[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

[[Page 2130]]

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

[[Page 2132]]

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.

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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).