Senator Warns China of Stronger Curbs

Sen. Warren B. Rudman told Chinese leaders Saturday that if China maintains its crackdown on dissent, the U.S. Congress might approve even harsher sanctions on the Communist nation.

The New Hampshire Republican said he met with Wan Li, chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, and Vice Foreign Minister Zhu Qizhen to “make sure Chinese leaders understood clearly the impact of the events of June . . . on the American people.”

It was the first Chinese meeting with a ranking U.S. lawmaker since Washington banned most diplomatic contacts with the Beijing leadership in June because of the violent suppression of pro-democracy demonstrations.

Rudman said, “The ban applies only to the executive branch, not to members of Congress. . . . My visit doesn’t change the status of our (U.S.-Chinese) relations at all.”

“I thought it was extremely important that they understand that there is a deep feeling in the United States Congress about what happened here in June,” Rudman told reporters.

Washington imposed the ban to protest the killing of hundreds and perhaps thousands of people when the army crushed the student-led democracy movement in Beijing on June 3-4 and continued the crackdown in other cities.

Beijing “ought to understand very clearly that if certain things don’t change, or if there were a repeat of some of those events, we can expect Congress to react very vigorously,” Rudman said.

He came to Beijing at the invitation of the Chinese Institute of Foreign Affairs.

The official New China News Agency said Wan Li told Rudman that U.S. sanctions against China “constitute gross interference in China’s internal affairs and we cannot but react strongly.”

Rudman said that “as much as they (the Chinese) would like to criticize us for meddling in their internal affairs, it wasn’t meddling at all.”

Rudman expressed support of President Bush’s opposition to tougher congressional action and said he told the Chinese officials “most members of Congress do agree with President Bush that t1751741216 But he added: “To the extent (China’s) internal affairs tend to offend some basic values Americans hold, that would limit the freedom of action of the President.