CLINTON OKS TRADE SANCTIONS IF CHINA DOES NOT STOP PIRACY.

Byline: David E. Sanger The New York Times

President Clinton, meeting with his top foreign policy and economic advisers about rising tensions with China, approved a plan Wednesday to go ahead with sanctions on Chinese exports to the United States if Beijing fails to stop producing pirated American software, movies and music, the White House said.

Clinton told the acting U.S. trade representative, Charlene Barshefsky, to proceed next week with the publication of a list of goods totaling about $3 billion annually that could be subject to 100 percent tariffs June 15 unless China complies with an accord it signed with the United States a year ago.

Before the sanctions are imposed, the list is likely to be winnowed to about $2 billion, roughly equivalent to the damage that the administration estimates is being done to American software producers and entertainment companies by pirates each year. That would represent only about 5 percent of China's annual exports to the United States.

``The president reaffirmed that if we don't get satisfaction, we have no choice but to go ahead with the sanctions,'' David Johnson, a White House spokesman, said Wednesday evening.

While the session focused on the dispute over China's failure to protect intellectual property, White House officials said that far more was at stake. The meeting also discussed a growing concern that relations with Beijing are slipping further, with no clear strategy for ending the cycle of threats and counterthreats.

As a result, nearly all top Cabinet members took part in the meeting: Secretary of State Warren Christopher, who is considering separate sanctions against China for its shipment of nuclear materials to Pakistan; Defense Secretary William Perry; Gen. John Shalikashvili, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin; and Commerce Secretary Mickey Kantor.

But participants said there was little discussion of a grander plan for dealing with China. Instead, the meeting discussed how to design the sanctions list so that it is likely to have the maximum impact on Chinese companies, especially those close to the government and the military, while causing the least disruption to American retailers and others who might protest the action.

Administration officials said that the list will be sent to Lee Sands, a trade negotiator who is to be in Beijing on Monday and Tuesday, just before the May 15 deadline that Washington set for action by China on a plan to carry out last year's accords. Presumably Sands will brief Chinese leaders on the contents in the hope of extracting a last-minute settlement.

But even if the Chinese made some accommodation that prevented the list from being published, China will still have 30 days to act before the Customs Service begins applying the 100 percent duties.