    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1997, Book II)]
    [October 24, 1997]
    [Pages 1424-1429]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks to the Asia Society and the United States-China Education
    Foundation Board
    October 24, 1997

        Thank you very much, Ambassador Platt. I thank the Asia Society and
    the U.S.-China Education Foundation for bringing us together today. I
    thank Senator Baucus and Congressmen Dreier, Matsui, and Roemer for
    being here; Secretary Albright, Ambassador Barshefsky, National Security
    Adviser Berger, the other distinguished officials from the State
    Department. And I thank especially the members of the diplomatic corps
    who are here and the students. And especially let me thank two of my
    favorite people, Joe Duffey and Evelyn Lieberman, for the work of the
    Voice of America and the USIA, all that they do to promote the free flow
    of ideas around the world.
        Next week, when President Jiang Zemin comes to Washington, it will
    be the first state visit by a Chinese leader to the United States for
    more than a decade. The visit gives us the opportunity and the
    responsibility to chart a course for the future that is more positive
    and

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    more stable and hopefully more productive than our relations have been
    for the last few years.
        China is a great country with a rich and proud history and a strong
    future. It will, for good or ill, play a very large role in shaping the
    21st century in which the children in this audience today, children all
    across our country, all across China, and indeed all across the world,
    will live.
        At the dawn of the new century, China stands at a crossroads. The
    direction China takes toward cooperation or conflict will profoundly
    affect Asia, America, and the world for decades. The emergence of a
    China as a power that is stable, open, and nonaggressive, that embraces
    free markets, political pluralism, and the rule of law, that works with
    us to build a secure international order, that kind of China, rather
    than a China turned inward and confrontational, is deeply in the
    interests of the American people.
        Of course, China will choose its own destiny. Yet by working with
    China and expanding areas of cooperation, dealing forthrightly with our
    differences, we can advance fundamental American interests and values.
        First, the United States has a profound interest in promoting a
    peaceful, prosperous, and stable world. Our task will be much easier if
    China is a part of that process, not only playing by the rules of
    international behavior but helping to write and enforce them.
        China is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council.
    Its support was crucial for peacekeeping efforts in Cambodia and
    building international mandates to reverse Iraq's aggression against
    Kuwait and restore democracy to Haiti. As a neighbor of India and
    Pakistan, China will influence whether these great democracies move
    toward responsible cooperation both with each other and with China.
        From the Persian Gulf to the Caspian Sea, China's need for a
    reliable and efficient supply of energy to fuel its growth can make it a
    force for stability in these strategically critical regions. Next week,
    President Jiang and I will discuss our visions of the future and the
    kind of strategic relationship we must have to promote cooperation, not
    conflict.
        Second, the United States has a profound interest in peace and
    stability in Asia. Three times this century, Americans have fought and
    died in Asian wars; 37,000 Americans still patrol the cold war's last
    frontier, on the Korean DMZ. Territorial disputes that could flare into
    crises affecting America require us to maintain a strong American
    security presence in Asia. We want China to be a powerful force for
    security and cooperation there.
        China has helped us convince North Korea to freeze and ultimately
    end its dangerous nuclear program. Just imagine how much more dangerous
    that volatile peninsula would be today if North Korea, reeling from food
    shortages, with a million soldiers encamped 27 miles from Seoul, had
    continued this nuclear program.
        China also agreed to take part in the four-party peace talks that
    President Kim and I proposed with North Korea, the only realistic avenue
    to a lasting peace. And China is playing an increasingly constructive
    role in Southeast Asia by working with us and the members of ASEAN to
    advance our shared interests in economic and political security.
        Next week I'll discuss with President Jiang the steps we can take
    together to advance the peace process in Korea. We'll look at ways to
    strengthen our military-to-military contacts, decreasing the chances of
    miscalculation and broadening America's contacts with the next
    generation of China's military leaders. And I will reiterate to
    President Jiang America's continuing support for our ``one China''
    policy, which has allowed democracy to flourish in Taiwan and Taiwan's
    relationship with the PRC to grow more stable and prosperous. The Taiwan
    question can only be settled by the Chinese themselves peacefully.
        Third, the United States has a profound interest in keeping weapons
    of mass destruction and other sophisticated weaponry out of unstable
    regions and away from rogue states and terrorists. In the 21st century,
    many of the threats to our security will come not from great power
    conflict but from states that defy the international community and
    violent groups seeking to undermine peace, stability, and democracy.
    China is already a nuclear power with increasingly sophisticated
    industrial and technological capabilities. We need its help to prevent
    dangerous weapons from falling into the wrong hands.
        For years, China stood outside the major international arms control
    regimes. Over the past decade, it has made important and welcome
    decisions to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the Chemical
    Weapons Convention, the Biological Weapons Convention, and to respect
    key provisions of the Missile Technology Control Regime. Last year at
    the United Nations, I was

