I do understand that civilian aircraft was just released to China. What is the distinction that is made? What aircraft has the administration decided to release and what aircraft has the administration decided not to release despite the administration's answer to the Chairman's question that planes are not being sold?

Mr. FORD. Well, I said military aircraft.

Mr. LEVINE. Is that the distinction, civilian versus military aircraft?

Mr. FORD. The only thing I can speak to, Mr. Congressman, is that the President has suspended the military relationship, including arms sales, military exchange, and high-level visits.

There is a different set of criteria and rules that are used for decisions on civilian aircraft.

Mr. LEVINE. So you are allowing civilian aircraft, is that correct? Mr. FORD. Well, I would have to turn to my colleagues at Commerce and State.

Mr. LEVINE. I would just like a clear answer. Ms. McEntee answered "no" to planes when the administration has very specifically allowed planes, and I would just like to know what planes are not allowed and what planes are allowed.

Mr. WILLIAMS. I can speak to the question of what planes we have allowed. We have reinstated licenses for the export of navigation systems, Honeywell Navigation Systems, which are on the munitions list, in four Boeing 757 aircraft ordered by the Civilian Aviation Administration of China for use as commercial airliners. We have also authorized Honeywell to repair and replace defective navigation systems currently in use in Chinese civilian aircraft.

Our decision is in keeping with the President's intent not to disrupt non-military commercial trade and was based on the fact that these navigation systems are designed for inclusion in civil products and are critical to the safe operation of commercial aircraft. Mr. LEVINE. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate your yielding.

I will follow this up on my own time. I will simply state at this point that obviously the administration did not get the message of the 418-0 vote that occurred within a day or so of its decision to release this civilian aircraft.

Mr. SOLARZ. Thank you. Mr. Williams, you indicate in your testimony that the legislation adopted by the House limits severely the President's ability to respond quickly in a rapidly changing situation. Have you read the bill, Mr. Williams?

Mr. WILLIAMS. I have.

Mr. SOLARZ. In what way does it limit severely the President's flexibility?

Mr. WILLIAMS. It would set up criteria that-

Mr. LANTOS. We can't hear the witness, Mr. Chairman. He will have to talk into the microphone.

Mr. WILLIAMS. The legislation would set up criteria for the President, which the President would have to meet before he could take certain actions, and there is certainly the likelihood or possibility that these would take time to do.

Mr. SOLARZ. Well, Mr. Williams, if you read the legislation you know the President is entitled to waive the sanctions or the suspensions if there is an improvement in the human rights situation in

China or if the President deems it to be in the national security interest to do so.

Could you envision any circumstances under which the President would lift the suspensions or sanctions that have already been imposed in the absence of either a significant improvement in the human rights situation or a determination by the President that the national security interest required us to do so?

Mr. WILLIAMS. I can only say that there are many, many things that could happen in the Chinese scene. We have seen very painfully in the last couple of months how unforeseeable some of those developments are.

The President might well wish to do-to take additional measured steps very quickly in the light of evolving circumstances.

Mr. SOLARZ. There is nothing in the legislation which prohibits the President from doing more than he has done. It does restrict his ability to undo what has already been done, although it does provide for these waivers.

In other words, you are saying, in effect, that the President wants the right to remove these sanctions even if there hasn't been an improvement in the human rights situation, and even if it isn't in the national security interest to do so.

Mr. WILLIAMS. I am saying that the influence of the United States contact over the last ten years in China has been profound and that the President needs to have the flexibility to take measured steps, no matter what happens in China.

Mr. SOLARZ. You don't think the ability to waive the sanctions if the President decides it is in the national security interest to do so provides adequate flexibility?

Mr. WILLIAMS. I think there is question about how quickly he could be flexible with that.

