[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 34, Number 27 (Monday, July 6, 1998)]
[Pages 1267-1275]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks in a Roundtable Discussion on Shaping China for the 21st Century 
in Shanghai, China

June 30, 1998

    The President. Let me begin by thanking all of you for agreeing to 
participate in this roundtable discussion. I want to say that the 
purpose of this discussion is to help me and my wife and the American 
people, through us, understand the changes that are going on in modern 
China, the challenges that are out there, and what all of you are doing 
in your various lives to deal with these changes.
    For us, this is a very exciting opportunity to come here, to see 
what is going on, and also to try to come to grips with the areas where 
China and the United States can cooperate, the areas where we still have 
differences, and how we might not only manage those differences but even 
work together there to try to come to some common agreement.
    Everyone understands that there is a new China emerging in the world 
that is more prosperous, more open, and more dynamic. I have been to a 
small village near Xi'an where people now elect their local officials. I 
have already had the opportunity to meet with some small-business people 
and others who are agents of change in the modern China. But this is 
really the first opportunity I have had to meet with such a diverse 
group of Chinese citizens who are active in so many different areas.

    So I hope that you will help us to understand what is going on and 
to speak with us frankly and openly, and understand that what we want is 
to build the right sort of partnership and friendship with the Chinese 
people over the long run into the 21st century.

    If I could begin, I think I would like to ask Professor Zhu, how has 
China changed in the last couple of years and what is the role of the 
legal profession in this change?

[Ms. Zhu Lanye, vice dean of the International Department, East China 
University of Politics and Law, stated that in the school she graduated 
from the student population had doubled to 4,000 students, with over 400 
graduate students, and the number of law schools in China increased from 
2 to 14, reflecting China's need for more lawyers, due to a major 
increase in civil cases.]

    The President. Mr. Wang has been a consumer advocate, and we have 
read about you in the American press. I wonder if you could follow up on 
what Professor Zhu said in terms of the work you do. Do you believe that 
the quality of products, consumer products is getting better?--first 
question. And tell us what the relationship is between what you do and 
the legal profession. Can people have adequate access to legal remedies 
if they are sold inferior products?

[Mr. Wang Hai, consumer advocate, author, and newspaper columnist, 
stated that China promulgated consumer protection laws in 1984 and that 
prior to that, China placed emphasis on the collective interest as 
opposed to consumer interests. Mr. Wang described his company which 
consults with consumers and companies whose rights have been violated. 
He indicated that he had been viewed as immoral and asked the President 
if consumer advocates in the United States were also viewed this way.]

    The President. No. Interestingly enough, many of our governments in 
what you would

[[Page 1268]]

call the province level, our State governments and some of our larger 
city governments, actually have their own consumer advocates, people who 
are employees of the government whose job it is to work to find out 
things that are being done, in effect, that work a fraud, that are 
unfair or illegal to consumers when they buy homes, when they buy cars, 
when they buy other products. So, in our country, people who find those 
kinds of problems very often are themselves employees of the government 
and generally are quite highly regarded.
    Now, of course, if they find a very big company doing something 
that's going to be very expensive to fix, they're sometimes criticized 
by the company. But by and large, consumer advocates enjoy a very 
favorable position in American society. It has not always been so, but I 
would say that for the last 20 to 25 years, they do.
    I would like to ask our novelist, Ms. Wang, to talk a little bit 
about how the atmosphere for writers, for artists, movie makers, other 
creative people has changed in China in the last few years. How would 
you describe those changes?

[Novelist Wang Xiaoying stated that great changes have taken place in 
China in her area of interest. She indicated that she has signed 
contracts with three publishing houses and stated that her problem was 
not whether she could publish but whether she could produce enough good 
novels. Ms. Wang then asked the President if literature has an impact on 
his life.]

    The President. Oh, yes, very much, and I think not only for 
enjoyment but also for enlightenment. We have many books of literature, 
all kinds of prose and poetry published in America every year and 
heavily taught in our schools and, at least in our case, widely 
discussed in our home with our daughter. She is now reading books in the 
university that, if we haven't read them she wants to know why, and she 
expects us to try to understand those things.
    So I would say that for millions and millions of Americans, 
literature is a very important force in their lives. And every week in 
our newspapers, there is a publication of the best-selling books and the 
books that are in hardcover, the books that are in paperback. So it's 
quite a large part of American life, I think.
    I would like to ask Madame Xie if you could tell us a little bit 
about, from your perspective, how China has been changing, and in 
particular, whether there is any difference in university life and the 
emphasis that the young people are placing on different areas of study.

