U.S. Has Double Standard on Rights, Fang Contends : China: Speaking out from exile, the dissident says Beijing and the Soviet Union are treated differently.

Chinese dissident Fang Lizhi, who was given sanctuary in the U.S. Embassy in Beijing for more than a year after the Beijing massacre, accused the United States of applying a “double standard” on human rights issues in China and the Soviet Union.

“I think without doubt there is some double standard there,” he said in an interview Thursday with NBC News’ Tom Brokaw. The interview was broadcast Friday evening. Fang is living in Britain after the Chinese government allowed him to leave Beijing for exile late last month.

President Bush, asked about Fang’s remark, said at a news conference: “I’d say that he’s wrong. . . . If he feels that way, he’s simply not expressing the facts as they are. I don’t agree with that.”

Bush, who has sought to maintain smooth relations with China in the wake of the military crackdown that ended the 1989 pro-democracy movement there, has been sensitive about suggestions that his interest in China has made him more tolerant of rights violations there. Bush served as the head of the U.S. liaison office in Beijing--effectively, the U.S. ambassador--in 1974-75.

Fang was able to come to Britain only after Chinese authorities agreed to permit him to leave the country without facing arrest for his dissident activities.

In the interview, Fang agreed with Bush that it is important not to isolate China, a central theme in the President’s defense of his Administration’s continued contacts with the Chinese government.

“I think that we should not isolate China,” Fang said. “The question is, how do you do that and . . . push China to become more and more international, to become a member of the international community.

“They should meet the standard of democracy and freedom of the international community,” he said.

Fang also expressed disapproval of Bush’s decision to send national security adviser Brent Scowcroft and Deputy Secretary of State Lawrence S. Eagleburger on two secret missions to China last year.

Bush, in his own news conference, which was held at the end of a two-day NATO meeting here, referred to a declaration expressing opposition to Chinese human rights violations that was issued at a meeting of the major industrial democracies last July in Paris.

“He’s got a little time warp here,” Bush said of Fang.

Bush noted that the United States has maintained sanctions imposed after the crackdown on demonstrators in Tian An Men Square, including a ban on visits by high-level officials, on sales of U.S. military equipment and on most loans from the World Bank.

“I am heartened that Fang Lizhi is free and free now to say what’s on his mind like this,” the President said.

Fang had said on his arrival in Britain that he would seek “a period of peace and quiet” while he pursues his career as an astrophysicist at Cambridge University and would not become embroiled in political controversies.

“We do not wish to answer any questions about political matters or to give any interviews,” Fang said in a written statement he read to reporters June 29.

“I thought he wanted to stay out of the public eye--I thought he himself said so,” Bush declared, seemingly taken aback by the news that Fang was already speaking out publicly.

When Fang and his wife left China, one of his sons, Fang Zhe, remained behind in Beijing. But U.S. officials said at the time they expected Chinese officials to let the son leave the country within a few days, thus removing a potential obstacle preventing Fang Lizhi from criticizing the government.

Bush Administration officials said Fang Zhe left Beijing on a Lufthansa flight for London while it was Friday in Beijing and still Thursday in London. It thus appears that Fang Lizhi began granting interviews to the press as soon as his son was safely out of China.

In the interview, Fang said he hopes to see Bush sometime. He had been invited to a dinner that Bush gave for his Chinese hosts during a visit to Beijing in February, 1989, but was blocked by Chinese officials from attending.

“We still have not had dinner--he still owes me dinner,” Fang said.