Clinton, Jiang aim at summit agreements

Clinton, Jiang aim at summit agreements

WASHINGTON (Reuters): Amid the fanfare of the first U.S.-China summit since the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown, President Bill Clinton and Chinese President Jiang Zemin sought agreement on economic and security issues yesterday.

Clinton and Jiang, who held informal talks in the White House residence Tuesday night, were to lay out their agendas in speeches at a welcoming ceremony steeped in military pomp on the south lawn of the executive mansion.

After the ceremony, which included a 21-gun salute, the two planned a lengthy private meeting covering a list of topics that included trade, nuclear cooperation, and joint efforts to protect the environment.

Their aim was to build a foundation for a new relationship between the United States and the world's most populous nation after years of friction stemming from the Chinese army attack on prodemocracy demonstrators in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

U.S. officials said they expected an agreement that would clear the way for U.S. nuclear energy exports to China, and hoped for a Chinese commitment to cooperate in a global campaign to reduce "greenhouse" gas emissions.

But Clinton and Jiang were competing for public attention with the gyrations of global financial markets, which soared yesterday in response to Tuesday's dramatic U.S. rebound from a nosedive that began with market turmoil in Hong Kong.

Also dampening any summit euphoria was a mass gathering of protesters in a park across the street from the White House for a rally against China's policies on human rights, Tibet and Taiwan.

"I think there should be cooperation, but I think we should be clear. That's the problem here. We've been sending such mixed messages to the Chinese since the very first days of the Clinton administration," actor Richard Gere, a protest organizer, said on the ABC's "Good Morning America" program.

Exiled Chinese dissidents, U.S. labor and political leaders and an array of activists for various causes were to address the rally.

In what the White House termed "very direct, personal and substantive" warmup talks on the eve of the summit, Clinton and Jiang discussed the very subjects that sparked summit protests in the United States, a Clinton spokesman said.

They reached agreement at their preliminary meeting on installing a telephone hot line between Washington and Beijing.

The telephone connection would be styled after the one that linked Washington and Moscow in the days of the Cold War in a bid to decrease tensions.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Shen Guofang scoffed at protests that have dogged Jiang since his arrival in Honolulu Sunday for a nine-day visit to the United States, saying the protesters were ignorant.

"I think most of these people do not understand China's situation very well," he said.

James Lilley, U.S. ambassador to China in the George Bush administration, said Washington's policy of "constructive engagement" which Clinton adopted from Bush was working.

Editorial -- Page 4

Tibet -- Page 6

Photo -- Page 16