[Ms. Xie Xide, former president of Fudan University, stated that the 
Chinese policy of reform had brought great benefits. She indicated that 
Fudan University now sends 1,400 teachers to study abroad or to serve as 
visiting scholars and that 80 percent come back and play important roles 
at the university. She also said that increasingly the best students 
went into law, business administration, or economics.]

    The President. If I could just follow up on that and perhaps anyone, 
professors, who would like to comment on this--when I was talking with 
President Jiang he said, ``I am trained as an engineer, and Premier Zhu 
Rongji is trained as an engineer.'' They were both mayor of Shanghai. 
The present mayor of Shanghai, we were walking down and he said, ``I am 
an engineer.'' And he said, ``We were all trained in an era when we had 
to build China. We had to build things. We had to know how to do things 
that people did with their hands. And now that we have a more complex 
society, and people's rights have to be protected, for example, in what 
they buy, and we have to work out the complex relationships between 
people in a market economy, we need more lawyers.'' I think China only 
has like 115,000 lawyers, something like that. And, so, I wonder if 
maybe the changes are not a necessary evolution of the change in 
society.
    Participant. Well, there are a lot of students who are very 
interested in law subjects. Well, in China we do not have sufficient 
lawyers, and in your country you have plenty. And so many American 
friends told me that ``we can export some of them to you.'' [Laughter]
    The President. I tell President Jiang we have too many lawyers and 
too few engineers. So maybe instead of changing all the

[[Page 1269]]

courses in the universities, we should just trade each other. We'll give 
you lawyers, you could give us engineers. [Laughter]
    Participant. But it's true that there are many students who want to 
enter the law college or university every year. On average, there will 
be one student to apply for law subjects that can be actually accepted 
as a university student. And about only one-fourth or a quarter of those 
students can be qualified to be a college student. So that means that 
the law subjects really are a hot topic today in Shanghai.

[Hillary Clinton then introduced Wu Qidi, president of Tongi University, 
who stated that the current focus in higher education was economic 
development but that her university was moving to more diverse academic 
pursuits, gearing the students toward participating in the global 
economy. She stated that as more Chinese teachers work and study abroad, 
they become more aware of the need for change in the university 
educational system. She indicated that China needed science and 
technology to support sustainable economic development and asked if 
there would be greater openness in the future between the two countries 
that would go beyond exchanges of faculties and students.]

    The President. Yes, I do, and I believe it is very important. We are 
trying to do two things in the United States. One is to make sure more 
of our young people, wherever they live, even if they live in very poor 
communities, are exposed at an early age to science and technology. We 
are trying to connect all of our schools to the Internet by the year 
2000, because our goal is to take the very remote schools, the schools 
in the poorest urban neighborhood, and make sure they can have a 
connection and access to information that anybody anywhere in the world 
has. I think that is important.
    Then we also want to have more cooperation internationally. Perhaps 
the most successful part of the U.S-China partnership in the last few 
years has been our cooperation in science and technology, although 
because there has been no great conflict, it's very often not in the 
news. But Chinese and American scientists, for example, discovered that 
children born with spina bifida, which is a very painful childhood birth 
problem, largely come from mothers that didn't have enough folic acid. 
So it changed the whole way the world viewed this terrible problem. 
Chinese and American scientists have learned more about how to predict 
earthquakes and other natural disasters. So I think we have to do more 
of that.
    And then the third area is the one you mentioned of technology 
transfer. We are now implementing our peaceful uses of nuclear energy 
agreement. I personally believe that in the energy area it's the most 
important thing.
    I asked President Jiang if we could have a major focus of our 
science and technology partnership in the future be on the relationship 
of energy use to the environment, because America is the largest emitter 
of greenhouse gases, warming the climate. China will soon be larger than 
America. So we have this huge challenge: How to allow China to continue 
to grow, how can Shanghai build more beautiful buildings like this and 
have people have good places to live and all of that, and still not 
destroy the environment of the world.
    The scientists know that this can be done. Most political leaders 
and business leaders don't believe it. Most political and business 
leaders think this is a problem my grandchildren will deal with: ``I 
have to create wealth now, I have to create opportunity.'' Scientists 
know we can grow the economy and improve the environment. So I think 
this will be the biggest challenge for us.
    Now, in terms of the technology transfer, one last thing. We are 
working very hard to deal with the so-called national security 
implications of technology transfer. Sometimes they are quite real. So 
we are working through that. But I think in the energy and environment 
area we will have no problems. And there will be more of this.
    I think I would like to, if I might, just go on to Professor Zuo, 
because I know you've done a lot of work on migrant research. And one of 
the most interesting things to us here is how China is managing the 
growth of its large cities. And in America we have a similar phenomenon, 
mostly because of immigration coming from beyond our borders. But we 
still allow about a million people a year, just

