    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1996, Book II)]
    [November 20, 1996]
    [Pages 2128-2133]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    The President's News Conference With Prime Minister John Howard of
    Australia in Canberra
    November 20, 1996

        Prime Minister Howard. Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen, I would
    like to say on behalf of my Government how much I have appreciated the
    opportunity of talking to President Clinton so soon after his
    reelection. I would like to repeat publicly the congratulations I
    extended to the President privately on his reelection.
        This is a marvelous opportunity for both of us to reaffirm the
    importance of our longstanding, deep, and rich association. It's an
    association that goes beyond the more formal elements of a treaty or an
    alliance. It's an association of like-minded people committed to common
    values with many shared historical experiences, many common cultural
    attitudes, and above all, a very deep commitment to democratic
    institutions, values, and freedoms of the individual.
        It was also for both of us an opportunity to affirm the importance,
    the contemporary relevance of our partnership in the context of our
    common involvement in the Asia-Pacific region, where I have said on a
    number of occasions we share a common future and a common destiny. The
    President and I had the opportunity in our discussion this morning to
    canvass many global issues but ones of particular relevance to our
    region, and we also touched upon a number of trade issues which are of
    ongoing importance in the bilateral relationship.
        I want to say how pleased I am personally to have the opportunity
    with my wife, Janette, of welcoming the President and Mrs. Clinton to
    our country. They are very welcome not only for themselves and the great
    leadership that they're giving to their country but also as the
    President and the wife of the President of the United States.
        The President of the United States is always welcome in Australia.
    And I will take the opportunity over the next couple of days in an
    informal manner to continue the discussion that both of us had this
    morning.
        But to you, Mr. President, again, publicly, my very warm welcome.
    You are here as a very welcome guest and with the good will of all of
    the Australian people.
        The President. Thank you very much, Prime Minister. Ladies and
    gentlemen, I have wanted to come to Australia for a very long time. I am
    glad that I have finally come; I wish I could have come earlier. And
    I've had so much fun in the last day, I'm amazed that only three
    American Presidents have come here. I think it ought to be a habit
    because of the unique partnership that the United States and Australia
    have enjoyed throughout the 20th century and indeed going back long
    before that.
        The Prime Minister and I had our first personal meeting today. It
    was a very good one.

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    We talked about a lot of the things that we share in common as nations.
    We talked about our common agenda to expand global trade through the
    World Trade Organization and APEC, where we'll both be going in just a
    couple of days. We talked about the work we have done to halt the spread
    of weapons of mass destruction. And again, I want to thank in this press
    conference, Mr. Prime Minister, on behalf of all the American people,
    Australia for the leadership that Australia exhibited in securing the
    Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and for your support in helping us
    all defuse the North Korean nuclear program.
        We also share a commitment to advance democratic values. We have
    worked on it side by side throughout the wars of the 20th century,
    throughout the cold war, and now in this new era. We've joined together
    in supporting human rights in Burma, promoting the rule of law in
    Cambodia, helping to keep the peace in troubled corners of the world.
        We are working hard to build on the partnership between the United
    States and Australia. We talked about our security cooperation. We're
    moving forward on the Sydney statement of July which bolstered our
    security ties.
        I made a little bit of a joke about the U.S. marines who will soon
    take part in joint training exercises in north Australia. They are,
    seriously, a powerful symbol and a concrete manifestation of our pledge
    to protect stability in the Pacific. But they're also, I think,
    apprehensive about seeing what that vast and not very populated area
    holds for them. There's a lot of talk about it, Mr. Prime Minister,
    already in the Defense Department, and we're certainly glad that there
    was no extra spaceship up there the other day. [Laughter] And let me say
    in the Prime Minister's defense, when we started out yesterday morning,
    we thought that it might land in the United States. So no one quite knew
    where it was going to come down, but we're glad it wound up in the
    ocean.
        Let me also say that on a very serious note for the future, I was
    deeply impressed by the comments that the Prime Minister had about the
    upcoming APEC leaders meeting in Subic Bay in the Philippines. We know
    we have to keep this group working together to push the barriers that
    still restrain global trade and to look especially for opportunities
    that will enable our people to get better jobs, to lead better lives,
    and in so doing, to advance the cause of the other APEC nations as well.
    So I am looking forward to the Philippines.
        Australia really started the APEC organization. Then I convened the
    world leaders of the APEC nations in Seattle in 1993, and we've been
    building on it ever since. It is very, very important, now that we have
    a goal of free trade in the area by 2020, now that we have a blueprint
    for achieving it, it is important that we actually take some concrete
    steps toward implementation of our goal, from tariff cuts to other
    deregulation measures. And I will be working hard for that.
        Let me say that the area that I would like to see the most progress
    in is in information technology. Currently, trade in that area is valued
    at a trillion dollars. It's projected to grow over 250 percent in the
    next 10 years. And we need to do more to open up those markets in a way
    that enables more people in the world to do what I saw last night when
    Hillary and I came in from the airport and all the people were waving to
    us. It seemed to me about one in every third person who was waving to us
    also had a cellular telephone in his or her ear, talking to someone back
    home and telling them about it. As I said to the Prime Minister, half
    the people in the world are still 2 days' walk from a telephone. And we
    have a lot of work to do if we're going to bring the world together to
    minimize misunderstanding, to minimize disruption, and to maximize human
    opportunity.
        Let me lastly say another word about the special relationship
    between the United States and Australia. We're proud to be Australia's
    largest foreign investor, its second largest trading partner. Trade
    between our nations was about $16 billion last year. We're also proud to
    have stood side by side with Australia in the conflicts and the
    struggles for peace and freedom and prosperity in this last century. And
    I believe that this remarkable and wonderfully unique relationship
    between our two countries is on even more solid ground as we look to the
    21st century. And I thank the Prime Minister for the reception he has
    given me today.
        Thank you, sir.
        Prime Minister Howard. Thank you. Questions?

