The White House Briefing Room
April 7, 1999
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT IN FOREIGN POLICY SPEECH
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
______________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release April 7, 1999
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
IN FOREIGN POLICY SPEECH
Mayflower Hotel
Washington. D.C.
10:33 A.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Richard. Max Kampelman,
thank you for being with me today. And I thank the U.S. Institute
for Peace for arranging this presentation on this, as I'm sure all of
you know, relatively short notice.
I'd also like to acknowledge the presence here with me
today of Secretary Albright and Ambassador Barshefsky, National
Security Advisor Berger, and two important former members of my
national security team, Tony Lake and Tara Sonenshine, who is a
senior advisor here the to Institute for Peace.
I would like to begin just by thanking this body for
what you do every day to help our administration and the Congress and
the American people think through the most challenging foreign policy
issues of our time. And I thank you in particular for your
determination to reach out to a younger generation of Americans to
talk to them about the importance of these issues and the world they
will live in.
In February, I gave a speech in San Francisco about
America's role in the century to come. We all know it's an
extraordinary moment when there is no overriding threat to our
security; when no great power need feel that any other is a military
threat; when freedom is expanding and open markets and technology are
raising living standards on every continent, bringing the world
closer together in countless ways.
But I also argued that globalization is not an unmixed
blessing. In fact, the benefits of globalization -- openness and
opportunity -- depend on the very things globalization alone cannot
guarantee -- peace, democracy, the stability of markets, social
justice, the protection of health and the environment.
Globalization can bring repression and human rights
violations and suffering into the open, but it cannot prevent them.
It can promote integration among nations, but also lead to
disintegration within them. It can bring prosperity on every
continent, but still leave many, many people behind. It can give
people the modern tools of the 21st century, but it cannot purge
their hearts of the primitive hatreds that may lead to the misuse of
those tools. Only national governments, working together, can reap
the full promise and reduce the problems of the 21st century.
The United States, as the largest and strongest country
in the world at this moment -- largest in economic terms and
military terms -- has the unavoidable responsibility to lead in
this increasingly interdependent world, to try to help meet the
challenges of this new era.
Clearly, our first challenge is to build a more
peaceful world, one that will apparently be dominated by ethnic
and religious conflicts we once thought of primitive, but which
Senator Moynihan, for example, has referred to now as
post-modern. We know that we cannot stop all such conflicts.
But when the harm is great and when our values and interests are
at stake, and when we have the means to make a difference, we
should try.
That is what we and our NATO allies are doing in Kosovo
-- trying to end the horrible war there, trying to aid the
struggling democracies of Southeastern Europe, all of whom are
threatened by the violence, the hatred, the human exodus
President Milosevic's brutal campaign has unleashed. We are
determined to stay united and to persist until we prevail.
It is not enough now for Mr. Milosevic to say that his
forces will cease fire in Kosovo, denied its freedom and devoid
of its people. He must withdraw his forces, let the refugees
return, permit the deployment of an international security force.
Nothing less will bring peace with security to the people of
Kosovo.
The second challenge I discussed in San Francisco in
February is that of bringing our former adversaries, Russia and
China, into the international system as open, prosperous and
stable nations. Today, I want to speak especially about our
relationship with China, one that is being tested and hotly
debated today as China's Premier, Zhu Rongji, travels to
Washington.
Of course, we all know that perceptions affect
policies. And American perceptions about China have often
changed in this century. In the early 1900s, most Americans saw
China through the eyes of missionaries seeking open hearts, or
traders seeking open markets. During World War II, China was our
ally; during the Korean War, our adversary. During the Cold War,
we debated whether China was a solid stone in the monolith of
world communism, or a country with interests and traditions that
could make it a counterweight to Soviet power.
More recently, many Americans have looked to China to
see either the world's next great capitalist tiger and an
enormous motherlode of economic opportunity for American
companies and American workers, or the world's last great
communist dragon and next great threat to freedom and security.
For a long time, it seems to me, we have argued about
China with competing caricatures. Is this a country to be
engaged, or isolated? Is this a country beyond our power to
influence, or a country that is ours to gain and ours to lose?