[[Page 1270]]

under a million people a year, to come legally to the United States from 
other countries. And most of them come to large cities. And so some of 
our cities are growing, as Shanghai is growing. And perhaps you could 
tell us about the challenges that that presents and what you are doing 
in your research.

[Zuo Xuejin, vice president of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, 
stated that since the mid-eighties, the population flow within China had 
been tremendous, with people from rural areas seeking greater 
opportunities in urban areas. While this migration had caused concern to 
urban Chinese because they feared limited job opportunities for 
themselves, the migration had been controlled and services increased for 
migrants. He then discussed his experiences in the United States and the 
influence of American culture in China, giving specific examples which 
ranged from fast-food restaurants to jeans and movies, and concluded 
that there was much to be shared by China and the United States.]

    The President. If I could just make two brief points. First of all, 
as to the last point you made about films and travel, even though we 
have more and more access to each other, to our information and to our 
ideas over the Internet--and some day I suppose people will--every time 
someone like Ms. Wang writes a new book, someone will be in a matter of 
days able to pull it up on the Internet and read it all over the world 
in their own language. I still think that it's actually important to 
have these people-to-people exchanges and to have more American 
students, for example, coming to China and more Chinese going to 
America. I think that's very important.
    I feel the same way about the movies. I actually have seen some 
Chinese movies I thought were extraordinarily powerful movies. And I 
think we should have more of that and we should be--we should encourage 
our artists to come here. And of course, there's so many Chinese-
American artists that would give anything to perform in China and would 
feel very honored about that. So I hope that we will be open and that 
the governments will encourage more of that.
    The only other point I wanted to make is just--about your research 
and how you deal with these millions of people that are coming here to 
find work. This is a global issue. There are many cities that have 
nowhere near the opportunities that Shanghai does in other parts of the 
world, that are still growing by leaps and bounds all the time, because 
even though there are huge numbers of poor people in these cities, there 
is still a chance that the city life will be better than it is in the 
rural areas in other countries.
    So if you look at the whole world--if you look at Africa, if you 
look at the Middle East and Central Asia, if you look at all these 
places, you have cities growing by leaps and bounds in countries that 
have been poor. And as I said, in our country, it's a place where we try 
to manage all the new immigrant populations, and we have all the same 
challenges you do, plus, often, language differences. So I would just 
say that this is an area where, again, we may be able to cooperate and 
where we need to help, even beyond our borders, deal with these vast 
migration flows. They will be one of the central, defining trends, in my 
view, of the next 30 to 40 years. And so I thank you for that.
    Yes, Professor.

[A participant noted that the President would be young when he left the 
presidency and asked if the President planned to continue his law 
practice and, if so, would he remain in Washington or move back to 
Arkansas.]

    The President. I was hoping you would offer me a position here. 
[Laughter]
    Participant. No, you don't speak Chinese. [Laughter]
    The President. I'm not too old to learn. [Laughter] Actually, I am 
the third youngest President ever, and I think the second youngest to be 
elected. President Theodore Roosevelt and President John Kennedy were 
both a little younger than me when they took office. So I'll be about 54 
when I leave office, and I don't intend to retire. But I haven't decided 
what to do yet or where to do it--except I will always have a home in my 
home State, in Arkansas, and I intend to build a library there to house 
my Presidential papers and to tell the story of the time in which I 
served as President. But beyond that I have

