Clinton Begins Visit to China, Hails Its Future

Embarking on the most dramatic and widely criticized foreign trip of his career, President Clinton arrived Thursday in this ancient capital and declared that “a new day is dawning for the Chinese people.”

Clinton’s visit to China marked the end of the nine-year hiatus in which U.S. presidents refrained from visiting the world’s most populous country after the Chinese leadership, in June 1989, called in troops to put down a wave of protests for democracy and against corruption. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, were killed in the Tiananmen Square crackdown.

The president and his 50-member official party--with First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, daughter Chelsea, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and members of Congress and the Cabinet--emerged at dusk from an 18-hour flight to a formal welcome on an airport tarmac. They were treated an hour later to pageantry in the heart of the city, replete with Chinese music, dancing women and iron-helmeted warriors.

“Nimen hao? [How are you?]” Clinton greeted the crowd. His Chinese listeners laughed but also applauded the president’s passable rendition of their language.

Xian was carefully scrubbed and decorated for the president’s arrival. At Xian’s South Gate at the ancient city wall, a huge red carpet was rolled out. The city was festooned with red lanterns and welcome signs. “This is nicer than a spring festival,” quipped one resident.

Security was tight. As the presidential motorcade approached the city wall, army trucks moved into place, with their searchlights panning nearby high-rise buildings. Guests of a large hotel were ordered to keep windows shut and curtains pulled. Plainclothes police were working in shifts round-the-clock on Xian’s streets, residents said. Beggars and peddlers were shooed from the area days ago.

At the welcoming ceremonies, Clinton, switching quickly into English, observed that “China’s greatness lies, as always, with its people.” He took pains to praise this nation’s burgeoning economy and its cooperation with the United States on foreign policy problems such as North Korea.

Then he touched on how Americans value freedom, sounding a theme he is likely to repeat during his nine-day tour. “Respect for the worth, the dignity, the potential and the freedom of every citizen is a vital source of America’s strength and success,” Clinton declared, adding, “As I travel across China, I hope to learn as much as I can about the Chinese people, your history and your dreams for the future.

“And I hope to help the Chinese people understand more of America’s history, the lessons American people have drawn from it and the dreams we hold for the 21st century,” he said.

In the crowd, Yang Kunshan, 46, said he had arrived more than three hours earlier at Xian’s ancient South Gate in hopes of catching a glimpse of the president. Yang, who sells Chinese minivans, noted that he had failed to spot Ronald Reagan when the then-president made a brief stop here in 1984. “I wasn’t going to miss this chance,” Yang said.

After a night’s sleep, Clinton toured the rural village of Xiahe and planned to visit an archeological find of terra cotta warriors from the Qin Dynasty before flying this evening to Beijing. On Saturday, China’s leaders will formally greet him at Tiananmen Square, a moment anticipated by the White House with acute mixed feelings.

Clinton initially disregarded questions about reports that Chinese authorities had recently detained three dissidents. But this morning in Xiahe, he termed the reports “disturbing” and told reporters that he had asked U.S. Ambassador James R. Sasser to raise the issue with Chinese authorities. “If true,” Clinton said of the reports, “they represent China not at its best and not China looking forward, but looking backward.

“One of the reasons that I came here was to discuss--both privately and publicly--issues of personal freedom. So I think it’s very important for me to do that. But I think it makes it all the more important that we continue to work with the Chinese and to engage them.”

In answering another question, Clinton said “it’s obvious” that the United States will not modify its position on Taiwan during his visit.

The president’s decision to bow to Chinese protocol and be welcomed at Tiananmen Square has sparked criticism at home and is likely to provide one of the trip’s more memorable images.

The nitty-gritty business of this trip--meetings between U.S. and Chinese leaders on matters ranging from human rights to global strategy, nuclear nonproliferation and Taiwan--is planned for Saturday.

The president will spend the following days in public events, giving speeches, talking with groups of Chinese and visiting tourist attractions in Beijing, Shanghai and Guilin.

In Xiahe, sitting on wooden chairs on hard clay, Clinton and villagers, including a doctor, teacher and air force retiree, chatted politely about economic growth, care of the elderly and other matters.

“This is going to be a big issue in the future for every country,” Clinton said of the elderly.

In the days leading up to the China visit, Clinton and his aides had sought to lower expectations for major accords, with Congress still agitated over exports of U.S. satellite technology to Beijing.

The White House has defended this visit as vital for the long term and as a way to nurture cordial relations with a nation of 1.2 billion people, a place the administration argues is too important to ignore.

“There may be those here and back in America who wonder whether closer ties and deeper friendship between America and China are good,” Clinton told the crowd of dignitaries and welcomers at the arrival ceremony here. “Clearly, the answer is yes. We have a powerful ability to help each other grow.”

Still, Clinton’s visit has been assailed as a coup for China with little U.S. benefit. Chinese leaders set an awkward tone from the start, rescinding visas for three Radio Free Asia personnel. The three employees of the U.S.-funded, democracy-espousing broadcast service were told they would not be permitted to board the White House press plane. Clinton responded by giving them an interview at the White House just before leaving Washington.

A Chinese human rights group reported Thursday that police detained three dissidents in the Xian area in the 48 hours before Clinton’s arrival. Yan Jun, one of the detainees, had signed a recent letter asking Clinton to meet with dissidents during his trip. A handful of human rights groups and news organizations also reported that their Web sites inside China were blocked this week.

The detentions and the heightened security reflect the lingering anxiety of the Chinese regime that a visit by a prominent foreign leader could be used as a pretext for protests or other social unrest.

The 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy demonstrations peaked during the visit to China by then-Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev. Chinese leaders were reluctant to quash the demonstrations partly because so many reporters from around the world had gathered in Beijing for Gorbachev’s visit.

U.S. and Chinese officials viewed Clinton’s visit to Xian as the equivalent of a stop that Chinese President Jiang Zemin made in Williamsburg, Va., in October--before he arrived in Washington. In both instances, the visiting foreign leader was given a chance to relax, overcome jet lag and take in some history before tackling serious business in the capital.

The last presidential visit to China was made by President Bush in February 1989, just months before the Tiananmen crackdown.

In the years since, the Chinese regime has worked slowly but steadily to regain its international standing. Leaders of other major nations, such as Japan and Britain, began visiting China within two years of the 1989 massacre. In 1991, then-secretary of State James A. Baker III became the first top-level Cabinet official to travel to China after the incident. Vice President Al Gore visited Beijing last year.

Times staff writers Tyler Marshall and Rone Tempest contributed to this report.

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His Next Step

Highlights of President Clinton’s weekend visit to Beijing:

* Saturday: Welcomed in state arrival ceremony by President Jiang Zemin at the Great Hall of the People, on the edge of Tiananmen Square, in Beijing; meets with Jiang and senior officials in the Great Hall of the People.

* Sunday: Attends services at Chongwenmen Church. Visits Forbidden City and Great Wall of China.

* Monday: Addresses students and affiliates of Beijing University. Leaves for Shanghai.