A prep course for the month-long World Cup soccer tournament, a worldwide pheno

s a chilling reminder that Beijing turned its army and its guns on peaceful prot

esters . On June 3 and 4 , 1989 , an orderly , seven-week demonstration on behal

f of greater freedom turned into a bloody confrontation . Hundreds were killed ,

 injured or imprisoned . To this day , many are still in jail or unaccounted for

 . Only recently did the government release two of the most important Tiananmen 

dissidents , Wang Juntao and Chen Ziming . Now , as China seeks to become a resp

ected citizen of the world , Beijing is tarnishing its march toward modernizatio

n by its continuing policies of repression . Over the last several days it has b

lanketed Tiananmen Square with tight security to prevent any commemoration of th

e 1989 demonstrations . Police ordered hotels to turn off the Cable News Network

 , apparently fearing it might broadcast pictures of the 1989 events . But while

 the blood of those June days long has been washed from the streets , the horror

 of Tiananmen Square remains indelibly in the mind . The demonstrations began in

 mid-April in 1989 upon the death of Hu Yaobang , the reform-minded leader of th

e Communist Party who was forced to step down in 1987 . Students turned out to m

ourn his death and to protest rampant official corruption and nepotism . But at 

no time during the demonstrations did they ever attack the authority of the Comm

unist Party , nor did they demand a multi-party system . The government responde

d first with patronizing equivocation , then with threats and finally with bruta

l repression . In the years since , China has opened up to trade , investment an

d technology . That has exposed many Chinese to new ideas . But Beijing 's human

 rights record has not significantly improved . The abuses include use of prison

 labor and imprisonment of Tibetans demanding political and religious independen

ce . Washington tried unsuccessfully for a year to use trade privileges as lever

age to persuade Beijing to make improvements . President Clinton took heavy crit

icism last week when he decoupled trade from human rights in an effort to build 

a long-term security , political and economic relationship with Beijing . That w

as a hard decision and an unavoidable one . Clinton is betting that , as in othe

r Asian nations like South Korea and Taiwan , prosperity will result in a more o

pen society . So the United States will now pursue a low-profile human rights st

rategy , including broadcasting to China over the new Radio Free Asia , developi

ng voluntary human rights standards for U.S. firms doing business in or with Chi

na and promoting international attention to and support for human rights in Chin

a . For its part , Beijing must be willing to play by international rules beyond

 the rules of trade . Only progress in human rights will earn China the respect 

it covets . But Beijing has not signed the U.N. . Universal Declaration of Human

 Rights ( although it says it supports the document 's key ideas ) and it has ye

t to agree in talks with the International Committee of the Red Cross to permit 

prison visits . Thanks to television , Beijing 's human rights abuses in Tiananm

en were put on worldwide display . Now China strives to hide its repression unde

r a cloak of national sovereignty . It is fooling no one .

 CAMBRIDGE , England President Clinton looked skyward on a sodden English mornin

g Saturday to salute the Allied airmen who mastered the skies over Europe in Wor

ld War II at a grievous cost in lives . Speaking in a steady drizzle before a fi

eld of crosses at the Cambridge American Cemetery and Memorial , Clinton honored

 the pilots , bombardiers and ground crews who `` walk among us or lie among us 

today . '' Clinton called the airmen `` knights borne on wings '' and said they 

helped turn the tide of the war and made possible the D-day landings that he has

 journeyed to Europe to commemorate . The lush Cambridge cemetery holds the grav

es of 3,812 Americans and memorializes more than 5,000 others officially listed 

as missing in action . Among the names enshrined on the Wall of the Missing are 

those of bandleader-turned-airman Glenn Miller , whose flight vanished in 1944 ,

 and Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. , the older brother of the late President Kennedy . J

oseph Kennedy was a Navy pilot killed when his plane blew up during a special bo

mbing mission . `` America gave to England an infusion of arms and men and mater

iel , '' Clinton said . `` The British gave our troops the feeling that they wer

e not so far from home after all . The British gave us inspiration ; the America

ns gave , in return , hope . At every level , Yanks and Brits worked together li

ke family . '' England was the second stop of Clinton 's three-nation trip to co

mmemorate D-day . The president earlier visited Italy and is to cross the Englis

h Channel to France Sunday . Unlike the somber and restrained memorial event at 

the American cemetery at Nettuno , Italy , on Friday , Saturday 's commemorative

 events had an almost festive feel . An Air Force ensemble entertained the guest

s with Miller swing standards like `` Moonlight Serenade , '' `` In the Mood '' 

