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

U.S. Department of State

Remarks by Deputy Secretary Negroponte at Trinity College Dublin

John D. Negroponte, Deputy Secretary of State
Dublin, Ireland
November 17, 2008

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Globalization is transforming our world in two important ways. On the one hand, it is empowering states that can seize its benefits, allowing billions of citizens in countries like China and India, Brazil and Indonesia to join the global economy and translate their growing wealth into national power. Increased cross-border trade and investment have been the engine of transformation of the world economy in the post-war period and have lifted millions from poverty.

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Together with our European allies, Russia, and China, the United States has made clear to the Iranian regime the potential benefits of changing course and rejoining the community of nations as a responsible, constructive member. Those benefits include cooperation on peaceful nuclear energy, including light water reactors; increased trade and investment; deepening integration into the global economy; growing financial and technological assistance; and an opportunity to build better relations with the international community, including with the United States. But if Iranian leaders continue to support terrorists, pursue a nuclear weapons capability, and subvert its neighbors, we will rally the international community to deepen its isolation.

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Those interests include long-term challenges of international governance, such as climate change. We cannot reach effective solutions to this challenge without consensus among both developed and developing major economies, especially India and China. Over the past several years, the Bush Administration has begun the difficult work of building that consensus through the Major Economies mechanism. And thanks to this process, there is now momentum among all major stakeholders in the international system to cooperate towards establishing a post-Kyoto framework on climate change.

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