    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1998, Book I)]
    [June 29, 1998]
    [Pages 1080-1089]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks and a Question-and-Answer Session With Students at Beijing
    University in Beijing, China
    June 29, 1998

        The President. Thank you. Thank you, President Chen, Chairman Ren, Vice President
    Chi, Vice Minister Wei. We
    are delighted to be here today with a very large American delegation,
    including the First Lady and our
    daughter, who is a student at Stanford, one
    of the schools with which Beijing University has a relationship. We have
    six Members of the United States Congress; the Secretary of
    State; Secretary of Commerce; the Secretary of Agriculture; the Chairman of our Council of Economic Advisers; Senator Sasser, our
    Ambassador; the National Security Adviser;
    and my Chief of Staff, among others. I say
    that to illustrate the importance

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    that the United States places on our relationship with China.
        I would like to begin by congratulating all of you, the students,
    the faculty, the administrators, on celebrating the centennial year of
    your university. Gongxi, ``Beida.''
        As I'm sure all of you know, this campus was once home to Yenching
    University, which was founded by American missionaries. Many of its
    wonderful buildings were designed by an American architect. Thousands of
    American students and professors have come here to study and teach. We
    feel a special kinship with you.
        I am, however, grateful that this day is different in one important
    respect from another important occasion 79 years ago. In June of 1919,
    the first president of Yenching University, John Leighton Stuart, was
    set to deliver the very first commencement address on these very
    grounds. At the appointed hour, he appeared, but no students appeared.
    They were all out leading the May 4th Movement for China's political and
    cultural renewal. When I read this, I hoped that when I walked into the
    auditorium today, someone would be sitting here. And I thank you for
    being here, very much.
        Over the last 100 years, this university has grown to more than
    20,000 students. Your graduates are spread throughout China and around
    the world. You have built the largest university library in all of Asia.
    Last year 20 percent of your graduates went abroad to study, including
    half of your math and science majors. And in this anniversary year, more
    than a million people in China, Asia, and beyond have logged on to your
    website. At the dawn of a new century, this university is leading China
    into the future.
        I come here today to talk to you, the next generation of China's
    leaders, about the critical importance to your future of building a
    strong partnership between China and the United States.
        The American people deeply admire China for its thousands of years
    of contributions to culture and religion, to philosophy and the arts, to
    science and technology. We remember well our strong partnership in World
    War II. Now we see China at a moment in history when your glorious past
    is matched by your present sweeping transformation and the even greater
    promise of your future.
        Just three decades ago, China was virtually shut off from the world.
    Now, China is a member of more than 1,000 international organizations,
    enterprises that affect everything from air travel to agricultural
    development. You have opened your nation to trade and investment on a
    large scale. Today, 40,000 young Chinese study in the United States,
    with hundreds of thousands more learning in Asia, Africa, Europe, and
    Latin America.
        Your social and economic transformation has been even more
    remarkable, moving from a closed command economic system to a thriving,
    increasingly market based and driven economy, generating two decades of
    unprecedented growth, giving people greater freedom to travel within and
    outside China, to vote in village elections, to own a home, choose a
    job, attend a better school. As a result, you have lifted literally
    hundreds of millions of people from poverty. Per capita income has more
    than doubled in the last decade. Most Chinese people are leading lives
    they could not have imagined just 20 years ago.
        Of course, these changes have also brought disruptions in settled
    patterns of life and work and have imposed enormous strains on your
    environment. Once every urban Chinese was guaranteed employment in a
    state enterprise. Now you must compete in a job market. Once a Chinese
    worker had only to meet the demands of a central planner in Beijing. Now
    the global economy means all must match the quality and creativity of
    the rest of the world. For those who lack the right training and skills
    and support, this new world can be daunting.
        In the short term, good, hardworking people--some, at least--will
    find themselves unemployed. And as all of you can see, there have been
    enormous environmental and economic and health care costs to the
    development pattern and the energy use pattern of the last 20 years,
    from air pollution to deforestation to acid rain and water shortage.
        In the face of these challenges, new systems of training and social
    security will have to be devised, and new environmental policies and
    technologies will have to be introduced with the goal of growing your
    economy while improving the environment. Everything I know about the
    intelligence, the ingenuity, the enterprise of the Chinese people and
    everything I have heard these last few days in my discussions with
    President Jiang, Prime Minister Zhu, and others give me confidence that you will succeed.
        As you build a new China, America wants to build a new relationship
    with you. We want