[[Page 1271]]

not made any final plans. So maybe I will apply for a visiting 
professorship. [Laughter]
    Participant. We welcome you to our university as a visiting 
professor. You are more than welcome. [Laughter]
    Mrs. Clinton. I know that we want to hear from all the panelists, 
and I'd like to hear from the young man, Mr. Zeng, who has been so 
successful in the----
    The President. He's not here, is he?
    Mrs. Clinton. He's not here? There he is, back there.
    The President. You may talk if you like.
    Mrs. Clinton. Yes, about the Internet, because you were talking 
about the Internet and the explosion of the Internet. And what I'm 
interested in is, are there any restrictions on access to the Internet 
in China?
    The President. Please come up here and use Ms. Wang's microphone.
    Mr. Edward Zeng. Right now it's just purely in the application form, 
you can get it right away.
    Mrs. Clinton. Right away. So there's no restrictions, universally 
available to anyone who has the funds to have access to it.
    Mr. Zeng. Yes, and also the growing rate is very fast. We are 
talking about more than 1 million right now.
    Mrs. Clinton. More than 1 million----
    Mr. Zeng. Internet users.
    Mrs. Clinton. Internet users. In the entire country?
    Mr. Zeng. Yes.
    Mrs. Clinton. And so what is the rate of increase, do you think, in 
terms of projection?
    Mr. Zeng. By the year 2000, maybe around 5 million. So we're talking 
about 30 percent growth rate.

[Mrs. Clinton asked how the information explosion was affecting the vast 
majority of the people of China. Mr. Edward Zeng, chief executive 
officer of Unicom-Sparkice Information Network, answered that there were 
ongoing efforts to provide a virtual office for small and medium-sized 
business and that he operated a cyber cafe that was experiencing a 30 
percent monthly growth rate.]

    The President. Let me ask you one question about your Internet 
figures. This library has an Internet room upstairs. I just visited it. 
Is it really possible to know how many Internet users there are? I mean, 
how do you know.

[Mr. Zeng indicated that each user had to submit an application and that 
each had an IP address which would allow an accurate count of users. He 
then asked if there was an opportunity for exchange between Chinese and 
American small and medium businesses.]

    Mrs. Clinton. That's something that we'll look into and see if we 
can get you some information about that.
    The President. There is probably more growth among new companies 
this area than any other area in the American economy. It's exploding. 
So it may be that someone is following this conversation right now, and 
you'll get a call within 30 minutes, for all I know. [Laughter] But we 
will see what we can do.

[Mrs. Clinton asked Bishop Jin Luxian of the Shanghai Catholic diocese 
how he would describe the recent changes in China. Bishop Jin responded 
that he was responsible for 78 churches with 160,000 followers and that 
he had priests from all over the world. He stated that some of the 
initiatives underway were training abroad for students, a large 
religious publishing house, translations of Christian texts, and 
computer training for students. He stated that there were no 
restrictions on religious beliefs in China, and that he had sought a 
dialog with the Chinese Government rather than a contentious 
relationship.]

    The President. Thank you, sir.
    I would like to ask Mr. Wu now to talk a little bit. I know that 
you're a professor of American studies and perhaps you have some 
observations about how the relations between our two countries have 
changed in the last few years and what advice you could give us going 
forward here.

[Wu Xinbo, a professor at the Center for American Studies of Fudan 
University, stated that many Chinese were worried about the United 
States trying to contain a growing China and cited the areas of 
disagreement between the two countries, including Taiwan, but said there 
had been a major shift in the U.S. China policy since 1996. He indicated 
that he believed that economic cooperation

[[Page 1272]]

would grow in the future and cited President Clinton's open exchange on 
human rights with President Jiang at the recent news conference as a 
sign of a maturing relationship.]

    The President. Well, first let me thank you for what you said. I do 
believe that my coming here and the work we've done in the last 2 years, 
President Jiang's trip to the United States, has helped to resolve some 
of the misunderstandings. I had a chance to reiterate our Taiwan policy, 
which is that we don't support independence for Taiwan, or two Chinas, 
or one Taiwan-one China. And we don't believe that Taiwan should be a 
member in any organization for which statehood is a requirement. So I 
think we have consistent policy.
    Our only policy has been that we think it has to be done peacefully. 
That is what our law says, and we have encouraged the cross-strait 
dialog. And I think eventually it will bear fruit if everyone is patient 
and works hard.
    I also agree that the human rights dialog I had with President Jiang 
was a good thing. I hope it will lead to more open discussion here. And 
I would be encouraged if that happened.
    Let me, if I could, I'd like to ask you a more personal question. I 
read in your--I got a little biography of all of you before I came here, 
and I would like to ask--I noticed that you were born in a small rural 
community, like me. All my mother's people came from a community, 
actually, that never had more than 150 people, although I was born in 
the largest city in my little area, which had at the time 6,000 people.
    One of the struggles we work at all the time in the States is trying 
to make sure that our children, no matter where they're born--if they're 
born in some remote rural area or some very poor area in the inner-
city--that they still have a chance, if they have ability, as you 
obviously did, to live the future of their imaginations and their 
dreams.
    Do you believe that you have a system now in China which would give 
every boy and girl growing up in a small rural village like you the 
chance that you had to become what you have become?

