Clinton to discuss human rights in university speech

Clinton at the Great Wall of China

In this story:

• Trip receiving mixed reactions
• Clintons take in historic sights
• Related stories and sites

BEIJING (CNN) -- U.S. President Bill Clinton will address the generation that will lead China in the next century on Monday after spending his last full day in the country's capital sightseeing and speaking from the pulpit at a state-approved church.

Aides say Clinton's speech to students and faculty of Beijing University will touch on human rights and other issues of freedom, as well as look to the future of U.S.-China relations. It is billed by the White House as the major speech of Clinton's trip to China.

The speech will be followed by a question-and-answer session. Beijing University's students were the driving force behind the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests.

The school, founded in 1898, has 24,000 undergraduates and is closely monitored by the government because of its history as a center of liberal thinking.

Clinton's debate with Jiang was broadcast live on Chinese television

U.S.-funded Radio Free Asia -- whose reporters were denied visas to China for Clinton's visit -- will broadcast the speech live to the world's most populous country. The Chinese media is also expected to carry the speech.

Clinton heads to Shanghai after the address, which is scheduled to begin at about 10 a.m. (10 p.m. Sunday EDT/0200 GMT Monday).

Clinton said Sunday while touring the Forbidden City that he "felt much better" about signs of openness in China after his news conference Saturday with Chinese President Jiang Zemin. The debate between the two leaders was broadcast live on Chinese television and included discussions of many sensitive topics, including human rights and Tibet.

Clinton's visit to China is receiving mixed reactions in the United States. The news conference was praised, but critics said more was needed.

"The president was able to deliver ... (a) message. I'm happy for that, but we should be very careful not to gush and do the victory lap prior to seeing some real and substantial deeds," Rep. Christopher Smith, a New Jersey Republican, said on CNN's "Late Edition."

"We have to be very careful not to buy into 'This is a great success,'" said Smith, chairman of the House International Relations Subcommittee on Human Rights.

Sen. Max Baucus, D-Montana, told CNN the news conference was a "turning point" in U.S.-China relations.

"The decision by President Jiang to televise that press conference nationwide is an indication to me that he too knows the future for China is going to be more political freedoms and more political expression," Baucus said.

But Smith disagreed, saying it was "premature" to call it a turning point.

"This is an orchestrated attempt by Jiang Zemin and his cronies in Beijing to put a certain positive spin on everything," Smith said. "The human rights situation is absolutely deplorable in China and the president could have and should have laid out a number of markers before giving this public relations coup to the Chinese government."

Martin Lee of United Democrats of Hong Kong, also appearing on "Late Edition," said the broadcast of Clinton and Jiang's exchange was "unexpected."

The Clintons in church Sunday

"It was rather unexpected, I'd say, particularly, that it was televised live in Beijing," he said. "I would be truly happy if these sensitive issues could be freely debated by ordinary Chinese people."

On Sunday, Clinton took the pulpit at Chongwenmen Church and spoke of religious unity in a nation where Christian leaders have been jailed or harassed by the government.

"I believe that Chinese and Americans are brothers and sisters as children of God," he said. "We come here in that spirit today."

The church where Clinton spoke is a squat gray building, unmarked by a steeple, and located at the rear of a hotel parking lot past a row of shanties.

The service was disrupted briefly by a woman who strode to within five pews of the president. She was taken to the back of the church and was allowed a few words with Clinton afterward. She expressed hope that China's leaders would become Christians.

Clinton, along with first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton and their daughter, Chelsea, also visited the Great Wall of China and the palaces at the Forbidden City during a sightseeing jaunt.

Clinton told reporters the Great Wall was "even more magnificent" than he imagined. The Clintons also dined privately with Jiang in his official residence on the first family's last night in Beijing.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

Related stories:

• Chinese dissidents supportive of Clinton's trip - June 28, 1998
• Clinton attends church in Beijing - June 27, 1998
• China welcomes Clinton at edge of Tiananmen Square - June 26, 1998
• Clinton calls reports of dissident arrests 'disturbing' - June 26, 1998