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

U.S. Department of State

Remarks At the Council on Foreign Relations

Secretary Condoleezza Rice
New York, New York
June 19, 2008

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SECRETARY RICE: Thank you very much, and it is indeed good to be here at the Council among so many friends of long standing. I'd first like to thank Richard for that wonderful introduction. The reason that I play with such desperation is I don't practice enough. (Laughter.) When I practiced a lot more I used to hit the right notes more often.

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Nonetheless, even with a strategic earthquake like September 11th or before it, Pearl Harbor, there are elements of continuity in American foreign policy, and some things that were fully expected and that I think we've tried to deliver on. For instance, coming in, I think that everybody understood that it would important to have workable relationships with the great powers, the big powers in international politics - China, Russia, the newly emerging powers like India and South Africa and Brazil. Important not just because one wants to have fruitful and constructive relations with important powers, but fruitful and constructive relations that can be put to use in carrying out the work of diplomacy and therefore solving international problems. It goes without saying that it is not really feasible to solve many of the problems of international politics through diplomacy if you cannot find, at least, a common interest and common cause with countries like China and Russia, even if you are not doing so from the basis of common values. And having constructive relations with those two giant powers, both members of the Security Council, has been an important part of what we have tried to do.

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The relationship with China, of course, is one of -- with an emerging power, in China, a developing country that has many aspects that make it appear to be developed, while recognizing that the character of this country is one that is developing. The Chinese will tell you, for instance, that in order just to keep pace with their burgeoning population, they have to have 25 million new jobs every year. This is a country that is experiencing extremely rapid growth but from a very low base, and still with a very -- a very poor population. And yet, we found it important and useful to work with China and to try very hard to impress upon China the need for China to be a responsible stakeholder, as Bob Zoellick put it, a country that is able to see its interests as helping to manage the international system and its problems. And I think we've made some progress there, too. I would note that, particularly when it comes to the six-party talks on North Korea, China has emerged as an important and responsible player.

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QUESTION: I have just come back from China, because NYU is opening a campus in Shanghai. My question -- although I'm tempted to go into it with you on Turkey, but that's another issue -- is what prospects do you see for the development of genuinely democratic institutions in China, and what role can the United States play in encouraging such developments?

SECRETARY RICE: Thank you.

QUESTION: And that was a brilliant talk you gave, by the way.

SECRETARY RICE: Well, thank you very much, John. We have been old friends for a while, so thank you very much.

China is clearly going through a major transition, in terms of its economic life. Everybody sees that. I think the question is whether or not this kind of economic growth, activity, creativity, innovation that we're starting to see in China can continue to exist in a political system that is hierarchical and rigid. And I, frankly, don't think that it can.

I am a firm believer that, in the long run -- maybe not in the short one, but in the long run it's not going to be possible to recognize your people's talents and not recognize their rights. Eventually, with the growth of middle class and the growth of people with property rights, and all of the things that are starting to happen in China, there will be a desire to be able to access and to be able to petition the government.

We see, in small snippets, some of this, for instance, in the quite remarkable response to the earthquake, which showed that China is developing something of a civil society, as groups sprung up to try to help: from volunteers, local people trying to volunteer, national volunteers on behalf of earthquake victims. We saw the insistence that local officials be held responsible for what might have been problems that the earthquake exposed. And I think, frankly, you're going to see more of that.

Now, I don't think it will be rapid in China, and it may be that China will, because it is China, it may be sui generis in the way that it gets there. But it's hard for me to see how you can, from the top down, govern 1.3 billion people who are becoming more capable, becoming more worldly, becoming more integrated into the international community, from the top down.

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QUESTION: My name is Lou Gerstner. I am a retired computer salesman. And, Condi, we also have a Notre Dame connection, although it was very brief.

I want to go back and to your retrospective kind of comments earlier. I was taken by the fact that the advice you gave the young -- young, I don't know whether they're young or not -- the new people, you said, "If you're going into academia, think big ideas. If you're going into the government, be great at execution."

And it seems to me that one of the things that is, in many respects, appallingly absent in the government is effective process. And you don't have an effective organization if you don't have effective processes. Processes are who do you select, how do you hire the best and the brightest, how do you pay them, how do you have the standards of accountability, how do you have standards of, "We only deal with facts and the right information?"