Mr. SOLARZ. Well, that may be a commentary on the inadequacies of the State Department bureaucrats to produce a piece of paper saying it would be in our national security interests to do so. We had asked you in the questions we submitted to comment on the extent to which we preclude MFN status for a number of eastern block countries like Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, the GDR and Romania, but continue to provide it to China. It would be helpful to the committees if you could provide some conceptual framework which will enable us to understand why we should either deny MFN status to the East European countries whose human rights record doesn't appear to be quite as bad as China's or if we are going to deny it to them, why we continue providing it to China. Mr. WILLIAMSs. With regard to China, the removal of most favored status would seriously damage our economic relations. It could reduce, seriously reduce the contact that several of us have referred to here with the elements of Chinese society that are most inclined to reform and have been most active in that area in the last decade.

It could easily lead to Chinese retaliation to our trade, besides which we might be in a very different situation from our allies so that we might be taking ineffectual steps which would be of cost to the American consumer as well as to the Chinese people.

We-the president certainly considers very carefully and forcefully the man rights elements of the Chinese situation, and all of

those elements are there. I think it is not-I can't constructively compare this situation for you with that in Poland or other Eastern European countries.

Mr. SOLARZ. Well, not with Poland, which does have MFN status. The question was the comparison to the other Eastern European countries. Very briefly, Mr. Williams, what can you tell us about the extent of the repression in China, how many people do we believe have been killed? How many arrested, how many executed? Mr. WILLIAMS. The estimates are inexact, but it certainly looks as though the number of killed and wounded runs-would run into the thousands, the number of executions we really do not know. If you mean executions as a result of subsequent trials or arrest executions, we don't have-we have very little information on that. Mr. SOLARZ. How many have been arrested?

Mr. WILLIAMS. We don't know.

Mr. SOLARZ. I see reports in the press that up to 10,000 have been arrested, 20 or 30 have been executed. Are you saying these reports are without foundation or are we once again to get more information from the New York Times and Washington Post than from the Department of State?

Mr. WILLIAMS. I simply say those are very round figures that are not very well confirmed, but they are probably in the ball park. Mr. SOLARZ. Mr. Yatron.

Mr. YATRON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Williams, following up on Chairman Solarz' questioning, did Deng Xiaoping order the crackdown, mass arrests and executions? The administration seems to be vague in this area. Is he or is he not still the ultimate power in China?

Mr. WILLIAMS. It is certainly clear that there was top leadership authorization for what happened in Tiananmen Square. The President's policies reflect that in that the first steps that he took, of course, were the suspension of the military aspects, important military aspects of the relationship when all that was clear for sure was that it had been a PLA operation.

At a later time when it became clear that the top leadership certainly had been very much involved, it was then that he suspended the exchange of high level exchanges between the leaders of the two countries.

Mr. YATRON. Thank you. China desperately needs U.S. technological know-how to meet Deng Xiaoping's four modernizations. How will he weigh the increased need for academic and social needs of students and scholars and the need for economic reform?

Mr. WILLIAMS. We can't be sure, but we certainly-that comes back to the thought that it is important for us to be there. The Chinese leadership will certainly-to be there, that is when the time comes. The Chinese leadership clearly still wants very much for China to continue on its path of modernization and efforts to gain a higher living standard, and these are forces in that society which we hope will push in a constructive direction.

Mr. YATRON. Thank you, Mr. Williams. Thank you, Mr. Chair

man.

Mr. SOLARZ. Mr. Roth.

Mr. ROTH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I have somewhat of a different interpretation of this 418 vote to 0. I think the people in Congress are very much concerned as to what is taking place in China, but when the vote came up, my interpretation was that it was not a vote in opposition to the President or the administration's policy, but more one in step with the administration and its policy. The American people appreciate a measured approach and they feel that is what the President has done, so I don't really interpret the 418 vote to 0 as a vote opposed to the administration.

I want to be crystal clear on that. I think if you would have interviewed the Congressmen, a vast, vast majority of them would have all said, no, it is not in opposition, but in step with the administration.

Now, Mr. Williams, on page 7 you say something to the effect that we should not lose sight of the fact that our commercial relationship provides us with a way of encouraging constructive change in China and influencing those elements of society most open to reform.

