RUSSIA AND CHINA IN AMERICA'S FUTURE

President Clinton is walking the highest of high wires in dealing with our two erstwhile enemies, now tentative frineds: Russia and China. Events in Bosnia, Somalia and Haiti may have a greater sense of immediacy, but our relations with Moscow and Peking will determine how much stability there will be in the world order of the 21st century.

With respect to Russia, we have decided to paint a somewhat authoritarian regime as democratic. In China, we know we are dealing with a patently authoritarian government and can't seem to find the bright colors to paint it more positively.

In Russia, we will sink or swim with Boris Yeltsin. Not all that long ago we felt the same about Mikhail Gorbachev and deemed Yeltsin to be a boozy bumbler. But that was then and this is now. The erstwhile boor is now our kind of statesman. Never mind that Yeltsin suspends a constitution, breaks a promise about presidential elections, closes down opposition newspapers, forces deportations, and censors the TV ads of his political opponents. Russia has no experience with democracy and Yeltsin, the cleaned-up ex-Communist, is about as close to a democrat as can be found. In last April's elections, the voters confirmed their support of Yeltsin as president. In a struggling Russia, that's democracy enough.

When the inevitable showdown came with Ruslan Khasbulatov, Yeltsin realized that the normal democratic means of compromise could not forge a functional political balance. "He's tortured by the conflict his democratic principles and the knowledge that democratic compromise was impossible with people like Khasbulatov," writes Yeltsin's close friend and ghost writer, Valentin Yumashev. When he finally addressed the nation, Yeltsin acknowledged that he had to act unconstitutionally in order to ensure that the people would have the option of choosing a new constitution. "Being the guarantor of the security of the state, I had to suggest a way out of the impasse and break the vicious, destructive cycle."

The virtues and niceties of democracy cannot come into play until the underpinnings of economic stability are established. In a nation as vast and troubled as Russia, this economic stability will not be created by the delicate interplay of executive and legislative branches exercising neatly and mutually respected sources of power. History tells us that change in Russia has to be generated by authority from the top, not by democratic discourse. Both President Clinton and Congress seem to acknowledge the history, exceptional circumstances and special needs of Russia in its deeply troubled period of political transformation.

In China, economic change is taking place at a rapid rate, but authoritarianism remains firmly in place in the political sphere. Clinton and Congress seem less willing to defer to the history, exceptional circumstances and special needs of China. Faced with a timetable on China's MFN status, Clinton and especially Congress may even be willing to chance a rupture in economic relations with a nation of 1.2 billion people.

China is rapidly achieving the underpinnings of economic stability in its own, curious way. The state still owns more than 50 percent of China's industry. The central government dominates in transportation, energy and finance. The banking system is unstable. Yet China's economy grows phenomenally at 9 percent a year. Two hundred million Chinese living along the coast are classified as "prosperous."

On the political side, if one wants to play with words, China has moved from "totalitarian" to "authoritarian." The heavy hand of the police state exists with no recognition of the right to political diversity. China remains a repressive place. We would like to intimidate China into behaving like ourselves. That's not very likely. China is emerging as a world power and will function according to its own standards, not ours.

Clinton has the unenviable task of reconciling our traditional beliefs in human rights with the looming reality of a rapidly escalating Chinese economy. China isn't just for toys and rubber shoes anymore.

On human rights in China, we are going it alone. None of our Asian friends are with us. Our European allies would rush to exploit the economic vacuum that will be created if the United States were to reach an impasse with China. Germany, for one, is ready to jump into the Chinese market.

Congress is poised to remove China's MFN status next May. Clinton's triumphant Seattle meeting declared that Pacific partnership to be uppermost in our trading future. What a short future if we drop China from that equation.