And so, you know, when you read books like Legacy of Ashes, and a whole bunch of books about the start of the war, you see appalling breakdowns in process. And so, my question to you is, as you look back, and if you think about this agenda that you would see going forward, how important is it that somehow we change organization, our ability to attract people, pay people, accountability?

Is any of that important? Or, is it - at the end of the day we have to live with this, what I would describe as a relatively -- a very inefficient process. That's the nicest word I can come up with.

SECRETARY RICE: Well, first of all, Lou, they are young, compared to us. All right? How is that?

So, when it comes to the execution in government, yes, it's hard. And I want to pick up on one point that you made about people. Yes, you have to worry about recruiting the right people. Yes, you have to worry about paying the right people. Yes, you have to worry about promoting the right people, all of which are not easy in what are fairly encrusted bureaucracies.

But I will tell you something. What is remarkable -- and I see it in the foreign service and the civil service, the people who are in the State Department -- is that you are drawing on something else. People who come into these jobs very often want to change the world. And if you can keep them focused on that 10 years into their careers like they were in the first year of their career, you're going to keep some of the best talent.

One of the problems is that sometimes we tend to wring it out of people by putting them into endless list of boring jobs, until they get to a point that we trust them with responsibility. And younger, brighter people leave before they get to that point. And so, yes, there are some problems in hiring and those things, but I don't think there is a problem of motivation. These are some of the most motivated people I have ever seen.

As to processes, look, it's really hard. Right? I ran -- I was the chief operating officer of a university. It is, frankly, a whole lot harder to plan how to deal with Iraq or Afghanistan. It's just harder. It's just harder. There are a lot more variables. You are dealing with a lot more complex set of circumstances. When you plan in Iraq that the civil service is going to hold together because you know that if totalitarian systems have anything, they generally have a civil service, and perhaps you can count on that civil service, and then it disappears, you have a problem. And maybe you could have predicted it. I really don't know how.

And you know what? If I look back across the whole range of history of trying to deal with really big problems, there is a lesson to be learned. And some of the darkest moments of the war on terrorism and Iraq and so forth -- my summer reading was the biographies of the founding fathers. And I read the biographies of George Washington and Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson, and so forth. And do you know what? When you read those biographies, you think, "How in the world did the United States of America ever come into existence?" You know, George Washington is losing a third of his forces to small pox, Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson are at each other's throats, Thomas Jefferson is spreading rumors that George Washington is senile, because he doesn't like the fact that Alexander Hamilton has his ear. How in the world did we come into being?

One of the things that I constantly think about is what it must have been like to go to work in the State Department in 1945, 1946, 1947, 1948, 1949, and 1950. You think we have challenges? Well, you win the war. And then, in 1946, the question isn't, "Is there going to be Communism in Eastern Europe?" The question is, "Does it matter that 48 percent -- the Communists just won 48 percent of the vote in Italy and 46 percent of the vote in France?" In 1947, 2 million Europeans are starving, and therefore, you get the Marshall Plan. But in 1948, Harry Truman decides to recognize Israel, touching off a conflict in the Middle East. In 1948, Joseph Stalin decides to divide Germany with Berlin. The Soviet Union takes out the last democratic state in the coup in Czechoslovakia. In 1949, the Soviet Union explodes a nuclear weapon 5 years ahead of schedule, the Chinese Communists win, and in 1950 the Korean War breaks out.

Now, would anybody have said that when I was lucky enough to be the Soviet specialist at the end of the Cold War, I was going to watch the peaceful collapse of the Soviet Union, the liberation of Eastern Europe, the unification of Germany, completely on Western terms, that Japan was going to become a great democratic anchor in Asia, and so was South Korea? I don't think so.

And so, when we look back on these great events, they look as if they must have planned them right, they must have done them right, they must have gotten it all right. The processes must have been perfect, and it came out just fine. And when you look back, you realize that whenever you're dealing with something of this complication and this difficulty, it's going to be hard.

I would be the first to say I am sure there are many, many things that we should have done differently and better. I surely wish that we had had an institution like a Civilian Response Corps for Afghanistan and for Iraq. We would have made far fewer mistakes. But the United States tends to learn a bit on the job. And I think some of the innovations that are now in place will make it somewhat easier for the next time around.

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