and `` St. Louis Blues March . '' White House officials and politicians worked t

he crowd before Clinton and British Prime Minister John Major spoke . The ceremo

ny ended with a flyover by vintage aircraft , including a lumbering B-17 bomber 

as well as a British Spitfire and American P-51 Mustang zooming through acrobati

c maneuvers . As they left the memorial service , Clinton and Major walked among

 guests , shaking hands and posing for pictures . In his remarks , Major spoke o

f the `` invasion '' of England by GIs preparing for the landings on the Europea

n Continent . He noted that , just before D-day , more than 1.5 million soldiers

 and airmen were based on British soil under the command of Supreme Allied Comma

nder Dwight D. Eisenhower . `` For a while , '' Major said , `` every 30th perso

n in Britain was an American serviceman . '' And he recalled the sacrifice they 

made to free Europe from tyranny 150,000 lives in the European theater , includi

ng 57,000 airmen . `` We remember today why those lives were given . Those who c

ame here from America were not , as we were , protecting their homes and familie

s , '' Major said . `` They didn't come here for national glory , not for profit

 , not for material gain . `` They came , many of you here today came , above al

l , to defend the values which Britons and Americans hold sacred : to defend fre

edom and democracy , justice and human rights , '' the prime minister said . ( B

egin optional trim ) Perhaps the most affecting remarks of the day came from a f

ormer B-24 bomber pilot who flew 35 missions over Nazi-held territory , includin

g the vital Ploesti oil fields in Romania . The pilot 73-year-old U.S. Treasury 

Secretary Lloyd Bentsen said that during the war `` boys grew into men far too f

ast . '' He recalled the daily routine of the flight crews : `` Scared ? Of cour

se . Anyone who wasn't was either a fool or didn't have any imagination .. . Num

bing fatigue . Faceless danger . Fiery death . Those were an airman 's constant 

companions . In the face of this , these men not only flew and fought , they soa

red and triumphed . '' ( End optional trim ) Clinton and Major met privately aft

erward at Chequers , the prime minister 's country home near Oxford . The two le

aders said they discussed Bosnia-Herzegovina , agreeing that they would continue

 to press all sides to settle the territorial issues still in dispute . Major sa

id that continued fighting would yield no significant territorial gains and woul

d only `` continue to strain international patience . '' Neither he nor Clinton 

said what they were prepared to do about the 2-year-old civil war in the former 

Yugoslav republic if their patience actually ran out . From Chequers , Clinton t

ook a motorcade to a hotel 15 minutes away for a brief courtesy call on Margaret

 Beckett , the acting leader of Britain 's opposition Labor Party . She assumed 

the leadership of the party last month after the sudden death of party leader Jo

hn Smith . Later , Clinton attended an elaborate garden party and a formal dinne

r hosted by Queen Elizabeth II in the English Channel city of Portsmouth , one o

f the chief jumping-off points for invasion forces . ( Optional add end ) The en

tertainment included U.S. . Air Force personnel dancing the Lindy hop and Britis

h sailors in a rigging and climbing exhibition . It was at times difficult , ami

d all the distractions , to remember the solemnity of the occasion that thousand

s were gathered to commemorate . The queen , in a rare speech at the black-tie d

inner for visiting dignitaries , reminded her guests of the sacrifice of those w

ho fought for liberation . She said that today 's generations must keep faith wi

th those who landed on the beaches and those who prayed for their success . `` I

t is up to us to make sure that the prayers of 50 years ago are truly answered ,

 by rededicating ourselves to the creation of a world at peace , '' the queen sa

id .

