By Steven Mufson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, March 13, 1998; Page A16

BEIJING, March 12—At the news conference where China's long-serving Foreign Minister Qian Qichen today declared he was too old to do the job, his diplomatic skills were on full display. Qian announced that China would sign an international human rights treaty, and in the process offered the Clinton administration a refuge from China critics who later in the day were in full voice on Capitol Hill.

Only hours before the U.S. Senate voted 95 to 5 to urge President Clinton to condemn "serious human rights abuses" in China, Qian said that China would sign the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, a U.N. treaty designed to provide guarantees to protect the rights of citizens, including the right of peaceful assembly, freedom of expression, religion and movement. Those rights are all closely circumscribed in China today.

By agreeing to sign the covenant, China provided another justification to those seeking to drop an annual resolution critical of it at the U.N. Human Rights Commission in Geneva. The Geneva meeting was the focus of the Senate's non-binding resolution (a similar measure awaits action in the House). China recently persuaded the European Union to drop its support for the action, and the Clinton administration is weighing its decision now.

White House press secretary Mike McCurry called the Chinese decision "a positive and constructive step forward." And at the State Department, spokesman James P. Rubin hailed China's decision to sign the rights covenant as a major advance. Rubin said it would have a "significant impact" on Washington's decision on whether to sponsor the resolution in Geneva.

Although the resolution is given little chance of passing, some in the Clinton administration say it would signal the continuing U.S. concern about human rights in China.

But the likelihood that -- regardless of what the Americans decide -- the Geneva resolution faces a resounding defeat marks a crowning achievement for the dapper Qian, who has helped bring the country back from international isolation that followed the June 1989 massacre of student-led protesters in Beijing's Tiananmen Square who had demanded greater democracy and less corruption.

"He is a man of great professionalism. Extraordinarily capable," said a Western diplomat here in Beijing. "He is a character of considerable intellectual depth and subtlety. And he has revived China's international image in recent years."

Qian, who is only nine months older than outgoing Premier Li Peng and the likely new premier, Zhu Rongji, cited his age. "Being a foreign minister is very tough and my age is unsuitable for the job," he said.

No successor was named, but foreign diplomats here expect Qian's relatively low-profile deputy Tang Jiaxuan, 60, an expert on Japan, to take over. Other possibilities are Liu Huaqiu, director of the State Council's office of foreign affairs, and Wu Yi, minister of foreign trade and economic cooperation and an alternate politburo member.

During Qian's 10-year tenure, China repaired relations with the United States and broke an eight-year freeze on Sino-U.S. summit meetings. Relations with Moscow, where Qian studied and spent eight years in the Chinese Embassy, are better than any time since the bitter Sino-Soviet split of 1960. China also has nurtured good relations with its neighbors, including those -- such as India, Vietnam, South Korea and Russia -- it fought against during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s.

Under Qian, China has become more active in international organizations. Long averse to multilateral institutions that might compromise its own self-interest and agenda, the country has joined international conventions on nuclear weapons tests, child labor and now human rights.

The effect of Qian's announcement on the U.N. rights covenant remains unclear, however. In theory, China's constitution already guarantees many of those rights, including freedom of speech, assembly and religion. But in practice, those freedoms are curtailed.

Foreign Ministry sources also said that when the covenant is ratified, the government or legislature can attach reservations. No date was given for the signing. Last October, China signed another key accord, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, but the Chinese legislature has yet to ratify it.

"Potentially it is a commitment to structural political reforms that would have very far-reaching implications," said one Western diplomat. "If people sign it, they can be held accountable . . . answerable to other members of international community."

Most human rights groups continue to condemn China's human rights record and favor a strong Geneva resolution.

Amnesty International said in a report this month that despite diplomatic human rights concessions, little has changed in practice in China. The London-based group said thousands of Chinese had been detained without trial, and that trials were "grossly unfair."

Citing its own principle of "non-interference" in the internal affairs of other countries, China has urged foreign governments to leave its domestic human rights record out of foreign relations. Instead China has urged foreigners to use informal, unofficial avenues to lobby for better human rights.

So far, however, such unofficial efforts have yielded few results. Sources said that the three U.S. clerics who visited last month were not allowed to meet Shanghai's chief Catholic bishop, the most prominent of the country's unofficial church officials.

Also last month, a group of Chinese and Americans met in Shanghai for a dialogue that included human rights. But the discussion was hindered when China refused to give a visa to Columbia University Professor Andrew Nathan, a leading expert on the democracy movement in China.