By John Pomfret and Steven Mufson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, July 5, 1998; Page A13

BEIJING—A foreign businessman here was interviewing a Chinese job candidate on Monday when President Clinton appeared on television speaking to students at Beijing University.

The job interview was suspended while they and the entire Chinese staff of the U.S. company watched Clinton's speech and question-and-answer session live on Chinese TV. Afterward, the American executive asked the candidate why he wanted to leave his job with the Chinese government.

"To quote President Clinton," the candidate replied, "I want to reach the fullness of my potential."

Clinton's nine-day visit to China was very much about potential, both for China and for Sino-American relations.

For now, that potential hasn't been realized. Clinton achieved relatively little in the way of substantive bilateral agreements, leaving important issues regarding Taiwan, weapons proliferation, trade and human rights outstanding. And the Chinese government gave nothing in terms of revising its view of the bloody June 4, 1989, crackdown on Tiananmen Square demonstrations that damaged Sino-American ties just 10 years after they had been officially established with liaison offices in each capital.

But for a few moments this week, the heavy doors of China's closed system creaked open. In his public appearances on Chinese state-run television, Clinton painted an image of international cooperation, domestic liberalism and economic advancement the two countries could achieve together. And in allowing Clinton to make his case directly to the Chinese people in two unusual live television broadcasts, the Chinese government put aside its usual obsession with controlling public debate and took a risky move in a society simmering with public discontent.

Clinton made the most of the opportunity, touching on virtually every taboo in Chinese public discourse: freedom of religion, individual liberties, political prisoners and Tiananmen Square. In sharp contrast to other international leaders who kowtow for contracts while avoiding sensitive topics, Clinton made his case for values that he said transcend national borders.

How or whether this week of Soviet-style glasnost, or openness, will encourage a period of political relaxation will not be clear for some time. Many Chinese hailed Clinton's visit as a harbinger of a gradual opening of Chinese political dialogue, but others mourned the fact that such sensitive topics can be addressed only by the leader of the world's superpower while domestic critics of the government, including ousted party leader Zhao Ziyang, remain muffled.

What is clear, however, is that a new tone has emerged in U.S.-China ties after years of hostility and mistrust.

"This visit ended the historical period of strategic conflict for Sino-American relations since June 4, 1989, and realized the re-normalization of Sino-American relations," said Wu Guoguang, a former aide to Zhao and now a professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

"You can call this event a milestone in this sense," Wu said.

An example of the new tone was the state dinner, held in a sprawling banquet room at the Great Hall of the People here, where Clinton, Jiang and the entire membership of the all-powerful, seven-man standing committee of the Chinese Communist Party dined on shark's fin soup and strips of sirloin steak. It marked the first time the entire party leadership turned out for dinner with a foreign head of state since the 1950s, when Soviet visitors were treated to the honor, said a spokesman for the People's Daily, the party's mouthpiece here.

"This indicates that the Chinese top leadership is in consensus on China-U.S. policy," said Chu Shulong, a top analyst at the Chinese Institute of Contemporary International Relations, an influential think tank associated with the Chinese ministry of state security.

Chu said it was "a big, bold decision" to air Clinton's speech and press conference live. The decision, made late in the day, involved the party's top leadership, he said, intimating that a substantial debate had occurred on the issues behind the walls of party headquarters at Zhongnanhai.

Chu said it showed the senior leadership "is not afraid of differences of opinion."

"The leadership knows that there are different ideas already within Chinese society. We don't think it is dangerous to make them public. We don't think it will cause trouble here," he said. "We knew what Clinton would say. We were not afraid."

But while the tone has improved markedly since 1989 and again since 1995 and 1996, when the United States and China engaged in a tense face-off over Taiwan, major hurdles still obstruct better ties. For example, during Tuesday's round-table discussion in the Shanghai Library, Clinton waxed eloquent about U.S.-China cultural exchanges. But later that same day, New York's Lincoln Center announced that a mammoth Chinese production of a 16th-century Chinese opera classic, "The Peony Pavilion," would not open its Festival '98 because Chinese censors had labeled it both "pornographic" and "feudal," and blocked the cast from traveling to the United States. This happened even after Chen Shi-zheng, the Chinese-born American director, had agreed to 10 changes demanded by Shanghai's cultural commissar.

Reality also intruded on the Clinton-Jiang love feast the first day he landed in China, when authorities rounded up four political dissidents in Xian, his first stop. By the end of the trip, however, the incident had been forgotten. Seven dissidents detained during the trip were released after Clinton was gone, and Clinton called China's path of development "morally right."

Nonproliferation and security were other areas in which words sounded better than deeds. China agreed to redirect its 13 nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missiles from the United States in exchange for the same from Washington -- a largely symbolic act that is reversible in seconds, according to one U.S. specialist. But no progress was made on U.S. efforts to convince China to stop selling long-range missiles abroad.

Two areas in which the countries seem to find common cause, much to the relief of American and Chinese officials, were the Asian economic crisis and the nuclear arms race between Pakistan and India. But even those areas of consensus might be tenuous.

"The visit was a well-directed show, and the actors performed wonderfully," said Wu, the former party official. "But nothing important happened to advance relations between the two countries. The meaning of the visit is more entertainment than diplomacy."

Other analysts saw importance in the style over the substance.

"By debating Clinton publicly about China's most sensitive issues, Jiang no doubt won kudos in the Chinese Communist Party and among the public," said David Shambaugh, director of the Sigur Center for Asian Studies at George Washington University. "The broadcasts also reflect Jiang's increased confidence as a leader."