23 October 2002
Commission Suggests Specific Issues for Bush-Jiang Meeting
(U.S.-China Security Review Commission Oct. 8 letter to Bush) (500)
The bipartisan United States-China Security Review Commission has
released the text of a letter it sent to President Bush urging him to
raise specific nonproliferation, trade, and prison labor issues with
Chinese President Jiang Zemin when the two heads of state meet October
25 in Crawford, Texas.
The U.S. Congress created the bipartisan U.S.-China Security Review
Commission in 2000 to assess the national security implications of
America's growing economic and commercial linkages with China, and to
prepare policy recommendations based on its assessment. The Commission
is composed of 12 members of Congress who are appointed by the leaders
of the House of Representatives and Senate.
Following is the text of the Commission's letter that was sent to Bush
October 8 and released to the public October 22:
(begin text)
October 8, 2002
President George W. Bush
The White House
Washington, D.C. 20500
Dear Mr. President:
We are Chairman and Vice-Chairman of the U.S.-China Security Review
Commission that was established by Congress in October 2000 to assess
the national security implications of our growing economic and
financial ties with China. Our first annual Report was released on
July 15 and contains more than forty recommendations for enhancing
U.S. security and improving bilateral relations with China.
We would like to bring to your attention a few issues from our Report
that we urge you to raise with President Jiang when you meet later
this month:
-- China has made numerous multilateral and bilateral commitments to
strengthen and enforce its export controls to halt the proliferation
of weapons of mass destruction and their delivery systems to
terrorist-sponsoring states and others. Such transfers continue to
undermine our efforts in the war on terrorism. We recommend that you
press President Jiang to immediately cease all such transfers and that
you make such cessation a key to improved relations with China.
-- The United States trade deficit with China of more than $85 billion
is our largest. The United States takes more than forty percent of
China's total export while China takes two percent of ours. This trade
imbalance is not sustainable and must be addressed by China 's full
implementation of its WTO trade commitments and by further reform of
its economy along market principles.
-- China has formally agreed with the United States to prevent the
export of prison labor products into the U.S. To date, China has
failed to enforce their agreements or respond to requests for U.S.
visits of suspected production sites. We recommend that you highlight
to President Jiang the United States' strong concerns about their
long--standing non-compliance and urge their full cooperation with
existing bilateral agreements.
There are many other steps China can take to improve relations with
the United States, including fuller cooperation in combating
international terrorism, but we think these are urgent and central to
our relationship. We hope you will raise them with President Jiang, in
the interest of long-term friendship and cooperation between our
countries and peoples.
We wish you great success in your Summit with President Jiang.
Sincerely,
(signed)
C. Richard D 'Amato
Chairman
(signed)
Michael Ledeen
Vice-Chairman
(end text)
(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S.
Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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