16 June 1997
Source:
http://library.whitehouse.gov/Briefings-plain.cgi
See related news story: http://jya.com/denver.htm
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
______________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release June 16, 1997
PRESS BRIEFING BY
NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR SANDY BERGER,
ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT FOR INTERNATIONAL
ECONOMICS DAN TARULLO AND
SECRETARY OF TREASURY BOB RUBIN
The Briefing
Room
3:45 P.M. EDT
MS. LUZZATTO: Hi. We're going to have a briefing on
the Denver Summit. The Assistant to the President for International
Economics, Dan Tarullo will start off, followed by National Security
Advisor Sandy Berger and then Secretary Rubin.
MR. TARULLO: Good afternoon. On Thursday we travel to
Denver for the Summit of the 8 starting Friday evening, preceded by
bilaterals Friday afternoon. As we come into this summit, the
President is building on, really, two of his signal accomplishments
over the last four years. When one contrasts where the United States
stood in 1993 when he attended his first summit with where we stand
today, I think you see the position of relative strength and
leadership on which we stand.
In 1993, the U.S. budget deficit was really the central
economic concern of the summit. Today, the stellar performance of
the U.S. economy will be the principal focus of economic attention.
In 1993, the process of democratization and reform in Russia were
incipient. Today, the economy has begun to stabilize, Russia has
recommitted itself to economic reform and in the security area, we
have now redefined our relationships. And, thus, with those two
accomplishments in hand, we're prepared to move on to the next three
tasks of strengthening our economies for the global economy of the
21st century, consolidating the new global agenda responses to
international crime, international terrorism, infectious diseases and
other such global problems, and integrating more nations into the
community of free market democracies.
To elaborate on both of these themes and some other
related ideas, we'll first turn to Sandy Berger, the National
Security Advisor, who will talk about the bilateral agenda and the
foreign policy agenda, and then to Secretary Rubin who will address
economics, then I can supplement with anything on the topics that
don't fall easily into either category.
MR. BERGER: Thank you, Dan.
The summit provides an opportunity for the President to
engage with his colleagues on a range of foreign policy issues and
objectives that he has been pursuing through a very intensive period
that really began with the summit in Helsinki in March -- in general,
organized around the proposition that we need to organize a community
of democracies to seize the opportunities and meet the challenges of
a new era of globalization and integration.
Dan described and Bob will describe some of the global
issues and economic issues on the agenda. Let me focus more on the
foreign policy and security issues. Some of that discussion will
take place actually in the meetings of the 8. There will be a
session on Friday night on Bosnia, and then on Sunday on a broad
range of foreign policy subjects, which I'll return to. Some will
take place in bilaterals. There are three currently scheduled: one
with President Yeltsin; one with President Chirac; one with Prime
Minister Prodi of Italy. Conceivably there will be others. And
obviously, in these kind of meetings there are conversations that
take place on the margins of the meeting, in between lunch and the
afternoon session.
Let me talk first about the bilaterals. On Friday the
President will meet with President Yeltsin, President Chirac and
Prime Minister Prodi. The meeting with President Yeltsin is another
step in the effort the President has strongly supported over the
entire four years of, first of all, integrating Russia more closely
into the world's economic and political institutions as
reflected by the more substantial, enhanced role that President
Yeltsin will play at the Summit of the 8, and also to pursue the very
robust bilateral agenda that we have between us ranging from the arms
control matters that he and President Yeltsin discussed in Helsinki,
to the continuing issue of economic reform, the steps that Russia is
taking as well as the steps that we can take to be of assistance.
The meeting with President Chirac on Friday will be the
first opportunity that he's had to meet with the President since the
French elections, although the President did speak to President
Chirac on the phone after the election. There are a number of issues
that they will be discussing together: Bosnia, obviously; Persian
Gulf; I'm sure there will be a discussion of NATO; both the question
of who and other issues related to Madrid. On the question of who,
President Clinton will emphasize to President Chirac, we are
convinced that starting NATO expansion with the strongest candidates
and those for which there is the deepest consensus, while keeping the
door very much open for others in a subsequent wave of NATO expansion
is the best way to strengthen NATO's effectiveness and have the
widest possible support for NATO enlargement.
