
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, May 26, 1994                   TAG: 9405260094
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The New York Times
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

CHINA TO STAY 'FAVORED'

President Clinton has decided to extend China's trade privileges even though the country has not made as much progress on human rights as the United States had hoped for, senior administration officials said Wednesday.

They said Clinton, who will announce the decision as early as today, will not impose sweeping tariffs on goods made by China's military. Such a move had been recommended by influential Democratic lawmakers.

Rather, Clinton will either extend the trade benefits with no strings attached or impose only minimal, largely symbolic duties, perhaps on such items as Chinese-made weapons and ammunition, they said.

Clinton told aides Wednesday that he had not made a final decision about whether to impose any penalties on China, the largest emerging market in the world.

He was said to be debating in his own mind whether it is wiser to make a clean break with the strategy that rewards China's progress on human rights with the same low tariffs on exports that most other countries enjoy.

Given Clinton's tendency for last-minute hesitation, aides said there was a possibility that the announcement could slip. Under his 1993 executive order that links human rights and trade benefits, he could wait until June 3 to announce his decision.

There is no joy at the White House about the impending announcement. Officials know that commentators and human-rights organizations are poised to point out the yawning gap between Clinton's campaign language on China, in which he excoriated the Bush administration for ``coddling'' dictators in Beijing, and his decision to abandon his own strategy of pushing China to do more.

Last year, when Clinton announced his executive order, it was widely praised by lawmakers, China experts and even human-rights advocates as a brilliant compromise that acknowledged the concerns of Congress on human rights but deferred any punishment of China for a year.

But the mood of Congress has shifted dramatically in favor of ``delinking'' human rights and low tariffs, and the substance of Clinton's emerging policy now seems very close to that of the Bush administration: a determination that human-rights concerns should not be the arbiter of U.S.-China relations and a recognition that the United States has much broader security interests with China.

by CNB