Crackdown Shifted U.S. View, Nixon Says : China: Leaders in Beijing are told that the two nations should not let endless recriminations imperil relations.

Former President Richard M. Nixon, speaking at a farewell banquet Wednesday evening, told his Chinese hosts that the June crackdown on pro-democracy protests “will inevitably color American opinion and behavior toward China.”

“The fact is that many in the United States, including many friends of China, believe the crackdown was excessive and unjustified,” Nixon said in a toast to Chinese President Yang Shangkun, one of the key people responsible for ordering troops into Beijing to crush the protests. “The events . . . damaged the respect and confidence which most Americans previously had for the leaders of China.”

Nixon acknowledged that “many Chinese leaders deeply believe that the American reaction represents an intrusion in their internal affairs,” adding: “The age-old clash of ideas that now divides our nations is clear: the assertion of sovereignty of the state versus the universal rights of man.”

Nixon, a copy of whose speech was made available to the foreign press, said that U.S. sanctions against China and criticism of the crackdown have caused Chinese leaders to “recall bygone days when their nation was bullied and exploited by outside powers.”

“As a result,” he said, “some Chinese now exhibit a distrust of the United States that is reminiscent of the period before 1972. The death of innocent people was a great tragedy, but another tragedy would be the death of a relationship and of policies that have served so well. We must not permit our real enemies--misunderstanding, fruitless resentment, endless recrimination--to close the door we opened with such high hopes 17 years ago.”

Nixon, who is to leave China today after a six-day visit, said that after 20 hours of “frank and wide-ranging” discussions with Chinese leaders, he still cannot say with certainty whether China will continue to move forward with reforms or whether it will again close its doors and “revert to the stagnant situation that existed before.”

Yang, in a toast to Nixon, declared that “Sino-U.S. relations are at a most difficult juncture, or, in other words, at a stalemate.”

“This state of affairs is not of China’s making,” Yang said. “China’s U.S. policy remains the same. . . . It is the United States that has changed.”

Yang, whose remarks were summarized in a report by the official New China News Agency, said China has done nothing to hurt American interests or to impose its views and values on the United States, yet in recent months some Americans have become involved in China’s internal affairs and have judged events in China by American standards.

“They have forgotten,” he said, “the lesson of history: Only after waging an extremely arduous struggle for over a century did the Chinese people finally win their basic rights--the independence of the state and the dignity of the nation.”

An American traveling with Nixon, who briefed reporters on the condition that he not be identified by name, said that Nixon has privately offered Chinese leaders several ideas on measures China might take to help restore friendlier ties. He said they include steps in the fields of commercial relations, human rights and educational exchanges. Specifically, he said, Nixon suggested that police stationed outside the U.S. Embassy stop carrying semiautomatic rifles.

On Wednesday morning, Nixon chatted with pedestrians along a shopping street, then visited the U.S. Embassy for a noon speech to the staff.

Late Tuesday night, for the first time since June, the guards with rifles had been withdrawn from outside the embassy, and they were also gone Wednesday. Embassy officials expressed optimism that they had been removed permanently. Guards armed with pistols remained on duty.