Zhu Criticizes Clinton Over Failed Trade Bid

Showing obvious pique about a summit gone awry, Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji on Friday sharply criticized President Clinton for refusing to approve a proposed deal aimed at bringing China into a global trading regime.

At a private breakfast with 15 members of Congress, Zhu briefly abandoned his easygoing manner to complain through a translator that Clinton “did not have enough courage” to sign an accord backing China’s application to the World Trade Organization because of likely opposition in Congress, according to several people who attended.

Zhu, who listened intently to the Americans in English but responded in Chinese, did not correct his interpreter’s translation of his forceful remark, as he did at other points during the hourlong meeting at Blair House. Aides said Zhu understands English better than he speaks it.

Several participants said they were surprised at Zhu’s barbed words and were disappointed when he appeared to brush aside their own complaints about China’s human rights abuses, alleged spying and missile proliferation, as well as other disputes that have badly strained recent ties with Beijing.

Zhu instead devoted most of his time to arguing that poisonous politics in Washington had sabotaged the trade deal he had hoped to bring home with him. Some analysts said Zhu might lose prestige in Beijing for failing to secure a deal.

“I was disappointed in his response,” said Rep. David Wu (D-Ore.), who attended the morning session and is the first Chinese American member of the House. “He focused almost exclusively on WTO and seemed to view it as a matter of domestic U.S. politics that was holding it up. We tried to explain that real and genuine concerns were holding it up.”

In a speech billed as a foreign policy address Friday night, Zhu again focused entirely on the WTO. Speaking without notes, he complained that U.S. officials “made public many documents and said we had agreed to them, but we have not agreed.”

Zhu warned the U.S. that pushing too hard could jeopardize the deal. “If you want too much too soon, in the end you may wind up with nothing,” he said.

Membership in the WTO would help China attract foreign investment and gain global markets.

From the start, the White House sought to strike a comprehensive trade deal--which would allow China to join the WTO and thus be subject to global trading rules--that was not only commercially acceptable to American business, which is eager to gain access to China’s markets, but also politically acceptable to organized labor, human rights groups and members of Congress opposed to Chinese policies.

Rep. Sander M. Levin (D-Mich.), another participant in the breakfast meeting, said Zhu appeared to discount the differences that still separate U.S. and Chinese trade negotiators. “I think the issue is not the lack of courage, but the lack of agreement on several outstanding issues,” he said.

Rep. Tim Roemer (D-Ind.) said Zhu appeared “very aware of the political climate” in Washington. “I think he accurately has his finger on the pulse of Congress.”

A Republican aide in the room disagreed. “There are real problems in the relationship,” he said. “But the Congress doesn’t control human rights in China. The Congress doesn’t control the trade deficit.”

David C. Leavy, a spokesman for the National Security Council, declined to respond to Zhu’s comment except to say that Clinton “believes he had a very substantive exchange with the premier, both on areas where they agree and on areas where they disagree, and they built a personal rapport” during their 5 1/2 hours of meetings Wednesday night and Thursday.

Zhu appealed to the members of the congressional group, who were selected and invited by the Chinese Embassy, to support future talks on China’s accession to the WTO and to use their influence with other members of Congress in the annual, and invariably contentious, summertime debate on whether to grant China “most-favored-nation” trade status.

Although Congress does not have to approve China’s ultimate application to the WTO, it would have to agree to abandon its annual review of China’s trading privileges--now called “normal trading rights”--because such a review is inconsistent with WTO rules.

Charlene Barshefsky, the chief U.S. trade negotiator, said the two sides were extremely close on reaching agreement when Clinton pulled the plug, but she defended his decision to postpone approval until further progress is made. She also denied published reports that Clinton had overruled her and other advisors with his decision.

“I do not think that we were entirely finished,” she said in a telephone interview. “Absolutely not.”

Barshefsky said she will brief members of Congress over the next two weeks on the progress achieved in the last six weeks of near-marathon talks, including agreements on agriculture, insurance and telecommunications. Still on the table, however, are U.S. demands for greater access to China for American banks, including consumer auto finance, as well as Hollywood films.

“Both we and the Chinese can see ways to bridge the gaps,” Barshefsky said. “They need a little reflection, and we need a little reflection. . . . What we’ve already achieved is an agreement of such a sweeping nature it ought to be clear to everyone looking at it that we are going to completion.”

John Holden, president of the nonpartisan National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, agreed. “Clearly, this is a difficult atmosphere,” he said. “I think it’s still going to take hard work and diplomacy. But there is victory there to be seized.”

In public, Zhu continued the charm offensive that has marked his trip since he arrived Tuesday in Los Angeles. At an environmental forum with Vice President Al Gore on Friday, Zhu put aside his prepared text and appealed emotionally for U.S. help in solving China’s pollution problems, citing the devastating flooding caused by over-logging in northwestern China last year.

Even if such cooperation turned China’s huge trade surplus with the United States into a deficit, he said, “I will be very happy.”

Also Friday, Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright separately signed an aviation agreement to double the 27 weekly flights from each country by April 2001.

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Times staff writer Jim Mann contributed to this report.