U.S. Lifting Sanctions on China Sales : Accord: High-tech exports will be allowed in exchange for Beijing’s agreement to observe a pact restricting missile shipments. Mitchell criticizes Bush’s policy.

The Bush Administration announced Friday that it will lift sanctions on the sale of American high-technology equipment to China in exchange for a Chinese agreement to abide by an existing international agreement restricting missile or missile technology sales.

In doing so, the Administration ignored warnings by Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell (D-Me.) and other critics that any new gesture to the Chinese leadership would irritate Congress and encourage its efforts to restrict China’s most-favored-nation trade benefits, which come up for a Senate vote next week.

The deal agreed upon Friday accomplishes one of the top objectives of the Administration’s arms-control policy by getting China--which by recent estimates has supplied nearly 50% of all weapons imported by Third World countries--to formally commit to adhering to the Missile Technology Control Regime. That 1987 accord bars the sale of ballistic missiles with a range of more than 190 miles, as well as the rocket systems, engines, launchers and other technology for such missiles.

But Friday’s agreement also raises new questions about whether China actually will stop selling missile technology to countries such as Syria and Iran--and what the Administration will do if China’s sales continue.

“I think we really stopped them (from selling missile technology). I feel really good about this,” one U.S. official said Friday. “Of course, I won’t feel so good if in six months Iran comes out with a new missile with Chinese characteristics.”

The Administration’s announcement came late Friday afternoon in a written statement by State Department spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler. The decision was issued in the name of “the U.S. Administration.” It did not mention the name of President Bush, whose policy toward China has been criticized both by Democratic presidential candidates and by conservative columnist Patrick J. Buchanan, who is challenging Bush for the Republican nomination.

Bush--who served as head of the U.S. liaison office in Beijing in 1974-75--has played an unusually active, personal role in formulating the Administration policy of maintaining a dialogue with the Chinese leadership since it crushed pro-democracy demonstrations in Beijing nearly three years ago.

“This in no way means we will slacken our efforts to monitor either missile transfers worldwide, or Chinese missile and missile technology export practices,” Tutwiler said in the Administration statement. She indicated that, if China violates the missile agreement in the future, it will be subject to U.S. sanctions again.

Mitchell--who two weeks ago publicly called upon all senators to get a classified intelligence briefing on China’s recent arms transfers--said Friday night that China has “apparently” just finished arrangements to sell to Iran component parts that “could be used in the development of a medium-range ballistic missile.”

In an unusually strong statement, he said that, in lifting the U.S. sanctions against China, Bush “has once again placated (Chinese leaders’) demands, without any tangible substantive change in their policy of repression and deceit. In doing so, he (Bush) has continued his failed policy regarding China and has increased the threat to peace.”

Administration officials told Congress in closed briefings this week that none of the weapons or technology China has sold overseas in recent months violates American law. But a congressional source said that the CIA, in its own briefing to Congress on Thursday, suggested that Chinese arms sales since last June may have flouted American law and that China might be preparing to engage in new sales.

The U.S. sanctions at issue have barred the sale of American satellite parts and high-speed computers to China. The sanctions were imposed last June after the United States discovered that China had secretly delivered launchers for its newly developed M-11 short-range missiles to Pakistan.

A law passed by Congress two years ago requires the Administration to impose sanctions on any country or company found to be violating the Missile Technology Control Regime.

Last November, during a trip to Beijing, Secretary of State James A. Baker III negotiated the basic outlines of the deal that was completed Friday. “It is very important, in our view, from a proliferation standpoint, that China subscribe to (the missile regime),” Baker said at the time.

But the proposed deal had been held up ever since, both by China’s unwillingness to spell out its pledge in writing and by congressional complaints that in the meantime, China was continuing to sell dangerous weapons and technology overseas. Those complaints reached a climax three weeks ago, when a bipartisan group of 17 American senators, including Mitchell, sent an unusual, classified letter to Baker complaining about recent Chinese arms sales.

The Senate is scheduled to vote next week on legislation that would make any renewal of China’s most-favored-nation trade benefits conditional on improvements in its human rights record and its arms-control policies. The benefits permit China to export its goods to the United States at the same low-tariff rates enjoyed by most other countries. China enjoyed a $12.7-billion trade surplus with the United States last year.

Last fall, the House approved the legislation restricting China’s trade benefits by the overwhelming vote of 409 to 21. Over the last three years, Mitchell and other critics of Bush’s China policy have not been able to get the two-thirds majority in the Senate that would be necessary to override a presidential veto on the issue.