There may be some discussion of the issue of France's
integration into NATO, a subject that we've been talking about for
some time. I don't anticipate that will be a lengthy discussion or
that this will be a negotiation, but we'll try to get some sense of
whether or not the French want to reengage with us in the discussions
that we have had about integration is something we would welcome and,
of course, we would welcome France's integration into the military
structure of NATO, as it's not presently.
I'd also expect them to talk about the Middle East peace
process and policy towards Iran and Iraq, and obviously I would think
some readout from the European Summit, which is taking place this
week.
The meeting with Prime Minister Prodi of Italy is an
opportunity to further conversations that they began at the margins
of the meeting in Paris and again also will be, I think, quite
broad-ranging in its terms. I'm sure the President will be
particularly interested in talking to him about the situation in
Albania where Italy has the lead in a multinational force and
elections scheduled for the end of this month in Albania. And
although we are not present in that force, we obviously have a very
strong interest in the stability of Albania and restoring a
democratic process. I'm sure that will be a matter of discussion.
Now, there will be two particular opportunities during
the meetings when there will be specific foreign policy discussions,
although, of course, international economic policy is part of our
foreign policy. Traditional foreign policy matters will come up
twice; once on Friday when there will be a discussion of Bosnia; and
then once on Sunday when there will be a more broad ranging foreign
policy discussion.
On Bosnia I think the President seeks there to really
use Denver to rededicate this group to the process of building a
durable peace in Bosnia that comes at a time of transition -- Carl
Bildt is leaving. I just met with Minister Westendorp, who is taking
his place. So there is a changing of the guard in terms of the
higher-ups office and it's an appropriate time for us to rededicate
ourselves with renewed intensity and focus to the civil
implementation elements of the Dayton Agreement.
There has been a good deal accomplished over the last
year and a half, not only stopping the fighting and separating the
factions, but holding national elections, creating joint institutions
of the presidency, a good deal of work on building infrastructure,
returning refugees particularly to majority areas, now a national
budget and the opening of the Croat-Bosnian border. But there
continues to be a substantial amount of work that needs to be done to
make this peace more enduring and self-sustaining.
We've identified five priority areas that we think
require attention, and I suspect the President will share our own
analysis with his colleagues. One is training and equipping local
police forces to that they are better able to maintain order in a way
that is consistent with human rights. Two is refugee returns to the
minority areas, which has been an area of conflict. Three is
vigorous support for the war crimes tribunal. Four is strengthening
the joint institutions that are being created. And fifth is
strengthening the job of economic reconstruction which has begun.
The Sunday session will talk about a wide range of
foreign policy subjects. I'm sure the Middle East peace process will
come up; the Persian Gulf; Iraq, Iran; Southeast Asia, Cyprus, Congo
new and old. But let me just quickly, in concluding, focus on two
issues that will be discussed specifically.
One is a focus on democracy-building and human rights as
an initiative that the 8 will launch in Denver and will come to
fruition in Birmingham next year at the summit that Prime Minister
Blair will host.
Obviously, one of the most powerful developments of our
time has been the enormous wave of democracy sweeping over the globe;
for the first time in the history of the world more than half the
people now live under governments that they have freely elected. But
as we all know, many of those democracies are very fragile, and I
think it's the President's view that leading industrial nations have
a responsibility to try to strengthen those.
The countries have done a great deal on their own,
individually. USAID spends about $400 million a year on democracy
programs; about $40 million is spent by our National Endowment for
Democracy. But we hope in Denver to launch a review over the next
year of the policy and programs that individual countries have in
place or could put in place to strengthen democracy around the world
-- both strengthen democracies that are new emerging democracies as
well as those seeking to build democracy. And that would include
looking at good governance and anti-corruption policies, rule of law;
looking at the institutions of civil society, whether that's the
media or non-governmental organizations; looking at how business and
labor can reinforce the democratic process. And, fourth, in
particular, looking at women's political participation, which is an
enormous issue for emerging democracies around the world.
