Romania and China

I was shocked to read in your report (“Thugs Beat Romanian Protesters,” front page, June 15), that State Department Spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler threatened to withhold most-favored-nation trade status from Romania if President Ion Iliescu will not or cannot keep his swarm of vigilante-miners from brutalizing the political opposition. By this shameful display of “realpolitik” the Bush Administration has devalued the lives of hundreds, if not thousands of Chinese citizens massacred at Tian An Men Square. Barely a year has passed since Beijing’s enfeebled leaders unleashed the “People’s Army” against the people. And only a few weeks ago Bush granted MFN status to that malignant regime.

Why the double standard? Are not these largely uneducated and backward thugs guilty of the same killings, random violence and censorship against the citizens in Bucharest’s University Square that marked the violent repression of peaceful protesters in Tian An Men Square? President Bush should explain why China’s atrocities do not warrant this economic sanction, but Romania’s do and which were committed on a much smaller scale.

Surely, no reasonable person can expect that President Bush’s spineless response to Beijing’s repression will present a credible economic threat to those reconstituted communists now ruling Romania. One can conclude only that our historical commitment to human rights and self-determination is negotiable with those countries, like China, which can promise us lucrative trade balances. This is a sad lesson to impart to those nascent East European democracies that have modeled their future on our democratic heritage.

DENNIS LEADER

San Francisco