China

In response to Major Robert Di Stefano's Jan. 9 letter ("Make death penalty quicker, cheaper and more effective"): As a 21-year resident of central Baltimore, let me first thank the major for his service and for helping to keep me and my family safe. On the deterrent value of the death penalty, or lack thereof, the National Research Council last year concluded that all studies of capital punishment contain fundamental flaws that make them "uninformative as a basis for policy consideration.

For several weeks surrounding Warren M. Christopher's visit to Beijing, the issue of whether the United States should continue to grant China most-favored-nation trade treatment has made front and op-ed pages.The annual brouhaha has begun. Should trade with China be treated as the United States treats the trade of almost every other country in the world, or should the Chinese be singled out for higher tariffs because of their disappointing record on human rights?By June 4, President Clinton must tell Congress that China has made significant progress on human rights or Congress will deny China most-favored-nation treatment.

Los Angeles. -- In the phrase official Washington uses when it is confused, we are getting ''mixed signals'' from China. The masters of Beijing release a dissident here and arrest two over there. They speak softly on trade and carry their big stick on Tibet and other subjects of concern to Americans, including the shipment of arms all over the world and the use of prison labor to make products for shipment to the United States.We get even, so to speak, by sending mixed signals back.Last week Secretary of State Warren Christopher traveled through Asia saying that if Chinese human-rights violations continue, the United States will probably cancel China's most-favored-nation status -- essentially threatening to raise tariffs on the booming China-to-U.

BEIJING -- At first glance, Wan Yanhai hardly seems the type to be on the cutting edge of social change in China.The 32-year-old's office is a small teahouse in downtown Beijing, his filing system is an overstuffed briefcase, and the closest he gets to the information superhighway is an old beeper. But his shoestring operation gives him the freedom to research gay health issues, a job that would be impossible in China if he had a big office and a big budget.Although not supported by the government -- indeed, he is sometimes harassed by the police -- Mr. Wan is relatively free to study and pursue his other interest -- helping China's fledgling gay movement to organize itself.

IN THE PAST YEAR, some large foreign investors were for the first time allowed to enter China's domestic stock market to buy shares of Chinese firms. This includes shares of part of Norinco, China North Industries Group - a transnational conglomerate that was founded by the People's Liberation Army, that retains strong military ties, that makes everything from baby shoes to missiles, and that has drawn U.S. sanctions for arming Iran. Given the lack of disclosure in China, foreign investors and technology traders with Norinco and other Chinese firms cannot know if their resources will end up serving China's long-term, well-coordinated strategic plan to compete with American economic, military and political power.

Paris. -- Perhaps the most significant change in America's outlook on the world in recent years is the shift of attention from Europe to Asia. So long as the Soviet Union seemed strong, Europe was where Americans saw their strategic challenge.Today the focus is on economics. Japan now is the principal supposed threat to American interests. There is at the same time assumption that China will eventually rival Japan as the great power of Asia, and that China will be easier to deal with, more malleable, even friendlier, than Japan.

"A More Open China Awaits the 2000 Olympic Games." So say the posters and signboards all over Beijing. The slogan is a tacit admission that we have known a less open China. But this week the more open China is opening its jails to let out some political prisoners (though one remains in police sequestration after his release, if that makes sense). It's all part of the public-relations campaign by which China hopes to lure the Olympics and bolster its international prestige. The choice will be made next Thursday.

PARIS -- Washington and the European capitals are all preoccupied with China's economic growth and expanding international influence and activities, taken as evidence that in the not-too-distant future China will become a superpower. Washington thinks about China's becoming a military as well as economic superpower. The Europeans think about trade and economic competition. Both underestimate what it takes to become a modern industrial superpower. It requires a very high level of autonomous technological capacity, to begin with, as well as sophisticated and innovative industry to make use of it - both of which China today lacks.

By arresting dissident Shen Tong and expelling China scholar Ross Terrill, the Chinese leaders have once again demonstrated they have lost their vision and are solely focused on protecting their eroding political power.Mr. Shen, a student leader in the 1989 democracy movement and for the past three years an exile in Boston, returned to China last month. He intended to open a Beijing chapter of the Democracy in China Fund, an exile organization advocating economic and political freedom in China.

WASHINGTON -- Chinese President Hu Jintao's visit to Washington will give President Bush the necessary opportunity to put the U.S. relationship with China on a more stable path to protect vital American security and economic interests. The United States has had friction with China before, particularly after the Tiananmen assault in 1989 and the Taiwan Strait tensions in 1995 and 1996. China now is accumulating power more rapidly, posing new security and economic challenges and fostering fears in the United States and the Asia-Pacific region.