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    China to be successful, secure, and open, working with us for a more
    peaceful and prosperous world. I know there are those in China and the
    United States who question whether closer relations between our
    countries is a good thing. But everything all of us know about the way
    the world is changing and the challenges your generation will face tell
    us that our two nations will be far better off working together than
    apart.
        The late Deng Xiaoping counseled us to seek truth from facts. At the
    dawn of the new century, the facts are clear. The distance between our
    two nations, indeed between any nations, is shrinking. Where once an
    American clipper ship took months to cross from China to the United
    States, today, technology has made us all virtual neighbors. From
    laptops to lasers, from microchips to megabytes, an information
    revolution is lighting the landscape of human knowledge, bringing us all
    closer together. Ideas, information, and money cross the planet at the
    stroke of a computer key, bringing with them extraordinary opportunities
    to create wealth, to prevent and conquer disease, to foster greater
    understanding among peoples of different histories and different
    cultures.
        But we also know that this greater openness and faster change mean
    that problems which start beyond one nation's borders can quickly move
    inside them: the spread of weapons of mass destruction, the threats of
    organized crime and drug trafficking, of environmental degradation and
    severe economic dislocation. No nation can isolate itself from these
    problems, and no nation can solve them alone. We, especially the younger
    generations of China and the United States, must make common cause of
    our common challenges, so that we can together shape a new century of
    brilliant possibilities.
        In the 21st century--your century--China and the United States will
    face the challenge of security in Asia. On the Korean Peninsula, where
    once we were adversaries, today, we are working together for a permanent
    peace and a future freer of nuclear weapons.
        On the Indian subcontinent, just as most of the rest of the world is
    moving away from nuclear danger, India and Pakistan risk sparking a new
    arms race. We are now pursuing a common strategy to move India and
    Pakistan away from further testing and toward a dialog to resolve their
    differences.
        In the 21st century, your generation must face the challenge of
    stopping the spread of deadlier nuclear, chemical, and biological
    weapons. In the wrong hands or the wrong places, these weapons can
    threaten the peace of nations large and small. Increasingly, China and
    the United States agree on the importance of stopping proliferation.
    That is why we are beginning to act in concert to control the world's
    most dangerous weapons.
        In the 21st century, your generation will have to reverse the
    international tide of crime and drugs. Around the world, organized crime
    robs people of billions of dollars every year and undermines trust in
    government. America knows all about the devastation and despair that
    drugs can bring to schools and neighborhoods. With borders on more than
    a dozen countries, China has become a crossroad for smugglers of all
    kinds.
        Last year, President Jiang and I asked senior
    Chinese and American law enforcement officials to step up our
    cooperation against these predators, to stop money from being laundered,
    to stop aliens from being cruelly smuggled, to stop currencies from
    being undermined by counterfeiting. Just this month, our Drug
    Enforcement Agency opened an office in Beijing, and soon Chinese
    counternarcotics experts will be working out of Washington.
        In the 21st century, your generation must make it your mission to
    ensure that today's progress does not come at tomorrow's expense.
    China's remarkable growth in the last two decades has come with a toxic
    cost, pollutants that foul the water you drink and the air you breathe.
    The cost is not only environmental; it is also serious in terms of the
    health consequences of your people and in terms of the drag on economic
    growth.
        Environmental problems are also increasingly global as well as
    national. For example, in the near future, if present energy use
    patterns persist, China will overtake the United States as the world's
    largest emitter of greenhouse gases, the gases which are the principal
    cause of global warming. If the nations of the world do not reduce the
    gases which are causing global warming, sometime in the next century
    there is a serious risk of dramatic changes in climate which will change
    the way we live and the way we work, which could literally bury some
    island nations under mountains of water and undermine the economic and
    social fabric of nations.

