With the world watching, President Clinton meets with Chinese citizens during his historical visit. Will he make a political statement to the Chinese government? After a background report by Kwame Holman, former U.S. diplomats to China discuss President Clinton's options when he visits Tiananmen Square.

MARGARET WARNER: Now the views of three veteran diplomats who served in China and dealt directly with Chinese leaders. John Holdridge was the number 2 at the U.S. mission in Beijing in the Nixon and Ford administrations, serving under the then-US Liaison to China, George Bush. Winston Lord was ambassador in Beijing during President Reagan's second term, and he also served as Assistant Secretary of State in President Clinton's first term. And James Lilley was ambassador to China during the Bush administration. Welcome, gentlemen. Amb. Lord, explain for us why you think the Chinese rounded up these dissidents on this very day when they knew what a sore point that would be with the United States.

WINSTON LORD, Former U.S. Ambassador to China: The easy answer is because they're Communists. The fact is they fear any expression of dissent or discord. They don't understand that they get worse public relations by doing this. But in allowing these people to voice these concerns and tolerating it, the whole point of this trip for the Chinese and one of the goals of the President is to show that China has changed since 1989, that there are some positive trends, as well as what we hear about with respect to repression and problems, and they're wiping that out. Today we're supposed to highlight village elections, and this dominates the story instead. So it's déjà vu all over again. There have been some positive changes in China, but this reminds us that repression stays there, just as it did when I was ambassador and President Bush came and they ruined his trip by keeping a dissident from attending his banquet.

MARGARET WARNER: Amb. Holdridge, how do you explain it, again, given that they-one what the purpose of the trip is for the Chinese and they surely knew what the American reaction would be?

JOHN HOLDRIDGE, Former Deputy Chief of Mission, China: I suppose they did know what the American reaction would be, but I think to them it was more important that they got the idea across most of the Americans into the Chinese that China is a big, powerful, important country and China cannot be pushed around. There has been so much publicity lately about human rights and the Chinese feel that they've been put in the dark. And they just want to show the outside world and their own people that they are not prepared to accept that kind of a stricture on what they do.

MARGARET WARNER: Amb. Lilley, do you think there was a factor like that, it was sort of a thumb in the eye to the Americans?

JAMES LILLEY, Former U.S. Ambassador, China: Well, there's always been this conflict between the Chinese and ourselves over protocol and rights. I mean, John Holdridge remembers the Marine ball of 1973 and how they threw out the Marines after that. And as Winston Lord has mentioned, this Feng Lijeur incident in February of 1989 was a big flap. They are very insecure about their population. They have to keep them under control. They want the message to get out. Don't mess up our parade. And they're very strong on this thing. We're going to have these problems for a long time to come. Don't focus on them too much.

MARGARET WARNER: Amb. Holdridge, what did you make of the American response? Do you think that the President and the National Security Adviser Berger responded appropriately?

JOHN HOLDRIDGE: I felt the President's response was quite appropriate. I was not sure about Sandy Berger's response when he said their human rights record is terrible. I think that really is a great overstatement. They have made demonstrable progress, the economic side certainly, and the President earlier on today was apparently at a place where they had held village-level elections. And this is a process which is continuing.

MARGARET WARNER: Amb. Lord, your view of the American response, do you think it was a little too tough, Sandy Berger's?

WINSTON LORD: Absolutely not. I think it was appropriate. I flatly disagree with my good friend, John Holdridge. I think the record remains terrible, despite the progress that's been made in certain areas. First of all, they shouldn't leave the protest to Amb. Sasser. Secretary Albright ought to be getting ahold of her counterpart and saying, look, you're on the verge of messing up his visit, messing up your interests and ours, it's in your self-interest to show tolerance and discipline and not to become thugs like your officials have been.

By the way, this is just one of many things. They canceled the visas to Radio Free Asia reporters. By the way, American journalists have shown no solidarity, to my disappointment. They're censoring an offer coming from Shanghai, delaying allowing the President directly to address the Chinese people. And so they're ham-handed. It's a shame because there have been some positive changes in China. I support the President's trip, but he's got to be very firm on this, and it raises the stakes for what he says after his arrival in Tiananmen Square. He's going to have to address the 1989 massacre, as well as human rights generally. And by the way, I hope Mrs. Clinton wears a white dress.

MARGARET WARNER: Why?

WINSTON LORD: Because that's the symbol of mourning throughout China. It would send a very positive signal to the Chinese people that we care and we remember 1989. So that's the first thing to watch for, and then, of course, the President's remarks at his press conference a couple of hours later.

MARGARET WARNER: Amb. Lilley, how do you think the President should deal with this issue now, both publicly and privately?

JAMES LILLEY: Which issue, Margaret?

MARGARET WARNER: Well, the round up of the dissidents and the whole human rights issue, in other words, do you agree with Winston Lord that in a way what's happened the last couple of days means he has to put more emphasis on this issue?

JAMES LILLEY: I agree with Winston. I think Winston put it very well. But I think the Chinese do have a sense then-John knows the old expression-fan compas-that you're firing empty cannons, that you are rhetoric only, and that you don't really mean business. And they know all about rhetoric, and they can take it. I would suggest that the President might do something like the Italian prime minister did, is to go over and have a moment of silence before the Martyrs Monument and say a silent prayer. The Chinese can interpret it any way they want.

