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

U.S. Department of State

Interview on NBC's Meet the Press with David Gregory

Secretary Condoleezza Rice
Washington, DC
December 21, 2008

QUESTION: But first, we welcome back the Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for her 20th appearance on this program over the past eight years. Thank you for being willing to come on the program and explain your views all these times.

SECRETARY RICE: It's a pleasure to be with you, David.

QUESTION: Thank you.

SECRETARY RICE: And congratulations on taking over the post.

QUESTION: Thank you. And I appreciate you being here.

I wanted to go back to the beginning of this Administration's foreign policy. And we took a look at the presidential debate back in October of 2000. Then-Governor Bush was asked how people of the world should look at the United States, and here's what he had to say: "It really depends upon how our nation conducts itself in foreign policy. If we're an arrogant nation, they'll resent us. If we're a humble nation, but strong, they'll welcome us."

Eight years later -- seven years later after that, do you think that the world views the United States as a humble nation?

SECRETARY RICE: I certainly think the United States views the -- that the world views the United States as a place to be respected. All over the world, David, our values are respected, who we are, a place that you can come and come from modest circumstances to great things. That's respected.

What we've done hasn't always been liked or popular; but if you look at some of the most populous places in the world -- China, India -- the United States is not only respected, but in fact, popular. So yes, there are some places that have had real quarrels with our policies, but I think the United States is very well respected worldwide.

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QUESTION: Who better to span the world with here in our remaining time, and I'd like to hopscotch around the globe a little bit to talk about some of the challenges that this new president is going to face. Let's talk about North Korea. A lot of the headlines this week about those talks breaking down in order to get the North Koreans to really back off the pursuit of a nuclear program.

The Wall Street Journal was critical in an editorial this week of your approach on all of this, writing the following: "The North has never kept a commitment, verbal or written. Its negotiating habit is to make promises to win concessions, then renege on those promises and saber-rattle until the U.S. offers further concessions. Ms. Rice recently said the only alternative to her Pyongyang policy was short-term regime change, which is a classic false dilemma. Her failure, and Mr. Bush's, was putting the appearance of diplomatic progress above genuine disarmament."

You actually joked this week during an appearance at the Council on Foreign Relations that nobody was trusting of the North Koreans, that you'd have to be an idiot to trust the North Koreans.

SECRETARY RICE: Right.

QUESTION: And yet, that's the criticism, that this Administration did trust too much.

SECRETARY RICE: No, and of course we didn't trust them. What we are negotiating is a verification protocol because nobody does trust them. And in fact, if you look at the agreement that was signed in September of 2005, it committed the North to denuclearization within a context of the Six Parties. That means Russia, China, Japan, and South Korea are all at the table to ensure that these commitments are met.

Now, step by step, we've been going through those commitments, and we have been responding to meet our obligations when the North goes forward with its obligations. So when they shut down the reactor, we met some of our small obligations in terms of fuel oil delivery. And they did shut down the reactor. There hasn't been any more plutonium made since September of 2005. Now, when they -- as the North is wont to do, when they tested a missile in July of 2006, and in October of 2006 set off a crude nuclear device, we went back to the other five. I was on the phone with them, David, within hours, and by the end of the week we had a Chapter 7 Security Council resolution, sanctions, and constraints on the North Koreans, signed on by the Chinese. That's extraordinary.

Then, after that when the North came back and said all right, we're ready to disable our reactor, it's now shut down, we're going to start to disable it, we agreed disabling plus a declaration from them about their further nuclear programs, and then more assistance from us, and they did begin to disable. They did blow up the cooling tower. They did really disable certain elements of their nuclear system on the plutonium side. And we delivered.

Then it came the matter of verification. And we have about 80 percent of the verification protocol agreed with the North -- things like interviews with scientists, the right to go and ask questions and probe concerning various facilities, the right to look at operations records, to look at production records. We have 18,000 documents in our possession. What the North wouldn't do is go the last 20 percent, which is to clarify some of the elements of scientific procedures that might be used to sample the soil.

So a lot has been achieved here. I think more will be achieved. But it's really only going to be achieved in the context of the Six Parties, because if you don't have China and South Korea and Russia and Japan at the table too, then the North can play the game that they used to play of getting benefits from other parts of the international community and refusing to carry forward on its obligations.

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