U.S. Will Keep Pressing China on Rights : Diplomacy: Officials hold meeting to clarify Administration stance. Some had urged a more conciliatory approach.

After reviewing Secretary of State Warren Christopher’s recent visit to Beijing, top Clinton Administration officials decided Tuesday night to hold fast to their policy of pressing for human rights improvements in China, a senior Administration official said.

There had been speculation in Washington that the Administration was preparing to change course on China by de-emphasizing the issue of human rights.

The U.S. business community is worried about losing out to foreign competition in the Chinese market, and top officials of the National Economic Council and the Treasury and commerce departments have been urging a more conciliatory approach to China.

But after a nearly two-hour Cabinet-level meeting at the White House, a State Department source said the Administration has decided to stick with its current human rights policy.

“It was basically a reaffirmation of the approach we have been following up to now,” said the official, who supports Christopher’s emphasis on human rights. “The bottom line from the meeting was that we need to stay steady and to encourage China to make progress” on human rights.

An executive order signed by President Clinton last year requires the Chinese government to make “overall significant progress” on human rights by June to be eligible for a renewal of its most-favored-nation (MFN) trade benefits. The status permits China to export its goods into the United States under the same low tariff rates enjoyed by most other countries.

When Christopher visited Beijing 10 days ago, Chinese leaders greeted him with stony hostility. Chinese security officials detained several dissidents before and during his trip.

During the visit, Premier Li Peng warned Christopher that China has its own concept of human rights and will never submit to U.S. pressure for change.

But Tuesday in Beijing, after weeks of tough talk from the Chinese regime about America, Li said China will make “great efforts” to improve its relations with the United States.

“Generally speaking, I do not feel pessimistic about the prospects of Sino-U.S. relations,” Li told a news conference Tuesday at the close of a session of the Chinese Congress.

“I would like to take this opportunity to reiterate that China is willing to improve Sino-U.S. relations,” Li said in a prepared statement. “We have made great efforts to improve relations and will continue to do so.”

U.S. business leaders in Beijing had expressed their dismay with the Administration’s policy of linking a renewal of China’s MFN benefits to improvements in human rights.

Last week, Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen suggested to reporters in Honolulu that America needs to change its approach to ensure that it is not “disengaging” from China.

“I think we have to explore alternatives to see if we can work this out,” he said.

Tuesday’s White House session was designed to iron out differences within the Administration to ensure that China will not get conflicting messages. President Clinton was not present at the meeting, a State Department source said. But it is possible he will make a public statement soon to affirm that the China policy has not changed in the aftermath of Christopher’s trip.

The Administration also has been moving to shore up support for its human rights approach, both in Congress and among Chinese students and dissidents.

Sen. Claiborne Pell (D-R.I.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, took to the Senate floor Tuesday to defend Christopher. He asserted that the secretary’s visit to Beijing “was a necessary one, for it underscored to a Chinese audience too used to the accolades of businessmen the importance of human rights to American foreign policy.”

Zhao Haiqing, a former student leader who works with Chinese dissidents in the United States, said he was organizing a letter-writing campaign to defend the Administration’s linkage of MFN benefits and human rights.

Zhao said extending China’s trade benefits without any human-rights conditions “will be devastating for the democracy movement in China. It will really give a strong hand to the hard-liners. The hard-liners will be able to have their way inside China.”