Now we hear that China is a country to be feared. A growing
number of people say that it is the next great threat to our
security and our well-being.
What about this argument? Well, those who say it point
out, factually, that if China's economy continues to grow on its
present trajectory, it will be the world's largest in the next
century. They argue, correctly, that the Chinese government
often defines its interests in ways sharply divergent from ours.
They are concerned, rightly, by Chinese missiles aimed at Taiwan
and at others. From this they conclude that China is, or will
be, our enemy.
They claim it is building up its military machine for
aggression, and using the profits of our trade to pay for it.
They urge us, therefore, to contain China -- to deny it access to
our markets, our technology, our investment, and to bolster the
strength of our allies in Asia to counter the threat a strong
China will pose in the 21st century.
What about that scenario? Clearly, if it chooses to do
so, China could pursue such a course, pouring much more of its
wealth into military might and into traditional great power
geopolitics. Of course, this would rob it of much of its future
prosperity, and it is far from inevitable that China will choose
this path. Therefore, I would argue that we should not make it
more likely that China will choose this path by acting as if that
decision has already been made.
I say this over and over again, but when I see this
China debate in America, with people talking about how we've got
to contain China and they present a terrible threat to us in the
future and its inevitable and how awful it is, I remind people
who work with us that the same kind of debate is
going on in China -- people saying the Americans do not want us
to emerge, they do not want us to have our rightful position in
the world, their whole strategy is designed to keep us down on
the farm.
And we have to follow a different course. We cannot
afford caricatures. I believe we have to work for the better
future that we want, even as we remain prepared for any outcome.
This approach will clearly put us at odds with those who believe
America must always have a great enemy. How can you be the great
force for good in the world and justify all the things you do if
you don't have a great enemy.
I don't believe that. I believe we have to work for
the best, but do it in a way that will never leave us unprepared
in the event that our efforts do not succeed.
Among the first decisions I made in 1993 was to
preserve the alliances that kept the peace during the Cold War.
That meant in Asia, we kept 100,000 troops there, and maintained
robust alliances with Japan, Korea, Thailand, Australia and the
Philippines. We did this, and have done it, not to contain China
or anyone else, but to give confidence to all that the potential
threats to Asia's security will remain just that -- potential --
and that America remains committed to being involved with Asia
and to Asia's stability.
We've maintain our strong, unofficial ties to a
democratic Taiwan, while upholding our one-China policy. We've
encouraged both sides to resolve their differences peacefully and
to have increased contact. We've made clear that neither can
count on our acceptance if it violates these principles.
We know that in the past decade China has increased its
deployment of missiles near Taiwan. When China tested some of
those missiles in 1996, tensions grew in the Taiwan Strait. We
demonstrated then with the deployment of our carriers that
America will act to prevent a miscalculation there. Our
interests lie in peace and stability in Taiwan and in China, in
the Strait and in the region, and in a peaceful resolution of the
differences. We will do what is necessary to maintain our
interest.
Now, we have known since the early 1980s that China has
nuclear armed missiles capable of reaching the United States.
Our defense posture has and will continue to take account of that
reality. In part, because of our engagement, China has, at best,
only marginally increased its deployed nuclear threat in the last
15 years. By signing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, China
has accepted constraints on its ability to modernize its arsenal
at a time when the nuclear balance remains overwhelmingly in our
favor. China has fewer than two dozen long-range nuclear weapons
today; we have over 6,000.
We are determined to prevent the diversion of
technology and sensitive information to China. The restrictions
we place on our exports to China are tougher than those applied
to any other major exporting country in the world.
When we first learned, in 1995, that a compromise had
occurred at our weapons labs, our first priority was to find the
leak, to stop it, and to prevent further damage. When the Energy
Department and the FBI discovered wider vulnerabilities, we
launched a comprehensive effort to address them. Last year, I
issued a directive to dramatically strengthen security at the
energy labs. We have increased the Department's
counterintelligence budget by 15-fold since 1995.
But we need to be sure we're getting the job done.
Last month, I asked the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory
Board, an independent, bipartisan body chaired by former Senator
Warren Rudman, to review the security threat and the adequacy of
the measures we have taken to address it. It is vital that we
meet this challenge with firmness and openness, but without fear.