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        We must work together. We Americans know from our own experience
    that it is possible to grow an economy while improving the environment.
    We must do that together for ourselves and for the world. Building on
    the work that our Vice President, Al Gore,
    has done previously with the Chinese Government, President Jiang and I are working together on ways to bring American
    clean energy technology to help improve air quality and grow the Chinese
    economy at the same time.
        But I will say this again--this is not on my remarks--your
    generation must do more about this. This is a huge challenge for you,
    for the American people, and for the future of the world. And it must be
    addressed at the university level, because political leaders will never
    be willing to adopt environmental measures if they believe it will lead
    to large-scale unemployment or more poverty. The evidence is clear; that
    does not have to happen. You will actually have more rapid economic
    growth and better paying jobs, leading to higher levels of education and
    technology if we do this in the proper way. But you and the university,
    communities in China, the United States, and throughout the world will
    have to lead the way.
        In the 21st century, your generation must also meet the challenge of
    an international financial system that has no respect for national
    borders. When stock markets fall in Hong Kong or Jakarta, the effects
    are no longer local; they are global. The vibrant growth of your own
    economy is tied closely, therefore, to the restoration of stability and
    growth in the Asia-Pacific region.
        China has steadfastly shouldered its responsibilities to the region
    and the world in this latest financial crisis, helping to prevent
    another cycle of dangerous devaluations. We must continue to work
    together to counter this threat to the global financial system and to
    the growth and prosperity which should be embracing all of this region.
        In the 21st century, your generation will have a remarkable
    opportunity to bring together the talents of our scientists, doctors,
    engineers into a shared quest for progress. Already the breakthroughs we
    have achieved in our areas of joint cooperation--in challenges from
    dealing with spina bifida to dealing with extreme weather conditions and
    earthquakes--have proved what we can do together to change the lives of
    millions of people in China and the United States and around the world.
    Expanding our cooperation in science and technology can be one of our
    greatest gifts to the future.
        In each of these vital areas that I have mentioned, we can clearly
    accomplish so much more by walking together rather than standing apart.
    That is why we should work to see that the productive relationship we
    now enjoy blossoms into a fuller partnership in the new century.
        If that is to happen, it is very important that we understand each
    other better, that we understand both our common interest and our shared
    aspirations and our honest differences. I believe the kind of open,
    direct exchange that President Jiang and I had on
    Saturday at our press conference, which I know many of you watched on
    television, can both clarify and narrow our differences, and more
    important, by allowing people to understand and debate and discuss these
    things, can give a greater sense of confidence to our people that we can
    make a better future.
        From the windows of the White House, where I live in Washington, DC,
    the monument to our first President, George Washington, dominates the
    skyline. It is a very tall obelisk. But very near this large monument
    there is a small stone which contains these words: ``The United States
    neither established titles of nobility and royalty, nor created a
    hereditary system. State affairs are put to the vote of public opinion.
    This created a new political situation, unprecedented from ancient times
    to the present. How wonderful it is.'' Those words were not written by
    an American. They were written by Xu Jiyu, Governor of Fujian Province,
    inscribed as a gift from the Government of China to our Nation in 1853.
        I am very grateful for that gift from China. It goes to the heart of
    who we are as a people, the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of
    happiness, the freedom to debate, to dissent, to associate, to worship
    without interference from the state. These are the ideals that were at
    the core of our founding over 220 years ago. These are the ideas that
    led us across our continent and onto the world stage. These are the
    ideals that Americans cherish today.
        As I said in my press conference with President Jiang, we have an
    ongoing quest ourselves to live up to those ideals. The people who
    framed our Constitution understood that we would never achieve
    perfection. They said that the mission of America would always be ``to
    form a more perfect Union,'' in other words,

