The Honorable James R. Sasser
United States Ambassador to the People's Republic of China

"United States and China Forging a Relationship"

Thank you very much, Kent Kresa, for that very nice introduction. It’s wonderful to be here with the Los Angeles World Affairs Council. I am delighted to have my wife, Mary, traveling with me today. We’re just two days out of China so we may appear to be a little sleepy because we’re still on Chinese time. I’m also delighted to see Consul General An, the distinguished Consul General of the People’s Republic of China. It’s wonderful to see him again. We’re old friends and traveled all across the country together when President Jiang Zemin made his very successful trip to the United States now almost a year and a half ago. Welcome to the distinguished Consuls General of other countries who are here today.

Kent, I want to tell you how much I appreciate your introduction. You alluded, in introducing me, to the fact that I was a former U.S. Senator, a job I enjoyed very much. Many years ago, when I was being introduced by an old friend in my native state who published a newspaper, he had this long biographical sketch that my staff had prepared for introductions which is overly elaborate, and as he got up to introduce me he pulled this out and he said "Now, should I read all of this?" And I said "Oh, no." I wanted to appear modest to the newspaper publisher, of course, and I said "Oh, no. Don’t read all of that." So he got up and he said "Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Jim Sasser. The less said about him the better." So Kent, I’m doubly grateful for your introduction today.

Well, I think that Mr. Kresa was right when he said over the past few months there has been a lot of discussion about relations with China, and I’ve heard talk that there is even a crisis in Chinese-U.S. relations. Those who talk about a crisis put together a scenario that goes something like this: They say "Well, the international agendas for both China and the United States are out of synch." China’s worried about its economy, the United States has been worried about well, I guess, Monica for the past two or three months. And on the economic side they say the down- turn in the Chinese economy is causing rising unemployment and as a reaction to this rising unemployment China has engaged in new protectionist policies which make the efforts to gain market access for American business in China difficult. And then they all turn to the political front. They’ll say on the political front [that] China’s focus on trying to maintain social stability and its decision to permit no challenges to the promises of the Communist party have led to renewed crackdowns on dissidents and that Beijing’s leadership now is less willing to respect fundamental human rights.

You stir all that together, these allegations, and then you come up with the allegation that the Chinese have been stealing U.S. military secrets for 20 years. Then you stir those rumors that the United States might be engaging, might be planning, to include Taiwan in a theater missile defense umbrella. You mix all this together and, according to this scenario, we have leadership both in Beijing and in Washington who are unable now to move forward with the constructive strategic engagement that was talked about when President Jiang visited the United States and when President Clinton visited China.

Even the Washington Post has weighed in with the February 28 editorial and the polls called for a relationship and I quote, "grounded in reality, not wishful thinking." Isn’t that a helpful piece of advice. Well, I would say to you that all bi-lateral relationships between countries experience ups and down. If you don’t believe me, just remember the recent banana wars with the European Union, still not resolved. Or how do our Italian friends feel about the exoneration of the Marine pilot who clipped the cable of the gondola? Tensions between the Italians and the United States over that particular issue. Or how about our German friends who are upset about the execution of a German citizen pursuant to Arizona law just a short time ago? And how about our constant back and forth with our friends in Israel? So bi-lateral relations of nations go through cycles of ups and down,s and certainly the relationship with China is no exception. The Chinese say that we are groping for rocks as we cross the river, and when you grope for rocks sometimes your foot makes a slip. And it’s not unusual for misunderstandings, miscommunications, misjudgments to arise with a country like China that is undergoing historic changes. There are times of turbulence, transition as China moves from a Socialist command system into a modern nation-state with a market- oriented economy.

China is moving from a one-party domination to a more open political system, and if you don’t believe it just ask the Chinese people. They’ll tell you that they’re freer today than they’ve ever been in their lives. Every man and woman on the street will tell you that. China is moving from reliance on unprofitable state- owned enterprises to a market- oriented economy. Just a few weeks ago Secretary Madeleine Albright came to Beijing to see us and I thought she summed it up about as well as you could. She said, and I quote, "With regard to Chinese-U.S. relations this is neither the best of times nor the worst of times." Well, I don’t wish to sound Pollyanna-ish-- certainly we do have concerns abut where our relationship with China is headed. We have concerns across the board about a number of issues. And let’s put it right out on the table and say that no American administration, whether it’s a Democratic administration or a Republican administration will ever sacrifice the national security of the United States in the name of establishing a particular relationship with China or any other country. That’s simply a fact of life. But like Madeleine Albright, I don’t accept the gloom and doom scenario that I outlined a few moments ago. Nor would I characterize the challenges confronting us as evidence that our relationship is in crisis.

