    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1999, Book I)]
    [April 7, 1999]
    [Pages 506-512]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks to the United States Institute of Peace
    April 7, 1999

        Thank you, Richard. Max
    Kampelman, thank you for being with me
    today. And I thank the U.S. Institute for Peace for arranging this
    presentation on, as I'm sure all of you know, relatively short notice.
        I'd also like to acknowledge the presence here with me today of
    Secretary Albright and Ambassador
    Barshefsky, National Security Adviser
    Berger, and two important former members of
    my national security team, Tony Lake and Tara
    Sonenshine, who is a senior adviser here to
    the Institute for Peace.
        I would like to begin just by thanking this body for what you do
    every day to help our administration and the Congress and the American
    people think through the most challenging foreign policy issues of our
    time. And I thank you in particular for your determination to reach out
    to a younger generation of Americans to talk to them about the
    importance of these issues and the world they will live in.
        In February I gave a speech in San Francisco about America's role in
    the century to come. We all know it's an extraordinary moment when there
    is no overriding threat to our security, when no great power need feel
    that any other is a military threat, when freedom is expanding, and open
    markets and technology are raising living standards on every continent,
    bringing the world closer together in countless ways.
        But I also argued that globalization is not an unmixed blessing. In
    fact, the benefits of globalization, openness and opportunity, depend on
    the very things globalization alone cannot guarantee: peace, democracy,
    the stability of markets, social justice, the protection of health and
    the environment.
        Globalization can bring repression and human rights violations and
    suffering into the open, but it cannot prevent them. It can promote
    integration among nations but also lead to disintegration within them.
    It can bring prosperity on every continent but still leave many, many
    people behind. It can give people the modern tools of the 21st century,
    but it cannot purge their hearts of the primitive hatreds that may lead
    to the misuse of those tools. Only national governments, working
    together, can reap the full promise and reduce the problems of the 21st
    century.
        The United States, as the largest and strongest country in the world
    at this moment--largest in economic terms and military terms--has the
    unavoidable responsibility to lead in this increasingly interdependent
    world, to try to help meet the challenges of this new era.
        Clearly, our first challenge is to build a more peaceful world, one
    that will apparently be dominated by ethnic and religious conflicts we
    once thought of--primitive but which Senator

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    Moynihan, for example, has referred
    to now as postmodern. We know that we cannot stop all such conflicts.
    But when the harm is great and when our values and interests are at
    stake and when we have the means to make a difference, we should try.
        That is what we and our NATO Allies are doing in Kosovo, trying to
    end the horrible war there, trying to aid the struggling democracies of
    southeastern Europe, all of whom are threatened by the violence, the
    hatred, the human exodus President Milosevic's brutal campaign has unleashed. We are determined to
    stay united and to persist until we prevail.
        It is not enough now for Mr. Milosevic to say that his forces will cease fire in Kosovo,
    denied its freedom and devoid of its people. He must withdraw his
    forces, let the refugees return, permit the deployment of an
    international security force. Nothing less will bring peace with
    security to the people of Kosovo.
        The second challenge I discussed in San Francisco in February is
    that of bringing our former adversaries Russia and China into the
    international system as open, prosperous, and stable nations. Today I
    want to speak especially about our relationship with China, one that is
    being tested and hotly debated today as China's Premier, Zhu Rongji, travels to Washington.
        Of course, we all know that perceptions affect policies. And
    American perceptions about China have often changed in this century. In
    the early 1900's, most Americans saw China through the eyes of
    missionaries seeking open hearts or traders seeking open markets. During
    World War II, China was our ally, during the Korean war, our adversary.
    During the cold war, we debated whether China was a solid stone in the
    monolith of world communism or a country with interests and traditions
    that could make it a counterweight to Soviet power.
        More recently, many Americans have looked to China to see either the
    world's next great capitalist tiger and an enormous mother lode of
    economic opportunity for American companies and American workers or the
    world's largest great Communist dragon and next great threat to freedom
    and security.
        For a long time, it seems to me, we have argued about China with
    competing caricatures. Is this a country to be engaged or isolated? Is
    this a country beyond our power to influence or a country that is ours
    to gain and ours to lose? Now we hear that China is a country to be
    feared. A growing number of people say that it is the next great threat
    to our security and our well-being.
