An American Ultimatum for China : Nuclear policy: Baker’s message must be that Beijing can’t keep U.S. trade favors while arming Mideast radicals.

Secretary of State James A. Baker III’s principal message in Beijing should be an ultimatum: If China persists in selling mass destruction technologies to the Middle East, we will revoke its most-favored-nation (MFN) trade status, which now yields China a trade surplus of $15 billion a year.

Geopolitical “realists” claim that the proud Chinese would never succumb to threats. It may depend on which threat. With the President’s indulgence, China’s leaders have come to expect the best of both worlds: hard currency from the U.S. retail market (clothes, shoes, toys) and from the Mideast arms market as well. They must be forced to choose.

As yet, no Chinese misdeed, however detrimental to international security, has swayed the President’s determined passivity. In June, amid reports of advanced Chinese ballistic missile sales to Syria and Pakistan, the President renewed China’s MFN status. Now, despite news that Beijing is dispensing technology that could give the Ayatollah Khomeini’s successors an “Islamic bomb,” President Bush still turns a blind eye.

The Administration’s contradictions comprise a China syndrome. Proclaiming Saddam Hussein “worse than Hitler,” in part because of his awesome arsenal, the President went to war to protect Gulf stability. The Administration has also revived a Middle East peace process that entails implicit American pressure on Israel to trade land for peace. Yet we stand idle as China sells equally lethal weapons to Syria and Iran, regimes no less radical than Iraq and just as uncompromising toward Israel.

Bombing these new buyers may be out of bounds; refusing to sanction the seller is unconscionable.

A wispy Chinese “pledge” to curb weapons sales is not enough. A stack of empty promises, solemnly given, precedes it. Baker must present to Beijing a practical choice: the American market (worth billions) or the arms bazaar (worth millions).

Pending congressional legislation would link MFN status to a Chinese turnabout on forced abortion, slave labor, democratic freedoms, arms proliferation, unfair trade practices and policies on Cambodia, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Tibet. China’s record on these issues is reprehensible. But a multitude of conditions--demanding all--can be as futile as demanding nothing.

In foreign policy as in all else, we must set priorities. One realistic goal, integral to the Administration’s Madrid initiative and vital to American interests, is to ensure that a future Middle East conflict could not be launched with modern missiles and nuclear warheads.

“Constructive engagement” with China may be feasible, but only if Beijing sees that irresponsibility has its price. By acting now and speaking in one voice with a single compelling objective, Congress and the President can focus Beijing squarely on its own self-interest.

Tying MFN solely to arms sales implies no lessening of concern for human rights. Indeed, I sponsored legislation, just enacted, that will convene an experts’ commission to examine the start-up of a “freedom radio” for China, modeled on the Radio Free Europe broadcasts that spurred democratic movements in the Soviet empire.

The key is using tools that work. Democracy is built on ideas, which we should promote--and broadcast. Rogue behavior on arms can be deterred, or punished, by our clear-cut economic leverage.