As I say, the hope here will be to launch a review
process which would then make recommendations that would be taken up
by the leaders in Birmingham.
Finally, there will be a discussion on Hong Kong, coming
about a week after the summit. I think there is a common view among
the 8 that a smooth transition of Hong Kong, maintaining Hong Kong's
autonomy and way of life is important. China's adherence to the
terms of the 1984 Basic Agreement is important and I think that they
will discuss their shared expectation that China will fulfill those
obligations and that the international community will watch very
carefully to see if that is taking place. This, obviously, will come
either on the heels of or in the aftermath of a vote in the House on
MFN, which is extraordinarily important to Hong Kong's stability and
continued autonomy, which is why all of the leaders from Hong Kong,
from every end of the spectrum have supported extension of normal
trading benefits.
So there will be a fair amount of foreign policy
discussed during the summit. I will now turn to Bob to talk about
the economic policy.
SECRETARY RUBIN: Thank you, Sandy. I took particular
note of Sandy saying that the media were part of civil society.
In any event, as Sandy said, there will be a goodly
amount of discussion at an economic summit about economic issues.
And the finance ministers will have their own meetings and then they
will be talking with the leaders.
I was with a very senior official of one of the
international financial institutions this morning and he said that he
well remembers summits from the '80s and the early '90s. He said
that the other nations would line up and universally criticize the
United States for its large deficits, for not having its house in
order, for loss of competitors to the private sector, and basically
referred to us as yesterday's economy.
Today, it's all been totally altered, totally
transformed. We clearly are going into this summit in a very strong
position as the world's leading industrial economy and having an
economy that's almost universally acknowledged as having the best
conditions that we've had in this country for many decades, and
certainly the best conditions amongst the industrial countries.
We will have three basic objectives, economic
objectives, in the summit: one, promoting growth in industrialized
economies. Always we'll review conditions of needs of our respective
countries, and then we'll be focusing on Prime Minister Hashimoto's
stated objective in Japan to achieve domestic-demand-led growth and
at the same time avoid a sustained increase in external surpluses
that could fuel protectionism elsewhere and do damage to the world
economy.
Secondly, we will be looking at and discussing European
economic conditions and the importance of structure reform. And I'm
certain we'll have discussion of the United States economic
conditions and what issues might exist with respect to sustaining our
now longstanding recovery. Permeating all of this, I suspect, will
be a discussion of an issue that I think will be front and foremost
in economic discussions for years to come, and that is the question
of how to bring the benefits of the global economy and the benefits
of technology to the least skilled in all of our economies.
Secondly, we'll be focusing on enhancing financial
stability. While there are enormous opportunities and net benefits
in the globalization, the financial markets, as the Mexican situation
illustrated, there are also risks. We have been, under President
Clinton's leadership, pursuing a program to deal with those risks,
beginning with the Halifax Summit and a good deal has been
accomplished of, I think, very real significance. We will carry
forward this summit in that respect.
The two principal components will be, number one, to
focus on cooperation amongst regulators around the world with respect
to the global financial institutions -- the financial institutions
that operate across boarders; and, secondly, the very important issue
of strengthening financial systems in emerging economies. Because
what you will find is that when there are crisis in emerging
economies, they almost always either begin in the banking sector or,
if they begin elsewhere, exacerbated by problems in the banking
sector.
And, finally, we're going to focus on fostering economic
reform and development and growth in developing countries and in
transitional countries. And while there will be a broad range of
issues to be discussed; let me just briefly mention two. Number one,
combating corruption, because corruption clearly is a major
impediment to growth. In that respect, we'll be focusing on the OECD
recommendations with respect to making bribery non-tax-deductible,
and criminalizing bribery of foreign officials. And in our view,
both of these recommendations to the OECD should be put into effect
within the next year, and we will attempt to continue to energize
that objective.
And secondly, we will be focusing on the question of
Africa, and the administration's program in Africa which the
President will announce tomorrow and the activities in the
international financial institutions to focus on Africa in order to
bring Africa into the economic mainstream.
