June 4, 1998
PRESS BRIEFING BY MIKE MCCURRY
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
______________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release June 4, 1998
PRESS BRIEFING BY
MIKE MCCURRY
The Briefing Room
3:45 P.M. EDT
....................
Q Mike, there are a number of press conferences and
protests going on around today relating to Tiananmen Square, and by
extension, the President's upcoming trip to China. Later this
afternoon the House will be voting on a resolution calling on the
President not to attend -- go to Tiananmen Square during his visit.
Is the President concerned that all of this creates a negative
atmosphere ahead of the President's trip?
MR. MCCURRY: Well, it reflects something that the
President will be talking about in China, which is the value of
spirited, healthy democratic debate. A lot of the concern expressed,
I think, has to do with policies of the People's Republic that we
have directly engaged them on and policies that we believe have
changed for the better not only since June of 1989, but indeed, since
last year.
We have engaged constructively with the leadership of
the People's Republic of China and the result has been progress
across a broad range of issues in which we have dialogue with them.
The symbolic importance of the events in Tiananmen Square in June of
1989 will never be lost on this government, and indeed we have
addressed them many, many times. But the value and utility of
engaging that government at the highest levels and exchanging state
visits has led to exactly the kind of progress that one would presume
that these critics would want to see. So we find it a little hard to
understand the nature of the logic behind some of the criticisms,
although we certainly understand the emotion.
Q But not the symbolic importance of being received
in Tiananmen Square?
MR. MCCURRY: You've heard me on this before. Since
1989 Prime Minister Hashimoto, former Prime Minister Major of Great
Britain, just recently Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel, President
Chirac of France have all been received in the customary way that
Chinese protocol establishes, which is a reception adjacent to
Tiananmen Square in front of the Great Hall of the People. And it
would be hard to imagine there would be any other way that the
Chinese would do it.
Q Mike, quite often what the President goes to
another country, he meets with human rights activists, victims of
oppression, and so forth. Will he have that kind of opportunity in
China?
MR. MCCURRY: We'll have an opportunity soon to give you
a more detailed trip briefing. I don't have an answer to that right
now.
Q Mike, to what degree will the President be bringing
up missile proliferation, and especially in South Asia, and China's
cooperation with Pakistan's missile --
MR. MCCURRY: China's cooperation with the United States
to address the issue of proliferation in South Asia will certainly be
a subject of dialogue between the two Presidents. It's a subject of
work that the Chinese Foreign Minister is doing with Secretary
Albright today in Geneva. So, naturally, they will want to review
proliferation issues generally.
The question of South Asia will be very much on the
minds of both Presidents because of the importance they both attach
to further steps to de-escalate the tensions that now exist in South
Asia. And all of those issues will be first and foremost on the
minds of the President. They will perhaps spend some time looking at
the history that both the United States and China share when it comes
to technology transfers on the subcontinent. But I think they will
more likely want to look ahead to see what we can do now at this
point to de-escalate tensions.
Q Does the President bring any proposals with him to
deal with missile-type transfers between China and Pakistan?
MR. MCCURRY: We have a very good, vigorous, and
detailed dialogue with them on the commitments they have made to us
with respect to their willingness to abide missile technology control
regime guidelines, MTCR guidelines. And we have had a very vibrant
dialogue with the government of China on exactly that point. And I'm
sure they will review in substantive detail that aspect of our
bilateral agenda.
Q But, Mike, you're talking about this as if the
transfers of technology to Pakistan are all in the past. Is that
what you're saying? China isn't doing it anymore?
MR. MCCURRY: Well, there are technology transfers that
occur, I mean, they're involved in a guideline -- they're involved in
commerce, in goods and services and technologies, just as we are.
Q Right, but the kind of --
MR. MCCURRY: But the kinds of concerns that we might
have with respect to nuclear programs -- I'm not aware that there are
any current allegations that they are transferring technologies that
would be restricted by any of the export control guidelines that we
agreed back and forth bilaterally to honor, or that they, more
importantly, have said that they would abide by internationally.
Q Back on the Tiananmen Square welcoming ceremony,
given the bipartisan nature of some of the criticism -- both
Democrats and Republicans are concerned with this -- did we explore
with the Chinese any alternative to breaking with protocol in --
MR. MCCURRY: Mr. Berger is -- as I told many of you
this morning, Mr. Berger's work in Beijing focused on the substance
of this relationship, how we can make progress on human rights,
economics, trade, the work that we're talking about just now in
controlling proliferation of dangerous technologies of weapons of
mass destruction. We are interested in the substantive work that
will go into making this a successful summit meeting. Protocol is
always important, logistics are always important, but they were
secondary in Mr. Berger's discussion.
Q So they didn't come up?
MR. MCCURRY: Look, we are meeting at the highest
levels, with the President of the People's Republic of China, because
it's the right thing to do in the President's opinion. And with that
goes the protocol that is established by governments when they
exchange state visits at this level. If the critics are questioning
the utility of that policy, that's a healthy debate to have. But I
don't think we should allow debates about protocol and style and
symbolism replace what should be useful discussions of policy. If
there is a disagreement on policy, let's have it. Let's debate the
merits of whether or not engagement works. But otherwise,
symbolically, I think we've addressed that issue and it's time to
move on.
Q There is one debate on policy that is happening on
the Hill ---- that's raising again the issue -- it's another human
rights of using Chinese prison labor, harvesting organs to use in
Chinese society. -- even though you got the question before about
negative atmosphere, does this sort of thing interfere substantively
with policy or proposals that you're discussing with the Chinese?
MR. MCCURRY: That is a concern that we have raised in
the past because the allegations about that commerce have been made
before and because we've actually had some success, as a law
enforcement question, of impeding some of that type of commerce. We
have raised this issue in the past with the Chinese government. They
have law under their own legal system that prohibits that type of
commerce, and they have acknowledged to us that they take also
seriously the importance of trying to regulate and control and
enforce laws, especially criminal laws, with respect to that type of
commerce.
.................
Q Just to go back to this Tiananmen Square thing.
You said that substance is primary and the logistics and the protocol
are secondary. Does that mean that Sandy tried and failed to address
the logistics, or he didn't try at all?
MR. MCCURRY: I addressed that question already and told
you --
Q No, you didn't.
MR. MCCURRY: -- I gave you some sense of what Sandy's
priorities were as he met with his authorities.
Q But I'm asking, on the secondary priority, did he
try, did he discuss that, or did he fail to make --
MR. MCCURRY: I'm not aware that -- look, I told you
that because this is a state visit and because there's protocol
associated with a state visit, they reviewed that subject. But I'm
not aware that there was any extensive discussion of changing what
would be normal protocol practices by the Chinese.
Q Mike, on the substance side, the Chinese Foreign
Ministry spokesman recently has said that the U.S. and China have
never cooperated so closely at the highest levels as they have
recently over the proliferation question in South Asia. First, would
you agree with that statement? And second, can you just give an
overview of Sandy Berger's discussions with the Chinese on that?
MR. MCCURRY: I think I've already given you an overview
of Mr. Berger's discussions. Obviously, I'm not going to go into
much substantive detail because the work he was doing was setting the
stage for the meeting that the two Presidents will have, and there
will be a lot more to say after they meet. But I would concur that
our work together on proliferation issues has been extensive and very
valued, particularly at a moment when we are wrestling with the
issues of South Asia that we were talking about earlier.
...............
END 3:30 P.M. EDT
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