MARGARET WARNER: And that's in Tiananmen Square, right?

JAMES LILLEY: Yes. It's where the headquarters of the movement was, and the Chinese can say he's honoring revolutionary martyrs, and the other people can say he's honoring the people that died at Tiananmen Square. That's the sort of compromise you can get. And it seems to me he has to say something, as Winston suggests, that the President has been put in an awkward position, because the Chinese have sort of bullied him on this one.

MARGARET WARNER: Amb. Lord, back to you for a minute. What should he say? How far he should he go in what he says?

WINSTON LORD: Well, first of all, besides projecting values and calling for a better human rights record, he has to specifically address the June 1989 massacre. He should call upon the Chinese leaders to reverse the verdict and call it a patriotic demonstration and not a bunch of thugs promoting counterrevolution. I would point out that President Jiang's predecessor just this week wrote a letter to the leaders suggesting they do just that.

I would point out that a demonstration in 1976 that was called a counterrevolutionary riot in favor of Deng Xiaoping, the verdict on that was reversed when Deng got into power two years later and said this was a patriotic movement. So he's got to address 1989; he can't just talk about freedom and human rights. He should also talk, however, about our positive agenda with China. It's not just human rights. It's the Asian financial crisis, Korea, Indonesia, South Asia, nuclear problems, the environment. We have a positive agenda. That's why I support the trip. But to set up this positive agenda, he's got to be strong on the human rights question.

MARGARET WARNER: Amb. Holdridge, do you agree that he needs to speak as directly as Amb. Lord says in public?

JOHN HOLDRIDGE: I wouldn't go as far as Amb. Lord recommended. Winston's an old friend of mine, and I've heard him on the subject before, but I think we have to avoid seemingly getting too deep into Chinese internal affairs. I saw some of the text that came out of the Chinese earlier on today, and getting too deeply into interference into China's internal affairs could be very-use the old Department of State word-counter-productive.

MARGARET WARNER: Amb. Lilley, your view on this, on how much he should say publicly?

JAMES LILLEY: I would like to stress what Amb. Lord just said. The real issues are not where he goes on Tiananmen Square. It's the human rights of millions of Asians who could lose them because they'll be dead if we don't handle these things correctly. I'm talking about the Korean crisis, where you're dealing with an obnoxious regime that is very dangerous, the India and Pakistan potential clash over Kashmir, and this very dangerous Asian economic meltdown. John Holdridge can tell you about the dangers in Indonesia, 200 million people facing poverty. These are the issues he has to talk about, and don't get him too distracted into these other issues. Human rights are important. But we've got to deal with these major issues with China.

MARGARET WARNER: Amb. Lord, reply to that, and Amb. Holdridge, if you'd like, and then go on and tell us how you would define success for this trip from American perspective.

WINSTON LORD: Well, I, of course, agree that this positive agenda has got to be engaged, and that's one measure of success by demonstrating to the American people that there is a whole range of big issues that we and China have to work together on and on some China is being cooperative, like the Asian financial crisis and Korea. On South Asia they contributed to the problem by helping Pakistan's nuclear capability, but now they're taking a more constructive approach, plus the control of international crime, narcotics, protecting the environment.

There's a major agenda that has to be addressed and success would be if there's good discussions on this and our public understands that we have this positive agenda, the other part of the success, however, is threatened now, and that is to show the American people that, in fact, there have been some positive changes in China. And, indeed, there have. But the Chinese ham-headedness is threatening to mess up that part of the-goals-or concrete achievements, but dialogue on these geopolitical and economic issues are very important, indeed.

MARGARET WARNER: Amb. Holdridge, how would you define success for this trip?

JOHN HOLDRIDGE: If the President comes back without any visible scars at this point, it seems to me that the whole trip is now being driven by human rights, and the ability to get over-to speak over this issue in terms of the positive aspects which we wish to touch on is being cut at very severely by the emphasis on human rights. And I think it's regrettable the Chinese have had something to do with that, themselves, but also the American political scene has something to do with it also.

And this makes life much more complicated for the President and I would like to see the position made certainly clear about human rights, and I'm quite positive that the President will make that position clear, but also at the same time stress the positive aspects and the need for the United States and China to work together to maintain peace and order in the Pacific.

MARGARET WARNER: Amb. Lilley, briefly, because we're almost out of time, you gave us a list of what you thought were the big issues they had to address. Is there one concrete thing the President could come away with from the trip that would make it a success, in your view?

JAMES LILLEY: It seems to me a more cooperative policy on handling the very dangerous problem of North Korea. I was ambassador to South Korea for several years, and I know how dangerous North Korea is. They just sent a submarine down. They've done some very, very dastardly things in their time. The Chinese have tremendous leverage over North Korea in terms of the food and oil they deliver there. That has to be harnessed in with our own efforts to bring economic reform, confidence building measure, disarmament, North-South dialogue, on the peninsula. We and the Chinese agree on the tactics. It's time to make this whole process move forward. And I think the Chinese and the Americans are the two key nations that can make it happen.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Well, thank you, Amb. Lilley, Amb. Lord, Amb. Holdridge. Thank you all three very much.