U.S. Relations with the People's Republic of China (2005)

Rice Urges World Community To Reject Iran's Nuclear Program

Calls for united response to Tehran's violation of Paris Accord

Following is a transcript of the secretary's interview:

(begin transcript)

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Office of the Spokesman
(New York, New York)
September 14, 2005

INTERVIEW

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice With The Fox News Editorial Board
September 14, 2005
1211 Avenue of the Americas
New York, New York

(3:30 p.m. EDT)

[ ...Intervening Text... ]

QUESTION: Can we switch to China for a second?

SECRETARY RICE: Could I just say one other thing?

QUESTION: Yeah, go ahead.

SECRETARY RICE: The French Foreign Minister again today in his comments mentioned referral, so I don't think we're having a problem with Europe, actually.

QUESTION: I'm talking to people coming back from China who were optimistic or more optimistic a year or so ago about the ability to do business in China, about our relations with China, and they're more pessimistic today. Is that real? Are you feeling that? Is there more going on that we see? The Chinese seem to have gotten a lot tougher on business over there and so on.

SECRETARY RICE: I do think it's a mixed picture and it's complicated. I don't sense that it's that much harder today than it was a year ago, but the problem is that every year that goes by that China doesn't make certain reforms is a problem for the international economy and it becomes a cumulative problem because the trade balances get bigger -- or trade imbalances get bigger and intellectual property rights becomes more of a problem.

And the way that I'd put it is that it's not that we don't want the Chinese economy to grow. My goodness, a growing, robust Chinese economy is terrific for everybody. It gives impetus to more markets, it gives impetus therefore to better jobs, it gives impetus to goods that can come into the United States at reasonable prices, and all of that's good. The problem is that it's a very big economy that is growing outside of the rules of the international economy, like protection of [intellectual] property, like a currency that makes sense in terms of its flexibility in terms of the market, market rate.

I'll give you another example of one that's been troubling but it hasn't yet gone into effect. There's a law that is sitting there that would prohibit sales of foreign software to government entities in China. Now, given how much of the economy is still in the public sector in China, that would be a very protectionist measure against software. So we've been fighting that pretty hard. But sooner or later, the fact that the Chinese economy is not yet reformed in the context of the way market economies work, and yet it has a huge position inside the international economy, is going to be a problem. I think that may be what you're sensing is that the reforms are just not moving as quickly as they probably should.

[ ...Intervening Text... ]

(end transcript)