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    that we would never be perfect, but we had to keep trying to do better.
        The darkest moments in our history have come when we abandoned the
    effort to do better, when we denied freedom to our people because of
    their race or their religion, because they were new immigrants, or
    because they held unpopular opinions. The best moments in our history
    have come when we protected the freedom of people who held unpopular
    opinions or extended rights enjoyed by the many to the few who had
    previously been denied them, making, therefore, the promises of our
    Declaration of Independence and Constitution more than faded words on
    old parchment.
        Today, we do not seek to impose our vision on others. But we are
    convinced that certain rights are universal, not American rights or
    European rights or rights for developed nations but the birthrights of
    people everywhere, now enshrined in the United Nations Declaration on
    Human Rights: the right to be treated with dignity, the right to express
    one's opinions, to choose one's own leaders, to associate freely with
    others, and to worship or not, freely, however one chooses.
        In the last letter of his life, the author of our Declaration of
    Independence and our third President, Thomas Jefferson, said then that
    ``all eyes are opening to the rights of man.'' I believe that in this
    time, at long last, 172 years after Jefferson wrote those words, all
    eyes are opening to the rights of men and women everywhere.
        Over the past two decades, a rising tide of freedom has lifted the
    lives of millions around the world, sweeping away failed dictatorial
    systems in the former Soviet Union, throughout Central Europe, ending a
    vicious cycle of military coups and civil wars in Latin America, giving
    more people in Africa the chance to make the most of their hard-won
    independence. And from the Philippines to South Korea, from Thailand to
    Mongolia, freedom has reached Asia's shores, powering a surge of growth
    and productivity.
        Economic security also can be an essential element of freedom. It is
    recognized in the United Nations Covenant on Economic, Social, and
    Cultural Rights. In China, you have made extraordinary strides in
    nurturing that liberty and spreading freedom from want, to be a source
    of strength to your people. Incomes are up; poverty is down. People do
    have more choices of jobs and the ability to travel, the ability to make
    a better life. But true freedom includes more than economic freedom. In
    America, we believe it is a concept which is indivisible.
        Over the past 4 days, I have seen freedom in many manifestations in
    China. I have seen the fresh shoots of democracy growing in the villages
    of your heartland. I have visited a village that chose its own leaders
    in free elections. I have also seen the cell phones, the video players,
    the fax machines carrying ideas, information, and images from all over
    the world. I've heard people speak their minds, and I have joined people
    in prayer in the faith of my own choosing. In all these ways, I felt a
    steady breeze of freedom.
        The question is, where do we go from here? How do we work together
    to be on the right side of history together? More than 50 years ago, Hu
    Shih, one of your great political thinkers and a teacher at this
    university, said these words: ``Now some people say to me you must
    sacrifice your individual freedom so that the nation may be free. But I
    reply, the struggle for individual freedom is the struggle for the
    nation's freedom. The struggle for your own character is the struggle
    for the nation's character.'' We Americans believe Hu Shih was right. We
    believe and our experience demonstrates that freedom strengthens
    stability and helps nations to change.
        One of our Founding Fathers, Benjamin Franklin, once said, ``Our
    critics are our friends, for they show us our faults.'' Now, if that is
    true, there are many days in the United States when the President has
    more friends than anyone else in America. [Laughter] But it is so.
        In the world we live in, this global information age, constant
    improvement and change is necessary to economic opportunity and to
    national strength. Therefore, the freest possible flow of information,
    ideas, and opinions and a greater respect for divergent political and
    religious convictions will actually breed strength and stability going
    forward.
        It is, therefore, profoundly in your interest, and the world's, that
    young Chinese minds be free to reach the fullness of their potential.
    That is the message of our time and the mandate of the new century and
    the new millennium.
        I hope China will more fully embrace this mandate. For all the
    grandeur of your history, I believe your greatest days are still ahead.
    Against great odds in the 20th century, China

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    has not only survived, it is moving forward dramatically.
        Other ancient cultures failed because they failed to change. China
    has constantly proven the capacity to change and grow. Now, you must
    reimagine China again for a new century, and your generation must be at
    the heart of China's regeneration.
        The new century is upon us. All our sights are turned toward the
    future. Now, your country has known more millennia than the United
    States has known centuries. Today, however, China is as young as any
    nation on Earth. This new century can be the dawn of a new China, proud
    of your ancient greatness, proud of what you are doing, prouder still of
    the tomorrows to come. It can be a time when the world again looks to
    China for the vigor of its culture, the freshness of its thinking, the
    elevation of human dignity that is apparent in its works. It can be a
    time when the oldest of nations helps to make a new world.
        The United States wants to work with you to make that time a
    reality.
        Thank you very much.