 A 125-foot ship carrying 61 Cuban refugees reportedly was fired on by a Cuban a

rmed vessel as the refugee boat moved in international waters early Saturday . F

our Cubans were seriously injured . The Coast Guard , responding to a distress s

ignal relayed by a ham radio operator in Panama at about 4 a.m. , sent out a sea

rch jet , a cutter and helicopters , which located the refugee vessel about 67 m

iles southwest of Key West , Fla. Coast Guard officials said the boat was boarde

d at 8:45 a.m. . The injured four were airlifted to Florida Keys Memorial Hospit

al in Key West . A hospital spokesman said Saturday afternoon that one had been 

released . Another , in stable condition , had been airlifted to Jackson Memoria

l Hospial in Miami . A third had been admitted to the Key West hospital , and th

e fourth in critical condition with gunshot wounds was in surgery . Three other 

persons were slightly injured , though not by gunfire , and were treated aboard 

the refugee ship after the Coast Guard took control of it , officials said . A C

oast Guard spokesman said there was no sign of an attacking vessel at the time t

he refugee ship was located , and reports that a Cuban gunboat had attacked and 

inflicted the injuries were based on accounts from passengers . He said refugees

 discovered at sea in the area usually are taken to Key West . Larisa Cuesta , a

 daughter of one of the refugee boat 's officers , was quoted by the Associated 

Press as having told a Miami radio station : `` They kept shooting at us . We sh

owed them the children , they still kept shooting . We shouted , `` One of them 

is dead , ' and they still kept shooting . At one point they threw ropes to try 

to drag us in ; we cut the rope to get loose again . '' Ninoska Perez of the Cub

an American National Foundation , an exile organization with centers in Miami an

d Washington , said in a telephone interview from Miami that she had spoken to C

uesta by phone and that Cuesta 's father was one of the four persons shot . She 

said he had been shot in the neck in his case and was in serious condition . Per

ez said she had been told that the refugee ship took off secretly from Mariel , 

Cuba , at 1 a.m. and was about 30 miles off the coast of Havana in international

 waters when attacked by Cuban craft . She said occupants of the refugee boat ha

d shouted that a child had been killed in an effort to stop the firing , but act

ually no child had been killed . The Coast Guard center in Miami identified the 

ship as the Rene Bedia Morales . A State Department spokeswoman said that accord

ing to information received by the department , the refugee ship left Mariel wit

h 61 people aboard . Cuban patrol craft may have pursued and fired on it , then 

abandoned the chase , she said . Coast Guard officials said that so far this yea

r , 2,647 persons from Cuba had been found on boats and rafts seeking to reach t

he United States . Perez , who said her group monitors ham radio operators to tr

ack incidents such as Saturday 's , said `` this has happened on many occasions 

'' inside Cuban territorial waters and had been reported , but `` nothing happen

s '' because such incidents have been viewed as a Cuban internal matter . The re

ported Rene Bedia Morales incident is only the latest in numerous acts against C

ubans attempting to flee the impoverished communist nation . For example , a yea

r ago , according to news accounts , the Cuban coast guard shot and killed three

 Cubans as they boarded a speedboat in Cojimar , near Havana , a sleepy fishing 

town , for an escape to the United States . Last October , Cuban security forces

 shot and killed one man and captured five others in what Cuban papers called a 

plan by `` anti-social and dangerous '' would-be emigrants to escape the country

 using a small boat . Last July , a dozen others were wounded , according to a n

ews report .

 ATLANTA Barron Williams , his suit jacket buttoned on a Saturday morning , pivo

ted in the hotel lobby , thrust out his hand and introduced himself to the fast-

walking man with the African name written on the oversized tag around his neck .

 `` What I 'm trying to do is find a trading partner , a teaming partner , whate

ver you want to call it , '' Williams , owner of a computer systems company outs

ide Atlanta , explained to an onlooker . Williams , like other entrepreneurs eng

aged in a fury of networking in the lobby , was hoping to reach across 8,000 mil

es and line up business deals between American and South African firms . Hunting

 for deals is commonplace at business conferences , but this one was unusual bec

ause the host was the federal government and it had diplomatic as well as financ

ial objectives in mind . The U.S. . Information Agency invited 400 leaders from 

the business , government and nonprofit sectors of the two countries to the two-

day conference , which ended Saturday , to stimulate U.S. ties to South Africa .

 About an equal number of observers showed up uninvited . The agency organized a

 similar meeting in St. Louis last October for Russia and other independent stat

es of the former Soviet Union . In the case of those emerging nations , the Clin

ton administration 's goal has been to help build market economies where none ex

isted . With South Africa , administration officials aim to boost a market econo

my that contracted in the face of international sanctions and needs investment t

o expand and raise the standard of living of its black majority under the post-a

partheid government . `` The key to the future of South Africa and of our relati

onship will be the private sector , '' Vice President Al Gore said at a dinner T

hursday night . `` That 's where the long-term jobs will be created . That 's wh

at will create the infrastructure . That 's what will create the income . '' Sou

th African Deputy President Thabo Mbeki said participants from his nation `` hav

e not come carrying a begging bowl '' but instead sought to increase U.S. invest

ment , `` two-way trade '' and `` mutually beneficial technology and skills tran

sfers . '' The Clinton administration is considering the creation of a governmen

t fund to stimulate joint ventures with South Africa . `` That 's something the 

administration is looking at closely , because it 's had some success in Poland 

and elsewhere in the world , '' said Ernest Wilson , director of international p

rograms at the National Security Council . Private entities announced a dozen jo

int ventures during the conference , while Commerce Secretary Ronald H. Brown an

d South African Minister of Trade and Industry Trevor Manuel said the government

s have formed a joint committee to promote business deals . Brown predicted Amer

icans soon would invest `` hundreds of millions '' in South Africa . `` South Af

rica is one of the few countries in the world where there 's no McDonald 's , ''

 Manuel said . `` While Secretary ( Brown ) may want South Africans to get accus

tomed to McDonald 's , we want Americans to get used to boerewors , and pap and 

vleis . '' He was referring to sausages and a meat stew over corn meal eaten in 

South Africa . Major American companies that withdrew investments from South Afr

ica to protest apartheid are slowly returning . The South African Embassy in Was

hington has received 20 calls a day in response to a mailing to small businesses

 . But U.S. and South African officials acknowledged that attitudinal barriers ,

 as well as fears of political violence , could block interest from turning into

 investment . Gore criticized `` Afro-pessimism , '' a view among some foreign p

olicy specialists that political and civil upheavals preclude sustained developm

ent in Africa . A similar opinion was once held about Asia where some countries 

are growing rapidly `` and they 're wrong about Africa , as well , '' he said . 

