China Premier’s Visit Unlikely to Ease Tension

Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji will embark on his first state visit to the United States on Tuesday, an eight-day, six-city trip beginning in Los Angeles that has ambitious goals but considerable risks for an already stormy relationship.

Officials of both governments have sought to dampen expectations that Zhu’s meeting Thursday with President Clinton, or separate sessions with congressional leaders and other officials, will resolve mounting strain between Washington and Beijing concerning such fundamental issues as espionage, trade, human rights and the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia.

Most important, officials have conceded that the long-expected centerpiece of Zhu’s visit--the joint announcement of a comprehensive trade agreement that would allow China to join the World Trade Organization and thus be subject to global trading rules--is now unlikely to be completed in time.

Indeed, perhaps the most significant aspect of Zhu’s trip may be that it is happening at all. Relations between Beijing and Washington have grown so rocky in recent months that U.S. and Chinese government spokesmen have publicly denied that Zhu was considering canceling the trip in protest.

“I know the climate and atmosphere right now is not that good, but I think it’s all the more important, all the more necessary, for the leadership to meet now,” said Liu Xiaoming, deputy chief of mission at the Chinese Embassy here. “When the relationship is bad, we need more visits of this kind.”

In contrast, even as Russian Prime Minister Yevgeny M. Primakov was en route to Washington two weeks ago, he abruptly canceled his visit, in protest of the start of NATO military operations against Yugoslavia. China fiercely opposes the North Atlantic Treaty Organization campaign, and state-run media have compared the NATO airstrikes to Nazi attacks in World War II.

David Shambaugh, a China expert from George Washington University, said in Beijing: “It’s a very high-risk visit from the Chinese perspective. It’s a very delicate time. . . . There aren’t many deliverables, really, to expect on this visit.”

U.S. and Chinese officials said they couldn’t rule out a WTO deal before Zhu lands in Los Angeles on Tuesday morning for an overnight stop on the way to Washington. But officials said Clinton and Zhu are more likely to announce a partial “framework” accord that could be fleshed out before a WTO ministerial meeting in Seattle in November.

Officials said the chief goal of the trip is to work on the “strategic partnership” that Clinton and Chinese President Jiang Zemin proclaimed during their summit last summer in Beijing. In practice, Washington has sought greater Chinese cooperation in efforts to lower tensions on the Korean peninsula, to stop the spread of nuclear weapons in South Asia and to contain the Asian financial crisis, among other issues.

The Clinton administration also will press its concerns about China’s recent arrests of political dissidents and its attempts to stifle religious practices, and Zhu is likely to be dogged by human rights demonstrations as he travels.

The White House won’t embarrass Zhu, however, by introducing a resolution at a United Nations conference in Geneva to condemn China’s human rights policies, as it has announced, until after Zhu leaves the U.S. for Canada.

While in Washington, Zhu will take part in a bilateral forum on the environment and development that he co-chairs with Vice President Al Gore. The Cabinet-level talks will focus on such sensitive issues as China’s mounting water shortages, air pollution and energy needs.

But most of Zhu’s schedule--and most of his effort--appears designed to court U.S. opinion. Diplomats and analysts regard him as engaging, sophisticated and articulate, with a self-deprecating sense of humor.

“He breaks the mold in Chinese leaders in his ability to communicate in a straightforward way,” said Robert Kapp, president of the U.S.-China Business Council, a lobbying group. “This is a man who can speak firmly and meaningfully to Americans about China.”

Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan is hosting a lunch Tuesday in Zhu’s honor with 600 guests at the Century Plaza Hotel. Zhu will later attend a dinner sponsored by the Chinese American Friendship Society. Zhu also will visit a high-tech factory in Denver, tramp across a farm near Chicago, meet bankers and stockbrokers in New York and speak at MIT.

“Zhu will do some damage control on his side,” said Robert Suettinger, a former White House staffer now at the Brookings Institution think tank. “For a Communist Party bureaucrat, he’s pretty light on his feet. . . . Obviously, his answers won’t satisfy everyone, but it’s hard to see how he can make things worse.”

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Times staff writer Henry Chu in Beijing contributed to this report.