What we need with China is continued active engagement, realistic dialogue. Today there is greater cooperation between the People’s Republic of China and the United States of America than at any time since normalization of relations began in 1979. There is no letup in official travel back and forth between these two nations. Just in the past few weeks I participated in negotiations regarding China’s ascension to the World Trade Organization, discussions with people and officials from Washington on protecting intellectual property rights of American manufacturers in China, and discussions on civil aviation. Two to three American airlines now fly into China, and we’re trying to arrange for more to fly in. More American airlines fly into China than airlines from any other nation in the world. We’ve had long discussions and productive discussions about what’s happening on the Korean Peninsula and the future of the Korean Peninsula and the Chinese are just as concerned as we in the United States are about maintaining a non-nuclear Korean peninsula and controlling weapons of mass destruction that might originate there.

We’ve also discussed concrete ways in which the United States and China can work together to bequeath a cleaner environment to future generations. How in the world are we going to deal with global pollution if the United States can’t work together with China which composes one-fifth of the human race? These are all issues which affect the peace and stability of the world and they affect the vital interests of the American people. I don’t need to tell the members of the World Affairs Council that we live in a world which daily grows more interdependent, in which the actions of one-fifth of the world’s people, as I’ve indicated before, who just happen to be Chinese are going to have important consequences for everyone else.

As I said earlier, we’ve had a lot of American visitors to Beijing - Madeleine Albright, our Trade Representative, Charlene Barshefsky, and later this month Secretary of Commerce, Bill Daly, will be there. Later on, the Secretary of Defense, Mr. Cohen, will also be paying a visit. And we’ve got a very distinguished visitor coming to the United States - Premier Zhu Rongji will be traveling to the United States in April and I think probably, I can’t announce the Premier’s schedule, but I think probably his first stop may very well be here in Los Angeles. Premier Zhu Rongji is a new kind of leader for China - he’s pragmatic, he’s rational, he’s nonideological, he’s results-oriented, he’s a master at self-deprecating humor. He is a man of the latter part of the 20th century who wants to make things work. Premier Zhu recognizes that China’s future will be determined by how quickly it modernizes and how well it adjusts to the world in which it lives. Premier Zhu understands well, as do President Jiang, and more importantly, the next generation of Chinese leaders, many of whom are educated in the West, many of them partially educated right here in the United States. They all understand that China must fully integrate itself into the international community.

We in the United States cannot isolate China, we cannot contain China and China cannot isolate itself. China has voluntarily mounted the tiger of economic and political change, and it can only dismount from that tiger at its peril. For a great nation to modernize requires access to foreign markets and technology as well as cooperation with other nations-- and, especially, cooperation with the world’s last remaining superpower both militarily and economically, and that is the United States. But the cooperation that we have with China now is a much different cooperation from the kind we’ve had in years past. It has more depth to it, more substance. In the 1970s and 1980s our relationship with China was largely derived from a shared fear of another country - the Soviet Union. But today our cooperation is much more pragmatic, it’s less ideologica. It’s also more comprehensive, it’s no longer one-dimensional. Our engagement with China, as President Clinton has said, is "principled and purposeful."

We are moving towards partnerships in many areas with China where we can. For example, the cooperation on the four- power talks between China, Japan, South Korea and North Korea to try to deal with the problems of North Korea, try to deal with the problems and the fears of nuclear proliferation there. Where we cannot cooperate as partners, then we have respectful disagreement and we express our disagreement. We cooperate without sacrificing or giving up on our basic values as Americans. In sum, we’re moving toward a more mature relationship, where the strategic benefits are tangible. I reiterate again, in a mature relationship there is conflict and there will be disagreement, and there will continue to be conflict and disagreement as the world’s largest developed country tries to work out a relationship with the world’s largest developing country.

Let me give you a little progress report on my tenure in China. Mary and I have been there now for a little over three years and I’ve done a short inventory of the accomplishments of this administration since I received my instructions from the President in 1996. And I want to tell you that I think the accomplishments are considerable. I think you’ll get a sense of how engaged our national interests are in developing a successful, constructive dialogue with China. First, President Clinton told me to pay special attention to trying to halt the proliferation of weapons of mass destructions. Well, today China no longer stands outside of a rules-based non proliferation regime. China has agreed to a moratorium on nuclear testing by signing the comprehensive test ban treaty, something we can’t get India or Pakistan to do. China has joined the Zanger Commission to which the signatories agree to the nonproliferation treaty and agree to monitor and control nuclear- related exports to other nations like Iran, like Iraq, like North Korea. China has ratified the chemical weapons convention and, I might say, before my old colleagues in the United States Senate got around to ratifying it for the United States. China has issued its own national export controls on dual use, trying to control the export of articles that can be used for either civilian purposes or for military purposes. [They are] trying to come up with a regime to control export of articles that could be used to produce weapons of mass destruction.

