Chinese pull the strings on Clinton tour

By Hugo Gurdon in Washington

International News Electronic Telegraph Wednesday 24 June 1998 Issue 1125

PRESIDENT Clinton leaves Washington for China today to begin the biggest and longest state visit ever made by an American president to another country.

Everyone who is anyone in the American government has fought tooth and nail to scramble aboard what the White House bills as a diplomatic triumph and the high-point of a successful president's second term of office.

More than 1,000 people are going, including 30 in Mr Clinton's immediate party, 70 senior advisers, 150 other support and security staff, and the press pack, plus lorries, limousines, communications gear and food and water for the First Family.

But Mr Clinton's nine-day trip, which takes in five cities, is clouded by controversy. When President Nixon flew to Beijing in 1972, the visit was recognised as a great, world-changing event. No one seriously questioned his motives or looked for a hidden agenda. His meeting with Chairman Mao was a statesmanlike decision.

But Mr Clinton has been under increasing pressure to cancel or postpone his visit. It has been revealed that Chinese money, some of it from companies controlled by the People's Liberation Army, was illegally paid into Mr Clinton's 1996 re-election campaign.

A succession of dubious Chinese visitors, including an arms dealer, were welcomed to the White House for photo-opportunities with the Clintons. More than 50 witnesses have fled America or refused to testify about Chinese efforts to penetrate the election. It has been established that Mr Clinton's biggest financial donor was the head of Loral, an aerospace company that he gave a special waiver, allowing it to improve China's civilian and military rockets.

The Defence Department concluded that, as a result, "national security has been harmed". And it has been established that, contrary to Mr Clinton's previous claim, China's intercontinental nuclear missiles are aimed primarily at American cities. Beijing wanted American policy toward China changed, and it was changed. The great unknown is whether any or all of these suspicious facts are linked.

This means that although abiding issues of human rights and trade will be discussed in the President's meetings with his counterpart, Jiang Zemin, the central focus in the American capital is whether Mr Clinton is travelling to be feted in a country for which he may inadvertently have compromised his own nation's security.

William Safire, a widely respected pundit, wrote on Monday: "Even if China's quid was not 'solely' responsible for Clinton's quo, the fact remains that secret Chinese money passed and US policy changed. The unspoken truth haunting this summit is that China's leaders have something on this President."

Mr Clinton is expected to use tough language on the subject of democracy and human rights, as he did when President Jiang visited Washington last October. But the White House has relinquished control of his agenda to the Chinese.

They moved the visit forward from November to June, when it would coincide with the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. Instead of being greeted officially at the airport, as Mr Nixon and others have been, Mr Clinton will walk the red carpet in the square, providing television pictures that Beijing has been seeking for nine years.

Beijing has also successfully insisted that Mr Clinton not meet any dissidents and not visit Japan, South Korea or Taiwan, potentially implying China's pre-eminence among America's Far Eastern allies. This comes as reports are emerging that China has broken its promises and is still supplying Pakistan and Iran with equipment that could help them develop nuclear weapons.

In an essay in Newsweek magazine on the eve of his departure, Mr Clinton writes that by isolating China, the US would encourage it "to turn inward and to act in opposition to our interests and values". But critics, particularly Republicans in Congress, say the choice is not between a warm embrace or isolating China. It is possible to steer a middle way, engaging Beijing while not always giving way when the Chinese dig in their heels.

Many people in Washington will watch Mr Clinton's visit with more trepidation than admiration, thinking, as the President's own arms control and disarmament agency pointed out last year, that "the only time we have gotten movement from the Chinese on missile proliferation has been in the face of a penalty being imposed. Carrots have gotten us nothing."

Mr Clinton yesterday condemned as "highly objectionable" Beijing's decision to withdraw visas from three journalists working for Radio Free Asia who had been due to cover the visit.

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