Profile : Consultant Works to Sell Beijing on Human Rights : * U.S. businessman tries to free political prisoners while lobbying for China’s favorable trade status.

“Business as usual” is not a phrase you’d hear John Kamm using with ease. Instead, this high-profile American businessman advocates including a new concern on the U.S. corporate agenda: human rights.

Kamm, a 40-year-old New Jersey native and son of an uneducated whiskey salesman, resigned an executive post at Los Angeles’ Occidental Petroleum Corp. subsidiary in Hong Kong last September to launch a career as a consultant on doing business with China. On the side, he simultaneously lobbies in favor of maintaining China’s most-favored-nation (MFN) trading status and works to resolve human rights differences between Washington and Beijing.

Regarding his human rights activities, he said in an interview: “I’m an occasional catalyst. . . . There’s a lot of frustration and beating my head against the wall and getting absolutely nowhere. But occasionally it clicks.”

He began using his longtime business contacts in China to plead the case of Chinese imprisoned for their political or religious beliefs while serving as president of Hong Kong’s influential American Chamber of Commerce in 1990.

“I’ve worked on cases involving about 100 people--some are not in jail. It might be the family member of someone in jail who is having a tough time, or a guy who’s running (an underground) church who needs to stay free,” Kamm said. “Nobody tells me to take on a case. More important than that, I never release information on cases I don’t work on. That’s the best guarantee against getting used (by the Chinese).”

Luo Haixing’s case is one that ended in freedom.

In October, 1989, Luo, a Hong Kong businessman, was sentenced to five years in a Chinese prison for masterminding an underground railway that spirited hundreds of dissidents out of the country after the June 4 massacre of pro-democracy demonstrators in Beijing.

But by September, 1991, Kamm helped persuade the Chinese government to release Luo “on medical parole” and allow him to return to Hong Kong.

“Mr. Kamm is very clever and skillful in using the business strategy to do politics,” Luo commented. “He never directly confronts the Beijing government, which keeps the already open door of economics open. And through this existing channel, he can add a new dimension (of human rights). I think he is a great man who is working for human rights and U.S.-China trade relationships, in particular China’s most-favored-nation trading status.”

Kamm has testified several times before the U.S. Congress in favor of retaining China’s MFN status. Cutting it off, he argues, would only hurt both countries economically and at the same time reduce U.S. ability to influence China on issues such as human rights.

His new company, Kamm & Associates, publishes a $1,000-a-year monthly MFN newsletter sent to 60 business subscribers who rely on Kamm’s analysis of U.S.-China relations.

Kamm also acts as a consultant to four business entrepreneurs--two Hong Kong Chinese and two Americans--who know he’s well-connected in both China and the United States.

“People ask me why am I doing this,” Kamm said. “If not me, who? . . . I’m willing to go out front and be proactive. But I don’t work in a vacuum. The values I speak for are popular values.”

Kamm told a group of young Americans at the Hong Kong International School earlier this year that there is a commonly held view--unfair in many respects--that American corporations leave their American values at home when they leave U.S. shores.

“There are accusations that American firms ‘prop up’ totalitarian regimes. The situation has become so bad that multinationals deliberately play down their involvement in countries where human rights violations are most publicized. This is not a healthy situation,” he said.

Kamm maintains that not only American businessmen but American teachers, students and other professionals should support more firmly the exercise of basic human rights in the countries where they live and do business.

Kamm said he informs U.S. government officials about his discussions with Chinese officials but does not ask for their advice.

“With respect to the human rights organizations, I have a very close, cooperative relationship, but I’m not a member of any of them,” Kamm said. “I work with Amnesty (International). I work with Asia Watch. I work with the (Chinese) dissidents in Princeton very closely. I work with Catholics, the Puebla Institute and the Catholic Church itself . . . (and) with the International League for Human Rights. I keep them advised on what I do.”

Some critics have charged that China is trying to use Kamm to boost their efforts to give the appearance of progress in human rights when in fact there is no significant easing of repression.

“I think it is probably impossible to refute, but the point is there is always a cynical view that John is being used as a tool,” an American businessman in Hong Kong said. “I personally don’t think it’s true. I think John is far too smart and far too much of his own person to have this happen, whether it’s being used by the Chinese or by somebody else.”

In various ways, Kamm tries to stick to a non-confrontational approach in his dealings with the Chinese. He said, for example, that he uses the term “prisoners convicted of counterrevolutionary offenses” rather than the more emotionally charged “political prisoners” because it helps him push for their release.

This approach of visiting officials as “a friend of China” helps keep the country’s door open for Kamm.

During a visit to Beijing in April, Ministry of Justice officials gave Kamm the first official update in years on the condition of China’s most famous longtime political prisoner, Wei Jingsheng, who was prominent in the Democracy Wall movement. Wei was arrested in 1979 and is serving a 15-year sentence.

“I went into the meeting requesting information about other prisoners that I’ve been working on,” Kamm recalled. “They gave me detailed accounts of the prisoners. The man in charge had a stack of papers. As I would ask a prisoner’s situation, he would leaf through and give a detailed account of the sentence, had the sentence been reduced, the location of the prison, the prisoner’s attitude. It was very good detail.”

This process, Kamm said, “established precedent right there.”

Kamm then took this opportunity to ask about Wei, 42. Unofficial reports have circulated in recent years that Wei has suffered severe problems of both physical and mental illness as a result of his long and harsh imprisonment. The officials strenuously denied this.

Kamm was told that Wei is being held in a labor reform prison on the outskirts of Tangshan, about 100 miles southeast of Beijing. The officials said he has his own room, which opens onto a room with guards.

“He (Wei) has a lot of interaction with the guards. He’s very loquacious. He debates with the guards. He watches several hours of television every night,” Kamm quoted officials as saying. “He basically follows prison regulations, but is ‘unclear about his guilt.’ ”

Kamm said he believes that the official summary of Wei’s situation, by acknowledging that he “basically follows prison regulations,” strongly implies that Wei will in fact be released in 1994 at the end of his term. Chinese prisoners sometimes have their terms extended for rebellious behavior in prison, while they may be released early for admitting guilt and showing repentance.

Kamm embarked on his path of mixing business with human rights activism after nearly two decades of experience in dealing with China.

An honors graduate of Princeton and Harvard universities, Kamm has lived in Hong Kong since 1972. He started his own chemical company in 1979 with offices in Hong Kong and China. The firm was bought out two years later by Diamond Shamrock Corp., whose chemical business was acquired by Occidental Chemical Corp. in 1986.

Kamm is still interested in trading commodities such as agricultural, chemical and wood products. He believes that in addition to making money for his firm, such sales can help him play his lobbying role in both Washington and Beijing.

“I’m negotiating right now to ship (products) to China and/or (do) investment,” Kamm said. “What I’m interested in always is representing American products. I will probably do over 50 times more selling to China as opposed to buying. I like selling products, meeting businesses back in the U.S. And of course, it is always good for the political work.”

Biography

Name: John Kamm

Title: American businessman and human rights activist.

Age: 40

Personal: Honors graduate of Princeton and Harvard universities. Married. Father of two.

Quote: “I’m an occasional catalyst. . . . There’s a lot of frustration and beating my head against the wall and getting absolutely nowhere. But occasionally it clicks.”