    Expanding U.S. Understanding of China

        Q. Mr. President, I'm very honored to be the first one to raise
    question. Just as you mentioned in your address, Chinese and American
    people should join hands and move forward together. And what is most
    important in this process is for us to have more exchanges.
        In our view, since China is opening up in reform, we have had better
    understanding of the culture, history, and literature of America, and we
    have also learned a lot about you from the biography. And we have also
    learned about a lot of American Presidents. And we have also seen the
    movie Titanic. But it seems that the American people's understanding of
    the Chinese people is not as much as the other way around. Maybe they
    are only seeing China through several movies, describing the Cultural
    Revolution or the rural life.
        So my question is, as the first President of the United States
    visiting China in 10 years, what do you plan to do to enhance the real
    understanding and the respect between our two peoples?
        Thank you.
        The President. First of all, I think that's a very good point. And
    one of the reasons that I came here was to try to--because, as you can
    see, a few people come with me from the news media--I hope that my trip
    would help to show a full and balanced picture of modern China to the
    United States, and that by coming here, it would encourage others to
    come here and others to participate in the life of China.
        I see a young man out in the audience who introduced himself to me
    yesterday as the first American ever to be a law student in China. So I
    hope we will have many more Americans coming here to study, many more
    Americans coming here to be tourists, many more Americans coming here to
    do business. The First Lady this
    morning and the Secretary of State had
    a meeting on a legal project. We are doing a lot of projects together
    with the Chinese to help promote the rule of law. That should bring a
    lot more people here.
        I think there is no easy answer to your question. It's something we
    have to work at. We just need more people involved and more kinds of
    contacts. And I think the more we can do that, the better.
        Is there another question?

    Taiwan, Japan, and Asian Security

        Q. Mr. President, as a Chinese, I'm very interested in the
    reunification of my motherland. Since 1972, progress has been made on
    the question of Taiwan question, but we have seen that the Americans
    have repeatedly are selling advanced weapons to Taiwan. And to our great
    indignation, we have seen that the United States and Japan have renewed
    the U.S.-Japan security treaty, and according to some Japanese
    officials, this treaty even includes Taiwan Province of China. So I have
    to ask, if China were to send its naval facility to Hawaii, and if China
    were to sign a security treaty with other countries against one part of
    the United States, will the United States agree to such an act? Will the
    American people agree to such an act?
        The President. First of all, the United States policy is not an
    obstacle to the peaceful reunification of China and Taiwan. Our policy
    is embodied in the three communiques and in the Taiwan Relations Act.
    Our country recognized China and embraced a ``one China'' policy almost
    20 years ago. And I reaffirmed our ``one China'' policy to President
    Jiang in our meetings.
        Now, when the United States and China reached agreement that we
    would have a ``one China'' policy, we also reached agreement that

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    the reunification would occur by peaceful means, and we have encouraged
    the cross-strait dialog to achieve that. Our policy is that any weapon
    sales, therefore, to Taiwan must be for defensive purposes only, and
    that the country must not believe--China must not believe that we are in
    any way trying to undermine our own ``one China'' policy. It is our
    policy. But we do believe it should occur--any reunification should
    occur peacefully.
        Now, on Japan, if you read the security agreement we signed with
    Japan, I think it will be clear from its terms that the agreement is not
    directed against any country but rather in support of stability in Asia.
    We have forces in South Korea that are designed to deter a resumption of
    the Korean war across the dividing line between the two Koreas. Our
    forces in Japan are largely designed to help us promote stability
    anywhere in the Asia-Pacific region on short notice. But I believe that
    it is not fair to say that either Japan or the United States have a
    security relationship that is designed to contain China. Indeed, what
    both countries want is a security partnership with China for the 21st
    century.
        For example, you mentioned NATO, we have expanded NATO in Europe,
    but we also have made a treaty, an agreement between NATO and Russia, to
    prove that we are not against Russia anymore. And the most important
    thing NATO has done in the last 5 years is to work side by side with
    Russia to end the war in Bosnia. And I predict to you that what you see
    us doing with China now, working together to try to limit the tension
    from the Indian and the Pakistani nuclear tests, you will see more and
    more and more of that in the future. And I think you will see a lot of
    security cooperation in that area. And we can't see the agreements of
    today through the mirror of yesterday's conflicts.

