[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 52 (Monday, April 22, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Page S3789]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




       TRIP TO PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA, HONG KONG, AND TAIWAN

  Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I recently returned from a trip to the 
People's Republic of China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan over the April recess 
in my capacity as chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on East Asian and 
Pacific Affairs. While I would like at some time to share my 
observations of that trip with my colleagues, some confusion has arisen 
in the Asian press over a remark I made on that trip which I feel I 
need to correct sooner rather than later.
  On April 3, I was privileged to have an hour-long meeting with 
Chinese President Jiang Zemin at Zhongnanhai in Beijing. A central 
focus of our discussion was the tense situation in the Taiwan Straits 
and strained relations between the PRC and Taiwan. When the 
conversation turned toward what President Jiang perceived to be the 
then-current situation and prospects for a return to a more stable 
cross-strait relationship, he replied paraphrasing a Chinese saying to 
illustrate his position. The President said, ``When the wind blows 
through the pavilion, it means the rains will come,'' or, in Chinese, 
``Shan yu yu lai feng man lou di xing shi si hu yi jing guo qu le.'' 
After a brief pause, he then added, ``But in this case, I think the 
rain is over.'' I took this to be an encouraging sign that, perhaps 
with the conclusion of Taiwan's presidential election and the PRC's 
somewhat worrisome military exercises in the Strait, the situation 
might be calming down and the two sides might be ready to resume cross-
strait contacts through the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan 
Strait and the Straits Exchange Foundation, the two semi official 
bodies set up to handle that relationship.
  After visiting other cities in China and then Hong Kong, I spent a 
day in Taipei, Taiwan, on the way back to the United States. There I 
met with Foreign Minister Chen and President Lee Teng-hui, both of whom 
I told of my conversation with President Jiang, and Jiang's statement 
about the ``rain being over.'' They found the statement to be 
encouraging, just as I had. In meetings with the Taiwan press during my 
stay, I made it clear that I was not delivering a message from the 
government of the PRC to the Government of Taiwan; I had simply relayed 
the particulars of my conversation with President Jiang to Chen and 
Lee. This is where the confusion arose.
  One of the Taipei newspapers, on hearing that President Jiang had 
said ``the rain is over'' incorrectly assumed that he had cited another 
Chinese saying: ``the rain is over and the sun is shinning''--in 
Chinese ``yu guo tian qing.'' The Taiwan press sometimes tends to shoot 
first and ask questions later, and other papers were soon picking up 
the inaccurate statement. As a result, by the next day papers island-
wide were reporting that Jiang had made statements that were much more 
rosy than what was actually said. Not only were the newspaper reports 
inaccurate, but they missed the entire gist of Jiang's statement. By 
referring to the saying ``the rain is over * * *'' but leaving off the 
part of the saying ``* * * the sky is blue,'' President Jiang was 
making the specific point that while the storm had passed things were 
still far from ``sunny.''
  Anyway, Mr. President, soon other newspapers in Asia were repeating 
the inaccurate Taiwanese reports. As a result, the Chinese Government, 
through two newspapers in Hong Kong known to be directed by Beijing--
Ming Pao and Wen Wei Po--began to publish articles denying--correctly 
of course--that Jiang had made the statement attributed to him by me as 
reported by Taiwan's press.
  I became aware of the confusion when I returned to Washington last 
week, and issued a press release to several Asian papers in an effort 
to correct the inaccuracies. Although many papers ran articles 
correctly reflecting the actual comments made by President Jiang, the 
confusion still persists.
  So, Mr. President, I come to the floor today to publicly set the 
record straight once and for all in the hopes of removing the last 
vestiges of confusion. I did not travel to Taipei to deliver a specific 
message from the PRC to Taiwan; I simply reported to the Taiwan 
Government the details of my conversation with President Jiang. In that 
conversation, President Jiang said, ``When the wind blows through the 
pavilion, it means the rains will come. But in this case, I think the 
rains are over''--no more, no less. I hope this will lay the issue to 
rest.

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