You put it all together and I think that once again, the
G-7 has served very much as an action-forcing set of events, and also
as a leadership forum to set an agenda for the future. I think it's
a very important part of what makes our global economy work, and we
very much look forward to this weekend in Denver.
Q Is Russia part of every session?
MR. TARULLO: Russia will be a part of every discussion
but one. There will be a meeting on Saturday afternoon among the 7
leaders to discuss a course set of financial and related
macroeconomic issues.
Q Well, in that context, is it legitimate now to call
it G-8?
MR. TARULLO: Well, Helen, I wouldn't get bogged down in
semantics. It's clearly a Summit of the 8, and Russia is a full
part.
Q That's semantics. Is it G-8?
MR. TARULLO: Is it G-8?
Q What you're giving me is semantics -- Summit of the
8. Is it G-8?
MR. TARULLO: There are eight countries that participate
in the summit. There is one meeting with seven countries. That's
really the answer.
Q What should we call it?
MR. TARULLO: For purposes, you call it the Summit of
the 8.
Q What's Yeltsin doing -- what do you have for
Yeltsin during this time out for him? (Laughter.)
MR. TARULLO: I don't know. It's going to be only --
it's a relatively brief meeting.
Q Secretary Rubin, could you tell us why now is the
time for an initiative on Africa both here and at the summit?
SECRETARY RUBIN: Yes. I think it's a very good time
for an initiative for Africa for a number of reasons, but maybe the
prime reason is there are -- although many countries in Africa have
serious problems, and you see that in the daily papers, pretty much
unreported is that there are also a goodly number of countries that
have really had good, solid rates of growth over the last two or
three years and, in some cases, like Uganda, have had good rates of
growth over some number of years and that is a function of regimes in
these countries having put in place reform programs.
So there is now -- I think really for the first time,
there is now a critical mass of countries now putting in place reform
regimes and are starting to get the benefits of that. So I think
it's a very appropriate time to move on this.
Q What is the goal, then, of this --
SECRETARY RUBIN: The goal is to help countries that
help themselves. And over time -- over time -- to bring the
countries of Africa into the economic mainstream using the same kind
of a strategy, if you will, that has been so successful in Asia over
several decades and that is now pretty much universally being
employed across the developing world.
MR. BERGER: If you think about Mozambique which, you
know, for 15 years was synonymous with either civil war or FRELIMO
politics or very left communist-Marxist politics, now embarking upon
and very much interested in trade, investment, economic reform.
There are a number of countries -- Ethiopia, which was once
synonymous with famine, is now trying to attract investment and build
trade and what the initiative tomorrow will be and then what we will
then build on in Denver is an effort to reinforce that rather
significant move toward growth and market-oriented strategies in
Africa.
Q Secretary Rubin, how much debt relief do you
envision for Africa?
SECRETARY RUBIN: I can't give you the answer right now
because I don't know. But I do know that we have been very strong
promoters of the HIPC Initiative in the international financial
institutions, and there are a number of other countries now that I
think are very close to getting that kind of -- Uganda, as you know,
is the first country to get that relief. There are a number of other
countries that are close to getting it. At least one that I can
think of offhand is African. And we are going to continue to promote
very strongly debt relief from the international financial
institutions, and not just debt relief at the end of a period during
which they continue their reforms, although that's -- it is
conditional on continuing reforms for some period of time, but also
interim relief in the period leading up to the end of that period.
Q Is the figure $1 billion or in the millions?
SECRETARY RUBIN: You mean in terms of the international
financial institutions? That relief -- well, it's certainly not in
the millions. I don't know the number and we can get back to you,
but it is a very significant number relative to the countries that
are receiving it.
Q Mr. Berger, if this is a Summit of the 8, why is
Mr. Yeltsin being excluded from the Saturday meeting?
MR. BERGER: It's from one portion of the meeting.
There are some -- and I'll let Dan and Bob answer this -- there
remains I think in the view of the 7, some value particularly at the
level of the finance ministers and then reporting to the leaders on
core international monetary policy, international financial policy
for the 7 creditor countries, in a sense, to meet together. There
are issues that they have a commonality on that warrants preserving
that certainly at the ministerial level and at least in some small
fashion at the leaders' level.