The issue is how to respond to this. I believe we
should not look at China through rose-colored glasses, nor should
we look through a glass darkly to see an image that distorts
China's strength and ignores its complexities. We need to see
China clearly -- its progress and its problems, its system and
its strains, its policies and its perceptions of us, of itself,
of the world. Indeed, we should apply a bit of universal wisdom
that China's late leader, Deng Xiaoping, used to preach, we
should seek the truth from facts.
In the last 20 years, China has made incredible
progress, in building a new economy, lifting more than 200
million people out of absolute poverty. But consider this: Its
working age population is increasing by more than 10 million
people, the equivalent of the state of Illinois, every year.
Tens of millions of Chinese families are migrating from the
countryside, where they see no future, to the city where only
some find work. Due in part to the Asian economic crisis,
China's economic growth is slowing just when it needs to be
rising to create jobs for the unemployed and to maintain support
for economic reform.
For all the progress of China's reforms, private
enterprise still accounts for less than 20 percent of the
non-farm economy. Much of China's landscape is still dominated
by unprofitable polluting state industries. China state banks
are still making massive loans to struggling state firms, the
sector of the economy least likely to succeed.
Now, I'm met with Premier Zhu before. I know, and I
think all of you know, that he is committed to making necessary,
far-reaching changes. He and President Ziang are working to
reform banks and state enterprises and to fight corruption.
Indeed, one of China's highest public security officials was
arrested several weeks ago on corruption charges.
They also know that in the short run, reform will cause
more unemployment, and that can cause unrest. But so far,
they've been unwilling to open up China's political system
because they see that as contributing to instability when, in
fact, giving people a say in their decisions actually provides a
peaceful outlet for venting frustration.
China's biggest challenge in the coming years will be
to maintain stability and growth at home by meeting, not
stifling, the growing demands of its people for openness and
accountability. It is easy for us to say; for them, it is a
daunting task.
What does all this mean for us? Well, if we've learned
anything in the last few years from Japan's long recession and
Russia's current economic troubles, it is that the weaknesses of
great nations can pose as big a challenge to America as their
strengths. So as we focus on the potential challenge that a
strong China could present to the United States in the future,
let us not forget the risk of a weak China, beset by internal
conflicts, social dislocation and criminal activity, becoming a
vast zone of instability in Asia.
Despite Beijing's best efforts to rein in these
problems, we have seen the first danger signs -- free-wheeling
Chinese enterprises selling weapons abroad, the rise in China of
organized crime, stirrings of ethnic tensions and rural unrest,
the use of Chinese territory for heroin trafficking, and even
piracy of ships at sea. In short, we're seeing in China the
kinds of problems a society can face when it is moving away from
the rule of fear, but is not yet firmly rooted in the rule of
law.
The solutions fundamentally lie in the choices China
makes. But I think we would all agree, we have an interest in
seeking to make a difference and in not pretending that the
outcome is foreordained. We can't do that simply by confronting
China or trying to contain her. We can only deal with the
challenge if we continue a policy of principled, purposeful
engagement with China's leaders and China's people.
Our long-term strategy must be to encourage the right
kind of development in China -- to help China grow at home into a
strong, prosperous and open society, coming together, not falling
apart; to integrate China into the institutions that promote
global norms on proliferation, trade, the environment, and human
rights. We must build on opportunities for cooperation with
China where we agree, even as we strongly defend our interests
and values where we disagree. That is the purpose of engagement.
Not to insulate our relationship from the consequences of Chinese
actions, but to use our relationship to influence China's actions
in a way that advances our values and our interests.
That is what we have done for the last six years, with
the following tangible results. In no small measure as a result
of our engagement, China helped us to convince North Korea to
freeze the production of plutonium, and, for now, to refrain from
more new missile tests. It has been our partner in averting a
nuclear confrontation in South Asia. Not long ago, China was
selling dangerous weapons and technologies with impunity. Since
the 1980s, it has joined the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty,
the Chemical Weapons Convention, the Biological Weapons
Convention, and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty -- and accepted
the safeguards, reporting requirements, and inspection systems
that go with each.