        What about this argument? Well, those who say it point out,
    factually, that if China's economy continues to grow on its present
    trajectory, it will be the world's largest in the next century. They
    argue, correctly, that the Chinese Government often defines its
    interests in ways sharply divergent from ours. They are concerned,
    rightly, by Chinese missiles aimed at Taiwan and at others. From this
    they conclude that China is or will be our enemy.
        They claim it is building up its military machine for aggression and
    using the profits of our trade to pay for it. They urge us, therefore,
    to contain China, to deny it access to our markets, our technology, our
    investment, and to bolster the strength of our allies in Asia to counter
    the threat a strong China will pose in the 21st century.
        What about that scenario? Clearly, if it chooses to do so, China
    could pursue such a course, pouring much more of its wealth into
    military might and into traditional great power geopolitics. Of course,
    this would rob it of much of its future prosperity, and it is far from
    inevitable that China will choose this path. Therefore, I would argue
    that we should not make it more likely that China will choose this path
    by acting as if that decision has already been made.
        I say this over and over again, but when I see this China debate in
    America, with people talking about how we've got to contain China, and
    they present a terrible threat to us in the future and it's inevitable
    and how awful it is, I remind people who work with us that the same kind
    of debate is going on in China, people saying, ``The Americans do not
    want us to emerge. They do not want us to have our rightful position in
    the world. Their whole strategy is designed to keep us down on the
    farm.''
        And we have to follow a different course. We cannot afford
    caricatures. I believe we have to work for the better future that we
    want, even as we remain prepared for any outcome. This approach will
    clearly put us at odds with those who believe America must always have a
    great enemy. How can you be the great force for good in the world and
    justify all the things you do if you don't have a great enemy?
        I don't believe that. I believe we have to work for the best but do
    it in a way that will

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    never leave us unprepared in the event that our efforts do not succeed.
        Among the first decisions I made in 1993 was to preserve the
    alliances that kept the peace during the cold war. That meant in Asia,
    we kept 100,000 troops there and maintained robust alliances with Japan,
    Korea, Thailand, Australia, and the Philippines. We did this and have
    done it not to contain China or anyone else but to give confidence to
    all that the potential threats to Asia's security will remain just that,
    potential, and that America remains committed to being involved with
    Asia and to Asia's stability.
        We've maintained our strong, unofficial ties to a democratic Taiwan
    while upholding our ``one China'' policy. We've encouraged both sides to
    resolve their differences peacefully and to have increased contact.
    We've made it clear that neither can count on our acceptance if it
    violates these principles.
        We know that in the past decade, China has increased its deployment
    of missiles near Taiwan. When China tested some of those missiles in
    1996, tensions grew in the Taiwan Straits. We demonstrated then, with
    the deployment of our carriers, that America will act to prevent a
    miscalculation there. Our interests lie in peace and stability in Taiwan
    and in China, in the strait and in the region, and in a peaceful
    resolution of the differences. We will do what is necessary to maintain
    our interests.
        Now, we have known since the early 1980's that China has nuclear
    armed missiles capable of reaching the United States. Our defense
    posture has and will continue to take account of that reality. In part,
    because of our engagement, China has, at best, only marginally increased
    its deployed nuclear threat in the last 15 years. By signing the
    Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, China has accepted constraints on its
    ability to modernize its arsenal at a time when the nuclear balance
    remains overwhelmingly in our favor. China has fewer than two dozen
    long-range nuclear weapons today; we have over 6,000.
        We are determined to prevent the diversion of technology and
    sensitive information to China. The restrictions we place on our exports
    to China are tougher than those applied to any other major exporting
    country in the world.
        When we first learned, in 1995, that a compromise had occurred at
    our weapons labs, our first priority was to find the leak, to stop it,
    and to prevent further damage. When the Energy Department and the FBI
    discovered wider vulnerabilities, we launched a comprehensive effort to
    address them. Last year I issued a directive to dramatically strengthen
    security at the Energy labs. We have increased the Department's
    counterintelligence budget by fifteenfold since 1995.
        But we need to be sure we're getting the job done. Last month I
    asked the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, an
    independent, bipartisan body chaired by former Senator Warren
    Rudman, to review the security threat and
    the adequacy of the measures we have taken to address it. It is vital
    that we meet this challenge with firmness and openness but without fear.