Q I wonder if this Africa initiative is the
continuation of a form of the initiative that Secretary Brown began
in February last year when he went to Africa and met with certain
members of the African states. This kind of initiative has the
support of all of the minority entrepreneurs in this country. Mainly
the consortium for leadership and information that work for trade
oversee and nationwide support that initiative that Secretary Brown
did last year.
MR. TARULLO: I think there is a fundamental continuity
between the ideas which Secretary Brown was promoting and discussing
in Africa and those which we have been working on the Congress with
for the legislation that we'll talk about tomorrow. In fact, I think
it's notable that the bipartisan consensus has emerged in the
Congress bridges the gap between the congressional Black Caucus on
the one hand to some quite conservative Republicans on the other.
The consensus to which Bob alluded is on the right set of economic
steps is really quite strong here, but more to the point, quite
strong in Africa as well.
Q Secretary Rubin, do you expect to see --
integrating Russia into Western financial institutions? Do you
expect to be in a position at Denver to announce that Russia will get
full membership in the Paris Club, or do you think the negotiations
on that are going to take a bit longer?
SECRETARY RUBIN: We're continuing to work on that, and
as you know, we think that should take place in 1997 on normal terms
and we're continuing to work on it. I don't anticipate that would be
announced at Denver, but it has certainly been our objective to
accomplish that on normal terms in 1997.
Q When will there be discussion of these new global
issues you mentioned, such as drugs and organized crime, and will
that be the forum when climate change is discussed, and what do you
anticipate on that topic?
MR. TARULLO: There will -- a significant part of
Saturday's sessions will be devoted to a discussion of the global
agenda. And in a sense, what is happening at this summit is that the
President is consolidating the global agenda as an ongoing agenda
item for these annual summits. A good deal of work now takes place
during the course of the year. We have senior experts groups on
crime, on terrorism, on nuclear safety and nuclear nonproliferation.
We will be adding a group on infectious diseases this year to begin
dealing with the problem of emergent infectious diseases and their
spread around the world.
The President has really pushed this on to the agenda of
the summit over the last couple of years and now I think you'll see
that it's really become embedded in the work of the summit. The
environment is obviously a critical global issue extending well into
the next century. There will be a session to discuss the
environment, which will include a discussion of climate change.
I would anticipate, actually, a discussion of that and a
number of other pending environmental issues because of the fact that
the United Nations General Assembly and Special Session will be
meeting the succeeding week to talk specifically about the
environment.
Q Do you expect an expression of support from Denver
on the Euro, the single European currency? Will Denver support the
single European currency?
SECRETARY RUBIN: I have no doubt that it will get
discussed there, but Denver will not take a position one way or the
other on the issue. That is an issue the Europeans are going to have
to work through themselves. Our view has always been is what's good
for Europe is in the final analysis good for us. A strong Europe's
good markets for us. But neither the Denver Summit or the United
States will take a position with respect to the Euro other than the
respect I just said.
Q Secretary Rubin, I wonder why won't the U.S. or the
G-7 take a position on that. You certainly haven't been shy about
taking a position on the need for Japan to deregulate or to have --
et cetera. Why not take a position on the single currency?
SECRETARY RUBIN: Because I think that the question of a
single currency is a strategic issue that Europe itself needs to work
out. Our position with respect to that, as I said a moment ago, is
that anything that's good for Europe is ultimately good for us. But
the particular strategy is something we think that they need to deal
with themselves, as we need to deal with our strategic issues
ourselves.
Q Mr. Secretary, two questions on Japan. First of
all, is there going to be bilateral between the President and Prime
Minister Hashimoto? And, second, is the issue of the Japanese trade
surplus -- and I know what the U.S. position is on it -- is this of
sufficient importance that it's actually going to be included in any
economic statement? And do you see this as sort of like the major
risk to the global macroeconomic outlook that --
MR. BERGER: In terms of the schedule, at this point the
three bilaterals that I mentioned are the only three that are
scheduled. It's conceivable that there may be others, and we'll
obviously keep you posted if the schedule changes. But it is in the
nature of these meetings -- this is really one of the few places,
times where these leaders sit around a table and it's just the 8 and
each of them have one sherpa sitting behind them. And so there's a
lot of time for conversation that takes place sort of to and from and
on the margins. And I am sure that the President and Prime Minister
Hashimoto will talk during the summit. Whether there will be
actually a formal bilateral, I don't know at this point.
