ACCESSION NUMBER:00000
FILE ID:95071902.POL
DATE:07/19/95
TITLE:STATE DEPARTMENT REPORT, WEDNESDAY, JULY 19
NEWS BRIEFING -- Spokesman Nicholas Burns discussed the following
topics:
NOT PROPER TO PLACE UNDUE BURDEN ON U.S.-CHINA MEETING
The spokesman warned that it would not be proper "to place an undue
burden" on the August 1 meeting between Secretary of State Christopher
and Chinese Foreign Minister Qian Qichen in Brunei.
The meeting will provide a very good opportunity to address the most
important issues in U.S.-China relations, and it is a very important
meeting, he said. "It's important because of the troubles we've had,
the misunderstandings that have characterized a number of issues in
the relationship."
While Christopher is looking forward to his meeting with Qian, "I
don't think it's proper to place an undue burden on this meeting,"
Burns told reporters. "Somehow there's been some sense from Beijing
that this meeting has to resolve all the major issues, that it's a
decisive turning point.
"It's certainly a very important meeting, but there should be
important engagements -- meetings -- between the United States and
China beyond August 1 and we fully expect that will happen," the
spokesman said.
On one of the controversies between Washington and Beijing, Burns said
Chinese authorities denied a U.S. Embassy officer's request to meet
with Harry Wu, a prominent Sino-American human rights expert who was
detained last month after crossing into China from Kazakhstan. While
on a previously scheduled July 16-19 trip to Wu Han in Western China,
the embassy officer asked permission to visit Wu. After weighing the
request for two days, Chinese officials denied it, Burns said.
Although the embassy officer was not permitted to visit Wu, Chinese
officials told her that they had been "authorized to receive from her
and pass to Mr. Wu a power of attorney form and English-language
reading material that he had requested and that she had brought for
him," the spokesman said.
"We're disappointed that our officer was not allowed to see him and we
will seek...further access to him," Burns said. The U.S.-China
consular convention requires that consular access to detainees be
granted at least once every 30 days. A consular officer visited Wu
earlier this month. "We're asking the Chinese government for greater
flexibility," the spokesman said.
U.S. SEEKING INFORMATION ABOUT CHINESE MISSILE TESTS
The United States is seeking additional information about Chinese
military missile tests before issuing any formal comment, the
spokesman said.
"We've certainly noted the recent announcement by the Chinese Peoples
Liberation Army, the PLA, of surface-to-surface missile exercises
approximately 150 kilometers north of Taiwan in the East China Sea,"
he said, adding the United States intends to seek more information
from the Chinese government on the purpose of the tests and their
duration.
"Since we have very little information, really not more than you have
from press reports," Burns told reporters, "I don't think it's wise or
appropriate to deliver a comment, negative or positive, on these
tests. I think it's really much wiser for us to speak to the Chinese
government first.
"We want to deal in a very professional, stable manner; we want to
give them a chance to let us know what they are doing and to assure
ourselves that we have sufficient information to form an opinion on
them, and we certainly are not in that position."
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