U.S. Relations With the People's Republic of China (2008)

U.S. Department of State

Secretary Rice and British Foreign Secretary David Miliband

Secretary Condoleezza Rice
Interview by Kim Ghattas of BBC
Palo Alto, California
May 22, 2008

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QUESTION: But two weeks after, that urgency is only growing and a lot of people are wondering, you know, what next, how can you make sure that the aid actually gets to the people. And some people are wondering why we don't just force it. You know, there are American, French, British warships off the coast of Burma. Why not just bring the aid in?

SECRETARY RICE: I'll make two points. First off, we are using every pressure point that we can think of. We had Admiral Keating there, our Pacific Commander, to try to make a military-to-military contact. We are certainly supportive of what Ban Ki-moon is doing. I talked with him before he left on that trip. We are working through the Chinese, through the ASEAN countries. We're using every -- every means to try to get in.

I think one has to recognize that you're talking about distribution of aid, which means that you would have to try to put aid workers on the ground. And to do that in a non-permissive environment would be quite a task. And I think we have to be realistic about what is possible, but as David said, we have to continue to look at every option. But you're not just dropping food in. You're actually trying to distribute it and that's the difficulty of doing this in an environment where the government is not really cooperative.

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