China May Allow Inspection of Prisons : Rights: Beijing says it might let Red Cross interview inmates. Statement is seen as a bid to deflect U.S. pressure before Seattle summit.

Hoping to deflect human rights pressure from the United States before the summit meeting between Presidents Clinton and Jiang Zemin next week in Seattle, the Chinese government Tuesday said it will consider allowing the International Committee of the Red Cross to inspect prisons and interview inmates in China’s vast penal system, believed to hold thousands of political prisoners.

“I believe that if the International Committee of the Red Cross makes such a request, we can give it positive consideration,” Chinese Foreign Minister Qian Qichen told American journalists in a pre-summit press conference at the Great Hall of the People here.

Qian’s carefully worded statement was welcomed as a possible breakthrough by human rights organizations that report on China.

“This first signal sounds promising,” commented Robin Munro, Hong Kong director of the Asia Watch human rights monitoring organization. “This process of opening up the Chinese gulag system to international exposure has to start somewhere. Up to now the system has been completely hermetically sealed, opaque.”

A spokesman for the Geneva-based Red Cross said the humanitarian organization views Qian’s statement “with interest.” A source at the headquarters said a formal request to visit prisons will almost certainly be submitted to the Chinese government before the two presidents meet Nov. 19 during a summit of Pacific Rim leaders.

However, at a meeting Tuesday morning in Geneva, some Swiss Red Cross officials were said to be concerned about the “political context” of the Chinese offer 10 days before the summit, which will be the first meeting between American and Chinese presidents in more than four years. Some officials reportedly expressed resentment at the idea of being used by both governments as a front for “an event.”

The last time the Red Cross worked inside China was to inspect Vietnamese prisoner of war camps during the 1979 China-Vietnam conflict. However, a month ago, its Hong Kong office director, Christophe Swinarski, was allowed to travel to the Xinjiang region, a politically and ethnically sensitive area in western China, to conduct informational meetings.

In naming the Red Cross, created originally to monitor the treatment of prisoners of war under the Geneva Conventions, the Chinese chose the most discreet of international humanitarian organizations. The Red Cross, which in recent decades has taken on an increasing number of political prisoner investigations, releases its findings only to the governments involved.

The International Committee of the Red Cross, unlike the various national Red Cross organizations, is entirely Swiss-staffed. That makes it attractive to the Chinese because it is independent of pressure from the U.S. Congress, which Qian and other officials have accused of mounting a “finger-pointing” campaign against China based on Western democratic standards not applicable in Asia.

But the organization’s international prestige also may serve the policy needs of Clinton, who on May 28 signed an executive order making renewal of normal U.S.-China trade relations contingent on China demonstrating “overall, significant progress” in several areas of human rights.

The State Department called the Chinese announcement “a positive step.”

China officially denies having any political prisoners. However, in October, Justice Minister Xiao Yang said that 0.3% of China’s 1.2 million prisoners--or about 3,600 people--were in prison after convictions for “counterrevolutionary” activities.

Human rights organizations contend the number is much higher.