        The issue is how to respond to this. I believe we should not look at
    China through rose-colored glasses, nor should we look through a glass
    darkly to see an image that distorts China's strength and ignores its
    complexities. We need to see China clearly, its progress and its
    problems, its system and its strains, its policies and its perceptions
    of us, of itself, of the world. Indeed, we should apply a bit of
    universal wisdom that China's late leader, Deng Xiaoping, used to
    preach: We should seek the truth from facts.
        In the last 20 years, China has made incredible progress in building
    a new economy, lifting more than 200 million people out of absolute
    poverty. But consider this: Its working age population is increasing by
    more than 10 million people, the equivalent of the State of Illinois,
    every year. Tens of millions of Chinese families are migrating from the
    countryside, where they see no future, to the city where only some find
    work. Due in part to the Asian economic crisis, China's economic growth
    is slowing just when it needs to be rising to create jobs for the
    unemployed and to maintain support for economic reform.
        For all the progress of China's reforms, private enterprise still
    accounts for less than 20 percent of the nonfarm economy. Much of
    China's landscape is still dominated by unprofitable, polluting state
    industries. China state banks are still making massive loans to
    struggling state firms, the sector of the economy least likely to
    succeed.
        Now, I've met with Premier Zhu before. I know,
    and I think all of you know, that he is committed to making necessary,
    far-reaching changes. He and President Jiang are
    working to reform banks and state enterprises and to

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    fight corruption. Indeed, one of China's highest public security
    officials was arrested several weeks ago on corruption charges.
        They also know that in the short run, reform will cause more
    unemployment, and that can cause unrest. But so far, they've been
    unwilling to open up China's political system because they see that as
    contributing to instability--when, in fact, giving people a say in their
    decisions actually provides a peaceful outlet for venting frustration.
        China's biggest challenge in the coming years will be to maintain
    stability and growth at home by meeting, not stifling, the growing
    demands of its people for openness and accountability. It is easy for us
    to say; for them, it is a daunting task.
        What does all this mean for us? Well, if we've learned anything in
    the last few years from Japan's long recession and Russia's current
    economic troubles, it is that the weaknesses of great nations can pose
    as big a challenge to America as their strengths. So as we focus on the
    potential challenge that a strong China could present to the United
    States in the future, let us not forget the risk of a weak China, beset
    by internal conflicts, social dislocation, and criminal activity,
    becoming a vast zone of instability in Asia.
        Despite Beijing's best efforts to rein in these problems, we have
    seen the first danger signs: free-wheeling Chinese enterprises selling
    weapons abroad; the rise in China of organized crime; stirrings of
    ethnic tensions and rural unrest; the use of Chinese territory for
    heroin trafficking; and even piracy of ships at sea. In short, we're
    seeing in China the kinds of problems a society can face when it is
    moving away from the rule of fear but is not yet firmly rooted in the
    rule of law.
        The solutions fundamentally lie in the choices China makes. But I
    think we would all agree, we have an interest in seeking to make a
    difference and in not pretending that the outcome is foreordained. We
    can't do that simply by confronting China or trying to contain her. We
    can only deal with the challenge if we continue a policy of principled,
    purposeful engagement with China's leaders and China's people.
        Our long-term strategy must be to encourage the right kind of
    development in China; to help China grow at home into a strong,
    prosperous, and open society, coming together, not falling apart; to
    integrate China into the institutions that promote global norms on
    proliferation, trade, the environment, and human rights. We must build
    on opportunities for cooperation with China where we agree, even as we
    strongly defend our interests and values where we disagree. That is the
    purpose of engagement: not to insulate our relationship from the
    consequences of Chinese actions but to use our relationship to influence
    China's actions in a way that advances our values and our interests.
        That is what we have done for the last 6 years, with the following
    tangible results: In no small measure as a result of our engagement,
    China helped us to convince North Korea to freeze the production of
    plutonium and, for now, to refrain from more missile tests. It has been
    our partner in averting a nuclear confrontation in South Asia. Not long
    ago, China was selling dangerous weapons and technologies with impunity.
    Since the 1980's, it has joined the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty,
    the Chemical Weapons Convention, the Biological Weapons Convention, and
    the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and accepted the safeguards, reporting
    requirements, and inspection systems that go with each.
        We have also convinced China not to provide new assistance to Iran's
    nuclear program, to stop selling Iran antiship cruise missiles, and to
    halt assistance to unsafeguarded nuclear facilities in Pakistan. Now
    it's important that China join the Missile Technology Control Regime, a
    step President Jiang agreed to consider at last year's summit in
    Beijing.