Now, there’s considerable unfinished business in the nonproliferation area, and that’s right at the top of this Administration’s agenda. We particularly want China to take the nonproliferation and export controls steps required for membership in the missile control technology regime. China states it’s now voluntarily adhering to the missile control technology regime and it states it’s studying positively whether or not it should become a signatory. Well, those are, I think, significant steps in the area of nonproliferation. In addition, during President Clinton’s trip to Beijing, both China and the United States agreed to a de-targeting of their ICBMs against each other. So as I stand here before you today there are no American ICBMs targeted on China nor are there any Chinese ICBMs targeted on the United States. The President also said to me I was to work to try to contain unnecessary conflict. Now, I have to confess I didn’t get off to a very good start because you’ll recall that in 1996, just a few weeks after my arrival in Beijing, China began conducting military maneuvers and lobby missiles off the coast of Taiwan. The United States responded by sending aircraft carriers into that area. The potential for miscalculation was very high, but leaders on both sides in the United States and China recognized the serious consequences and we recognized there had to be better alternatives. Well, the result just a short time ago, in a step that was obviously in its own self-interest, China and Taiwan established a cross-strait dialogue. This was highlighted in October 1998 in a meeting of Taiwan’s [representatives] with President Jiang Zemin in Beijing. As I said earlier, we’ve worked with our Chinese counterparts to reduce tensions on the Korean Peninsula and lowered the potential for conflict in South Asia.

Third, the President asked me to open and expand markets for American exports. Now, many people focus on the large trade deficit that the U.S. has with China. They see China’s recent policies to protect its domestic markets as evidence of U.S. failure to provide access for American firms in China. These protectionist policies are troublesome, no doubt, but I believe they’ll be short-lived. The wisdom of closing markets in the interests of preserving market share and insuring stability is a sure- fire recipe for economic decline rather than economic success and I believe Premier Zhu Rongji is recognizing that fact. The key to market access for American business in China is China’s ascension to the World Trade Organization. We recently had serious substantive discussions on the WTO in Beijing with Premier Zhu. Tough issues remain to be resolved, but I’m hopeful we’ll eventually conclude a protocol that locks into place commercially meaningful market access for U.S. business in China. As China pursues its economic reforms it’s in China’s interest to be open, to be competitive, to have a dynamic trade policy-- and one which provides a predictable and transparent environment for U.S. companies in China. If China is successful in getting into the WTO, the United States looks forward to welcoming China’s representatives in Seattle in November when we host the WTO ministerial and hick off the next round of trade negotiations. I think there’s still a lot of negotiations to take place, but I’m more encouraged now than I have been in a long time about resolving trade differences and more optimistic about China perhaps ascending to the WTO.

Fourth, the President asked me to work with China to ensure that it upheld fundamental human rights principles. Here the record has been mixed, especially with the recent round- up of people advocating new political parties. These arrests mark a retreat, really, from what had been a growing tolerance of genuine debate in China. That has characterized the Chinese political scene in recent years, growing political debate between academicians, between intellectuals, between students. We continue to urge China to extend this growing arch of personal freedoms to allow freedom of expression in the very vast and broadest sense of the term, but even in this area where we’ve been reading some negative news lately, there have been some positive developments, including China’s decision in the past few years to release a great number of prominent prisoners, to sign the covenant on civil and political rights, to sign the international covenant on economic, social and cultural rights. These are steps welcomed by the United States and the international community. The President put it best in his speech in San Francisco on February 26 when he said "Stability cannot be purchased at the expense of freedom." And finally, the President asked me as his representative to promote international cooperation to address the problem of the global environment. Our engagement on issues ranging from international terrorism to money laundering, to drug smuggling, to protection of the environment have been far- reaching. Premier Zhu will meet with Vice President Gore during his trip and will convene the second U.S.-China forum on energy and the environment. What China does in the area of the environment, a country of l.3 billion people, growing to l.6 billion people, is going to be of great concern to everyone who populates this planet. A lack of concern and respect for earth’s limited resources in China will have an adverse impact, I think, on all of us.

Let me just conclude with some observations about this relationship. Whether you see it getting stronger as I do, or see it going through a period of crisis, I would sum it up by saying this: First, there is no good alternative to engagement and dialogue with China in either good times or bad. Second, there is no good alternative to ensuring as both the President and Secretary Albright have said, that no single issue holds this whole relationship captive. Third, there’s no good alterative to increasing the number of exchanges, public and private, between our two countries, and I’d say especially the latter. More students, more scholars, more professionals, more ordinary citizens who are the best representatives we have for furthering mutual understanding. And finally, there really is no good alternative to working to promote China’s integration into a rule-based economic community. As I heard one of our national security advisers say to a leading Chinese diplomat: "We in the United States want China to help make the rules, if China will agree to play by the rules that they help make." Perhaps I should go back one more time to what President Clinton told me. He sent me a written instruction and he said, "Never forget the solemn duty that we as public servants owe to the citizens of America: the active protection and promotion of their well being, their safety and their ideals."

Ladies and gentlemen, I believe that engagement with China, dialogue with China, is essential. Indeed, it is critical to the national interests of the United States in the next century.

Thank you very much.