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

U.S. Department of State

Interview With Maria Bartiromo of CNBC

Secretary Condoleezza Rice
Washington, DC
December 11, 2008

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QUESTION: Has the economic slowdown impacted your job? What are you hearing when you're going around the world as far as the slowdown in the economies globally?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, obviously, slowdown in growth worries countries around the world, that they won't be able to deliver for their people, whether it's in many of the emerging countries that - emerging developing countries where they need large job growth to deal with burgeoning populations in places like China or India, or - I was at a meeting of the Pathways to Prosperity, which is the countries in Latin America, with whom we have either free trade agreements or prospective free trade agreements. It was joined by observers from Brazil and Ecuador and Uruguay. And what I heard there is a strong desire to continue along the path of open markets and free trade.

The strongest testaments to the importance of free trade, the strongest testaments to the need to complete the Doha round, a strong argument, eloquent -- from the Mexican Deputy Trade Representative who was there, an eloquent argument from countries like Colombia, that the United States has to lead on trade. That was very interesting to me, in a sense that the G-20 statement recognizing that we cannot repeat the mistakes of the '30s when the Great Depression was exacerbated by internal - turning inward and protectionism. Nobody believes that we're in the conditions that we were in the '20s and '30s, but everybody believes that, whatever our economic circumstances, we could deepen them by protectionist behavior.

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QUESTION: That's beautiful. Final question, Madame Secretary. Joe Biden said Obama will be tested. Do you agree?

SECRETARY RICE: Of course. Every American President is tested, and tested both by perhaps those who wish to test, and tested just by circumstances. The United States is involved in every corner of the globe, you know. We try to improve, and I think we have relations with every continent.

I think - when I think back to our coming here in 2001, our first big international crisis was with China. They forced down an American EP-3 airplane on an island, and people almost don't remember that crisis now. They held our people for several days, and it was a terrible crisis. And I look now, and our relations with China could not be better. In fact, across Asia our relations could not be better.

So yes, there is always something. And the question is what do you do. And you have to stand tough and you have to stand strong. But then you have to be able to move on and make opportunities out of difficulty. And if I look at the evolution in the relationship with China, I have those two data points in my mind: the day that we found that they'd forced down our airplane and were holding our military people; and today, when it's really one of the most transformed relationships that we have -- a relationship where we still differ on issues of human rights, and where we've been willing in the toughest possible way to say that, where the President has been willing to meet with the Dalai Lama even though the Chinese don't like it, but where - I was just on the telephone with the Foreign Minister of China talking about how to move the Six-Party Talks on North Korean disarmament forward, and talking about the piracy issue and how we might cooperate on that.

So yes, testing will come. Be strong, and then try to build on that for new opportunities.

QUESTION: Let me just ask about China. So China is a friend?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, China is a country with which we have developed very good working relations. We still have differences with China, particularly around issues of human rights, democracy, issues concerning Tibet. And we found a way to transform our relationship with China, improve it, even, I think, help to improve the relations on the cross-straits issue between Taiwan and China; but still speaking out on Tibet, still the President meeting with the Dalai Lama, still the President able to talk about human rights in a straightforward way. And that's the way that you have to deal with these big, complex relationships, where we don't actually share values, but we share interests. And I think we're very proud of the circumstances we've left in Asia.

QUESTION: That's a good way to put it - not values, but interests.

SECRETARY RICE: Yes. And if you do that, and you can contrast it with a country like India, where we really have a transformed relationship, a deeper and broader relationship than ever, there we share values and interests with this great multiethnic democracy. But you can have good relations with countries with which you don't share values. The kind of deep friendship that we enjoy with some countries, I think takes the need for common values.

QUESTION: Secretary Rice, thank you very much for joining us.

SECRETARY RICE: Thank you.

QUESTION: We appreciate it.

2008/1043

Released on December 11, 2008