We have also convinced China not to provide new
assistance to Iran's nuclear program, to stop selling Iran
anti-ship cruise missiles, and to halt assistance to
unsafeguarded nuclear facilities in Pakistan. Now it's important
that China join the Missile Technology Control Regime, a step
President Jiang agreed to consider at least year's summit in
Beijing.
We also have an interest in integrating China into the
world trading system and in seeing it join the World Trade
Organization on clearly acceptable, commercial terms. This is a
goal America has been working toward in a bipartisan fashion for
13 years now. Getting this done and getting it done right is
profoundly in our national interests. It is not a favor to
China; it is the best way to level the playing field.
China already has broad access to our markets, as you
can see from any perusal of recent trade figures. If China
accepts the responsibilities that come with WTO membership, that
will give us broad access to China's markets, while accelerating
its internal reforms and propelling it toward acceptance of the
rule of law.
The bottom line is this: If China is willing to play
by the global rules of trade, it would be an inexplicable mistake
for the United States to say no.
We have an interest as well in working with China to
preserve the global environment. Toward the middle of the next
century, China will surpass the United States as the world's
largest emitter of greenhouse gases. At last year's summit in
China, I made it clear there can be no meaningful solution to
this problem unless China is a part of it. But I also
emphasized, as I do over and over again -- with sometimes mixed
effect -- that rapidly developing technologies now make it
possible for China -- indeed, for India, for any other developing
economy -- to be environmentally responsible without sacrificing
economic growth.
That challenge is at the top of Vice President Gore's
agenda on the forum on environment and development he shares with
Premier Zhu. It will be meeting this week.
We have been encouraging the development of clean
natural gas in China and cleaner technologies for burning coal.
We've been working with China on a study of emissions trading, a
tool that has cut pollution at low cost in the United States and
which could do the same for China. In the Information Age, China
need not, indeed, China will not be able, to grow its economy by
clinging to Industrial Age energy practices.
Finally, let me say we have an interest in encouraging
China to respect the human rights of its people and to give them
a chance to shape the political destiny of their country. This
is an interest that cuts to the heart of our concerns about
China's future.
Because wealth is generated by ideas today, China will
be less likely to succeed if its people cannot exchange
information freely. China also will be less likely to succeed if
it does not build the legal and political foundation to compete
for global capital; less likely to succeed if its political
system does not gain the legitimacy that comes from democratic
choice.
China's leaders believe that significant political
reform carries enormous risk of instability at this moment in
their history. We owe it to any country to give a respectful
listen to their stated policy about such matters. But the
experience of the rest of Asia during this present economic
crisis shows that the risks of delaying reform are greater than
the risks of embracing it.
As Indonesia learned, you cannot deal with social
resentment by denying people the right to voice it. As Korea and
Thailand have shown the world, expressed dissent is far less
dangerous than repressed dissent. Both countries are doing
better now because their elected governments have the legitimacy
to pursue reform.
In fact, almost every goal to which China's leaders are
dedicated, from maintaining stability to rooting out corruption,
to reuniting peacefully with Taiwan, would actually be advanced
if they embraced greater openness and accountability.
We have promoted that goal by airing differences
candidly and directly with China's leaders, by encouraging closer
ties between American and Chinese people. Those ties have
followed in the wake of official contacts, and have the potential
to bring change.
The people-to-people ties have made it possible for
over 100,000 Chinese students and scholars to study in America,
and thousands of American teachers and scholars -- students -- to
go to China. They have enabled American non-governmental
organizations to help people in China set up NGOs of their own.
They have allowed Americans to work with local governments,
universities and citizens' groups in China -- to save wetlands
and forests, to manage urban growth, to support China's first
private schools, to hook up schools to the Internet, to train
journalists, to promote literacy for poor women, to make loans
for Tibetan entrepreneurs, to begin countless projects that are
sparking the growth of China's civil society. They have
permitted Chinese lawyers, judges and legal scholars to come to
America to study our system.
Now, we don't assume for a moment that this kind of
engagement alone can give rise to political reform in China, but
despite the obstacles they face, the Chinese people clearly enjoy
more freedom -- in where they work, and where they live, and
where they go -- than they did a decade ago.
