Clinton, Chinese President Seek to Repair Relations : Diplomacy: U.S. officials say leaders make progress on reviving talks about nuclear testing, crime and narcotics, but not human rights. Tone of meeting is stiff and formal.

President Clinton and Chinese President Jiang Zemin met for nearly two hours Tuesday in talks that produced no immediate results but that, according to U.S. officials, helped to smooth the rocky relationship between the two countries.

It was “a very good, very positive meeting, certainly the best of the three meetings [Clinton] has had [with Jiang] to date,” White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry told reporters afterward.

Chinese government spokesman Chen Jian called the session “candid, friendly, positive and useful.”

Administration officials said the two leaders made progress toward reviving some high-level dialogue between their countries in areas such as nuclear testing, military exchanges and cooperation on crime and narcotics.

Assistant Secretary of State Winston Lord acknowledged, however, that China did not agree to resume the formal dialogue on human rights that it suspended earlier this year. At a press briefing, Lord repeatedly avoided mentioning the cases of any Chinese dissidents, such as imprisoned Chinese democracy advocate Wei Jingsheng.

“It’s clear that the Administration got stiffed on human rights,” said Mike Jendrzejczyk of Human Rights Watch/Asia. He said Clinton seemed to be avoiding the public appeals for the release of dissidents that he made two years ago. “This is a big step backwards,” Jendrzejczyk said.

Clinton offered Jiang face-to-face assurances that the United States is not seeking to “contain” China or to prevent it from developing into a more powerful country, as some Chinese officials charged earlier this year.

It was the first meeting between the two leaders since Clinton’s decision earlier this year to permit Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui to make an unprecedented visit to the United States. That visit sent relations between Washington and Beijing plummeting to their lowest level in more than a decade.

McCurry said Clinton aimed to “return some measure of normalcy and stability to, arguably, one of the most important bilateral relationships that the United States maintains in the world.”

Clinton and Jiang avoided stirring up any controversy after their talks, and their tone was formal and stiff. For the first 90 minutes of their meeting, each leader was flanked by three aides. For the final half an hour, much larger groups of U.S. and Chinese officials joined in.

The summit meeting was held in an austere rehearsal studio ordinarily used by ballet companies at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. Outside, about 70 demonstrators stood behind barricades, holding signs that said “Free Tibet Now.”

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Both the setting and the atmosphere of the Jiang meeting contrasted sharply with Clinton’s session with Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin the previous day.

On Monday, Clinton and Yeltsin stood side by side, relaxed, at a news conference after their talks, with the American President doubling up with laughter as the Russian leader bantered with reporters. On Tuesday, after the Clinton-Jiang summit, there was no joint news conference; U.S. and Chinese officials gave separate accounts of what had happened.

The two leaders did not appear to break any new ground on Taiwan during their meeting. China has sought a promise that Lee and other top Taiwanese officials will never be admitted into the United States again, and the Clinton Administration has refused to make such a pledge.

Lord told reporters afterward that he thought the friction over Taiwan has eased. It is now “just one of many issues” between Washington and Beijing, he said.

But Chen, the Chinese spokesman, said Taiwan remained the “major and sensitive issue affecting relations” between Washington and Beijing. He said the Chinese president “wants to see no more incidents that interfere with and disrupt the steady growth of the relationship.”

In his formal speech to the United Nations on Tuesday, Jiang underscored the importance of Taiwan to China. “Taiwan is an inalienable part of Chinese territory,” he said. He also warned that the Beijing government must be the sole representative of China at the United Nations--which Taiwan has recently been seeking to rejoin.

The Jiang-Clinton summit occurred at a time when U.S.-China relations are being affected by political pressures in both countries.

Jiang is trying to establish himself in Beijing as the heir to paramount leader Deng Xiaoping, while Clinton is trying to solidify his foreign policy credentials as he prepares to run for reelection next year.

Under these pressures, it was difficult to work out even the arrangements and site for Tuesday’s meeting. China did not want to have Jiang come to Washington for anything less than a full state visit, with a formal banquet and red-carpet treatment. Clinton was not ready to offer that.

And a day before the meeting was to be held in New York, China insisted that it be moved out of the New York Public Library because of its unhappiness over an exhibit that includes a section on the Tian An Men Square protests of 1989. Clinton and Jiang had met twice before, during the conferences of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation group in Seattle in 1993 and in Jakarta, Indonesia, last year.

All their meetings have been in conjunction with large international gatherings. Jiang invited Clinton to visit China two years ago, but the President has not yet agreed to set a date for such a trip.

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Clinton, bowing to congressional pressure, granted a visa last May for the Taiwanese president to visit his alma mater, Cornell University, and to make a speech there.

It was the first visit to this country made by any president of Taiwan, with which the United States broke off all diplomatic relations in 1979. Under the communique signed during President Richard Nixon’s milestone visit to China in 1972, the United States “acknowledges” that China considers Taiwan to be part of its territory.

China, claiming that the granting of a visa to Lee gave a degree of official recognition to Taiwan, reacted angrily, recalling its ambassador from Washington and suspending several exchanges with high-level American officials.

China has always left open the possibility that it might use force to retake Taiwan if the island declared its independence or if, in China’s view, it became dominated by a foreign power. Over the summer, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army conducted a series of missile tests across the South China Sea near the coastline of Taiwan.

Over the past two months, however, the tensions between Washington and Beijing began to ease slightly.

Secretary of State Warren Christopher and other State Department officials promised China that in the future, the Clinton Administration would issue visas to high-level Taiwanese officials very infrequently and only for personal business, such as medical treatment. And China agreed to send its ambassador back to Washington.

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Taiwan is holding legislative elections this December and its first direct election for the presidency in March. Lee’s Nationalist Party, which is still committed to long-term reunification with China, is being challenged by an opposition group, the Democratic Progressive Party, that favors an independent Taiwan.

It is the prospect of these elections that has caused both Lee and the opposition party to press the United States and the United Nations for a greater degree of international recognition.

* Times staff writers David Lamb and Doyle McManus contributed to this story.

* U.N. MEETING ENDS: The gathering concludes with a vow to work for peace. A10

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Roadblocks to Better Relations

Here are some of the issues that confronted President Clinton and Chinese PresidentJiang Zemin in their meeting Tuesday:

Taiwan: China has been seeking an apology from the United States for allowing Taiwan’s President Lee Teng-hui to visit in June. U.S. officials have said such visits will be extremely rare.

Human Rights: China has imprisoned Wei Jingsheng, the country’s most prominent proponent of democracy, without trial. It is also holding other dissidents.

Arms Control: The Clinton Administration has long demanded that China explain why it sold M-11 missiles to Pakistan and that it promise not to sell missile parts.

Trade: China wants to be admitted into the World Trade Organization. The United States says China first must make economic changes, such as reducing trade barriers.

Clinton Visit: Two years ago, the Chinese president invited Clinton to visit China. Clinton has not yet agreed to schedule such a trip.