Clinton Presses China on Rights : Summit: But he wins no commitment from President Jiang in their chilly meeting--the highest-level talks between the two governments since June, 1989.

In a chilly, flinty meeting, President Clinton pressed Chinese President Jiang Zemin on Friday for detailed, specific changes in Beijing’s human rights policies but won no commitments of any kind.

Clinton, who in his 1992 campaign for the White House had accused the George Bush Administration of “coddling dictators” in its policy toward Beijing, sat stone-faced as he was photographed with the Chinese leader at the outset of their session. Ninety minutes later, looking equally grim, he said he had been “as frank and forthright as possible” about differences between the two countries.

The President described America only as China’s “commercial friend,” making plain that political ties between the countries remain far short of amicable. And, tacitly acknowledging his failure to win results, he defended his decision to see Jiang, saying, “I don’t think you lose anything by talking with anyone, as long as we’re honest.”

Although former President Bush once met briefly with Chinese Premier Li Peng at a U.N. conference in New York City, Friday’s meeting was the highest-level exchange between the governments since before June, 1989. The Chinese regime on June 3, 1989, called in troops to force pro-democracy demonstrators out of Tian An Men Square; by U.S. estimates, at least 1,000 were killed.

Sitting alongside Clinton before the meeting started, Jiang was smiling and jovial. But the Chinese president--who is trying to consolidate his position in the Beijing leadership’s top ranks at a time when China’s paramount leader, Deng Xiaoping, is in declining health--quickly made it clear that he had come to the United States in no mood for concessions.

Asked whether he planned to talk about disputes over human rights and China’s arms sales, Jiang replied: “We have bigger things to discuss. Both China and the United States are big countries in the world. We will have discussions in a broader context.”

Clinton and senior Administration officials made it plain the President had ventured further and been more detailed on human rights issues than his predecessors.

The President, for example, said he specifically called for the release of Wang Juntao, a Chinese prisoner whom the Beijing regime considers an architect of the Tian An Men Square protests.

He also pressed the issue of Chinese rule in Tibet, calling on Jiang to open the way for a dialogue with the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan leader.

Later, Secretary of State Warren Christopher admitted to reporters: “There were no specific commitments coming out of the meeting.

“Progress in human rights comes slowly and requires persistence and determination,” he added. “I don’t think anyone should be surprised that there wasn’t tangible progress at the first meeting.”

Chinese Foreign Minister Qian Qichen told reporters that Jiang had not even bothered to discuss some of the human rights issues Clinton raised, such as his request for the release of political prisoners.

But he made it clear that the Chinese president had taken an especially hard line on Tibet. Jiang told Clinton that when Tibet was under the rule of the Dalai Lama before the Tibetan leader fled his homeland in 1959, its people “were treated as slaves.”

Nonetheless, Qian termed the meeting “positive and constructive.”

He said Jiang had invited Clinton to visit China and that the President said he hopes to do so sometime. As a result of the meeting of the two presidents, the Chinese foreign minister said, “the contacts between the two sides will increase.”

Last May, Clinton adopted an executive order that requires China to make “overall significant progress” in its human rights policies if it wants to get a renewal of its most-favored-nation trade benefits when they expire next summer.

The President’s strong emphasis on human rights in the meeting with Jiang was aimed at trying to goad China into quickly making the changes that he has required.

In a speech Friday morning, Clinton called his meeting with the Chinese president “an effort to put our relationship with China on a more constructive path.”

Earlier this month, China took a small step to ease its human rights policies by announcing that it is willing for the first time to consider allowing the Red Cross into its prisons. China has jailed more than 3,300 political prisoners officially labeled “counterrevolutionary.”

In what seemed to be a similar gesture, the Administration announced this week that it is clearing the way for the sale of a Cray supercomputer to China.

That sale originally was to occur in the last months of the Bush Administration. But it was delayed after some Pentagon officials complained that the device, intended for use by China’s weather service, could be put to work in developing missiles or nuclear weapons.

Clinton acknowledged that the Cray sale is important to the United States, and the Administration does not want to lose it. The supercomputer “is something that they could get elsewhere if they didn’t get it from the United States,” Clinton said.

The President insisted to reporters that he is not easing the U.S. stance toward China, despite recent high-level American visits to Beijing and gestures that seem aimed at conciliation.

“We haven’t changed our policy,” Clinton maintained.

“Our policy is to try to engage China, but to be very firm with the human rights issues, to be very firm on the weapons proliferation issues.”

From the time of their arrival in Seattle, top Chinese officials went out of their way to flaunt their current economic power and dash hopes for conciliation on human rights and foreign policy disputes dividing Washington and Beijing.

“The East and West, Asia and the United States, have different concepts of human rights,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wu Jianmin said at a news conference Thursday night. “For Asians, human rights do not mean the privileges of the few but the rights of the many. . . . Those who criticize China on human rights tend to focus on a small number of people (who) have violated the law.”

In a move that seemed aimed at irritating American policy-makers, Jiang and his delegation announced that they will visit Cuba--which, like Beijing, is one of the world’s last Communist regimes--immediately after leaving the United States. The Chinese spokesman said Jiang hopes to expand China’s ties with Cuba.