Q What can you tell us on the light side, the social
side, the --
Q Can I get an answer to my question?
SECRETARY RUBIN: The Japanese surplus? Look, what
we've said is we think a sustained surplus is damaging to other
countries' economies and also has, I think, the very real risk of
fueling protectionism elsewhere. And that is what Prime Minister
Hashimoto stated as an objective of avoiding. So we continue to have
that view, as does he.
Q
Will that get discussed? Yes, at the finance minister
meetings, those things always get discussed.
Q -- be included in a statement, some reference to
that will be included in a statement --
SECRETARY RUBIN: I don't know the answer to that at
this point.
Q The Japanese keep -- there's a broad effort in
Japan among all Japanese government officials to downplay the issue
of their economy as an issue in Denver, and there seems to be a broad
effort on the part of U.S. government officials to talk it up as an
issue in Denver. Did they not get the memo or -- (laughter) -- some
sort of divergence in what you guys expect here?
SECRETARY RUBIN: I wouldn't say that we're talking up
anything. At the G-7, the finance ministers meetings at least, we go
through the issues with respect to the economies of each of the
countries. And Japan is the second largest economy in the world and
the issues are the ones I just mentioned. But we'll discuss the
European issues I mentioned and undoubtedly, with respect to the
United States, they'll talk about the sustained ability of our
recovery, do we see any signs of inflation, matters of that sort.
Q Well, you're not concerned that they're backsliding
or something? This isn't an organized effort to beat up on Japan, as
opposed to just discussing the macroeconomic issues?
SECRETARY RUBIN: No, because we always have at these
finance minister meetings mutual discussion of our economies and
relative perspectives on those economies.
MR. TARULLO: Helen, we don't have the right person to
give you all the details of the social side of it. I can give you --
Q Is everyone going to be on a horse? (Laughter.)
MR. TARULLO: I hadn't heard about -- the sherpas are
definitely not on horses, that I can tell you. (Laughter.) On
Friday evening there will be a reception before the summit begins.
On Saturday evening the leaders will have dinner with their spouses.
And then there will be the customary annual summit entertainment
which, in this case, will be uniquely American entertainment, the
details of which we need to get somebody else to give you.
Q Mr. Secretary, there's been a lot of talk about the
Japanese trade surplus and the need for domestic demand-led growth in
Japan. What about Europe? Aren't there some concerns about slack
growth in Europe and the need --
SECRETARY RUBIN: Oh, yes. Europe has gone through a
very difficult period. The continent has unemployment in the 10
percent or 11 percent range. And I have no doubt that we will have
discussions, as we always do, about the structural issues that impede
economic activity in Europe, particularly impede job growth, so the
answer to your question is yes.
Q Sandy, what about this map that Netanyahu has
supposedly brought forth at least it's been published in -- do you
see it on the one hand as progress that he is talking about a
territorial concession, or do you see it as Palestinians already do
by reading the newspaper as so totally fragmented as to be
unacceptable?
MR. BERGER: It will not be discussed at the summit.
Q I was going to expound it into the Middle East
discussion that Chirac and the President were having, but I was --
MR. BERGER: Excuse me, I haven't answered John's
question. I was being flip. The parties frequently have their own
proposals that sometimes are public and sometimes are private. We
never comment on them. I think our view is it's important here that
the parties be talking to each other and that they be negotiating
with each other. And all of our efforts over the past several weeks,
which are daily and continuing, both on our own, in support of
President Mubarak and other initiatives, are for the purpose of
getting the parties back into negotiation by, first, creating the
security conditions that will enable that to take place, and then by
both sides being prepared to take the steps necessary to create the
confidence that will allow negotiations to resume. So what is
important here is what the parties say to each other and our
determined focus is to try to get the parties back into a meaningful
negotiation.
