Members of Puget Consumers Cooperative have voted 52 percent to 48 percent to reject a boycott of China.

It is the second such vote at PCC, and reverses one taken three years ago. Of the 35,000 active members, about 8.5 percent voted this time, up from about 6 percent in 1996.

The co-op, which had $45 million in sales last year, runs the seven PCC Natural Markets in the Seattle area.

A group of members first proposed a China boycott in 1995. PCC's nine-member board of trustees, which is elected by co-op members, rejected the boycott.

The anti-China group took up a petition, which at PCC takes only 1 percent of members, and put the measure on the co-op's ballot. In May 1996, their proposal won a majority of votes. PCC removed Chinese garlic presses, wire whisks, pine nuts, cinnamon, medicinal herbs and other items from its shelves.

Co-op spokeswoman Bridgette Boudreau said members complained about the herbs. "So many of our shoppers count on those products for their health," she said.

Others objected to singling out China. "They were calling us hypocrites because we stopped carrying Chinese cinnamon and brought in Indonesian cinnamon," she said.

PCC's China boycott expired in May 1998. In its place, the co-op sent out questionnaires to 1,000 vendors, asking whether human rights were being observed in the supply chain.

"The responses have been really thoughtful," she said. "Some of the vendors write pages and pages about how they choose suppliers."

This became consumer information in what the co-op called the "Voting with Your Dollars" program.

It didn't satisfy the critics. A company boycott is "far more effective," wrote Dr. Heather Woods, a naturopathic physician active in the boycott campaign. Woods said PCC had to take its vendors at their word, and there was no way to verify statements about human rights in China.

Boudreau admitted that. "At a certain point, we're relying on them to be honest with us," she said. But engaging the vendors "reflects our values and PCC's core business" better than a boycott, she said.

The two sides disagreed whether the influence of business was good or bad. "The more money China makes, the worse it gets for human rights there," Woods wrote. Management argued that a boycott would hurt "pro-democracy entrepreneurs who are fueling positive change."

The trustees were officially neutral, but unlike the vote in 1996, management campaigned for a "no." "A boycott pre-empts your right to make informed choices," said management's pamphlet.

Under a boycott, it said, members "will be unable to purchase Chinese herbs important to their health, such as astragalus, dong quai, fo-ti, ginger and Siberian ginseng."

Woods argued that Chinese herbs were available from Taiwan and other sources, including the United States.

Opponents complained that their pamphlets were not treated equally by some store employees. And, Woods wrote, "Management and staff should not take sides in member initiatives, as this is up to members who are the owners of the PCC."

Woods' husband, David Ritt, a trombone player in the Seattle Symphony, said the campaign this year was different from three years ago. PCC, in his view, was not acting like a cooperative. "It's a company now," he said.

He had been loyal to PCC, he said, because it was different from a company.

He said, "You can buy cheaper soy milk at Fred Meyer."

The co-op's management, having won the vote, was eager to make peace.

"We're going to work out a plan to have some of the Tibetans' information in our stores, so they can get their message out," Boudreau said.

Woods said she was encouraged at these plans. "We will be looking to see if they follow through on this," she said.