    Australia-U.S. Trade

        Q. Mr. Prime Minister and Mr. President, you mentioned that you
    talked about multilateral trade issues. Can I ask, did you specifically
    raise

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    Australia's trade concerns with the United States? And Mr. President,
    Australian farmers are hoping for some sort of commitments from the U.S.
    that the EEP and DEIP programs won't be specifically targeted on
    Australia.
        Prime Minister Howard. Could I say that I certainly did raise with
    the President the ongoing concern of Australia, as a major exporter of
    primary produce, about the practice of export support and export
    subsidies in the area of agriculture. And the President responded to
    that, and he will do so in his own words.
        But I certainly made it very clear that that remained one of those
    areas in the bilateral relationship that needed continuous attention.
    And it is the fact that the Australian Government believes that the
    existing arrangements do work against the interests of major primary
    producers such as Australia. I think it is fair to add that the prime
    source of the problem is not to be found in the United States but rather
    within the European Union. And that is a view that I have expressed
    before, and it's not a view or a reflection on the issue that I have
    invented for the purposes of today's discussions. I've frequently
    expressed that view, and I do see many of the United States' actions
    taken in the past as being in the context of responses to the activities
    of the European Union.
        But our concerns on that were certainly raised, as they have been in
    the past, and they will be in the future. But I was quite reassured by
    the responses that were made by the President. But he will naturally
    deal with that in his own words.
        The President. The Prime Minister actually raised two trade issues,
    and I'd like to tell you very briefly about both of them. The first,
    with regard to the EEP and the DEIP programs in agriculture, as I'm sure
    you know, the United States just adopted a new 5-year farm bill which
    eliminated specific program-by-program or crop-by-crop supports and
    reduced overall trade subsidies. We did retain the export enhancement
    options because of the problems, as the Prime Minister said, that we
    have with the European Union.
        And I committed to the Prime Minister and I commit to you and,
    through you, the people of Australia that we are going to do everything
    we can to make sure that any future use of these programs is not either
    directly or indirectly working to the disadvantage of a country that is
    innocent of any wrongdoing, in this case, Australia. And I look forward
    to the day when we will have a genuinely open market in agriculture,
    which would help your agricultural interests and the American
    agricultural interests and I believe would work to the benefit of the
    entire world.
        The second thing the Prime Minister mentioned was the leather
    dispute, and let me just reemphasize where that is. Mr. Fischer and
    Ambassador Barshefsky have been working hard to resolve this. I very
    much want it resolved. We are very close to a resolution, and we're
    going to do everything we can to resolve it so that when we leave Manila
    we'll both have smiles on our face about that. Besides that, I don't
    want any more cartoons like the one I saw in the morning paper where I
    hooked a golf ball way left and broken the window of the leather goods
    store. You need to build up my confidence for this golf game tomorrow,
    not tear it down. [Laughter] I need all the help I can get.
        Terry [Terence Hunt, Associated Press].

