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SCMP Reporter

UNITED States legislators have mounted a tough challenge to President Bill Clinton's policy on Chinese trade and the deportation of its boat people.

  After an impassioned debate on Friday, in which the White House was dubbed a ''paper tiger'' in its handling of Beijing, the Senate agreed to vote early this week on two resolutions urging Mr Clinton to change course.

  Senators are likely to pass an amendment put forward by Senator Jesse Helms calling on the administration to reverse its policy on the thorny issue of Chinese immigration, and rule that Beijing's one-child policy is a legitimate cause for granting political asylum.

  Mr Helms also proposed a resolution calling on the President to deny China Most Favoured Nation (MFN) trading status unless it complied with US demands on human rights, trade, arms proliferation, and abiding by agreements on the future of Hong Kong.

  At present, the White House has linked the MFN question to human rights improvements.

  Democrat Senator John Kerry, who argued the administration's case, said Mr Helms was guilty of trying to hold the MFN debate several months too early, but promised to try to soften the resolution so it could be passed by the chamber this week.

  Although neither move has binding effect on White House policy, they sent a clear signal that Congress would not sit back and allow the Government to treat China softly.

  Mr Clinton clearly faces a battle in convincing lawmakers that his policy of engagement rather than confrontation on MFN renewal is the right approach.

  ''China apparently believes that when a push comes to a shove, America is all talk and no action,'' Mr Helms said.

  ''The Clinton administration is helping foster the perception which China has regarding the US - that we are a paper tiger.''   Mr Kerry and Senator Claiborne Pell, who like Mr Helms sit on the influential Foreign Relations Committee, said they agreed with the argument that the US should press China on all fronts.

  But Mr Clinton's policy of linking only human rights to MFN was the correct one, so that trade and arms matters could be pursued independently.

  Mr Helms' motion on asylum seekers could have an important impact on US policy if it is agreed in this week's vote.

   In the face of last year's influx of boat people, the Clinton administration has been mired in a legal morass in trying to get tough on those who seek asylum.

  Mr Helms is attempting to resurrect a motion passed unanimously by the Senate in 1989 after the Tiananmen Square crackdown, which called on the US Government to grant asylum to immigrants who claimed they fled persecution under China's forced family planning programme.

  Although the motion never became law, former president George Bush did sign an executive order to grant asylum to some Chinese who fled the family planning laws.

  Just before Mr Bush left office, his lawyers also filed regulations to make the liberal policy official, but it foundered after Mr Clinton came to power when he did not allow the regulations to be officially entered in federal records.

  Since then the courts have had no real basis on which to judge whether or not boat people who say they are fleeing the one-child policy should have cause for asylum.

  More than 100 people who arrived last year were recently returned to China after losing their asylum appeals - a move condemned by Mr Helms.

  He said: ''Surely we can agree that the administration should not send back to China people who, if returned, will have to suffer unspeakable tortures at the hands of the Chinese population control police?''   On the recently announced policy of eugenics, or forced sterilisation of ''inferior'' citizens, Mr Helms compared China's methods with those of Nazi Germany.

  ''I guess the communist dictators cannot kill innocent babies quick enough,'' he said.

  Mr Kerry said while the entire chamber condemned China's policy, there was concern that allowing more people to claim asylum would go against the new objective of trying to stem the influx of smuggled immigrants.

  The Senate did agree another motion, backing Mr Clinton's proposed ''get-tough'' legislation to impose harsher penalties on those who bring in illegal immigrants.

  The new law also will streamline the screening procedures for all new arrivals who claim asylum.



Senate attempts illegals reversal