[Mr. Wu stated that his experience was very typical, noting that despite 
his poor circumstances he was able to get an education and that the 
Government had made a great effort to popularize 9 years of compulsory 
education.]

    The President. Dr. Wu and Madame Xie and anyone else, what 
percentage of the students in your university come from poorer families 
where the parents of the students had no education to speak of?

[A participant said that about 15 percent of the students have poor 
family backgrounds, noting that many foundations' mission was to help 
poor children return to school. The participant stated that while many 
students in remote areas found it difficult to participate in national 
exams, they receive equal treatment when they reach the university. The 
participant closed saying that while girls in the past had not received 
much family support, they were currently half of the university 
population. Another participant added that girls pursued law degrees 
more than math and science degrees and that they were under-represented 
at the graduate student levels. The participant noted that the major 
problem continued to be financing for education and the local 
governments which were responsible for education often opted instead for 
investment in areas which would show economic returns to the community.]

    The President. I think what will happen in China--I believe this 
will happen because of the technological revolution--I think in your 
economic growth you will almost leap over a whole generation of economic 
experiences that older European countries and perhaps the United States 
experienced, where you will essentially be creating an industrialized 
and a post-industrial society at the same time. And therefore, more 
quickly, you will have to educate more people at higher levels than we 
did.
    Because what happened in the 20th century in America is first 
everyone had about--you know, first education was the province of the 
elite. And then everyone got about 4 years of education and then 6. And 
then we went finally to high school education. And then when I became 
President, about half

[[Page 1273]]

of our young people are going on to university. Now people are actually 
coming back to university in huge numbers. The average age of our 
university student is going higher, because we have more people not only 
coming right out of our high schools but also coming back from society, 
because everyone recognizes now that we have to universalize very high 
levels of education because of the way the society works.
    So I think that this will happen in China more quickly just because 
of this moment in history, and I think it will be a very good thing.
    I wanted to--I know we're about to run out of time, but I wanted to 
ask a couple of more questions. Go ahead, Professor Xie, do you want to 
make a point? Because my question is unrelated to this, so go ahead.
    Participant. [Inaudible]--continue this discussion, but we know you 
have a very busy schedule. And we're very glad to be here to discuss our 
life here with you and we thank you for listening.
    The President. Thank you. I want to ask two quick questions, one of 
Ms. Wang.

[A participant asked Mrs. Clinton as First Lady what impact the media 
attention had on her personal life. Mrs. Clinton said that people read 
meaning into everything she did as First Lady even when no meaning was 
intended. She related the situation to a larger set of expectations and 
stereotypes that all women face in life, regardless of geography or 
culture, which are imposed by society.]

    Participant. Thank you very much.
    The President. Go ahead, Mr. Wang.

[Mr. Wang stated that in China there were potential conflicts of 
interest within the consumer protection process in that store managers 
could also hold positions in consumer rights groups and when a complaint 
is directed at his store, he could use his position in the group to bury 
the complaint. He asked if similar situations happened in the United 
States.]

    The President. Well, in the United States a consumer in the position 
that you just mentioned--let's say someone bought something in a 
department store and it was defective; I would say there might be four 
things that could happen. And I don't want to complicate the answer, but 
I have to give you a complete answer.
    First of all, in America we have pretty clear laws on this, and so 
the best companies would just take the merchandise back and give the 
person his money back or give the person a new product, because they 
wouldn't want to get a reputation of being unfair to consumers or a 
reputation of selling bad products. So the first thing the person would 
do is to take it back, because of the laws.
    Now, secondly, the person might go to the consumer advocate in the 
government. That's the one I talked to you about. Suppose this happened 
in New York City. Well, New York City has a Consumer Affairs Bureau. 
Now, maybe sometimes it's more active for the consumers than others, 
depending on whether the mayor believes in this cause or not. So if 
there's no opportunity there, then the person would have either an 
independent consumer group--there are some--or you could go into court 
and pursue your remedy there.
    So I don't think there's a problem of having the consumer groups 
themselves too tied to the manufacturers. And if there's a pattern or 
practice of selling bad products, then it's almost certain that there 
would be a remedy found in our courts.

