America From Abroad : Drawn to a Dream : Images of wealth and freedom lure the scholarly or well-connected from China. Emigration is beyond the reach of most, but the Communist regime still perceives a threat.

A century ago, when peasants from poverty-stricken villages of South China set out overseas to seek their fortunes in America, the destination for many was a place called “Old Gold Mountain.”

That traditional name for San Francisco is used less often today, but the vision it embodies lives on. The dreamers now are mostly city people, primarily the young, the scholarly or the well-connected.

For most, actually going to America remains an impossible dream. But all sorts of people have picked up fairly detailed and generally positive views of the United States from Chinese and foreign media, imported films and new personal links. Images of the wealth and freedom of American society now pose thorny challenges to China’s Communist leaders.

“We young people all think the United States is best!” a bright-faced taxi driver enthused. “You can do anything you want, can’t you? You can leave any time you like, can’t you? We are stuck here. There is nowhere we can go.”

Hard-line Chinese officials view such feelings as fundamental threats to the nation--or at least to their own leadership. An ideological campaign against “bourgeois liberalization”--jargon referring to the spread of Western ideas of democracy and capitalism--has been under way ever since the June, 1989, crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations in Beijing.

Ideological indoctrination, combined with tight security measures, may have played a role in bringing surface calm to China. But there is little indication that many people’s views have really changed.

Despite new rules that since January have made it harder for Chinese to get permission to study abroad, the visa-application lines outside the U.S. Embassy in Beijing have only grown. Student and scholar visa applications during the first nine months of this year were up 8% over the same period of last year, according to U.S. Embassy statistics. From July, 1989, through June of this year, 12,967 applications for student or scholar visas were filed with the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, up 22% over the previous 12-month period.

This year, the embassy has approved 51% of all student and scholar visa applications. Because some people who are rejected may file a second or third application, the percentage of individuals who eventually get visas is slightly higher.

Of nearly 90,000 students and scholars who have received U.S. visas since 1979, only about 28,000 have returned to China. Partly because of this low return rate, young unmarried students who apply for student visas are routinely suspected of hoping to stay in the United States, and they account for many of the rejections. In order to receive visas, they must provide evidence to show why they would be willing to return to China.

While students and scholars are in the long term probably the most significant category of Chinese going to the United States, large numbers of people also go on business or to visit relatives. From April to September of this year, for example, the U.S. Embassy in Beijing granted 20,002 visas, including 5,404 for students, scholars or their spouses, and 10,828 for business or personal visits.

Knowledge and images of the United States are brought back to China by those who return, while those who stay abroad have the same effect through letters and telephone calls home to family and friends.

Shortwave radio broadcasts in both English and Chinese from the Voice of America and the British Broadcasting Corp. reinforce the messages that reach China through personal contacts.

Television and movies also play roles. When the movie “Breakdance” was shown in China a few years ago, it helped touch off a powerful break-dancing fad among high school youth.

Imported U.S. television shows such as “Hunter” or “Falcon Crest,” dubbed into Chinese, beam images of American life into Chinese homes. American television aired here tends to project the overall message that the United States is a prosperous, technologically advanced society, but one that suffers a severe crime problem.

“The general impression of the United States given by television is favorable,” commented a government employee nearing retirement age.

All of these factors combine to make American culture and political values into powerful forces affecting Chinese society. Most ordinary people seem to welcome this, but hard-line leaders in the Communist Party are deeply concerned.

The Chinese government’s fears were outlined with unusual clarity recently by He Xin, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences who has gained prominence as an outspoken backer of hard-line policies.

“I think that in the past 10 years, America’s China policy has been a systematic one which was worked out after careful consideration,” he said in comments published by the official weekly magazine Beijing Review.

“For instance, the United States has spent a lot of money on cultural and ideological infiltration. On the one hand, it encouraged a corruption of Chinese cultural mores, and on the other it guided and supported certain intellectuals in an anti-system movement in the name of democracy. In the minds of some Chinese, the United States is so perfect, so strong that it looks almost like a god.”

While judgments about the trend may vary, there is no doubt that respect for the United States and support for democratic ideals have penetrated deeply into the Communist Party itself.

“I am a Communist Party member, and I will always love China,” commented a man whose daughter is trying to find a way to study in America. “But China is still a feudal state; it is still a monarchy. In your country, Reagan and Nixon had little or no influence over politics after they left office. But in China, old cadres and their sons control everything, and without holding any formal posts.

“Every country has its ills. But the United States has the best conditions for promoting people’s natural talents. In general, the United States has the best society, economy and legal system in the world.”

