By John Pomfret and Michael Laris
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, June 12, 1998; Page A01

BEIJING—Over a plate of pork and garlic shoots, Li Guoqiang, an office worker dining at a downtown restaurant, nodded vigorously when asked if President Clinton should visit Tiananmen Square.

"You know he's got to mention 6-4," Li said, using the Chinese shorthand for the bloody crackdown at Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989. "None of our leaders are mentioning it, but he will. We need someone to bring it up and I'm sure he will do it."

Li, 43, said he was among hundreds of thousands who flocked to the square during the late spring of 1989 to participate in student-led demonstrations against corruption, inflation and the domination of everyday life by the Communist Party. Li said he visited the square until June 3 and then spent the night at home because a relative in the army had tipped him off that a crackdown was coming. He said he lost two friends in the ordeal.

"You know, this place is a sacred ground for us, especially those of us who lost people," he said. "The government has tried to make everyone forget. But it just can't. Clinton could help us to remember."

On June 4 of this year, when the U.S. House of Representatives passed by a vote of 305 to 116 a non-binding resolution urging Clinton not to attend his official welcoming ceremony in Tiananmen Square, the opinions of Chinese such as Li did not appear to figure in their deliberations. Although many leading Chinese exiles have condemned Clinton's plan, many people across the political spectrum here seem to welcome Clinton's visit to the square. They believe it could bolster China's standing in the world, and also could nudge China's leadership toward a reappraisal of the crackdown.

They also say Clinton's entire visit to China is more important than any particular stop during his stay. It gives these Chinese hope that relations between the United States and China might improve rapidly and that China will become a freer, more prosperous place. Clinton's trip, set for June 25 to July 3, is already getting positive media coverage here, and for many Chinese, the visit of an American president under such warm circumstances is a sign that China is opening.

Li Lan, 28, a graduate student at Qinghua University, said she is happy that Clinton is coming to Tiananmen Square. "It shows that the United States can be mature about its differences with our government. Many of us have differences with the government, too," she said, citing her belief that widespread corruption and nepotism are severely hurting China. "But I think a leader of a great nation like the United States should come here and do things according to our formula. Then, within that formula, he can speak freely. And I know that many of us want him to speak, for him and for us."

For Xie Xiaomin, 39, a trader at the Japanese trading house C. Itoh Corp., Clinton's visit to Tiananmen Square is a sideshow to what he hopes the two nations will accomplish. Xie says he "sympathizes with" the students and other citizens who demonstrated in the square for more than six weeks in 1989. But, he says, the Asian economic crisis and the nuclear standoff between India and Pakistan are threats to China and the United States, and must be addressed.

"June 4 has already passed. The important thing is that China and America communicate," he said. "It's really simple. Why can some people become good friends? Because they communicate often . . . [Clinton's] going to Tiananmen isn't for the purpose of Tiananmen, but for the two countries' interests."

For Li Hong, 27, an insurance company employee who was reading an article about the Spice Girls during her lunch break, Clinton's visit to Tiananmen is not a slap at those who died there. "I think it's a completely different thing," she said. "That place also has our Monument to the People's Heroes."

Although the White House has announced that Clinton is not scheduled to speak at the welcoming ceremony, some here wonder if the talkative and politically astute American president -- who confronted President Jiang Zemin at a Washington news conference by saying the Chinese government was on the "wrong side of history" regarding the Tiananmen crackdown -- will follow the script.

"If he does that again, I don't think CCTV [Chinese Central Television] will broadcast it," said Li, who went to graduate school in Switzerland and who, unlike most people in China, watched the two presidents verbally spar on CNN. "He also probably hopes that China's 1 billion people will watch him, so I don't think he should bring it up," she said.

China in the 1990s is marked by a diversity of opinion. For those jailed as a result of the Tiananmen protests, Clinton's visit to the square brings ambivalence and passion.

Bao Tong, a Communist Party official who was imprisoned for seven years after the crackdown, said he believes the decision to visit the square is Clinton's alone to make. "I really can't speak for the president of the United States," Bao, 65, said in a rare interview last week before being told by security agents to stop granting interviews to the foreign media. "That decision is something only he can make."

Liao Yiwu, a poet who spent four years in prison in Sichuan Province for memorializing the victims of Tiananmen, is critical of Clinton for coming to China in June because of the month's association with the crackdown.

In an open letter to Clinton written on June 4 and released Tuesday, Liao argues that the United States is more concerned with economics than in maintaining its traditional role as a beacon of freedom and democracy. In an interview, Liao said that Clinton's visit to Tiananmen would be acceptable to him only if Clinton were to take a page from John F. Kennedy's famous speech at the Berlin Wall during the height of the Cold War.

"If Clinton has the courage to say: 'I am a Beijinger,' then I think he could go there. But I don't think he'll do that," Liao said. "I think as a Chinese, I should speak to Clinton from the heart." The United States "should promote freedom and democracy. He shouldn't give up America's traditional idealism," Liao said.

The authorities have not yet approached Liao about the letter and comments, he said, adding, "When you speak the truth, there are consequences."

On Tuesday, a group of 23 dissidents called on Clinton to push his hosts on the issue of human rights during his visit, and to try to get a solid commitment on when China will sign the U.N. Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which former foreign minister Qian Qichen in March promised to sign.

In a letter to American and Chinese high-level officials ahead of the summit, the intellectuals also complained that on May 20, police in Wuhan confiscated the computer equipment and fax machine of Human Rights Survey, a home-grown human rights monitoring group organized by dissident Xu Wenli, and that the group has not been allowed to pursue its legal activities.

Xiao Tong, 42, a police officer standing outside a precinct house in the Chaoyang neighborhood, said he believes Clinton's visit is a good idea -- especially his stop at the square. "I remember the last time we had such a big visit," he said, his memory turning again to 1989. "That was May when [Mikhail] Gorbachev was supposed to be greeted in the square." The Russian president's arrival ceremony was moved to the Beijing airport because 300,000 uninvited guests had massed on Tiananmen to greet him.

"This time the government will do it right," Xiao predicted. "It will show how far China has come in maintaining social stability. It will be a great day for China."