Can you, in your own words, elucidate a little on that.

Mr. WILLIAMS. Well, until the awful events of a month ago had taken place, the changes, some of which Ms. McEntee referred to in the economy and the direction of greater market economy and in the society including the ideas that the students were expressing in the square, in all of these things, clearly, a major influence in changing China from the much more closed atmosphere and situation of a decade ago had been the foreign and particularly the American contacts.

Mr. ROTH. So what are you saying?

Mr. WILLIAMS. In the very areas which American businessmen, American academics, and such people make contact with the Chinese society, these are the people who are the most internationally exposed, the most conscious of the modern world and in short a force for constructive change.

Mr. ROTH. So to translate, what you are saying, if we impose strict sanctions and are tougher on exports and the like, it would give vent to our emotions but it wouldn't be a judicious or wise policy in the long run. Is that what you are saying?

Mr. WILLIAMS. Yes. It is better to keep the measured approach that we have so far.

Mr. ROTH. An embargo against, for example, Chinese textiles, if I understood you correctly, would hurt the-harm the very people, Chinese people at the grass roots level that we are trying to help. Is that right? Was that a correct interpretation?

Mr. WILLIAMS. Yes, that is correct. The commercial aspects of the relationship certainly, if they were cut off, that would have an important effect obviously on the jobs of the people involved there, in addition to which it would break governmental, intergovernmental commitments.

We have a bilateral textile agreement with the Chinese, for instance, which like other things, these things have been worked out over many years, and so there would be a considerable impact. Mr. ROTH. Now, the question was asked you before on OPIC, and You said you would be opposed to denying OPIC to China, is that ht?

Mr. WILLIAMS. At this stage we think it should be kept under review like many other aspects, as we follow the evolving situation there, yes.

Mr. ROTH. I think that would be something for the State Department to reconsider. I will tell you why I say that. OPIC is really political insurance to give our companies and business people more of an incentive to go into a nation, something political upheaval takes place, why they are insuring.

I think to send a message to the Chinese leadership I think to reconsider OPIC I think might be a step in the right direction.

Mr. WILLIAMS. Well, we will carefully consider that, Congressman. I will take that back with me.

Mr. ROTH. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SOLARZ. Thank you, Mr. Roth.

Mr. Gejdenson.

Mr. GEJDENSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. If I was a tyrant sitting out there I would take great heart in what you are saying. It seems to me that we have got some profit and some good economic relations in China, and we want to be careful not to rock the boat. We might be willing to top some shipments of some items from here but we are unwilling to make some real long-term commitment to this.

We want to be very careful with MFN, which would put an immediate pain in the Chinese need for hard currency. I am not sure if you look at the great change that we have brought about in China as a result of all our economic relations that there is anything that is substantially different.

It is a tyranny that now believes in some capitalism. While we are all advocates of capitalism, I think that this nation stands for more than that, and while governments can't simply respond to indignation and outrage as maybe Members of Congress can and citizens can, it seems to me that from the beginning the administration has been over-cautious, whether some say because the President feels like he is a desk officer for China or because of the simple cautions nature about it. The first statement by the President left me trying to decide whether he was on the side of the military or on the side of the students.

On the first day of the students at Tiananmen Square, the President's statement went something to the effect that, well, we hope that when they remove them it wouldn't hurt too much. Then he decided to get a little tougher, but through this whole process it almost seems like we are dragging the administration towards an honest response to the outrage that is occurred there. Just being annoyed and continuing to do business as usual is not enough from my perspective.

What are the categories of products that constitute the largest volume of Chinese imports to the United States? What do they sell us?

Ms. MCENTEE. Textiles.

Mr. WILLIAMS. And toys. Those two categories.

Mr. GEJDENSON. Okay. And what would happen if we would revoke China's MFN status to the volume of these sales?

Mr. WILLIAMS. They would be very substantially affected, although the exact degree I couldn't say.