China Breach

Fit and sassy after a nine-week recess in such sunny spots as Bermuda and Hawaii, congressional Democrats got a wet-blanket welcome when they returned to Washington last week. The capital's skies spat and drizzled. The public- approval rate of President George Bush had climbed to nearly 80%. And the early victory the Democrats had planned against Bush over his unpopular China policy proved a washout. In the process, both Congress and the White House made it clear that the uneasy partnership they attempted last year will give way to the partisan bickering of an election year.

The Democrats had chosen what they believed was a winning issue: they were determined to override the President's veto of a bill that would have allowed 40,000 Chinese students to remain in the U.S. rather than face possible persecution in their homeland in the wake of the June massacre of pro- democracy demonstrators. Last November, after that legislation passed both houses of Congress without dissent, Bush blocked it. He argued that he could extend the students' visas on his own authority but would not sign legislation that could anger China's rulers.

Early last week his advisers told Bush that his veto could not be sustained in Congress. Adamant, Bush and his combative chief of staff, John Sununu, insisted the White House must prevail if Bush were to convert his passive public approval to tangible political clout. In an interview with TIME on the eve of the China vote, Bush urged that Congress not "just seek confrontation in an election year." He warned, "I won't be any pushover."

He wasn't. Focusing on the Senate, Bush made the issue a test of personal and party loyalty. He called Senators to a White House breakfast and followed up with personal notes and phone calls. He publicly promised that "no student will be forced to leave the U.S. against his will." (One Chinese student, however, sharply reminded a Senator that Bush broke an earlier promise: "He promised no high-level contacts with China" but within a month secretly dispatched National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft to Beijing.)

Last week Scowcroft and Secretary of State James Baker joined Bush's lobbying campaign by phone, while G.O.P. Chairman Lee Atwater and Vice President Dan Quayle prowled for votes in the corridors and cloakrooms of the Capitol. Even Richard Nixon phoned wavering Senators to say that Sino-American relations would suffer if Bush was defeated.

As expected, the House crushed the veto, 390 to 25. But 37 Senate Republicans were more receptive to Bush's blandishments, and the 62 votes to override fell four short of the required two-thirds.

At a news conference later, the President denied any intention to "gloat" or "crow" yet could scarcely restrain himself. Said he: "I do think ((the victory is)) going to be helpful in reaching accommodation in the House and Senate on some of our objectives." Added Mary Matalin, Republican Party chief of staff: "It's just another case where people underestimated the tenacity of George Bush. When he gets pushed up against the wall on something that he knows and cares about, he does whatever is necessary to win."