BEIJING - Launching the highest-level official U.S. visit to China since the bloody Tiananmen Square crackdown of 1989, Vice President Al Gore arrived here yesterday and a grateful China prepared to thank the United States by signing two major deals with American companies.
Gore and Chinese Premier Li Peng planned to witness today the signing of a $685 million order for five Boeing Co. 777-200 passenger jets and an agreement with General Motors to create a $1.3 billion joint venture to produce 100,000 Buicks a year in China.
"These transactions ... are proof positive that there is greater economic cooperation between China and the United States," said Gore spokesperson Ginny Terzano. "This is an important landmark in China-U.S. relations."
The deals with GM and Boeing were long in the making, and the Chinese government, which still controls the vast majority of the economy, was following a well-worn tradition of sealing major business transactions on the eve of a visit by an important foreign official. "You can assume that the fact that the vice president is here visiting provides good timing" for the agreements, a senior administration official said here, requesting anonymity.
Gore's four-day visit is somewhat clouded by the political controversy at home over allegations that China illegally attempted to influence U.S. elections. The charges, being investigated by the Justice Department, are among an array of campaign-finance troubles plaguing the Clinton White House.
The vice president has said he will raise the issue of influence-peddling in his talks with Chinese President Jiang Zemin or Prime Minister Li Peng, but he stressed that the focus of his trip is promoting stronger bilateral relations. Issues on his list for talks with Li and President Jiang Zemin included trade, human rights, environment and nuclear non-proliferation.
"I have traveled here to reaffirm the vital importance of relations between our nations," Gore said in a statement issued upon his arrival in Beijing on last evening. "The landscape of U.S.-China relations is filled with many rivers, some flowing together, others flowing apart.
Such variety befits the interaction of two great nations and civilizations."
By going forward with his trip despite the potentially adverse political appearances, Gore sent a strong signal to China that the Clinton administration will not let the campaign-finance controversy interrupt high-level contacts between the two governments or inhibit efforts to improve trade ties.
"The visit has enormous significance to the Chinese," said Mike Jendrzejczyk, a China policy analyst and Washington Director of Asia Watch, a human-rights organization. "It demonstrates that the United States wants to remove the Tiananmen stigma for once and for all."
The visit is particularly timely for President Jiang Zemin, who took power when longtime leader Deng Xiaoping died last month and is striving to consolidate his power. Jiang hopes to make a state visit to Washington in November and host Clinton on a reciprocal visit next year. Gore's visit is seen as a steppingstone to those trips.
Gore's plan to witness the ceremony cementing the automobile and airplane deals with Li appeared to be another signal that China has been rehabilitated in the eyes of the White House. Li is the hard-liner who declared martial law in 1989, ordered troops into the famous central square of Beijing and is widely blamed for the killing of hundreds of peaceful pro-democracy demonstrators in and around it.
The Gore visit also shows how much the Clinton administration's China policy has changed since the 1992 presidential race. Then, Clinton and Gore made China their most important foreign policy campaign issue, repeatedly chastising incumbent Republican President Bush for being too soft on the "butchers of Beijing" after the Tiananmen bloodshed.
AP PHOTO
Chinese Premier Li Peng, center, and U.S. Vice President Al Gore, right, greet guests yesterday at Beijing's Great Hall of the People. Gore and Li later watched as an agreement between China and Boeing was signed for the purchase of five jets.