    China-U.S. Relations

        Q. Mr. President, I'm from class '97. I've very glad to have this
    opportunity to ask you a question. With a friendly smile you have set
    foot on the soil of China, and you have come to the campus of ``Beida,''
    so we are very excited and honored by your presence, for the Chinese
    people really aspire for the friendship between China and the United
    States on the basis of equality. As I know that--before your departure
    from the States, you said that the reason for you to visit China is
    because China is too important, and engagement is better than
    containment. I'd like to ask you whether this sentence is kind of a
    commitment you made for your visit, or do you have any other hidden
    sayings behind this smile? Do you have any other design to contain
    China? [Laughter]
        The President. If I did, I wouldn't mask it behind a smile.
    [Laughter] But I don't. That is, my words mean exactly what they say. We
    have to make a decision, all of us do, but especially the people who
    live in large nations with great influence must decide how to define
    their greatness.
        When the Soviet Union went away, Russia had to decide how to define
    its greatness. Would they attempt to develop the human capacity of the
    Russian people and work in partnership with their neighbors for a
    greater future, or would they remember the bad things that happened to
    them in the past 200 years and think the only way they could be great
    would be to dominate their neighbors militarily? They chose a forward
    course. The world is a better place.
        The same thing is true with China. You will decide, both in terms of
    your policies within your country and beyond, what does it mean that
    China will be a great power in the 21st century? Does it mean that you
    will have enormous economic success? Does it mean you will have enormous
    cultural influence? Does it mean that you will be able to play a large
    role in solving the problems of the world? Or does it mean you will be
    able to dominate your neighbors in some form or fashion, whether they
    like it or not? This is the decision that every great country has to
    make.
        You ask me, do I really want to contain China? The answer is no. The
    American people have always had a very warm feeling toward China that
    has been interrupted from time to time when we have had problems. But if
    you go back through the history of our country, there's always been a
    feeling on the part of our people that we ought to be close to the
    Chinese people. And I believe that it would be far better for the people
    of the United States to have a partnership on equal, respectful terms
    with China in the 21st century than to have to spend enormous amounts of
    time and money trying to contain China because we disagree with what's
    going on beyond our borders. So I do not want that. I want a
    partnership. I'm not hiding another design behind a smile; it's

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    what I really believe. I believe it, not because--[applause]--because I
    think it's good for the American people, and it's my job to do what's
    good for them. What's good for them is to have a good relationship with
    you.

    Education/Aspirations for Young People

        Q. Mr. President, well, I'm from the medical science and from class
    '98. I'm going to graduate this year, and I'm going to work in Bank of
    China. Just now, Mr. President, you mentioned the responsibilities of
    the young generation of the two countries for international security,
    environment, and the financial stability. I think they are really
    important. And I think the most important thing is for the young people
    to be well educated. And I know, Mr. President, you love your daughter
    very much, and she is now studying at Stanford. So, my question is--
    several years ago you proposed the concept of knowledge economy, so, my
    first question is, what do you think the education of higher learning,
    what kind of role can this play in the future knowledge economy?
        And the second question is, what expectations do you have, Mr.
    President, for the younger generation of our two countries?
        The President. Let me answer the knowledge economy question first.
    And let me answer by telling you what I have tried to do in the United
    States. I have tried to create a situation in America in which the doors
    of universities and colleges are open to every young person who has
    sufficient academic achievement to get in, that there are no financial
    burdens of any kind. And we have not completely achieved it, but we have
    made a great deal of progress.
        Now, why would I do that? Because I believe that the more advanced
    an economy becomes, the more important it is to have a higher and higher
    and higher percentage of people with a university education. Let me just
    tell you how important it is in the United States. We count our people--
    every 10 years we do a census and we count the numbers of the American
    people, and we get all kinds of information on them. In the 1990 census,
    younger Americans who had a college degree were overwhelmingly likely to
    get good jobs and have their incomes grow. Younger Americans who had 2
    years or more of university were likely to get good jobs and have their
    incomes grow. Younger Americans who didn't go to university at all were
    likely to get jobs where their incomes declined and were much more
    likely to be unemployed.
        And the more advanced China's economy becomes, the more that will be
    true of China, the more you will need very large numbers of people
    getting university education and technical education. So I think it is
    very, very important.
        Now, let me say one expectation I have for the younger generation of
    Americans and Chinese that has nothing to do with economics. One of the
    biggest threats to your future is a world which is dominated not by
    modern problems but by ancient hatreds. Look around the world and see
    how much trouble is being caused by people who dislike each other
    because of their racial or their religious or their ethnic differences,
    whether it's in Bosnia or the conflict between the Indians and the
    Pakistanis or in the Middle East or the tribal conflicts in Africa. You
    look all over the world, you see these kind of problems.
        Young people, I think, are naturally more open to others who are
    different, more interested in people who are different. And I hope young
    people in China and young people in America who have a good education
    will be a strong voice in the world against giving in to this sort of
    hating people or looking down on them simply because they're different.
        Thank you.