    Harold Nicholson Espionage Case

        Q. Mr. President, the arrest of the CIA's former station chief in
    Moscow is the second major spy scandal involving Russia in the last 2
    years. Is there going to be any retaliation for this incident, and do
    you think that the CIA needs to tighten its internal watchdog system?
        The President. Well, Deputy Secretary Talbott has already met with
    the Russians about this, number one. Number two, this is the direct
    result of the tightening of the system. This arrest comes because of the
    new cooperation that I ordered between the CIA and the FBI. And I want
    to compliment Mr. Deutch and Mr. Freeh for the work that they did and
    the work their people did, and I think it's a very good thing. And I'm
    glad that it happened, and I think that it ought to be a signal that
    we're going to continue to do this, and we will do what we think we have
    to do in intelligence, and we don't want any people in our intelligence
    agency spying for other countries, and we're going to take appropriate
    action when we find it.
        Q. [Inaudible]--against Russia--are you going to take any--
    [inaudible]?
        The President. Well, we've already had conversations with Russia,
    and I think I shouldn't say any more than that at this time.

    [[Page 2131]]

    China

        Q. Mr. President, is your foreign policy priority in this region
    China and trying to, if you want to, ease concerns that countries such
    as the U.S. and Australia are trying to contain China? And what can
    Australia and the U.S. realistically do in partnership in the region?
        The President. China first. I think China has to be a big priority
    for all of us. If I ask everyone in this room to go by yourselves and
    take out a pad and write the five big questions down that will determine
    the shape of the world 50 years from now, one of those questions would
    surely be, how will the Chinese define their greatness in the 21st
    century? Will they define their greatness in terms of the incredible
    potential of their people to learn, to produce, to succeed economically
    and culturally and politically? Or will they define their greatness in
    terms of their ability to dominate their neighbors and others perhaps
    against their will or to take other actions which could destabilize the
    march toward democracy and prosperity of other people?
        The United States has no interest in containing China. That is a
    negative strategy. What the United States wants is to sustain an
    engagement with China, along with our friends like the Australians, in a
    way that will increase the chances that there will be more liberty and
    more prosperity and more genuine cooperation in the future. So I intend
    to spend a lot of time, a lot of energy, a lot of effort on that, but
    not with a view of containing the Chinese but with a view of making them
    a genuine partner with ourselves and others as we move forward.
        What can we and the Australians do? Number one, we can continue to
    push open trading systems that work to the benefit of all involved.
    Number two, we can continue to work together as we did with the
    Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty to continue to reduce the dangers
    of serious weapons. And number three, we can lead other freedom-loving
    nations in standing up against the new threats of the 21st century,
    terrorism and the proliferation of other weapons--biological and
    chemical weapons. There are a lot of things we can do together that will
    make a big difference. But I see this in the context of building a
    partnership with China, not isolating it.
        Who's next? Lori [Lori Santos, United Press International].

    Zaire

        Q. The crisis in Zaire appears to be easing significantly. Is it
    still necessary to dispatch American troops?
        The President. The real answer to that question is that we have not
    made a final decision. Tony Lake went to Canada yesterday to confer with
    the Prime Minister and others. We are very pleased, obviously, that so
    many of the refugees are able to move freely back into Rwanda. We are
    urgently concerned about the continuing humanitarian problems there and
    have allocated about $140 million in U.S. AID funds to try to deal with
    those problems. And I expect to receive a recommendation shortly. We are
    continuing to explore with our allies what sort of mission needs to go
    there, what its composition should be, what the remaining problems
    should be.
        There's no question that the situation looks better than it did a
    couple of days ago. It's also no question that the possibility of
    serious human loss is still there. So we're working it hard. We'll try
    to resolve what we ought to do. We're working with our allies, and I
    will give you an answer just as quickly as I can. But we have already
    allocated a significant amount of money to try to alleviate the
    nutritional and other problems that we know the refugees are going to
    have.

