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

DATE: MONDAY, March 14, 1994                   TAG: 9403140120
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: DONALD M. ROTHBERG ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: BEIJING                                LENGTH: Medium

HUMAN RIGHTS DISPUTE HAS BUSINESS PEOPLE WORRIED

His company is no giant. It does business in China and would like to establish an office there, a step that would cost about $500,000.

"In your opinion," he asked the secretary of state, "with the situation of [most favored nation], would you go ahead and make that investment?"

Christopher ducked the question, saying that when he was a lawyer, "I tried not to get into the business decisions of my clients. I tried to give them the pros and cons and ask them to make the decision."

At first glance, the pros and cons in this case look like a choice between politics and economics.

On one side are the obvious abuses, arbitrary arrests and detentions of people whose only crime is petitioning their government for freedom.

On the other side is raw economic power, a huge market and one of the fastest-growing economies in the world.

Those are essential elements in the debate over human rights in China and the Clinton administration's insistence that the communist regime clean up its act or risk losing trade preferences for the U.S. market.

To Christopher, it is a question of standing up for what he calls "core American values."

But, for the small American business community in China, the issue involves gaining a foothold in one of the world's largest and fastest-growing markets.

At a breakfast meeting with the secretary, they made clear their hope that the administration not only will renew China's eligibility for the lowest available tariffs on its products, but will grant it indefinitely.

William Warwick, chairman of AT&T China, offered a grim picture of the alternative.

"Choices for American companies like mine are stark," he said. "Either we establish a major presence in the China market, or we forget about being a global player."

Other executives echoed Warwick's words.

Phillip Carmichael, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Beijing, said American businesses already are at a competitive disadvantage in China.

"With no MFN, the situation will get worse," he said.

During three days of meetings with Christopher, Chinese leaders gave no sign they were willing to accede to U.S. pressure to stop arresting people for the crime of speaking out.

Christopher says that if the United States is to grant special trade preference to China it is "fully entitled to condition it in whatever way the Congress and president want to."

It was a dialogue of the deaf, the Chinese saying the Americans didn't understand the problems of trying to feed and govern a nation of 1.25 billion people, the U.S. saying the Chinese just don't understand how little the Clinton administration is asking that they do.