Copyright, The Times Mirror Company; Los
Angeles Times 1990all Rights reserved)
President Bush, seeking to avoid renewed
controversy over his policy toward China, announced Friday that
he will formalize and expand the protections reluctantly given
four months ago to Chinese students in the United States.
The President told the American Society of
Newspaper Editors that he will issue a formal executive order
guaranteeing that more than 40,000 Chinese students at American
universities will be able to remain in this country at least
until 1994.
Bush had taken similar action last December
through written instructions to the Justice Department. However,
the President acknowledged Friday that in public and in talks
with members of Congress, he had subsequently described his
action as an "executive order," an action that has
somewhat greater legal validity.
Bush said that when he issues the executive
order, he will add some new protections that ensure that Chinese
students in the United States may travel abroad and that make it
clear that the students may hold jobs in this country. A group
of Chinese students had sought such protections in meetings with
White House and State Department officials last week.
"We don't want to take a chance on
somebody being mistreated, brutalized if you will," Bush
explained during a question-and-answer session with the
newspaper editors.
Liu Yongchuan, the president of the
Independent Federation of Chinese Students and Scholars, which
represents Chinese students in this country, said Friday,
"We really appreciate President Bush's help." A
spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington said there would
be no comment on Bush's action.
Until last year, most of the Chinese students
in this country were subject to an immigration law requiring
that they return to China for a period of two years after
completing their studies.
Last summer, in the wake of the Chinese
government's violent crackdown against the pro-democracy
demonstrations at Tian An Men Square, several members of
Congress, led by Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), introduced
legislation that would have lifted this requirement. Sponsors of
the legislation said the Chinese students would be subjected to
intense political repression if they were forced to go home.
For months, the Bush Administration strongly
opposed Pelosi's bill, arguing that its enactment would threaten
future educational exchanges between the United States and
China. Administration officials also contended that it was in
the United States' interest to have students who were educated
in the United States return to China, where they might serve as
a force for change.
After Congress passed the Pelosi bill, Bush
vetoed the measure. At the same time, the President directed the
Justice Department to change the immigration rules to grant
Chinese students many of the same protections that had been
contained in the legislation.
Congress tried but failed to override Bush's
veto. On Jan. 24, on the eve of the vote in Congress on the
override, the President told a White House press conference:
"The (Pelosi) bill is totally unnecessary. . . . We've got
to look at policy, and we've got to be fair in what has already
been accomplished by executive order."
Bush, however, did not issue any formal
executive order before his announcement Friday.
