Deal Secured Activist’s Release

China’s release of student leader Wang Dan represents one of the last steps in an extensive package deal secretly negotiated earlier this year by the Clinton administration and the Chinese government, according to administration officials and Chinese sources.

The deal, which set the stage both for President Clinton’s visit to China in June and for Wang’s release Sunday, was reached during a clandestine mission to Beijing on the weekend of March 7-8 by three Clinton administration officials.

“Let’s just say we weren’t surprised,” said one administration official dryly after China freed Wang this weekend and allowed him to fly into exile in the United States.

A detailed reconstruction of the negotiations by The Times underscores that the freeing of dissidents has become a regular element of U.S.-Chinese diplomacy. Before or after each new step in Sino-American relations, the United States seeks the release of dissidents, and China seeks concessions in return.

Throughout the 1990s, China has extracted from the United States an unfolding array of benefits--including trade preferences, relaxed economic sanctions and high-level visits--in exchange for freeing troublesome dissidents from its prisons. In some instances, China has won concessions for the same dissident twice--by freeing him, rearresting him and freeing him again.

The recent series of negotiations also raises questions about the wisdom of winning the release of dissidents only if they agree to leave the country.

The Northwest Airlines flight from Beijing to Detroit that Wang took might well be dubbed the “nonstop to exile.” It is the same flight onto which Wei Jingsheng, China’s most famous dissident, was escorted when he was freed from nearly two decades in Chinese prisons in November.

“We’re delighted that Wang Dan is free, but we will only be able to say that the human rights situation in China has improved when people like Wang Dan are able to call for political change without fear of being sent to a labor camp or charged with endangering state security,” said Sidney Jones of the New York-based Human Rights Watch.

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The maneuvering for Wang’s freedom, according to American and Chinese sources familiar with the negotiations, began almost as soon as Wei won his. Wei’s release made Wang the best-known dissident still confined in China’s prison system--and thus the next subject of Sino-American bargaining.

On the day Wei was set free, White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles announced on nationwide television that Clinton wanted to meet with the freed dissident--a rendezvous that the Chinese government immediately tried to block.

A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman expressed “strong indignation” that the president would receive “a criminal” in the White House. Chinese officials hinted that intense publicity for Wei could jeopardize the release of other dissidents.

Clinton went ahead and met with Wei, but in a low-key manner, avoiding posing for photographers or other actions that would attract attention to the meeting.

Shortly afterward, when Wei was to be interviewed by the Voice of America, U.S. Ambassador to China James R. Sasser and National Security Advisor Samuel R. “Sandy” Berger tried unsuccessfully to head off the broadcast.

In an indirect reference to China’s threat to hold up the release of other dissidents, such as Wang, Berger urged VOA officials to consider the “foreign policy implications” of putting Wei on the air, a spokesman said at the time. The VOA chose to broadcast the interview anyway.

By the beginning of 1998, administration officials had started planning for a possible Clinton trip to China. “We’re assuming it’s November,” said one State Department official in February.

But sometime during the first eight weeks of the year, Clinton and his top advisors moved up the China trip to June.

Exactly why remains unclear. Several people directly involved in diplomacy with China, especially Sasser, urged an early trip to maintain what they said was the momentum of diplomacy established during the summit meeting in Washington last fall between Clinton and Chinese President Jiang Zemin.

Moreover, the Monica Lewinsky controversy was at its feverish peak in Washington at the time, and the trial of the Paula Corbin Jones sexual harassment suit (later dismissed) was scheduled for late spring.

Three administration officials--Sandra Kristoff and Jeffrey Bader of the National Security Council and Deputy Secretary of State Susan Shirk--made a preliminary trip to Beijing in early February to try to prepare the groundwork for a summit.

On March 7, the three officials again left Washington for Beijing. This time, their mission was secret, not announced in either country.

They carried a detailed message from the White House. Clinton, they said, was prepared to visit China in June, earlier than expected, and was also willing to drop the long-standing American support for a U.N. resolution condemning China’s human rights record.

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The American backing for the U.N. resolution, long a sore point with Beijing, was also the subject of considerable wrangling within the administration.

Some officials, particularly in the State Department, had favored pressing ahead with the U.N. resolution. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in particular was described by one official as “an extremely reluctant dragon” about dropping American support.

But at the Beijing meetings, the three administration negotiators said Clinton was ready to abandon the United States’ eight-year campaign against China at the U.N. Human Rights Commission.

Clinton wanted China to make some concessions in return. One was an agreement to sign the U.N. Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The other was the release of dissidents. And Wang was at the top of the list of political prisoners the United States wanted freed.

At first, the U.S. negotiators met with members of China’s Foreign Ministry and State Council, but eventually Vice Premier Qian Qichen, who is now in charge of China’s foreign policy, became involved.

In a one-on-one meeting with Qian, Kristoff is reported to have said that Clinton needed to know what steps China would take if the United States abandoned the U.N. resolution. Qian said the administration could have confidence China would reciprocate.

Some of the steps in the deal were quickly completed and made public. On March 12, Qian announced that China planned to sign the rights covenant. More than a month later, however, the Chinese regime has not yet done so, and human rights activists say they believe that even when China signs, it may reserve the right not to honor some of the agreement’s provisions.

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Within a day, on March 13, senior administration officials dropped the bombshell that the United States would abandon the U.N. resolution condemning China.

“I think there will be further releases of political prisoners,” one of the administration’s senior foreign policy officials told reporters that day. Without mentioning Wang, he clearly left the impression that the Tiananmen Square veteran would be released soon.

It is not evident yet whether Wang is the only dissident who will be released before the June summit. Mike Jendrzejczyk, another Human Rights Watch official, said Sunday that administration officials “are hoping and expecting further releases. Tibet is high on their list of priorities.”

Jendrzejczyk, like other human rights activists, said he considered Wang’s release “a very minimal gesture by the Chinese, especially because he is being freed into exile. It is certainly no sign of a change in attitude by the Chinese regime on political dissent.”

Administration officials contend that the only practical choice they face is between having dissidents sent into exile and letting them stay in prison.

“We’re not faced with an abstract choice of whether we’d like them to be released in China or in the United States,” one official said. “Clearly, it would be better if people like Wang and Wei were released domestically. They should be allowed to speak and act in their own country.”

China set Wang free just after the U.N. Human Rights Commission wrapped up its annual meeting in Geneva, and far enough in advance of Clinton’s visit that the two events need not appear linked. U.S. analysts believe that the Chinese regime tries to avoid seeming to respond to foreign pressure.

Wang’s release also came 10 days before Albright’s scheduled visit to Beijing to help complete plans for Clinton’s visit. China’s gesture could improve the atmosphere for her visit.

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Only a few days ago, Chinese officials notified the Clinton administration that Wang’s release was imminent. However, there seems to have been one last bit of awkward diplomacy: China may have sought assurances that Clinton would not meet with Wang at the White House, as he did with Wei.

This time, at the Summit of the Americas in Chile, Berger was asked whether Clinton would meet with Wang.

“No comment,” was the terse reply.

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Times staff writer Jonathan Peterson contributed to this report from Santiago, Chile.