    U.S. Domestic Human Rights Issues

        Q. Mr. President, with regard to the question of democracy, human
    rights, and freedom, actually this is an issue of great interest to both
    the Chinese and American peoples. But to be honest, our two countries
    have some differences over these issues. In your address just now you
    made a very proud review and retrospection of the history of the
    America's democracy in human rights. And you have also made some
    suggestions for China. Of course, for the sincere suggestions, we
    welcome. But I think I recall one saying, that is we should have both
    criticism and self-criticism.
        So now I'd like to ask you a question. Do you think that in the
    United States today, there are also some problems in the area of
    democracy, freedom, and human rights, and what your Government has done
    in improving the situation?
        The President. I do, and first of all, let me say, I never raise
    this question overseas in any country, not just China, without
    acknowledging

    [[Page 1088]]

    first that our country has had terrible problems in this area--keep in
    mind, slavery was legal in America for many years--and that we are still
    not perfect. I always say that because I don't think it's right for any
    person to claim that he or she lives in a perfect country. We're all
    struggling toward ideals to live a better life. So I agree with the
    general point you made.
        Now, I will give you two examples. We still have some instances of
    discrimination in America, in housing or employment or other areas,
    based on race. And we have a system set up to deal with it, but we have
    not totally eliminated it. And in the last year, I have been engaging
    the American people in a conversation on this subject, and we have tried
    to identify the things that Government should do, the things that the
    American people should do either through the local government or through
    other organizations, and the attitudes that should change the minds and
    hearts of the American people. So that's one example.
        Now, let me give you another example. We have--when I ran for
    President in 1992, I was in a hotel in New York City, and an American
    immigrant from Greece came up to me, and he said, ``My son is 10 years
    old, and he studies the election in school, and he says I should vote
    for you.'' But he said, ``If I vote for you, I want you to make my son
    free, because my son is not really free.'' So I asked this man, ``What
    do you mean?'' And he said, ``Well, the crime is so high in my
    neighborhood, there are so many guns and gangs, that my son does not
    feel that he--I can't let him walk to school by himself or go across the
    street to play in the park. So if I vote for you, I want you to make my
    son free.''
        I think that's important, because, you see, in America, we tend to
    view freedom as the freedom from Government abuse or from Government
    control. That is our heritage. Our Founders came here to escape the
    monarchy in England. But sometimes freedom requires affirmative steps by
    Government to give everyone an equal opportunity to have an education
    and make a decent living and to preserve a lawful environment. So I work
    very hard to try to bring the crime rate down in America, and it's now
    lower than it has been at any time in 25 years, which means that more of
    our children are free. But the crime rate is still too high; there is
    still too much violence.
        So we Americans need to be sensitive not only to preserve the
    freedoms that we hold dear but also to create an environment in which
    people can build a truly good and free life.
        That's a good question.

    Freedom

        Q. Mr. President, you are warmly welcome to ``Beida.'' You mentioned
    a sentence by Mr. Xu Jiyu, but our former President once said that when
    the great moral is in practice, the morals, they will not contradict
    each other. And I don't think the individual freedom and the collective
    freedom will contradict each other. But in China the prosperous
    development of the nation is actually the free choice of our people, and
    it's also the result of their efforts. So I think that freedom, real
    freedom, should mean for the people to freely choose the way of life
    they like and also to develop. And I also think that only those who can
    really respect the freedom of others can really say that they understand
    what freedom means.
        I don't know whether you agree with me or not.
        The President. First of all, if you believe in freedom, you have to
    respect the freedom of others to make another choice. And even societies
    that have rather radical views of individual freedom recognize limits on
    that freedom when it interferes with preserving other people's rights.
        For example, there's one of our famous court cases which says we
    have freedom of speech, but no one should be free to shout the word
    ``fire'' in a crowded movie theater where there is no fire and cause
    people to stampede over each other. There's another famous court
    decision that says my freedom ends where the other person's nose begins,
    meaning that you don't have the freedom to hit someone else.
        So I agree with that. People have the freedom to choose, and you
    have to respect other people's freedom, and they have the right to make
    decisions that are different from yours. And there will never be a time
    when our systems and our cultures and our choices will be completely
    identical. That's one of the things that makes life interesting.