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    proud to be the first world leader to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban
    Treaty. China's Foreign Minister was the second leader to do so.
        China has lived up to its pledge not to assist unsafeguarded nuclear
    facilities in third countries, and it is developing a system of export
    controls to prevent the transfer or sale of technology for weapons of
    mass destruction.
        But China still maintains some troubling weapons supply
    relationships. At the summit, I will discuss with President Jiang
    further steps we hope China will take to end or limit some of these
    supply relationships and to strengthen and broaden its export control
    system. And I will make the case to him that these steps are, first and
    foremost, in China's interest because the spread of dangerous weapons
    and technology would increase instability near China's own borders.
        Fourth, the United States has a profound interest in fighting drug
    trafficking and international organized crime. Increasingly, smugglers
    and criminals are taking advantage of China's vast territory and its
    borders with 15 nations to move drugs and weapons, aliens, and the
    proceeds of illegal activities from one point in Asia to another or from
    Asia to Europe.
        China and the United States already are cooperating closely on alien
    smuggling, and China has taken a tough line against narcotrafficking, a
    threat to its children as well as our own. Next week I will propose to
    President Jiang that our law enforcement communities intensify their
    efforts together.
        Fifth, the United States has a profound interest in making global
    trade and investment as free, fair, and open as possible. Over the past
    5 years, trade has produced more than one-third of America's economic
    growth. If we are to continue generating good jobs and higher incomes in
    our country when we are just 4 percent of the world's population, we
    must continue to sell more to the other 96 percent. One of the best ways
    to do that is to bring China more fully into the world's trading system.
    With a quarter of the world's population and its fastest growing
    economy, China could and should be a magnet for our goods and services.
        Even though American exports to China now are at an all-time high,
    so, too, is our trade deficit. In part, this is due to the strength of
    the American economy and to the fact that many products we used to buy
    in other Asian countries now are manufactured in China. But clearly, an
    important part of the problem remains lack of access to China's markets.
    We strongly support China's admission into the World Trade Organization.
    But in turn, China must dramatically improve access for foreign goods
    and services. We should be able to compete fully and fairly in China's
    marketplace, just as China competes in our own.
        Tearing down trade barriers also is good for China and for the
    growth of China's neighbors and, therefore, for the stability and future
    of Asia. Next week, President Jiang and I will discuss steps China must
    take to join the WTO and assume its rightful place in the world economy.
        Finally, the United States has a profound interest in ensuring that
    today's progress does not come at tomorrow's expense. Greenhouse gas
    emissions are leading to climate change. China is the fastest growing
    contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, and we are the biggest
    greenhouse gas emitter. Soon, however, China will overtake the United
    States and become the largest contributor. Already, pollution has made
    respiratory disease the number one health problem for China's people.
    Last March, when he visited China, Vice President Gore launched a joint
    forum with the Chinese on the environment and development so that we can
    work with China to pursue growth and protect the environment at the same
    time.
        China has taken some important steps to deal with its need for more
    energy and cleaner air. Next week, President Jiang and I will talk about
    the next steps China can take to combat climate change. It is a global
    problem that must have a global solution that cannot come without
    China's participation as well. We also will talk about what American
    companies and technology can do to support China in its efforts to
    reduce air pollution and increase clean energy production.
        Progress in each of these areas will draw China into the
    institutions and arrangements that are setting the ground rules for the
    21st century: the security partnerships, the open trade arrangements,
    the arms control regime, the multinational coalitions against terrorism,
    crime, and drugs, the commitments to preserve the environment and to
    uphold human rights. This is our best hope to secure our own interests
    and values and to advance China's in the historic transformation that
    began 25 years ago when China reopened to the world.

