Beijing clears the way to Washington

It was more of a poetry festival than the usual wooden political parley. At least that was how the People's Daily reported the meeting between US Vice-President Al Gore and his host in Beijing, President Jiang Zemin . 'Fear not the floating cloud will screen our view, because we stand at the top of the mountain,' Mr Jiang recited from a Song dynasty poet. And all through his four-day visit Mr Gore kept dropping choice bits of Chinese verse: starting at the airport with a Tang poet who recommended climbing a tower to see a thousand miles, before reaching the 20th century with Lu Xun who wisely noted that 'when many people pass a road, the way is clear'. A penchant by American politicians to ingratiate themselves by quoting Chinese literature began in 1971 with president Richard Nixon, who even quoted one of Mao Zedong's own poems at him. This time puzzled reporters, feeling further textual analysis beyond them, sought guidance from a foreign ministry spokesman. 'We must stand high and see far ahead in handling the relations of two such big countries,' he explained. China hopes Mr Gore and President Bill Clinton will not be dissuaded from hosting Mr Jiang in the United States by the scandal over allegations - denied by Beijing - that China attempted to buy influence with illegal campaign donations. As if on cue, hard on Mr Gore's heels, entered the Republican majority leader, Newt Gingrich, flying in from Hong Kong on his first visit to China. However many towers Mr Gore thought he should be climbing, Mr Gingrich was determined to keep the issue very much in view. And from another direction, the Vice-President was under attack from human rights activists for being roped into a signing ceremony for billion-dollar plus deals by General Motors and Boeing. 'Symbolism is everything, and private messages on human rights were overshadowed by the huge publicity surrounding the signing of major deals,' Human Rights Watch in New York said. In fact, the Chinese media gave little publicity to the commercial deals and completely ignored other aspects of Mr Gore's visit. The People's Daily did not reveal, for example, that he had given a speech on democracy at Qinghua University. What mattered was that he was shown shaking hands with both Premier Li Peng and President Jiang. This gave the Prime Minister the recognition Washington had been loathe to accord since his role in sending in the tanks at Tiananmen Square in 1989, while Mr Jiang wanted his people to know he was indeed going on a state visit to the US later this year. In Chinese terms, the visit ranks in importance on a par with that of Deng Xiaoping nearly 18 years ago since other visits before 1989, by the likes of former president Li Xiannian , have counted for so little. At the same time, Mr Jiang is seeking to convey to his domestic audience that, when in Washington, he will give nothing of importance away. Most expect that this week, the mainland will probably release student leader Wang Dan into American custody, a gesture that will cost little. Before Mr Jiang goes to America, Wei Jingsheng may well also be released. Such gestures, if they do happen, will be small beer. Even at his own press conference, Mr Gore was scraping the barrel to find some evidence to suggest that President Clinton's 'deepening engagement' was bringing real movement on fundamental human rights issues. The Vice-President claimed, somewhat lamely, that Premier Li was being more 'receptive' than ever to admonitions on human rights. And that the village democracy which experts from the Carter Centre have discovered was a sure sign that China was on the way to direct elections before long. Still more striking was Mr Gore's failure to mention a word about Taiwan which the Chinese claimed to be the key bilateral issue. As the People's Daily reported in large print, Mr Jiang had put forward the three principles to guide Sino-American relations: 'adherence to common interests, farsightedness, and a proper handling of the Taiwan issue'. Next month, Mr Jiang intends to stage a great show when he arrives in Moscow for the 'strategic partnership' he has nourished with Boris Yeltsin which he hopes will strengthen his leverage in this matter. Unfortunately, the Russians have already discovered the limitations of their mutual interests. The Chinese have been no discernible help in Moscow's efforts to halt the eastward expansion of NATO. And many eye-catching deals keep running into the mutual shortage of capital: the sale of Sukhoi Su-27 jets is being held up by a ban on Chinese pork while a Russian nuclear power station in Manchuria unveiled many years ago has never been built. If China needs Russian military hardware to deal with Taiwan, still much more important will be Mr Jiang's ability to convince the Americans to cut their arms sales to President Lee Teng-hui . The meeting with Mr Gore suggested that his appeals fell on deaf ears and it remains to be seen whether the Chinese are more successful with Mr Gingrich, a man who, after all, caused a furore by suggesting that America should just go ahead and recognise Taiwan's independence. Mr Jiang is, therefore, staking much on the hope that Washington will take a lofty long-term view of the two countries' mutual interests - indeed such a long term that President Clinton will sacrifice Taiwan. This is, definitely, a matter of standing on the mountain top with the return of Hong Kong floating closer in the foreground. Many in the US Congress are determined to cast a very thorough eye on what happens in Hong Kong after the handover, and the warnings which Premier Li and other Chinese leaders have delivered to Mr Gore about keeping out of this 'internal affair' will not influence Congress. Last week, Professor Joseph S Nye, until recently Assistant Secretary of Defence, spoke to foreign journalists in the unlikely venue of the Goose and Duck pub in Beijing; he explained why he thought the Clinton administration was right to engage the Chinese on as many fronts as possible. He argued, eloquently, that given time China would evolve in the right direction, pointing to its accession to the ban on nuclear testing and other arms limitation treaties as evidence of progress. 'The key thing is to be careful not to take actions that feed your enemies,' the professor warned. Isolation was damaging to the interests of both sides. He argued that expanding contact gave Americans a greater chance to shape events in China than ever before. Washington could afford to gamble on the proposition that sooner or later rising incomes would lead to middle class aspirations for political reform. China's Communist Party might gamble the other way, that enough American trade, investment and technology would bolster its rule. 'We don't have to agree on this, each side can make its own bet,' Professor Nye said. The big 'if' is whether Mr Jiang and the rest of the Chinese leadership can persuade enough Americans like Professor Nye to join them 'on the mountain top'. Communist presidents-for-life are notorious for being unable to grasp the pressures on democratically elected politicians to deliver results before they lose office. For the Clinton administration that means a reversal in the growing trade deficit and a softening in China's dictatorship must be more substantial than the release of the odd dissident.