Ruling Could Boost Chinese Immigration : Birth Control: Federal judge says Beijing’s strict policy violates a basic human right. If that interpretation holds up, experts say, more Chinese may win legal refuge here.

When the Chinese government ordered the sterilization of Guo Chun Di and his wife as part of a population-control crackdown, the 29-year-old farmer decided to run away. He hopped a freighter and fled to the United States--”a freedom country,” he said.

He had paid a smuggler $5,000 for a spot on the boat and spent four months at sea. But as soon as he arrived in New York in June, on board the ill-fated Golden Venture, Guo was put behind bars, winding up in a jail in Winchester, Va. He was about to be deported.

Then along came a federal judge in Alexandria, Va., who gave him another chance.

In a decision that specialists say could encourage a new wave of Chinese immigration and trigger more lawsuits for asylum, U.S. District Judge T. S. Ellis III ruled that China’s population-control strategy is political persecution, a violation of a basic human right.

The policy has been criticized for using sterilization and abortion to enforce the country’s one-child-per-family rule.

Although Ellis’ ruling did not grant Guo political asylum, it ordered immigration officials to review his case and consider the family-planning issue when deciding whether to send him back to China.

Meanwhile, Guo remains in jail, dreaming that one day his wife and daughter will be able to join him in the United States, according to his lawyer, Timothy S. Burgett.

Guo, who has six years of schooling, “knows we’ve won a victory. But he doesn’t understand, if he won, why he’s still in jail,” Burgett said.

Although Ellis’ Jan. 14 opinion is not binding on dozens of similar cases pending in federal courts across the nation, human-rights advocates described the decision as a breakthrough in recognizing China’s family-planning policy as a legitimate basis for granting political asylum. Those who seek to limit immigration view it as a dangerous invitation to illegal aliens.

“This is an extremely important opinion, a trailblazing opinion, because this is the first federal judge to rule on this issue,” said Craig Trebilcock, an immigration lawyer who is seeking asylum for 22 Chinese refugees jailed in York, Pa. “There can tend to be a domino effect in these matters.”

But Dan Stein, executive director of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, called the judge’s decision “a disaster” and added, “We’re sending a message back to China: You’re going to get in.”

The ruling raises moral and public-policy questions at a time when the Clinton Administration’s policy on Chinese refugees is under review. The issue has generated debate at the White House, Justice Department, Immigration and Naturalization Service and State Department as well as in Congress.

Among the key questions is how far this country should go to grant relief to Chinese who want more than one child.

Guo Chun Di’s story is similar to those of other Chinese refugees seeking asylum for family reasons. He told authorities that he came to the United States in desperation.

“China has no freedom,” Guo told an immigration judge last summer. “I only have one child. I want to have two more children, but they won’t let me. I’m afraid that if they find me, they will take me to get sterilized.”

Two other Chinese men who sailed with Guo on the Golden Venture have cases pending at the Alexandria courthouse: Yang Cheng Huan, 26, who said his wife was sterilized two years ago after giving birth to their second child, and Chen Zhao Chai, 41, who said he was fined and sterilized for fathering two children. His wife was forced to have an abortion in 1992 to prevent a third birth, he said.

Guo, Yang and Chen declined to be interviewed after requests were made through their lawyers.

China has come under international criticism for its population-control policy. The Chinese government says the policy, pursued since 1979, is necessary so that population growth doesn’t wreck the economy. The world’s most populous nation, China has nearly 1.2 billion people.

Compliance with the policy is encouraged by education, economic incentives and stronger measures such as fines and demotions. Although abortions and sterilization are not officially mandated, they continue to occur, most often in remote rural areas. The number of children a couple is allowed to have before being penalized varies by region.