China Tries to Put Best Face on Human Rights ‘Reforms’ : Dissidents: In rare visit to forced labor camp, 5 U.S. reporters see--but can’t talk to--most famous prisoner.

Hoping to impress their foreign guests with the benevolence of their institution, officials at the Lingyuan No. 2 Labor Reform Detachment began by showing a videotape that described the sprawling forced labor camp as a “happy land for the reforming of new men.”

But, mid-video, just after a lingering close-up of a velvety red rose supposedly grown in the prison garden, Warden Xin Tingquan, who had been acting nervously, jumped to his feet.

Herding his American guests, five China-based news correspondents, to a tinted, one-way window overlooking the main prison courtyard, Xin blurted:

“Mr. Liu Gang will be walking by now.”

And indeed, there he was, Lingyuan No. 2 Labor Reform Detachment’s most famous political prisoner, Liu Gang, 32, wearing a quilted blue jacket, walking slowly and talking with a prison guard on the path just below the window.

Arrested in 1989 in the wake of the Tian An Men Square crackdown, Liu was an important student leader in the democracy movement before it was crushed by People’s Liberation Army troops. His six-year sentence, and subsequent reports that he was tortured in prison by Chinese authorities, made him a focal point of international human rights complaints against the Chinese government.

By permitting the American reporters to visit the prison, a rare peek inside one of 684 “reform-through-labor” camps in the vast Chinese gulag, the Beijing government hoped to demonstrate a new openness and responsiveness to human rights concerns.

Friday’s carefully choreographed prison visit was timed exactly one week before U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher’s planned visit to China.

But the prison officials refused the reporters’ repeated requests to interview Liu in person. At first, the officials said the interview was prohibited by prison rules. Later, they said the interview was not granted because “Liu Gang has a habit of not telling the truth.”

Clearly, they were afraid of what the former physics graduate student might say to the reporters. But without the direct interview, it was impossible to ascertain the prisoner’s state of health or evaluate his treatment in prison.

The unprecedented tour of the infamous prison camp came as police across the country were rounding up other dissidents.

Among them was China’s leading dissident, Wei Jingsheng, who was detained for 24 hours before being released Saturday. The detention was apparently punishment for Wei’s meeting last week in Beijing with U.S. State Department human rights official John Shattuck.

Wei’s detention and the arrest or detention of at least seven other dissidents in recent days sparked a sharp negative reaction from President Clinton and cast a dark cloud over the upcoming visit by Christopher.

In an executive order signed by Clinton, the United States has threatened to withdraw low-tariff “most-favored-nation” trading status from China unless Beijing demonstrates “significant, overall progress” on human rights questions before June.

“You can be sure that human rights will be right at the top of my agenda when I get to Beijing,” Christopher said Saturday in Honolulu, where he began his Asia tour.

Until the recent series of arrests and detentions, the Christopher visit was viewed by both sides as an opportunity to iron out remaining differences between the two countries. On his recent visit here, human rights envoy Shattuck said agreement was close at hand on several key human rights concerns.

If the Chinese authorities are sending mixed signals to the Americans about their willingness to cooperate on human rights, it may be because two arms of the Chinese government, each with its own political leaning, are pulling in opposite directions.

The recent crackdown on dissidents, for example, was conducted by the Public Security Bureau, the hard-line police agency in charge of maintaining public order. Although the timing this year is particularly sensitive because of the Christopher visit, the Public Security Bureau often conducts roundups of dissident political activists in advance of sessions of the National People’s Congress, like the one scheduled to begin next week.

Meanwhile, a more conciliatory tone has been struck by the State Council, the highest organ of state administration, headed by Chinese Premier Li Peng.

Last week, the press office of the State Council showed a group of American reporters videotapes taken in jail of Liu and three other men--Chen Ziming, Wang Juntao and Ren Wanding--who head the political prisoner lists of most human rights groups. The videotapes showed the dissident leaders celebrating the Chinese New Year with their families in jail.

On Friday, here in a remote region of Liaoning province, 160 miles northeast of Beijing, the State Council granted reporters’ requests to visit one of the most notorious prisons in the Chinese system.

Founded in 1958, the Lingyuan penal colony consists of six factory work camps scattered in the barren foothills of what was once a Mongol nationality minority area.

The five reporters, representing the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Associated Press and U.S. News & World Report, were taken to only one of the units, the No. 2 Labor Reform Detachment located about four miles from the center of Lingyuan.

Officials said the prison has 2,432 inmates and a staff of 630. All of the inmates are required to work without pay at least eight hours a day and attend political indoctrination classes three days a week.

Each of the six penal units in Lingyuan functions as a factory with the inmates as employees. The main work at the No. 2 detachment is assembly of 5- to 6-ton trucks.

Officials said that last year the prison produced 3,500 trucks, generating a revenue of $30 million. Last year, they said, the prison truck-assembly plant earned about $900,000 profit.

Except for the fact that it is bordered by high walls topped with 370-volt electric fencing and surrounded by guards armed with electric cattle prods, the prison very much resembles any other large Chinese factory compound, complete with working and living facilities.

The prison grounds were mostly cleared of inmates when the reporters visited. No prisoners could be interviewed outside the presence of prison officials.

The reporters were given a tour of a residential dormitory. The floors were polished, the bed linens all neatly folded and pressed. The entrances of the dormitory were festooned with New Year’s decorations that prison officials insisted had not been put up just for the visit.

On the hallway wall opposite each room was a “point chart” listing the name of each inmate. Inmates can lower their sentences through good behavior, the guards explained.

But under the Chinese system, which places a heavy emphasis on confession, no points can be granted unless the inmate first acknowledges his crime. This is something that Liu has so far refused to do.

The reporters were guided across a recreational courtyard rigged with a volleyball net and through a political study classroom that had the slogan “Study Hard and Accelerate the Reform Process” above the blackboard. Outside, large pigs grunted in the prison swine farm.

In the most surreal scene of the tour, inside the prison recreational hall theater, a musical group calling itself “New Road Song & Dance Troupe” moon-walked and jerked to a scratchy recording of Michael Jackson’s “Bad.” Later, a horn ensemble attempted a version of “Memories” from the musical “Cats.”

After a tour of the main assembly line, empty except for a few inmate-workers, the reporters were taken to the prison museum. Adorning the walls were pictures of some of the prison truck models, award certificates from the national prison system and photos of famous prisoners.

Prominent among the inmate pictures was a photo of Liu and his two prison cellmates, also charged with “counterrevolutionary crimes.”

The photo had obviously been added to the display only recently. But it underscored the prison administration’s preoccupation with unrepentant prisoner Liu, who in 1991 led an inmate hunger strike to protest conditions.

The officials showed several videotapes of Liu playing Ping-Pong, pocket billiards and volleyball. They also showed what they said was a remote camera view of Liu talking with a guard in another room of the prison.

In the remote-camera view, Liu appeared to have a red rash on his face, but prison officials said it was merely acne.

The officials, who film many of Liu’s activities in prison, talk about his sports skills--”He is better at volleyball than he is at Ping-Pong”--monitor what he is reading and count how many cigarettes he smokes each day.

They even seem proud of his eating habits.

“He has a healthy attitude. See how fat he is?”