of talks with China, rather than policy changes. "One of the real benefits of the kind of dialogue the U.S. and China are developing is that it allows officials in both countries to be quite frank, even in public, without disrupting our joint efforts to improve relations," she said.

Both she and her aides sought to emphasize points of U.S.-China agreement and

downplay their differences. Asked about Tibet, Albright said that she and Chinese leaders had had "quite lengthy and intensive discussions on Tibet, as an issue that is of great import to us."