Thursday August 31 6:19 p.m. EDT

China, U.S. Ties Dogged By Politics

WASHINGTON, Aug 31 (Reuter) - China and the United States are easing strains in their relations, but politics in both nations may delay putting diplomatic ties fully back on track.

In the United States, the Republican-controlled Congress has complicated President Clinton's hunt for a formula to manage relations with Beijing, which broke off high-level contacts in June in anger over a U.S. nod toward Taiwan.

Republican leaders have been big backers of Taiwan, which Beijing views as a renegade province that must eventually return to the control of the communist-run mainland.

Clinton, a Democrat, turned the tables during the 1992 White House campaign by accusing then-President George Bush of ``coddling'' Beijing despite the 1989 massacre of pro-democracy demonstrators at Tiananmen Square.

Now, Republicans seem bent on revenge in the approach to next year's presidential elections. They may seek to tar Clinton as an unsteady foreign policy hand.

``I think they're going to accuse the president of coddling China,'' said William Clark, an assistant secretary of state for East Asia during the Bush years. ``It's going to be a flip.''

In a decision that infuriated Beijing, Clinton granted Lee Teng-hui, Taiwan's president, a visa in June to pay a private visit to his alma mater, Cornell University.

China retaliated by recalling its ambassador, stalling the naming of a new U.S. ambassador to Beijing and breaking off military and security talks on human rights, curbing the spread of nuclear weapons and other non-proliferation issues.

The ice began to break when Beijing sent human rights activist Harry Wu home to the U.S. last week rather than force him to serve jail time on spying charges. That cleared the way for Hillary Rodham Clinton to lead the U.S. delegation to a womens' congress in Beijing next week.

It also set the stage for a fence-mending visit to Beijing last week by Undersecretary of State Peter Tarnoff.