does clip plus turn on during charge?

When I charge, I always do so with the Clip not playing anything (or if the player is set to FM, having the FM radio paused); between that and having set the player to turn after after a set period of inactivity, I believe that this takes care of your issue and the player, then, just would turn off.  Easy.

Alternatively, you could charge the player through a power source that doesn’t shut off, as noted above.