    U.S. Economic Expansion/Protest Demonstrations

        Q. Mr. President, I have two questions. The first question is, the
    U.S. economy has been

    [[Page 1089]]

    growing for more than 18 months, so I'd like to ask, apart from your
    personal contribution to the United States, what other factors do you
    think important for the success of the U.S. economy? Maybe they can
    serve as good reference for China.
        The second question is, when President Jiang Zemin visited the
    Harvard University last year, there were a lot of students outside the
    hall staging demonstrations. So I'd like you, President--if you are in
    Beijing University and if there were a lot of students outside
    protesting and demonstrating, what feeling would you have?
        The President. Well, first of all, on the United States economy, I
    believe that the principal role of Government policy since I've been
    President was to, first of all, get our big Government deficit--we had a
    huge annual deficit in spending--we got that under control. We're about
    to have the first balanced budget in 30 years. That drove interest rates
    down and freed up a lot of money to be invested in creating jobs in the
    private sector. Then the second thing we did was to expand trade a lot,
    so we began to sell a lot more around the world than we had before. And
    the third thing we did was to attempt to invest more in our people, in
    research, development, technology, and education.
        Now, in addition to that, however, a lot of the credit here goes to
    the American people themselves. We have a very sophisticated business
    community; they were investing money in new technologies and in new
    markets and in training people. We have an environment where it's quite
    easy for people to start a business, and perhaps this is the area that
    might be most helpful to China.
        I know that my wife has done a
    lot of work around the world in villages, trying to get credit to
    villagers so they could borrow money to start their own businesses, to
    try to take advantage of some skill they have. And we have seen this
    system work even in the poorest places in Africa and Latin America,
    where opportunity takes off.
        So we have tried to make it easy in America for people to start a
    business, to expand a business, and to do business. And then we have
    also tried very, very hard to get new opportunities into areas where
    there were none before. And all these things together--but especially, I
    give most of the credit to the people of my country. After all, a person
    in my position, we're supposed to have correct policies so that we
    create a framework within which the American people then create the
    future. And I think that is basically what has happened.
        Now, you asked me an interesting question. Actually, I have been
    demonstrated against quite a lot in the United States. I told President
    Jiang when he was there, I was glad they demonstrated against him, so I
    didn't feel so lonely. [Laughter]
        I'll give you a serious answer. If there were a lot of people
    demonstrating against me outside, suppose they were demonstrating over
    the question that the first gentleman asked me. Suppose they said, ``Oh,
    President Clinton is trying to interfere with the peaceful reunification
    of China and Taiwan, and he shouldn't be selling them any weapons
    whatever.'' Well, I would try to find out what they were demonstrating
    against, and then I would ask my host if they minded if I would go over
    and talk to them, or if they would mind if one or two people from the
    group of demonstrators could be brought to see me, and they could say
    what is on their minds, and I could answer.
        Remember what I said before about what Benjamin Franklin said, ``Our
    critics are our friends, for they show us our faults.'' You have asked
    me some very good questions today that have an element of criticism in
    them. They have been very helpful to me. They have helped me to
    understand how what I say is perceived by others, not just in China but
    around the world. They have helped me to focus on what I can do to be a
    more effective President for my people and for the things we believe in.
        And so I feel very good that we have had this interchange. And from
    my point of view, the questions were far more important than my speech.
    I never learn anything when I'm talking; I only learn things when I'm
    listening.
        Thank you very much. Thank you.

    Note: The President spoke at 10:25 a.m. in the Bangong Lou auditorium.
    In his remarks, he referred to Chen Jia-er, president, Ren Yan-shen,
    university council chairman, and Chi Hui-sheng, vice president, Beijing
    University; and President Jiang Zemin, Premier Zhu Rongji, and Vice
    Minister of Education Wei Yu of China. A portion of these remarks could
    not be verified because the tape was incomplete.