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

U.S. Department of State

Preview of U.S. Priorities for APEC

Ambassador Patricia Haslach, U.S. Senior Official for APEC, Bureau of East Asian & Pacific Affairs, U.S. Department of State
Foreign Press Center Briefing
Washington, DC
November 10, 2008

2:00 P.m. EDT

[ ...Intervening Text... ]

QUESTION: Thank you, Madame Ambassador. My name is Vincent Chang with the United Daily News, Taiwan. As you know, Taiwan's former Vice President will be attending the leaders meeting next week on behalf of the - of its President, Ma Ying-jeou. How does the United States see such a development across the strait, and will President Bush schedule any meeting with the Presidential representative from Taiwan?

AMBASSDOR HASLACH: I don't have access to the President's schedule at this time, but I know that they - he will be there for the leaders meeting, so there should be plenty of opportunity to have discussions with all of the representatives.

I think on your - the first part of your question, I think we view APEC as an excellent organization for economies to come together, of confidence-building measures, ways that we can cooperate in - I think I mentioned in a collegial, consensus approach. APEC is not a negotiating forum. It's actually a grouping of economies, and this provides an excellent opportunity to discuss economic and trade issues of mutual interest among our economies.

[ ...Intervening Text... ]

QUESTION: Thank you, Ambassador Haslach. My name's Huang Shan from Beijing-based Caijing magazine, a finance businesses review. As we know, the United States propose APEC-wide free trade zone a few years ago, and right now, I wonder about the progress on that respect. And do you think it will be achievable in the near future in terms of current, you know, crisis surrounding the - you know, casting doubt on the free trade prospect? So I wonder your opinion about APEC-wide free trade zones.

AMBASSADOR HASLACH: Well, we're not going to take sole responsibility for this. Let me just remind you that the United States is one of the economies that participates in APEC, and it was all of the economies and the leaders that agreed to move forward on what's called a free trade area of the Asia-Pacific. We're working hard, actually, at my level to fulfill the APEC leaders direction, to examine the options and the prospects for a free trade area of the Asia-Pacific by taking a range of practical steps, including analyzing convergences and divergences among APEC free trade agreements and regional free trade agreements that already exist and identifying issues that will need to be addressed in order for a free trade area of the Asia-Pacific to be launched. So we have work to do in this area, but we certainly haven't abandoned the overall goal.

[ ...Intervening Text... ]

QUESTION: Okay, thank you, Ambassador. I'm Shanshan Wang from China Radio International, and I've got two questions. The first one is: Are there any specific proposals the United States would put forward for deliberation at the APEC meeting? And the second is: China has announced a $586 billion package to boost its domestic growth and also fight against the global financial crisis. Would that have an impact on the G-20 summit and the APEC meeting? Thank you very much.

AMBASSADOR HASLACH: Oh, I'm certain it will have an impact and we look forward to the details of that stimulus package. It certainly had an impact on the markets, so we think - we look forward to getting more information on that.

With regard to what we are seeking with regard to deliverables this year, well, we have a long list. I guess on the top of the list would be continued support by the APEC economies to bring the Doha round to a successful conclusion. That would be our primary goal.

I think it's also the work that I was mentioning before, sort of the very detailed work for a free trade area of the Asia-Pacific. I think we're also looking to get leaders' endorsement for an investment facilitation action plan that I mentioned in my remarks. We want - we hope to make some progress on environmental goods and services. This came out of last year's APEC summit in Sydney. We would hope to get an endorsement of a work program on environmental goods and services that includes development of an environmental goods database.

We, of course, continue to want to see progress in the area of intellectual property rights. We're very interested in getting an endorsement of a digital prosperity checklist. I mentioned the work that we've been doing on food safety, but this includes an endorsement of an APEC partnership and training institute, and this is a public-private initiative. We also have work moving forward in the area of food security and food safety and product safety in these areas.

We also want to commend work that's recently been done. And I'd like to commend Taiwan on - China on this one, the - a workshop that they held on disaster preparedness after the - after an earthquake in China. This was a very, very excellent workshop that we had, and I think an example of sort of the tangible sorts of work that APEC can do.

We're very interested in carrying forward on what's called structural reform, or behind-the-borders types of impediments. Australia hosted the first structural reform ministerial in August, and the topic there was regulatory reform. And we're very interested in seeing more work done in the regulatory reform area, as well as work in areas like corporate governance. I think, again, with this financial crisis, corporate governance would be a good area for APEC to get involved in.

We have work in education. And I don't know if anyone is here from the Peruvian press, but one area that Peru's been very interested in stressing this year is an area of corporate social responsibility. And so we're very much supporting them, including a private sector-based Web site on best practices and companies that are doing it right in the Asia-Pacific region with regard to the corporate social responsibility.

A lot of work being done in small and medium enterprises. They make up the bulk of the businesses that are in our economies, and so we've done some work on an avian influenza preparedness workshop, some work on small and medium - financing for small and medium enterprises. So these are - that's sort of a quick outline of some of the things we hope to deliver at the next meeting.

[ ...Intervening Text... ]

QUESTION: Madame Ambassador, Zhu Hua from China Central Television America, and my question is, we know that the theme of this year's summit is a new commitment to the Asia-Pacific development, so how would you paraphrase the theme? What commitment do you think that developed country and developing countries should make respectively in tackling the financial crisis?

AMBASSADOR HASLACH: I think the most important sort of theme would be that trade and investment have been the key drivers of economic growth and development in our region, and we need to stay on track with this, recognizing that there are a lot of challenges out there, but we think that this is still the best path toward prosperity for both the developed and the developing economies within APEC.

QUESTION: Thank you, Ambassador. Xiong Min, from 21st Century Business Herald, a Chinese newspaper. What are the priorities on the proposal from the U.S. Government to the G-20 summit, and what do you expect as a commitment will be made from the summit? Thank you.

AMBASSDOR HASLACH: Well, I'm going to have to refer to my notes on that one, if you'll allow me. I'd be happy to share with you what the goals are. The President's goals for this first meeting would be first to review actions thus far to address the present crisis. The second would be to come to a common understanding of the root causes of the crisis. Third, agree on common principles for reform to guide future work and avoid future crises. Fourth, ensure principles are implemented by defining an action plan. Fifth, task follow-up work for future meetings, including coordination with other bodies. And finally, I believe the President will seek the resolve of all nations not to turn inward and solidify donor commitment to follow through on the development assistance side.

Thank you.

[ ...Intervening Text... ]