    East Timor

        Q. Mr. President, you mentioned the shared commitment of Australia
    and the United States to human rights. A number of members of your party
    have proposed that you raise in discussions with President Soeharto the
    idea of a U.N.-sponsored act of self-determination or referendum in East
    Timor. What is your view of that proposition? And I'd like to ask Mr.
    Howard the same question: What is your view of a U.N.-sponsored act of
    self-determination in East Timor?
        The President. You said people in my party have said that I should
    do that? They haven't discussed that with me yet. [Laughter]
        Let me say, without answering the specific question because I
    haven't made a decision about that, let me say I have been concerned
    about the whole question of East Timor from the first time I first heard
    about it. The United States has, while maintaining basically
    constructive and friendly relationships with Indonesia

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    and working with Indonesia on a whole wide array of shared foreign
    policy concerns, has consistently done more in the last 3 years than we
    have previously. We changed our arms export policy to try to not sell
    those arms which could be most likely to be used to put down a civilian
    rebellion or to oppress people's human rights, not in any country but
    with our sales toward Indonesia. We have cosponsored the resolution on
    East Timor in the United Nations.
        And Indonesia is a very large, very great, very rapidly growing
    country with a massive amount of diversity, both ethnic diversity and
    religious diversity. This is one area where they have not been able to
    manage it successfully. And we will continue to try to work to do what
    we can to resolve this in a way that is consistent with what I believe
    are universal values with regard to human rights and human dignity.
        Prime Minister Howard. As far as we are concerned, that's not an
    issue that I previously addressed my mind to, so like the President I
    won't specifically try and respond to it. But let me say that the East
    Timor issue is obviously a sensitive element of the relationship between
    Australia and Indonesia and, indeed, the relationship between Indonesia
    and other countries. You will all be aware of the great importance of
    the bilateral relationship between both Australia and Indonesia. There
    will always be differences of view about how different issues should be
    handled between our two countries. But my government and governments
    before mine of both political persuasions have shown a determination not
    to allow that issue to contaminate or undermine the broader
    relationship.
        And the significance of the bilateral relationship between Australia
    and Indonesia is only surpassed by our bilateral relationships with one
    or two other countries. And it's therefore important in everything that
    we do to try and keep a proper balance between our desire to foster that
    relationship, but by the same token, to properly put down markers of
    error in values and error in attitudes and also, of course, to fully
    respect the fact that within a democracy such as Australia, people will
    openly and vigorously express their views on this issue and it is no
    part of the role of the Australian Government to prevent or discourage
    that. That is a point that I made in my own personal discussions with
    President Soeharto when I saw him in Jakarta a couple of months ago.
        Thank you.
        Q. Thanks very much.
        The President. One more.

    Democratic Fundraiser John Huang

        Q. Mr. President, if I could just follow up on the Indonesia
    question--with your indulgence, Mr. Prime Minister. These stories now
    coming out back home in the United States, dribs and drabs about John
    Huang's phone calls to his former business associates at the Lippo Group
    when he was a Commerce Department official--70 phone calls, we're now
    told--information that was available before the election but only coming
    out now, and other suggestions that some of your aides were urging other
    aides over their objections not to release all of this information once
    you had it--aren't you concerned that the impression is going to be
    created that you're trying to stonewall, that you do have something to
    hide? Isn't it better just to come clean and release everything right
    away instead of letting it just come out piecemeal like this?
        The President. Well, for one thing, one of the things that we have
    learned the hard way is that when you release something as soon as you
    have it, then somebody is always saying, ``Well, why didn't you release
    something else?'' I don't personally see any problem with any of the
    information that I've seen so far. I think we should answer whatever
    questions are asked. I've told everybody else to do the same thing. But
    you know, personally, I've answered the questions that were asked of me
    in a way I think are entirely appropriate, and I think that's what
    everybody else should do. And I don't think there's a real issue there.
        Q.  Do you think John Huang should come forward and answer these
    questions publicly?
        The President. I believe that--let me just say this. I believe that
    everyone will have to deal with that in his or her own way. But one of
    the things I would urge you to do, remembering what happened to Mr.
    Jewell in Atlanta, remembering what has happened to so many of the
    accusations over the last 4 years made against me that turned out to be
    totally baseless, I just think that we ought to make sure we've got--we
    ought to just get the facts out, and they should be reported. That's
    what I've encouraged everybody to do, and that's what we'll do.
        Thank you very much.
        Prime Minister Howard. Thanks very much.

    [[Page 2133]]

    Note: The President's 131st news conference began at 12:45 p.m. at
    Parliament House. In his remarks, he referred to Australian Minister for
    Trade Timothy Fischer; Prime Minister Jean Chretien of Canada; President
    Soeharto of Indonesia; and Richard Jewell, former suspect in the July
    bombing at Olympic Centennial Park. The President also referred to the
    U.S. Department of Agriculture's Export Enhancement Program (EEP) and
    Dairy Export Incentive Program (DEIP).