Dollars or dissidents first?: China looked all set for a new trade deal with the US, then another human rights crackdown started. Teresa Poole reports

'WE'RE NOT afraid of letting you see him. But he says some untruthful things so we don't let him meet guests,' said the prison warder, Xin Tingquan.

So it was that five American journalists, taken last Friday on an unprecedented official visit to the notorious Lingyuan Number 2 Labour Reform Detachment in Liaoning Province, were not allowed to meet or talk to its best-known inmate. Liu Gang, 33, a key figure in the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy movement, is incarcerated there, serving a six-year jail sentence. The reporters were permitted to see videos of Mr Liu, watch him on closed-circuit television, and look down from a window as he walked in the prison yard with his guards. They were shown the prison's former solitary confinement room, converted to a medical room. They also just happened to be passing a rehearsal hall when the prison song and dance troupe was boogying to a Michael Jackson number. And, of course, the whole visit was captured on video by Chinese officials.

Propaganda exercise though this visit was, it was nevertheless a high-risk one. Human rights groups and Mr Liu's family say he has been subjected to physical and psychological torture since his arrest. Mr Xin, the prison warder, said Mr Liu was a liar, but the journalists were not going to be allowed to judge this for themselves.

A stage-managed visit like this had no hope of winning over the Western media. But, in the event, it was scuttled by events in Peking. For just as the guided tour was under way at Lingyuan, news was filtering out in the capital that China's most famous dissident, Wei Jingsheng, and a number of other prominent political activists, had been detained by public security officials in a crackdown around the country - at the very time when John Shattuck, the US Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights, was on an official visit to China. It was a curious way for China to try to manage its international image, especially as all this was taking place less than a week before the US Secretary of State, Warren Christopher, flies in to Peking for meetings with Chinese officials. President Clinton must decide in less than three months whether to renew China's Most Favoured Nation (MFN) trading status. Billions of dollars of Chinese exports to the US are at stake.

How then, should one read the conflicting signals that are emerging? First a recap of events. Mr Shattuck arrived in China just over a week ago for a series of high-level meetings on human rights issues. He also handed over a letter signed by more than 50 US Senators calling for the release of five particular political prisoners. Soon after that, US reporters based in Peking were officially invited to view video footage of four of the five. China seemed to be in a responsive mood.

This seemed to be borne out on Tuesday, when the European Union's trade commissioner, Sir Leon Brittan, ended a visit to Peking saying that he had found a general willingness on the part of the Chinese to discuss the EU's 'shopping list of requirements' for further substantial liberalisation of its markets. He said it was possible that a framework could be agreed for China to become a founder member of the new World Trade Organisation, which is due to start by mid- 1995.

On Wednesday it was Mr Shattuck's turn to be upbeat. He said he had held 'intensive, serious, businesslike' discussions and that the dialogue had 'deepened'. The Chinese were now 'crystal clear' on what sort of further progress was necessary for MFN renewal. Earlier that day, the US Under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade, Jeffrey Garten, who was coincidentally also in Peking, had been telling journalists that he was lobbying for US companies to win billions of dollars of Chinese contracts.

Thursday, although we didn't know it at the time, brought the start of the crackdown. At least six dissidents in Shanghai were temporarily rounded up, including some who had planned to meet Mr Shattuck on his stop- over. Wang Dan, in Peking, one of the most prominent student leaders in 1989, was detained for 24 hours and told to leave the city next week when Mr Christopher arrives and the National People's Congress (NPC), China's rubber-stamp parliament, starts its annual meeting.

Friday, and it was Wei Jingsheng's turn, taken away by public security officials. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs also confirmed that three other activists, all legal experts, had been arrested. They have not been heard from since.

On Saturday, after protests from Mr Christopher and President Clinton, Mr Wei was released, but gave no details of his detention. Then, yesterday, another 1989 student leader, Zhai Weimin, was picked up by police as he walked in the university area of the city. Meanwhile, the official Xinhua news agency tried to explain the earlier detention of Wei Jingshen. Mr Wei, it said, had been picked up for violating his parole conditions. He was released on parole last September, just before the International Olympics Committee voted on whether China would host the 2,000 Olympics. He had served all but six months of a 15-year sentence, much of it spent in solitary confinement.