        We also have an interest in integrating China into the world trading
    system and in seeing it join the World Trade Organization on clearly
    acceptable, commercial terms. This is a goal America has been working
    toward in a bipartisan fashion for 13 years now. Getting this done and
    getting it done right is profoundly in our national interests. It is not
    a favor to China; it is the best way to level the playing field.
        China already has broad access to our markets, as you can see from
    any perusal of recent trade figures. If China accepts the
    responsibilities that come with WTO membership, that will give us broad
    access to China's markets, while accelerating its internal reforms and
    propelling it toward acceptance of the rule of law. The bottom line is
    this: If China is willing to play by the global rules of trade, it would
    be an inexplicable mistake for the United States to say no.

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        We have an interest as well in working with China to preserve the
    global environment. Toward the middle of the next century, China will
    surpass the United States as the world's largest emitter of greenhouse
    gases. At last year's summit in China, I made it clear there can be no
    meaningful solution to this problem unless China is a part of it. But I
    also emphasized, as I do over and over again, with sometimes mixed
    effect, that rapidly developing technologies now make it possible for
    China--indeed, for India, for any other developing economy--to be
    environmentally responsible without sacrificing economic growth.
        That challenge is at the top of Vice President Gore's agenda on the forum on environment and development he
    shares with Premier Zhu. It will be meeting this
    week.
        We have been encouraging the development of clean natural gas in
    China and cleaner technologies for burning coal. We've been working with
    China on a study of emissions trading, a tool that has cut pollution at
    low cost in the United States and which could do the same for China. In
    the information age, China need not, indeed, China will not be able to
    grow its economy by clinging to industrial age energy practices.
        Finally, let me say we have an interest in encouraging China to
    respect the human rights of its people and to give them a chance to
    shape the political destiny of their country. This is an interest that
    cuts to the heart of our concerns about China's future.
        Because wealth is generated by ideas today, China will be less
    likely to succeed if its people cannot exchange information freely.
    China also will be less likely to succeed if it does not build the legal
    and political foundation to compete for global capital, less likely to
    succeed if its political system does not gain the legitimacy that comes
    from democratic choice.
        China's leaders believe that significant political reform carries
    enormous risk of instability at this moment in their history. We owe it
    to any country to give a respectful listen to their stated policy about
    such matters. But the experience of the rest of Asia during this present
    economic crisis shows that the risks of delaying reform are greater than
    the risks of embracing it.
        As Indonesia learned, you cannot deal with social resentment by
    denying people the right to voice it. As Korea and Thailand have shown
    the world, expressed dissent is far less dangerous than repressed
    dissent. Both countries are doing better now because their elected
    governments have the legitimacy to pursue reform.
        In fact, almost every goal to which China's leaders are dedicated,
    from maintaining stability to rooting out corruption to reuniting
    peacefully with Taiwan, would actually be advanced if they embraced
    greater openness and accountability.
        We have promoted that goal by airing differences candidly and
    directly with China's leaders, by encouraging closer ties between
    American and Chinese people. Those ties have followed in the wake of
    official contacts and have the potential to bring change.
        The people-to-people ties have made it possible for over 100,000
    Chinese students and scholars to study in America and thousands of
    American teachers and scholars--students to go to China. They have
    enabled American nongovernmental organizations to help people in China
    set up NGO's of their own. They have allowed Americans to work with
    local governments, universities, and citizens' groups in China to save
    wetlands and forests, to manage urban growth, to support China's first
    private schools, to hook up schools to the Internet, to train
    journalists, to promote literacy for poor women, to make loans for
    Tibetan entrepreneurs, to begin countless projects that are sparking the
    growth of China's civil society. They have permitted Chinese lawyers,
    judges, and legal scholars to come to America to study our system.
        Now, we don't assume for a moment that this kind of engagement alone
    can give rise to political reform in China. But despite the obstacles
    they face, the Chinese people clearly enjoy more freedom, in where they
    work and where they live and where they go, than they did a decade ago.
        China has seen the emergence of political associations, consumer
    groups, tenant organizations, newspapers that expose corruption, and
    experiments in village democracy. It has seen workers demanding
    representation and a growing number of people seeking the right to form
    political parties, despite the persecution they face. I met with many
    such agents of change when I visited China last year.
