Chinese Premier Gets Chilly U.N. Reception : Diplomacy: World leaders join in ending Beijing’s isolation, but there are few smiles to go along with it.

Chinese Premier Li Peng got a chilly and stiff reception at a United Nations summit Friday, but President Bush and other heads of government joined in ending the isolation many had imposed on the top Chinese leadership after the 1989 Beijing massacre.

The last time the American and Chinese leaders saw one another in Beijing soon after Bush took office, the atmosphere was so warm that Bush gave Li a pair of black leather Texas boots, and the People’s Liberation Army serenaded Bush to the tune of “America the Beautiful.”

On Friday, when the two men renewed their acquaintance after a gap of three years, the climate for their get-together had changed almost as much as the map of the world. Neither Bush nor other world leaders wanted to be seen embracing or joking with Li, the man who imposed martial law upon Beijing and called in the troops who shot and killed hundreds of unarmed civilians.

On the streets outside the United Nations, dissident leaders and Chinese and Tibetan demonstrators reviled Li with epithets such as “the butcher of Beijing.” The demonstrations were peaceful and orderly.

Inside, during the summit gathering of world leaders, both Bush and Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin sat stone-faced as the Chinese premier admonished the United Nations that no country should use human rights “as an excuse” to interfere in another nation’s internal affairs.

Yeltsin--the former Communist turned democrat--seemed to glower when Li spoke of China’s efforts to build “socialism with Chinese characteristics” and when Li resorted to Marxist terminology to describe the “contradictions” at large in the world.

A few hours later, Li smiled tightly as photographers took pictures of his brief meeting with Bush in a room near the Security Council chamber. But the President, Secretary of State James A. Baker III, National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft and other top Administration officials declined to reciprocate. Instead, they kept serious expressions on their faces as they stared across a conference table at the Chinese delegation.

After the 20-minute meeting, Baker told reporters the session had been “very businesslike, very serious, direct.” He said the Chinese and U.S. officials had discussed issues of human rights, Chinese arms sales, trade, and China’s desire to join the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).

According to the secretary of state, Bush told Li that “the record of the Chinese government on human rights was insufficient,” and that “we (U.S. officials) would like to see significant improvement.” Baker said the views about human rights which Li expressed at the U.N. summit Friday were “not acceptable under our standards.”

In addition to Bush, the Chinese premier held separate meetings with Yeltsin, Japanese Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa and British Prime Minister John Major.

These four sessions with Li reflected a grudging acknowledgment by the leading nations of the world that Li and the hard-line Chinese regime he represents may well remain in power for the foreseeable future--and that China is too big and powerful to be ignored.

Li is making his first trip to the West since his government’s crackdown on the demonstrations for democracy that swept through Chinese cities in the spring of 1989. It also is the first visit to the United States by any of China’s top leaders since that time.

At a press conference Friday, exiled Chinese dissidents--some of whom were young college students in Beijing the last time Bush and Li met--bitterly denounced the President and other heads of government for agreeing to see Li.

“His (Li’s) hand is full of the blood and tears of the Chinese people, and I don’t understand why world leaders would shake hands with him,” said a weeping Chai Ling, one of the leaders of the Tian An Men Square pro-democracy demonstrations, who is now a graduate student at Princeton University.

The State Department’s annual report on human rights practices around the world--released Friday only a couple of hours before Bush met with Li--said China’s policies last year “remained repressive, falling far short of internationally accepted norms.”

The report said China still engages in many serious human rights abuses, such as torture, religious repression and mistreatment of suspected criminals. It also said China continues to hold closed trials of some of the people arrested during the 1989 crackdown.

Richard Schifter, assistant secretary of state for human rights, classified China as one of the few remaining Marxist states, like North Korea, Vietnam and Cuba, where “aging leadership elites cling to the beliefs of their youth.”

Nevertheless, Baker insisted to reporters Friday that he believes China is making progress. For example, he said, authorities are following through on a pledge made to him in Beijing last November not to prevent people from leaving China on political grounds.

Baker said that during Bush’s meeting with Li, Chinese officials promised to answer the Administration’s questions about a proposed U.S.-Chinese deal concerning missile proliferation.

During the secretary of state’s November trip to Beijing, China agreed to abide by an international agreement limiting the spread of missile technology if the United States will lift sanctions imposed last year on the sale of satellite parts and high-speed computers to China.

But so far, China has not yet put in writing its pledge to abide by the Missile Technology Control Regime. The New York Times reported Friday that over the past few months, while the proposed deal was pending, China continued to sell missile technology to Syria and Pakistan.

Asked whether the Administration’s willingness to meet Li had bolstered the Chinese regime’s standing in the international community, Baker replied: “You judge it.”

Times staff writer Don Shannon, in Washington, contributed to this report.