[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1998, Book I)]
[May 17, 1998]
[Pages 780-783]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks and an Exchange With Reporters in Birmingham,
United Kingdom
May 17, 1998

Group of Eight Summit

    The President. Let me just say a couple of things, and then I know 
you have some questions, and I'll try to answer a few of them.
    First of all, I want to commend Prime Minister Blair and all of his team for putting on what I thought was 
one of our best G-8 meetings. This shows the benefit of these meetings 
not just for dealing with the issues that are

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in the news now--Indonesia, India, Pakistan, and other issues that are 
presently in the news--but also dealing with the long-term challenges we 
face. We did some serious work here on employment issues, on 
environmental issues, on crime issues, on dealing with conversion of 
computers in all of our countries at the turn of the century and what 
kind of challenges will be presented by that, and how we can work 
together on them. It was a very stimulating, interesting meeting that 
will actually have an impact on the lives of the people that we all 
represent. So I thought it was quite good, and I felt good about that.
    Secondly, I just had a very, very good meeting with President 
Yeltsin in which, once again, he assured me 
that he was doing his best to ratify the START II Treaty in the Duma. 
And we agreed that we wanted to immediately begin work on START III as 
soon as the ratification is secured there. I think all of us, because of 
the India nuclear tests, feel an even greater sense of urgency to change 
the debate again over nuclear issues toward less, not more; to change 
the whole direction here. And I think if we can get early Duma 
ratification, we know pretty well where we are on a lot of these big 
START III issues, and we'd like to really get after it and turn this, 
the nuclear tide, back in the right direction, away from more weapons 
toward fewer ones. So I was quite encouraged by that.
    We still have some areas where we're working with them hard to get 
greater results and cooperation, especially in the whole area of 
technology transfer to Iran, and all of you know about that. And we went 
over that in some significant detail and, I think, reached some 
understandings which will bear fruit in the days ahead; so I'm hopeful 
of that.
    Anyway, it was a good meeting. He was in very, very good form, 
excited about his new government, proud of them, and seemed to be in as 
good a health and good a spirits as I've seen him in quite a long time.
    So, questions?

Nuclear Proliferation in South Asia

    Q. Mr. President, Pakistan's Foreign Minister told Reuters that he 
was very close to certain his country would conduct a nuclear test. He 
told the Associated Press it's not a matter of if but when. Sir, what 
does this do to regional stability? And could this have been avoided 
had, for example, Russia and France joined the U.S. in sanctions against 
India?
    The President. Well, first of all, based on our best information, it 
hasn't happened yet. I also saw the Foreign Minister on television last night making substantially the same 
statement, but I understand it's still being debated in the Cabinet.
    I understand also that they're under a lot of pressure. You can only 
imagine what the pressures might be. But I will say this: I still have 
hopes that the Prime Minister and the Pakistani 
Government will not go through with a nuclear test. And I believe that 
we can--the rest of us who would support that can work with them in a 
way that meets their security interests without the test.
    Furthermore, I think that over the long run, and indeed before then, 
the political, the economic, and the security interests of Pakistan and 
in Pakistan's standing in the world would be dramatically increased if 
they walked away from a test. The whole rest of the world would think 
they were stronger and would be profoundly impressed, and I think it 
would help us to resolve these issues more if they did not. So I hope 
they will not. And if they do, we'll cross that bridge when we come to 
it.
    Now, do I think that the result would be different if everyone had 
as hard a line on this as we do? I can't really say that. I think if you 
go back and look at the statement we've put out here, this is a--
everybody condemned the Indian action, including countries that were 
very close to India. And every country said their relations would be 
affected by it. And when I came here, that's the most I thought we could 
get, because there are lots of countries in the world that basically are 
opposed to sanctions under almost all circumstances except under rare 
cases when the UN votes for them. So we just have a different view on 
that.
    I'm glad that we've done what we've done, even though I have 
enormous admiration for India's democracy and for its progress in the 
last several years. But all I can tell you is I'm going to do what I can 
to get this back on track. I hope that Pakistan won't test. I think it 
will help us to get it back on track, and I think it will help Pakistan 
immeasurably in the world community, and it will have, I believe, 
specific political, economic, and security benefits to the country if it 
does not test.
    So I'll keep working on it.