He Xin, the hard-line scholar, sees such talk as full of risks for China.

He argued that U.S. efforts to promote democracy around the world stem not from altruism but from pursuit of selfish goals.

“Do the decision makers in Washington care about Chinese democracy out of the pursuit of a spiritual value or out of potential strategic interests?” he asked in the Beijing Review article.

Democracy in China, he asserted, would give rise to a “politically weak, lax and extremely pro-U.S.” government that would be “unable to unite the nation.”

“Now, the Soviet Union is facing ethnic separatism and grave difficulties,” he said. “If China sinks into a breakup and chaos, what would the world be like? Once China and the Soviet Union are exhausted with internal disturbances or even a civil war, and disintegrated by ethnic separation, what country in the world then is able to rival the United States economically, politically and militarily? Is this world a pluralistic, democratic world, or a mono-polar world centered around the United States?”

It would be the latter, he insisted.

“There is such a blueprint--a world empire headed by the United States--in Washington’s strategic plan,” he declared.

His views on democracy and American power largely coincide with those of China’s top leaders although they seldom phrase them quite so baldly. Fear of American dominance is reflected in Beijing’s determination to assert a fully independent foreign policy and in such positions as reluctance to see U.S. forces introduced into the Middle East.

In a recent analysis entitled “Western Europe Unwilling to Be Drawn into War by the United States,” the official People’s Daily offered the view that “one of the purposes the United States hopes to achieve in this (Persian Gulf) crisis is to establish, following the end of the Cold War, a new world order under American leadership.” This is a prospect that even Western European nations do not want to see, the article said.

Although He Xin’s virulent opposition to American-style democracy is rarely echoed by ordinary Chinese, it is not hard to find people whose positive views of the United States are tempered by some sense of social realities.

“The biggest problem in the U.S.A. is the surfeit of freedom,” an employee of a Sino-French joint venture clothing firm commented. “It is more dangerous than all other countries because in the States, you can carry a gun. Anybody can have a gun.”

This person--who has never been to the United States but who has visited new American-style restaurants in Beijing--also had a more mundane criticism: “You all eat fast food--Kentucky Fried Chicken and pizza. It has no taste. I would much rather eat Chinese food.”

Most Chinese retain a sense that however attractive American life may seem, their own traditions remain superior in many ways. An article by the official New China News Agency, for example, dealt with a high school girl named Zhou Zongai who was chosen to participate in the opening ceremony of last month’s Asian Games here.

Zhou, who marched in one of the leading positions for the ceremonial parade into the Beijing Workers Stadium, said she and others had studied videotapes of young women who had similar roles in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.

“She said her wish was to keep the inner charm and beauty of Chinese women, and meanwhile, borrow the American girls’ pleasant manner and vigorous steps,” the official news agency reported.

Perhaps more than anything else, Chinese across the political spectrum share a sense that the United States is extraordinarily powerful.

A man who used to work in state-run television said he respects the United States for trying to block Iraq’s moves in the Persian Gulf. He predicted that the Iraqi army would prove tenacious if war breaks out while the United States would be hampered by concerns over limiting deaths.

“There is a saying in Chinese that goes, ‘The least cultured army always wins,’ ” he said.

But the United States has a role it cannot run away from, he added: “America is the world’s policeman.”

Times researcher Nick Driver contributed to this article.

Arrivals From China

Immigrants admitted to the United States from China.

* Until fiscal 1982, the figures included immigrants from Taiwan.

‘81*: 25,803

‘88: 28,717

1961-1970*: 96,700

1971-1980*: 202,500

1981-1988*: 295,474

Below are some areas of intended residence for Chinese immigrants admitted in 1988:

Metropolitan Area: Number

Anaheim-Santa Ana: 561

Bergen-Passaic, N.J.: 181

Boston: 769

Chicago: 708

Dallas: 246

Detroit: 210

Honolulu: 491

Houston: 390

Jersey City, N.J.: 59

Los Angeles-Long Beach: 3,803

Miami-Hialeah: 199

Nassau-Suffolk, N.J.: 332

New York: 7,101

Newark, N.J.: 262

Oakland: 1,152

Philadelphia: 400

Riverside-San Bernardino: 110

San Diego: 258

San Fransisco:3,478

San Jose: 955

Seattle: 450

Washington, D.C.-Maryland, Virginia: 747

West Palm Beach-Boca Raton-Delray Beach, Fla.: 39

Source: Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1990; Statistical Yearbook of Immigration and Naturalization Service, 1988; Population Reference Bureau Inc.