Back in 1992, Candidate Clinton made great sport of President Bush’s China policy. Too soft, too cozy, too soon after the massacre at Tiananmen Square.

What a difference six years and the responsibility of office can make. Not to mention charges that American security has been undermined by a swap of missile technology for campaign cash. Or the 13 Chinese missiles aimed at American cities.

President Clinton insists his trip to Beijing will go ahead as planned. He sees nothing wrong with participating in a welcoming ceremony at that bloody plaza where more than 1,000 protesters were slaughtered nine years ago. If the president cannot still hear their cries, he might remember his own campaign promise that he would not “do business as usual with those who murdered freedom at Tiananmen Square.”

At the very least, he might reflect upon his campaign pledge that, under a Clinton administration, trade with China would be linked with “respect for human rights, political liberalization and responsible international conduct.”

That link has been broken. In fact, it was never forged. China has always enjoyed most favored nation trading status; many of Mr. Clinton’s most severe Republican critics were, in previous lives, staunch supporters of the these now-controversial satellite exports, but it is this administration that moved to take human rights out of the equation entirely. And trade with China has boomed — imports of Chinese goods have more than doubled since 1992 and, despite a flood of American technology going the other way, so has our trade deficit.

Meanwhile, China’s performance in the human rights arena is as dreadful as ever. In 1996, a State Department report on China found “widespread and well-documented human-rights abuses.” A 1997 update showed no improvement. China’s export of a few dissidents is a sham that fools no one. Except, apparently, those in the White House.

Of course the United States must remain engaged with China, the door must be kept open. It is a nation far too populous and powerful to ignore. But the economic might of the United States was supposed to be the lever that moved China in a more humane direction. So far, the effort has been repaid with a pile of worthless IOUs.

And that’s why the purpose of this China trip is so unclear. Perhaps it is to convey this country’s concern with China’s domestic and international policies. Or perhaps it is to convince the American public that repression, technology transfer and those 13 missiles just don’t stack up against access to the world’s largest pool of potential consumers and cheap labor. Perhaps it’s just business as usual.