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    Q. Mr. President, if sanctions aren't possible, are there any other 
specific actions you want these other countries to take when they go 
home?
    The President. Well, for one thing, I think a lot of countries are 
taking economic action: Japan is; Canada is; a number of European 
countries are. The European Union is going to have to debate this. I 
think that's one of the reasons that Prime Minister Blair, who otherwise took quite a hard line here with us--he 
was quite good on the language of the resolution--but I think that he 
thinks, as head of the EU, he has to give all these other countries the 
chance to be heard. I think a number of European countries will take 
economic actions here.
    And I think that we just have to--we're going to have to work this 
situation to turn it back around, because what you don't want is the--
insofar as possible, the best of all worlds would be that this is an 
isolated event. And then India signs the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty; 
then Pakistan says it will sign if India does, so they sign. That would 
be the best conceivable result.
    The worst conceivable result would be for everybody that's ever 
worked on this to think they ought to conduct some sort of test and that 
this is now--it's sort of the new measure of either national security or 
national greatness. That's a terrible signal for the rest of us to send 
the world, especially when the Russians and we are doing our very best 
to put everything in the opposite direction and to reduce the number of 
nuclear weapons in the world.
    So we just have to--I'm going to spend a lot of time thinking 
through this and coming up with an affirmative strategy to try to deal 
with all the elements of it and all the aspects of the problem. And in 
the meantime, I hope that Pakistan will find the strength necessary to 
walk away from a test.

1996 Campaign Financing

    Q. Mr. President, there's new evidence that the Chinese Government 
funneled money into the American election campaign. Did you or anybody 
in your administration make decisions based on the influence of Chinese 
money?
    The President. No.
    Q. And what do you feel about that evidence?
    The President. For one thing, first of all, I understand there's a 
new allegation about that. I have two things to say about it. First of 
all, all of the foreign policy decisions we made were based on what we 
believed--I and the rest of my administration--were in the interests of 
the American people. Now, if someone tried to influence them, that's a 
different issue, and there ought to be an investigation into whether 
that happened. And I would support that. I have always supported that. 
But I can tell you that the decisions we made, we made because we 
thought they were in the interests of the American people.
    Q. [Inaudible]--the Chinese in your visit?
    The President. Well, I want to see--when I get back home, I want to 
see, number one, what is the substance of this; how serious is it; what 
are the facts; what evidence is there? Is this just somebody saying, or 
is there some reason to believe there is objective evidence to support 
this? But in any case, I think the investigation ought to proceed, and 
then whatever the facts are, we'll take appropriate action at the time.

Russian Ratification of START II Treaty

    Q. You mentioned President Yeltsin giving you assurances on START II 
ratification. He's done that, in the past, several times.
    The President. He has, but one of the 
things he pointed out this time is he said this thing is now in the 
Duma; it's actively being considered; there are a lot of committees 
working on it; and that he will, obviously, not only push for its 
ratification but argue that it ought to be considered in an even more 
timely fashion now because of the Indian test.
    Q. Will you go to Moscow only if it is ratified, or do you have 
assurances now----
    The President. Well, I think it ought to be ratified because then we 
can get more business done. We can't really do anything on START III 
until START II is ratified. And I'm hoping that it will. And I'd like to 
leave it there. I'd like to leave it there.
    Q. How long would it take to ratify START III?
    The President. I don't know. But I think--but actually, I think 
START III could be done in fairly short order because we have been, 
Boris Yeltsin and I have been, talking about these issues for years now, 
and I think we know what the parameters of our two positions are, what 
our national security considerations are. And so I would expect that it 
could be done fairly quickly once we get START II out of the way.

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    Thank you.

Note: The President spoke at 1:21 p.m. outside the Hyatt Hotel. In his 
remarks, he referred to Prime Minister Tony Blair of the United Kingdom; 
President Boris Yeltsin of Russia; and Minister of Foreign Affairs Gohar 
Ayub Khan and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif of Pakistan.