DOLE FLAYS CLINTON'S ASIA POLICY : GOP LEADER STILL SUPPORTS PRESIDENT ON TRADE PRIVILEGES FOR CHINA.

Byline: Katharine Q. Seelye The New York Times

In a blistering election-year attack on President Clinton's foreign policy in Asia, Sen. Bob Dole lacerated the administration Thursday as incoherent and naive and said the president's ``double talk'' had undercut U.S. authority abroad.

``As a direct result of the weak leadership, vacillation and inconsistency which are the hallmarks of Clinton administration foreign policy, the world's sole superpower finds itself drifting and defensive, with an uncertain course and an untrusted voice in the Pacific Basin,'' said Dole, the presumed Republican presidential nominee.

Nonetheless, while Dole asserted that his would be a different kind of presidency, he appeared to back many administration positions.

Most prominently, Dole reaffirmed his support for renewing preferential trade privileges for China, lining up solidly behind the administration and spurning the conservative wing of his own party. Still, he said, Clinton's weak leadership on the matter threatened its prospects on Capitol Hill.

``As we have seen in Bosnia, Iran, Cuba and elsewhere, when President Clinton is faced with a fork in the foreign policy road, he takes it,'' Dole said.

As Dole continued to sink Thursday in the public opinion polls, the five-term senator from Kansas drew on one of his perceived strengths - his toughness on foreign policy - to counter the president on one of his perceived weaknesses, his lack of firm footing on the world stage and his reputation for changeability.

Clinton has ``squandered the rich foreign-policy legacy he inherited by making inconsistency, confusion and incoherence the common features of American diplomacy,'' Dole said. He said the president's track record ``of weakness, indecision, double talk'' had undermined U.S. interests.

The speech, delivered at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a nonpartisan research organization, took months to draft and nearly an hour for Dole to read.

``There's a lot more than simply, Dole announces support for extending MFN,'' a Dole aide said - referring to most-favored-nation or MFN trade status for China.

But Dole's position on this issue has been a central question since he appeared to waver last month in his long-held support for MFN status for China. He has been under pressure from conservatives who want a tougher stand toward China and want Dole to distinguish himself from Clinton.

The Dole team provided advanced text of the speech and a background briefing for reporters, and the Clinton team responded immediately by making top officials available for interviews - using Vice President Al Gore to answer Dole.

Gore praised Dole for ``courage'' in supporting the president's policy on trade with China and for backing Clinton's announcement this week that he will impose significant sanctions on some of China's exports - while continuing the preferential trade status - if China continues to pirate American software, music and videos.

``I think he showed courage in rejecting the growing forces of isolationism and know-nothingism in the Republican Party'' in the middle of a campaign, Gore said.

As for the rest of Dole's criticism of Clinton's Asia policy - the senator accused the president of ``coddling'' North Korea, slighting South Korea and ``amateurish posturing'' in trade disputes with Japan - Gore was dismissive, calling it ``fluff and dust'' required by partisan politics to disguise the fact that Dole generally agreed with administration policy.

A White House official said Dole appeared desperate in employing a strategy of ``slandering'' the president.

``Their strategy is to use foreign policy as a character issue because they can't fight us any other way,'' the official said. ``They are grasping at straws to find something to criticize us about, when it's basically an endorsement of our policy.''

Conservatives, led by Pat Buchanan, Dole's erstwhile rival for the Republican nomination, have been railing against renewal of trade privileges for China, citing Beijing's human rights abuses, forced abortions and selling of nuclear technology to rogue nations.