There are at least three possible ways to interpret all this. First, it could indicate China's growing confidence about MFN. President Clinton pushed himself into a corner on the issue during his election campaign and now looks desperate to find a good enough reason to renew MFN. Last year China had the world's fastest growing economy, with GDP up by 13.4 per cent. It is a market every country wants to be in, and American business is lobbying hard for renewal. Not to renew would be a huge decision; Most Favoured Nation trading status should more accurately be called 'Most Nations' trading status' as it is only the likes of North Korea and Libya to whom it is denied. Plenty of others with dodgy human rights records, such as Indonesia, qualify for MFN.

No authoritarian country like China could really make meaningful improvements in human rights in the remaining three months. So it is likely that US officials have been quite explicit about the minimum requirements that would permit the renewal of MFN. Mr Shattuck gave the impression that this sort of dialogue was now under way.

If the latest arrests and detentions reflect Chinese confidence, they are also an unwelcome slap in the face for the Clinton administration and suggest that China is not going to help him out of his corner. China feels the talks on its membership of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (Gatt) are progressing, and it knows that America is already embroiled in a trade war with Japan.

If these are the grounds for China's confidence, it may mistakenly have ignored the role of Congress. It would be politically awkward for a Democrat President to veto Democrat-sponsored legislation against China's MFN status. Any congressional alliance between pro-human rights liberal members and anti-Communist Republicans also means there is the possibility of a two-thirds majority to override any presidential veto, especially if well-known dissidents are disappearing off the streets.

The second explanation for recent events is that China simply is not yet sophisticated enough to realise the international impact of detaining Wei Jingsheng. On the scale of Chinese human rights abuses, a 24-hour detention hardly rates a blip. Peking might well not have expected such a fierce Western reaction, though in the event that reaction did not stop them continuing to round people up.

China is now engaging in trying to manage its international image, though the moves sometimes look crude. A sanitised tour of a prison camp will not win over many sceptics. On the other hand, the release from jail of Mr Wei and other dissidents just days before the 2,000 Olympics decision seemed blatant enough to be counterproductive, but in the event Peking only lost by a couple of votes.

The third possible explanation is that last week's conflicting signals were a product of the present power vacuum at the top in China. With 89-year-old Deng Xiaoping looking more ill than ever, no one is sure who is taking key decisions. Were the Foreign Ministry and the State Council making conciliatory gestures to the US last week, while the hardliners at the Ministry of Public Security were trying to clamp down ahead of this week's start of the National People's Congress? It is quite common for key dissidents to be warned to lie low or leave Peking before important national meetings.

China's strategy may be clearer after Warren Christopher's visit. Will Mr Christopher, like Mr Shattuck, be allowed to meet Mr Wei or has the dissident been told to stop seeing visiting officials? Will China pull something out of the hat during the visit, such as an accounting of political prisoners?

Just as important, will there be any more information about the lawyers, Zhou Guoqiang, Wang Jiaqi and Yuan Hongbing, who were arrested on Friday. Mr Zhou, 39, was a signatory of last year's 'Peace Charter' and has represented other activists. He is accused of 'colluding with overseas hostile forces (and) disturbing social order,' according to the Hong Kong China News Agency. This allegedly includes the illegal installation of a fax machine and plans to distribute T-shirts bearing provocative slogans during the NPC meeting. Mr Wang helped to organise a petition on behalf of an artist who claimed that he was beaten by police armed with electric batons after arguing with a bus conductor. Professor Yuan is a law professor who has protested about political interference in academic freedom.

Unfortunately for the Chinese dissident movement, Chinese names are just that much more awkward for Westerners to remember. If President Clinton in June concludes that there has been the necessary 'significant' human rights progress, it will partly be because the names of Messrs Zhou, Wang and Yuan do not resonate in the US Congress as powerfully as those of Sakharov and Solzhenitsyn.

(Photographs omitted)