        Of course, it is precisely because these changes are meaningful that
    the Chinese Government is pushing back. Its actions may be aimed at
    individuals, but they are clearly designed to send a message to all
    Chinese that

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    they should not test the limits of political freedom. The message they
    send the world, however, is quite different. It is one of insecurity,
    not strength. We often see that a tight grip is actually a sign of a
    weak hand.
        Now, we have made it clear to China's leaders that we think it's
    simply wrong to arrest people whose only offense has been to engage in
    organized and peaceful political expression. That right is universally
    recognized, and democratic nations have a duty to defend it. That is why
    we are seeking support at the U.N. Human Rights Commission in Geneva for
    a resolution on human rights in China.
        We will also urge China to embrace the International Covenant on
    Civil and Political Rights in word and in deed. We will keep pressing
    the Congress to fund programs that promote the rule of law in China. We
    will keep working to promote a dialog between China and the Dalai
    Lama and respect for Tibet's cultural and
    religious heritage.
        But there is one thing that we will not do. We will not change our
    policy in a way that isolates China from the global forces that have
    begun to empower the Chinese people to change their society and build a
    better future, for that would leave the people of China with less access
    to information, less contact with the democratic world, and more
    resistance from their government to outside influence and ideas.
        In all these areas, the debate China's policy has sparked in our
    country can be constructive by reminding us that we still face
    challenges in the world that require our vigilance. It can also remind
    the Chinese Government that the relationship between our two countries
    depends in large measure not only on the actions of the President and
    the executive branch but on the support of the American people and our
    Congress, which cannot be taken for granted.
        But as the next Presidential election approaches, we cannot allow a
    healthy argument to lead us toward a campaign-driven cold war with
    China, for that would have tragic consequences: an America riven by
    mistrust and bitter accusations; an end to diplomatic contact that has
    produced tangible gains for our people; a climate of mistrust that hurts
    Chinese-Americans and undermines the exchanges that are opening China to
    the world.
        No one could possibly gain from that except for the most rigid,
    backward-looking elements in China itself. Remember what I said at the
    outset: The debate we're having about China today in the United States
    is mirrored by a debate going on in China about the United States. And
    we must be sensitive to how we handle this and responsible.
        I know the vast majority of Americans and Members of Congress don't
    want this to happen. I will do everything in our power to see that it
    does not, so that we stay focused on our vital interests and the real
    challenges ahead.
        We have much to be concerned about: There is North Korea, South
    Asia, the potential for tensions in the Taiwan Strait and the South
    China Sea; there is the tragic plight of political prisoners; the
    possibility, also, that China will not realize its growth potential,
    that it will become unstable because of the distressed economy and angry
    people.
        But we have every reason to approach our challenges with confidence
    and with patience. Our country, after all, now, is at the height of its
    power and the peak of its prosperity. Democratic values are ascendant
    throughout much of the world. And while we cannot know where China is
    heading for sure, the forces pulling China toward integration and
    openness are more powerful today than ever before. And these are the
    only forces that can make China a truly successful power, meeting the
    demands of its people and exercising appropriate and positive influence
    in the larger world in the 21st century.
        Such a China would indeed be stronger, but it also would be more at
    peace with itself and at ease with its neighbors. It would be a good
    thing for the Chinese people and for the American people.
        This has been the lodestar of our policy for the last 6 years--a
    goal that is consistent with our interests and that keeps faith with our
    values, an objective that we will continue to pursue, with your help and
    understanding, in the months and years ahead.
        This visit by Premier Zhu is very important.
    The issues that are raised from time to time, which cause tensions in
    our relationship, they are also very important. But I ask you at this
    Institute not to let the American people or American policymakers or
    American politicians in a political season lose sight of the larger
    interests we have in seeing that this very great country has the maximum
    possible chance to emerge a more stable, freer, more prosperous, more

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    constructive partner with the United States in the new century.
        Thank you very much.

    Note: The President spoke at 10:33 a.m. in the East Room at the
    Mayflower Hotel. In his remarks, he referred to Richard H. Solomon,
    president and Max M. Kampelman, vice chair, U.S. Institute of Peace;
    President Slobodan Milosevic of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
    (Serbia and Montenegro); Premier Zhu Rongji, former President Deng
    Xiaoping, and President Jiang Zemin of China. The President also
    referred to Presidential Decision Directive 61.