Official Says U.S. Taking Softer Approach to China

White House National Security Advisor Anthony Lake acknowledged in an interview Wednesday that the Clinton administration has shifted its approach to China by trying to avoid confronting the Beijing leadership head-on over human rights or other issues.

Sitting in his office on the first day of his return to Washington from a trip to Asia, Lake indicated that the administration is now trying to avoid setting conditions or drawing lines in its dealings with China.

Instead, he said, the United States is trying to establish the sort of relationship with the Chinese leadership that will open the way for “practical progress” on human rights and other areas like the proliferation of dangerous weapons.

“You can do it better when not every issue becomes, in itself, so confrontational that in effect they [Chinese leaders] cannot afford to make a compromise because then we’ll look as if we have steamrollered them and then will do so on every other issue,” Lake told The Times.

He said the administration believes it can help improve human rights in China by establishing “a kind of dialogue where you can push something without their [Chinese leaders] feeling that because you’re pushing it, you are going to take any concession they make and drive them to the wall.”

The new approach represents another step in the evolution of the administration’s China policy. President Clinton--who during his 1992 campaign had accused the George Bush administration of “coddling dictators” in Beijing--threatened during his first year in office to cut off China’s trade privileges unless the Chinese leadership met a series of requirements for improvements in human rights.

In 1994, at the time Clinton dropped these conditions, administration officials said they had concluded that it was not a good idea to link trade and human rights. However, they continued to press for human rights improvements in contexts other than trade. Only last fall, the White House turned down a proposed state visit to Washington by Chinese President Jiang Zemin in part because progress was lagging in China on human rights and other issues.

But last week, during his trip to Beijing, Lake delivered the message that the administration is prepared for Jiang to make a state visit here next year.

In Wednesday’s interview, Lake did not claim that there has been an easing of political repression in China.

“I don’t think there will be massive breakthroughs, but I hope we will see improvement,” he said “Have we made all the progress that we would like to on human rights? No. Of course not. Never will. Have we made progress in the sense that it is now a legitimate part of our dialogue with the Chinese? Yes.”

Mike Jendrejczyk, Washington director of Human Rights Watch/Asia, said Wednesday that Lake’s trip had “made it very clear that human rights will no longer be a determining factor in the state of the Sino-American relationship. . . . My question is, what is the incentive now for China to bring its practices up to international standards, if it won’t matter in the end how the United States treats China?”

The answer, according to Lake, is that the United States is offering China what he described as a partnership with other major powers in the 21st century.

The national security advisor said that during his meetings in Beijing with Jiang, Chinese Premier Li Peng and other top Chinese officials, he laid out a choice between what he called two different views of the world.

“One, that I call the 21st century view, is that as nations get closer and closer together economically, the penalties of conflict and the benefits of cooperation are much larger than they were before,” Lake said. Under such a system, he went on, “the great powers, specifically including China . . . are increasingly playing by rules that govern their economic and diplomatic relationships in ways that work for their mutual benefit. . . .

“This contrasts with what I call the 19th century view of great powers in a state of permanent rivalry in which one works against the interests of the other.”

Pursuing this view of a cooperative world, Lake said he told Chinese leaders that it is in America’s “strategic interest” for China to be a member of the World Trade Organization, which sets the rules for trade and tariffs around the globe. China has not yet been admitted because there has been no agreement setting the terms under which it may join.

At the same time, Lake told Chinese leaders that the United States will keep “a very strong military presence” in Asia and the Pacific during the 21st century and “a very active diplomacy, not aimed at anyone as it had been aimed at the Soviet Union during the Cold War, but as a force of stability.”

One subject Chinese leaders sought to discuss was Japan, Lake said. In April, during a visit to Tokyo, Clinton signed a declaration with Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto that reinforces and expands the security ties between the United States and Japan.

He told Chinese leaders that these ties “were not aimed at anybody,” such as China, Lake said. Rather, ties between Washington and Tokyo over the last 50 years have been a “source of stability” in Asia, he said.

The national security advisor said he made it clear to top Chinese officials “that I was speaking for the president.” Chinese leaders seemed to realize that there was “a good chance” Clinton will be reelected in November, he said.

Nevertheless, Lake said, he avoided answering Chinese questions about exactly what the administration might do during a second term.