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        As we all know, the transformation already has produced truly
    impressive results. Twenty-five years ago, China stood apart from and
    closed to the international community. Now, China is a member of more
    than 1,000 international organizations, from the International Civil
    Aviation Organization to the International Fund for Agricultural
    Development. It has moved from the 22d largest trading nation to the
    11th. It is projected to become the second largest trader, after the
    United States, by 2020. And today, 40,000 young Chinese are studying
    here in the United States, with hundreds of thousands more living and
    learning in Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
        China's economic transformation has been even more radical. Market
    reforms have spurred more than two decades of unprecedented growth, and
    the decision at the recently ended 15th Party Congress to sell off most
    all of China's big, state-owned industries promises to keep China moving
    toward a market economy. The number of people living in poverty has
    dropped from 250 million to 58 million, even as China's population has
    increased by nearly 350 million. Per capital income in the cities has
    jumped 550 percent in just the past decade.
        As China has opened its economy, its people have enjoyed greater
    freedom of movement and choice of employment, better schools and
    housing. Today, most Chinese enjoy a higher standard of living than at
    any time in China's modern history. But as China has opened
    economically, political reform has lagged behind.
        Frustration in the West turned into condemnation after the terrible
    events in Tiananmen Square. Now, nearly a decade later, one of the great
    questions before the community of democracies is how to pursue the broad
    and complex range of our interests with China while urging and
    supporting China to move politically as well as economically into the
    21st century. The great question for China is how to preserve stability,
    promote growth, and increase its influence in the world, while making
    room for the debate and the dissent that are a part of the fabric of all
    truly free and vibrant societies. The answer to those questions must
    begin with an understanding of the crossroads China has reached.
        As China discards its old economic order, the scope and sweep of
    change has rekindled historic fears of chaos and disintegration. In
    return, Chinese leaders have worked hard to mobilize support, legitimize
    power, and hold the country together, which they see is essential to
    restoring the greatness of their nation and its rightful influence in
    the world. In the process, however, they have stifled political dissent
    to a degree and in ways that we believe are fundamentally wrong, even as
    freedom from want, freedom of movement, and local elections have
    increased.
        This approach has caused problems within China and in its
    relationship to the United States. Chinese leaders believe it is
    necessary to hold the nation together, to keep it growing, to keep
    moving toward its destiny. But it will become increasingly difficult to
    maintain the closed political system in an ever more open economy and
    society.
        China's economic growth has made it more and more dependent on the
    outside world for investment, markets, and energy. Last year it was the
    second largest recipient of foreign direct investment in the world.
    These linkages bring with them powerful forces for change. Computers and
    the Internet, fax machines and photocopiers, modems and satellites all
    increase the exposure to people, ideas, and the world beyond China's
    borders. The effect is only just beginning to be felt.
        Today more than a billion Chinese have access to television, up from
    just 10 million two decades ago. Satellite dishes dot the landscape.
    They receive dozens of outside channels, including Chinese language
    services of CNN, Star TV, and Worldnet. Talk radio is increasingly
    popular and relatively unregulated in China's 1,000 radio stations. And
    70 percent of China's students regularly listen to the Voice of America.
        China's 2,200 newspapers, up from just 42 three decades ago, and
    more than 7,000 magazines and journals are more open in content. A
    decade ago, there were 50,000 mobile phones in China; now there are more
    than 7 million. The Internet already has 150,000 accounts in China, with
    more than a million expected to be on-line by the year 2000. The more
    ideas and information spread, the more people will expect to think for
    themselves, express their own opinions, and participate. And the more
    that happens, the harder it will be for their government to stand in
    their way.
        Indeed, greater openness is profoundly in China's own interest. If
    welcomed, it will speed economic growth, enhance the world influence of
    China, and stabilize society. Without the full freedom to think,
    question, to create, China will