China has seen the emergence of political associations,
consumer groups, tenant organizations, newspapers that expose
corruption and experiments in village democracy. It has seen
workers demanding representation and a growing number of people
seeking the right to form political parties, despite the
persecution they face. I met with many such agents of change
when I visited China last year.
Of course, it is precisely because these changes are
meaningful that the Chinese government is pushing back. Its
actions may be aimed at individuals, but they are clearly
designed to send a message to all Chinese that they should not
test the limits of political freedom. The message they send the
world, however, is quite different. It is one of insecurity, not
strength. We often see that a tight grip is actually a sign of a
weak hand.
Now, we have made it clear to China's leaders that we
think it's simply wrong to arrest people whose only offense has
been to engage in organized and peaceful political expression.
That right is universally recognized and democratic nations have
a duty to defend it. That is why we are seeking support at the
U.N. Human Rights Commission in Geneva for a resolution on human
rights in China.
We will also urge China to embrace the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights -- in word and in deed.
We will keep pressing the Congress to fund programs that promote
the rule of law in China. We will keep working to promote a
dialogue between China and the Dalai Lama, and respect for
Tibet's cultural and religious heritage.
But there is one thing that we will not do. We will
not change our policy in a way that isolates China from the
global forces that have begun to empower the Chinese people to
change their society and build a better future. For that would
leave the people of China with less access to information, less
contact with the democratic world, and more resistance from their
government to outside influence and ideas.
In all these areas, the debate China's policy has
sparked in our country can be constructive by reminding us that
we still face challenges in the world that require our vigilance.
It can also remind the Chinese government that the relationship
between our two countries depends in large measure not only on
the actions of the President and the Executive Branch, but on the
support of the American people and our Congress, which cannot be
taken for granted.
But as the next presidential election approaches, we
cannot allow a healthy argument to lead us toward a
campaign-driven Cold War with China; for that would have tragic
consequences: an America riven by mistrust and bitter
accusations; an end to diplomatic contact that has produced
tangible gains for our people; a climate of mistrust that hurts
Chinese Americans and undermines the exchanges that are opening
China to the world.
No one could possibly gain from that except for the
most rigid, backward-looking elements in China itself. Remember
what I said at the outset: The debate we're having about China
today in the United States is mirrored by a debate going on in
China about the United States. And we must be sensitive to how
we handle this, and responsible.
I know the vast majority of Americans and members of
Congress don't want this to happen. I will do everything in our
power to see that it does not, so that we stay focused on our
vital interests and the real challenges ahead.
We have much to be concerned about. There is North
Korea, South Asia, the potential for tensions in the Taiwan
Strait and the South China Sea. There is the tragic plight of
political prisoners; the possibility, also, that China will not
realize its growth potential, that it will become unstable
because of the distressed economy and angry people.
But we have every reason to approach our challenges
with confidence and with patience. Our country, after all, now,
is at the height of its power and the peak of its prosperity.
Democratic values are ascendant throughout much of the world.
And while we cannot know where China is heading for sure, the
forces pulling China toward integration and openness are more
powerful today than ever before. And these are the only forces
that can make China a truly successful power, meeting the demands
of its people and exercising appropriate and positive influence
in the larger world in the 21st century.
Such a China would indeed be stronger, but it also
would be more at peace with itself and at ease with its
neighbors. It would be a good thing for the Chinese people, and
for the American people.
This has been the lodestar of our policy for the last
six years -- a goal that is consistent with our interests and
that keeps faith with our values; an objective that we will
continue to pursue, with your help and understanding, in the
months and years ahead.
This visit by Premier Zhu is very important. The
issues that are raised from time to time which cause tensions in
our relationship, they are also very important. But I ask you,
at this Institute, not to let the American people, or American
policy-makers -- or American politicians in a political season --
lose sight of the larger interests we have in seeing that this
very great country has the maximum possible chance to emerge a
more stable, freer, more prosperous, more constructive partner
with the United States in the new century.
Thank you very much. (Applause.)
END 11:07 A.M. EDT
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