During a meeting with international business leaders about investing in South Af

rica , Manuel recalled , an American contractor inquired about political tumult 

in the African nation of Zaire . `` We 're far from Zaire , '' Manuel said . `` 

Zaire is to South Africa what Colombia is to the United States , and I don't qui

te see the Medellin cartel operating as well in the United States . '' Deputy Pr

esident Mbeki cited a potential for U.S. investments in building new housing , p

rocessing raw materials such as platinum and constructing hotels for tourism . S

outh African entrepreneur Rob Williams and Douglas Jerome Brown , an agribusines

s adviser with the U.S. . Agency for International Development , chatted about t

he possibility of joint ventures to export South African wine , which is known f

or its high quality and low price . `` The ( South African ) rand is so weak you

 can buy a bottle of wine for about a dollar .. . good table wine , '' Williams 

said . Allan A . Boesak , economic affairs minister in the Western Cape province

 , said such networking must to yield `` concrete results '' for ordinary South 

Africans to be beneficial . `` If it doesn't do that , '' Boesak said , `` this 

is a handshaking exercise that doesn't have much meaning at all . ''

 PORTSMOUTH , England Standing in a chill rain at a cemetery in the English coun

tryside filled with the graves of fallen American airmen , President Clinton vow

ed Saturday that the political heirs of the D-Day generation would remember its 

sacrifices and carry on its work of expanding democracy . `` The victory of the 

generation we honor today came at a high cost , '' he said in a somber address a

t the Cambridge American Cemetery and Memorial . `` After D-Day it took freedom 

another year to reach the Elbe ; it took another 44 years to reach Warsaw and Pr

ague and East Berlin . And now it has reached Kiev and Moscow and even beyond . 

`` The mission of this time is to secure and expand its reach further , '' he de

clared . Then , speaking of the 3,812 Americans buried in the cemetery and the 5

,126 more missing in action who are memorialized on a long marble wall , he decl

ared : `` We shall always carry on the work of these knights borne on wings . ''

 The speech sounded the theme Clinton is to strike again at Monday 's climactic 

ceremonies in Normandy commemorating the 50th anniversary of the D-Day invasion 

, the massive amphibious assault that turned the tide in World War II . Clinton 

, born a year after the war ended , has begun to talk in broad terms about the c

ontinuing obligations facing a new generation that has benefited from the sacrif

ices of the generation that fought World War II . But the difficulty of deliveri

ng on that powerful rhetoric was underscored a few hours later when Clinton met 

with British Prime Minister John Major at Chequers , the British leader 's offic

ial country retreat . They spent most of the session discussing the escalating n

uclear crisis with North Korea and the continuing bloodshed in Bosnia , where th

e West has failed to end a two-year campaign of `` ethnic cleansing '' and civil

 war . Both men urged the Serbs , Muslims and Croats to accept a peace plan and 

end the fighting in the former Yugoslav republics . `` Continued war will not ad

vance their positions but would continue to strain international patience , '' M

ajor said . And Queen Elizabeth II alluded to Bosnia in her toast at a spectacul

ar state dinner here Saturday night for the 14 heads of state from the countries

 that participated in D-Day . `` We have seen that the peace which victory broug

ht is a fragile thing , '' she said , glittering in a sapphire-encrusted crown a

nd matching earrings and necklace at the black-tie dinner at Portsmouth Guildhal

l . `` Events ' round the world , some of them close to home in Europe , prove t

hat to us day after day . It is up to us to make sure that the prayers of 50 yea

rs ago are truly answered by rededicating ourselves to the creation of a world a

t peace . '' This seaside town was the scene of celebration , with troops marchi

ng , bands playing and entrepreneurs selling commemorative T-shirts and `` crick

ets , '' the tiny noisemakers issued to the D-Day troops as a means of signaling

 one another . The president and first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton spent the nig

ht as the queen 's guests aboard the royal yacht Britannia . But the redoubtable

 British weather provided the same sort of challenge it did a half-century ago ,

 when driving rains forced Supreme Allied Commander Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower to

 delay the invasion for a day . A fierce , cold rain rattled the tents on the Po

rtsmouth docks and jeopardized some of the plans for a commemorative naval armad

a to cross the choppy English Channel Sunday night . ( Optional Add End ) `` It 

would have been historically incorrect to have good weather , '' Gen. John Shali

kashvili , chairman of the U.S. . Joint Chiefs of Staff , said at a rain-drenche

d garden party hosted by the Queen Mother . Earlier , at the Cambridge cemetery