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    be at a distinct disadvantage, competing with fully open societies in
    the information age where the greatest source of national wealth is what
    resides in the human mind.
        China's creative potential is truly staggering. The largest
    population in the world is not yet among its top 15 patent powers. In an
    era where these human resources are what really matters, a country that
    holds its people back cannot achieve its full potential.
        Our belief that, over time, growing interdependence would have a
    liberalizing effect in China does not mean in the meantime we should or
    we can ignore abuses in China of human rights or religious freedom. Nor
    does it mean that there is nothing we can do to speed the process of
    liberalization.
        Americans share a fundamental conviction that people everywhere have
    the right to be treated with dignity, to give voice to their opinion, to
    choose their own leaders, to worship as they please. From Poland to
    South Africa, from Haiti to the Philippines, the democratic saga of the
    last decade proves that these are not American rights or Western rights
    or developed world rights, they are the birthrights of every human
    being, enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
        Those who fight for human rights and against religious persecution,
    at the risk of their jobs, their freedom, even their lives, find
    strength through knowledge that they are not alone, that the community
    of democracies stands with them. The United States, therefore, must and
    will continue to stand up for human rights, to speak out against their
    abuse in China or anywhere else in the world. To do otherwise would run
    counter to everything we stand for as Americans.
        Over the past year, our State Department's annual human rights
    report again pulled no punches on China. We cosponsored a resolution
    critical of China's human rights record in Geneva, even though many of
    our allies had abandoned the effort. We continue to speak against the
    arrest of dissidents and for a resumed dialog with the Dalai Lama, on
    behalf of the people and the distinct culture and unique identity of the
    people of Tibet, not their political independence but their uniqueness.
        We established Radio Free Asia. We are working with Congress to
    expand its broadcast and to support civil society and the rule of law
    programs in China. We continue to pursue the problem of prison labor,
    and we regularly raise human rights in all our high-level meetings with
    the Chinese.
        We do this in the hope of a dialog. And in dialog, we must also
    admit that we in America are not blameless in our social fabric: Our
    crime rate is too high; too many of our children are still killed with
    guns; too many of our streets are still riddled with drugs. We have
    things to learn from other societies as well and problems we have to
    solve. And if we expect other people to listen to us about the problems
    they have, we must be prepared to listen to them about the problems we
    have.
        This pragmatic policy of engagement, of expanding our areas of
    cooperation with China while confronting our differences openly and
    respectfully, this is the best way to advance our fundamental interests
    and our values and to promote a more open and free China.
        I know there are those who disagree. They insist that China's
    interests and America's are inexorably in conflict. They do not believe
    the Chinese system will continue to evolve in a way that elevates not
    only the human material condition but the human spirit. They, therefore,
    believe we should be working harder to contain or even to confront China
    before it becomes even stronger.
        I believe this view is wrong. Isolation of China is unworkable,
    counterproductive, and potentially dangerous. Military, political, and
    economic measures to do such a thing would find little support among our
    allies around the world and, more importantly, even among Chinese
    themselves working for greater liberty. Isolation would encourage the
    Chinese to become hostile and to adopt policies of conflict with our own
    interests and values. It will eliminate, not facilitate, cooperation on
    weapons proliferation. It would hinder, not help, our efforts to foster
    stability in Asia. It would exacerbate, not ameliorate, the plight of
    dissidents. It would close off, not open up, one of the world's most
    important markets. It would make China less, not more, likely to play by
    the rules of international conduct and to be a part of an emerging
    international consensus.
        As always, America must be prepared to live and flourish in a world
    in which we are at odds with China. But that is not the world we want.
    Our objective is not containment and conflict, it is cooperation. We
    will far better serve our

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    interests and our principles if we work with a China that shares that
    objective with us.
        Thirty years ago, President Richard Nixon, then a citizen
    campaigning for the job I now hold, called for a strategic change in our
    policy toward China. Taking the long view, he said, we simply cannot
    afford to leave China forever outside the family of nations. There is no
    place on this small planet for a billion of its potentially most able
    people to live in angry isolation.
        Almost two decades ago, President Carter normalized relations with
    China, recognizing the wisdom of that statement. And over the past two
    and a half decades, as China has emerged from isolation, tensions with
    the West have decreased; cooperation has increased; prosperity has
    spread to more of China's people. The progress was a result of China's
    decision to play a more constructive role in the world and to open its
    economy. It was supported by a farsighted American policy that made
    clear to China we welcome its emergence as a great nation.
        Now, America must stay on that course of engagement. By working with
    China and making our differences clear where necessary, we can advance
    our interests and our values and China's historic transformation into a
    nation whose greatness is defined as much by its future as its past.
        Change may not come as quickly as we would like, but as our
    interests are long-term, so must our policies be. We have an opportunity
    to build a new century in which China takes its rightful place as a full
    and strong partner in the community of nations, working with the United
    States to advance peace and prosperity, freedom and security for both
    our people and for all the world. We have to take that chance.
        Thank you very much.

    Note: The President spoke at 2:50 p.m. in the auditorium at the Voice of
    America. In his remarks, he referred to Nicholas Platt, president, The
    Asia Society; and President Kim Yong-sam of South Korea.