Testing Times

By Barbara Rudolph

AS MEMBERS OF HONG KONG'S LEGISlative Council sat in silence, Governor Christopher Patten unleashed a sharp-tongued salvo against Beijing last week -- a measure of his frustration with the intransigent mainland government. Declaring that Britain and China had only "weeks rather than months" to map out something resembling a democratic future for the colony, Patten threatened to push ahead unilaterally with political reform, specifically his effort to broaden, however modestly, Hong Kong's electoral base, a program that has drawn Beijing's unrelenting ire. In urging the legislators to fight for reform, Patten asked, "If we are not prepared to stand up for Hong Kong's way of life today, what chance of doing so tomorrow?"

While Patten's speech contained considerable bluff, it also reflected growing irritation in London and Washington with Beijing's toughened posture on a variety of issues ranging from Hong Kong's future to human rights to nuclear proliferation. U.S. National Security Adviser Anthony Lake recently described China as a "backlash," or antidemocratic, state like Iran, Iraq or Chile under General Augusto Pinochet. So concerned is the Clinton Administration with the deteriorating relationship that Secretary of State Warren Christopher has launched a high-level effort to turn things around, beginning with the dispatch to Beijing this week of John Shattuck, the Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights. The Christopher initiative promptly ran into an announcement by China that, despite public entreaties from 20 nations including the U.S., it had carried out its 38th atomic-weapons test -- in defiance of an informal test-ban moratorium that Washington has supported.

The test, at Lop Nur in the northwestern Gobi Desert region of China, was a sign that Beijing too is irritated, specifically with what hard-liners in the regime consider blackmail, interference and pressure from the West. Amid intensified maneuvering to succeed ailing senior leader Deng Xiaoping, the conservatives have gained influence in the top echelons of government. Last May, President Jiang Zemin told the Politburo, in reference to U.S. human- rights pressures, that "we will not yield to hegemonism and power politics. For the motherland's sovereignty, independence and dignity, we are ready to pay a price." At the same time, uncertainty about the succession has begun to paralyze the Chinese bureaucracy vis-a-vis such sensitive issues as the negotiations on political organization in Hong Kong after the Chinese takeover in 1997. Says a China watcher in Hong Kong: "No one wants to make a decision now. That would bind them, and no one knows what is going to happen when Deng dies."

U.S.-China relations have been troubled since the Tiananmen crackdown in 1989, but have grown markedly worse since last spring when China's most- favored-nation trading status came up for review in Washington. Though the Clinton Administration pushed through renewal of MFN status for a year, the decision was conditioned on significant improvements on the human-rights front. While Chinese citizens enjoy considerably more personal freedom today than they did three or four years ago, on-and-off repression of dissidence keeps the human-rights issue alive. Another major irritant was introduced last August when the U.S. imposed a ban on the sale of sensitive technology to China, claiming Beijing had violated an international agreement by selling M- 11 missiles to Pakistan. China denied the charge, but experts believe it did deliver weapons components, honoring a previous commitment to its longtime ally.

Chinese sensibilities were hurt again by two recent events: the U.S. accusation last August that a Chinese freighter, the Yinhe, was carrying prohibited chemical-weapons components to Iran; and the International Olympics Committee's selection of Sydney rather than Beijing as the site of the 2000 Olympic Games. An independent inspection of the Yinhe by Saudi Arabian officials in the presence of American "consultants" showed the U.S. accusations to be without substance, prompting Beijing to demand a formal U.S. apology and compensation for the freighter's interrupted voyage. Afterward, the Chinese press went on a name-calling binge, deriding the U.S. as a self- styled globocop trampling on others' sovereignty. The IOC's decision was seen as a further example of Western anti-China bias.

The Christopher initiative, however belated, indicates that Washington is eager to mend fences. After Shattuck, Agriculture Secretary Michael Espy will visit Beijing to discuss trade issues, and there is talk of a subsequent foray by Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen. Finally, Clinton will meet with Jiang in Seattle around Nov. 20 during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.

Can the pattern of friction be broken? Clinton expressed "deep regret" over China's decision to explode a nuclear weapon, and then announced that the U.S. Department of Energy would prepare for the resumption of U.S. atomic testing. As for Hong Kong, Governor Patten's implied threat to go ahead with reform that Beijing has said it will ignore can only set the stage for more confrontation. Even before the Governor's speech, China had issued a statement that reiterated Deng's 11-year-old threat to retake Hong Kong before 1997 should Britain create "serious disturbances," such as going ahead with "unilateral democratization."

With reporting by William Dowell/Hong Kong, Jaime A. FlorCruz/Beijing and William Mader/London