Q With regard to any prospective political
communique, can we look for the leaders to take this opportunity to
send a strong signal to the Chinese with regard to the turnover of
Hong Kong?
MR. BERGER: First of all, the format is somewhat
different. There will be one communique, there will not be two
communiques -- on Sunday. There will be an economic --
MR. TARULLO: One communique and a G-7 statement on
Sunday.
MR. BERGER: There will be an economic statement that
comes out of the G-7 meeting. But there will be one communique from
the 8 which will, I'm sure, include language on Hong Kong.
Q So it includes the political -- what used to be the
political communique?
MR. BERGER: Correct.
Q Well, aside from Hong Kong, is Denver going to take
a strong position on human rights in China? You mentioned that
that's supposed to be one of the big objectives and achievements of
Denver going into Birmingham next year. But are you going to be
walking on eggs with regard to China's human rights performance after
the Europeans torpedoed you in Geneva on the U.N. Human Rights
Commission there? How much can you achieve on human rights in Denver
realistically when the major European powers have a totally different
agenda?
MR. BERGER: It would not surprise me if there was not a
discussion of China in general, and its evolution and our collective
assessments and individual assessments of what is going on in China,
the extent to which China is evolving towards the international
community, WTO and other areas -- arms controls regimes -- versus the
pulls on China in a more nationalist direction. And I suspect that
that discussion -- and again, I'm just predicting or anticipating
--would include some discussion of China's human rights practices.
I think that all of the 8 share the same objective which
is embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. These are
not American ideals we're talking about; these are ideals as we've
seen around the world from the Philippines to Chile that are embraced
by people worldwide. There is different approaches among the eight
to how best to pursue that objective.
In our view, it was important for us to sponsor the
resolution in Geneva expressing dissatisfaction with China's human
rights record because, A, we think in the long run, it makes a
difference to speak up and be clear about these things in terms of
giving support to those who are fighting for more political reform in
China; and B, because it gives integrity to the values that we stand
for. Some of the Europeans have -- the Europeans were divided on
this. Some of the Europeans felt that that is not a vehicle that has
a particular value. But I think the goal is the same. And we'll
discuss with them whether we can work together on the means.
Q Sandy, I don't know if each of you wants to tackles
this, but just in terms of domestic value, since the United States is
the host, what does this mean to the average -- the daily impact of
your average U.S. citizen since they're going to be seeing all this
around them on the news? A lot of this is going to go over peoples'
heads. What does this really mean in brass tacks terms?
MR. BERGER: It's a very good question. Let me take a
crack at it. And that's the ultimate question; it's the question by
which in many ways, we need to measure what we do.
I think that, first of all, what Dan said earlier, the
evolution of this group from a group that was strictly focused on
economic issues to a group that now focuses not only on economic
issues, not only on political issues, but on these transnational
issues, and has become a vehicle for real cooperation, is important
to every American. That's drugs. It's fighting terrorism. It's
fighting international crime, which can be fraud that takes tens of
billions of dollars out of our economy -- infectious diseases, AIDS.
And all of these issues are issues of direct and immediate benefit to
the United States, number one.
Number two, we live in a global economy. That means the
health of our economy is directly connected to the health of the
economies of others, and to the extent that we can encourage others
to adopt economic policies on their own that foster growth, that
contributes to America's economic progress.
And third, I think the fact here that you're seeing
Russia brought into the Summit of the Eight in a more fulsome way is
also important to the American people. The American people have an
enormous stake in the success of Russian democracy and Russian
reform. For 50 years, we defined our relationship in the world in
distinction to the Soviet Union. We spent hundreds of billions of
dollars fighting the Cold War. We now have an opportunity to
integrate Russia, a democratic Russia, into the global economy and
into the institutions of the international community, and that has
enormous pay off for the American people if it succeeds and enormous
downside if it fails.
MS. LUZZATTO: Let's make that the ultimate question.
Thank you very much.
THE PRESS: Thank you.
END 4:26 P.M. EDT
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