[Mr. Wang stated that in China, even when a case went to court and an 
award was made, getting the court decision enforced was difficult. He 
asked how these things were handled in the United States.]

    Mrs. Clinton. It is. And sometimes even after people get a judgment, 
they have to continue to work very hard through the legal system to 
enforce their judgment. So it's a continuing problem.
    The President. You mentioned--you said, well, sometimes if there's a 
good store with a good brand name, that you won't have these problems, 
but if people are selling off-brands or off the street, or whatever, 
they might. You have real problems in America sometimes in enforcing 
these orders if it's difficult to find the company that sold the product 
or difficult to find their bank account.

[[Page 1274]]

[Mrs. Clinton stated that one reason the President wanted this 
roundtable discussion was that many Americans were quite interested in 
what is happening in China but don't know about the changes in China and 
didn't know how to evaluate what was happening here or how we should 
define our relationship. She asked the participants if there were any 
additional points they would like to make to help the American people 
understand. A participant stated that her 5-year-old's childhood would 
be much better than hers, and as her child moved through life, the 
changes in China would have an impact throughout. She indicated changes 
in China would take time to evolve. China could not build overnight what 
the United States had developed in 200 years. She indicated that the 
United States should be more understanding of the evolution of human 
rights and democracy in China and stressed that understanding could be 
enhanced by publication of Chinese literature in the United States. 
Bishop Jin briefly discussed the education issues among the poor and 
stated that the Shanghai Catholic diocese had set up Project Hope 
primary schools in the provinces in China.]

    The President. Thank you very much. If I could close, I would just 
like to make a couple of points. First of all, thank you all very much 
for being here, for me and for Hillary and I think for the Members of 
Congress and the Secretary of State and the members of our delegation 
this has been an enriching experience,and I have a much, I think, better 
feel for what is going on in modern China.
    Secondly, if I might just close with a few words about our 
perspective on this whole issue of the relationship between social 
progress and individual rights or human rights.
    I think there are basically three different categories of issues 
here, and I'd leave these thoughts with you. When it comes to just 
creating more opportunity for people to have a better life and 
refraining from oppressing people in horrible ways, I think it's obvious 
that China since the end of the Cultural Revolution has made enormous 
progress, almost unprecedented for any society in human history.
    And then there's the second category of problems, which is just the 
basic legal problems or personal problems that people find in a complex 
society, whether it's consumer protection problems or--Hillary, 
yesterday, was talking to some people who were involved in legal work in 
Beijing, and there was a woman who got a divorce from a husband who had 
been abusing her. But their apartment house came to him because of his 
work, so where does she live now with their child? Those kinds of 
problems.
    I agree with what Madame Xie said. We have to--these rule-of-law 
issues, we need to just keep working through these and work together on 
them.
    But in the third area, I think there is still some considerable 
difference, and that is to what extent does a different political 
opinion or a different religious conviction enrich a society and make it 
stronger, and to what extent does it promote instability and weaken the 
enormous work that has to be done?
    And I think that we just have to kind of be honest here. China has 
had many challenges. It's a much bigger country than the United States. 
It's coming very far very fast. And I think there is a tendency among 
the Chinese, in Government and perhaps in the society, to see these 
kinds of political or religious dissents as--at least to be very 
supersensitive to the prospect of instability because China has suffered 
in the past from instability.
    In the United States, because of our history, there is always a 
tendency to believe that anybody's political opinion and religious 
expression deserves great protection and great respect and, no matter 
how different it is from ours, that allowing the widest possible room 
for expression of political and religious feelings makes a country 
stronger, a society stronger over the long run. That has been our 
experience.
    So I think we have to understand our two perspectives and honestly 
confront these things as they present difficulties in our relationship 
and look at them as opportunities to try to build a common future, 
because I do think that, as I said in Beijing in the press conference I 
had with President Jiang and at the university, the forces of history 
are driving us toward a common future. We have

[[Page 1275]]

to build a common future. And so it's important that we be able to 
discuss these things in an open way.
    I think all of you did a terrific job today expressing your point of 
view and also giving my fellow Americans and I a window on modern China. 
And we thank you very much.
    Mrs. Clinton. Thank you.
    The President. Thank you.

Note: The President spoke at 9:41 a.m. at the Shanghai Library. In his 
remarks, he referred to President Jiang Zemin of China; and Mayor Xu 
Kuangdi of Shanghai. The Chinese participants spoke in Chinese, and 
their remarks were translated by interpreters, except for Edward Zeng, 
who spoke in English.