U.S. Relations With the People's Republic of China (2009)

U.S. Department of State

Town Hall at Government College University

Hillary Rodham Clinton
Secretary of State
Lahore, Pakistan
October 29, 2009

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QUESTION: I am a member of Youth Parliament under the leadership of (inaudible). I wanted to say that why American Government always support Indians as compared with Pakistan, although Pakistan always standing with Americans in every (inaudible). (Applause.)

SECRETARY CLINTON: I am sorry. I could not make out – could you repeat the question? I couldn’t hear it.

MODERATOR: Yeah. The gentleman said that I want to ask the – why American Government always supports Indians, Indians – India as a country as compared to Pakistan. That’s his perception.

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, thank you for asking that so that I can say that is not true. And let me explain that for many years, going back to the founding of Pakistan, which was founded in the year I was born, which tells you how old I am, the United States has been very closely allied with Pakistan, has worked with the people and governments of Pakistan. There have been periods of time when we were very closely connected. Pakistan helped to open the United States to China during the 1980s when the Soviet Union was in Afghanistan. Our two countries worked closely together.

Now there have been some problems in our relationship, and there have been some problems and ups and downs in your government. So it’s been challenging at times, but we have had a consistent relationship with Pakistan. My husband spoke to the people of Pakistan when he was president in 2000 and expressed very well our relationship and our connection. But we have relationships with all countries, and we have a relationship, obviously, with your neighbor, India.

And what we hope is that at some point in the future, which I would like to see in the not-too-distant future, Pakistan and India can resolve their outstanding differences. And why do I say that? Because I believe that trade between Pakistan and India could rival trade anywhere. I believe that if there were peace between Pakistan and India and the outstanding issues were resolved, Pakistan would take off like a rocket in terms of economic development.

Now, that is just my perception, but I have studied economies around the world, and Pakistan has such an opportunity to be a powerhouse. You are so strategically located. Just look at where you are geographic and that you have access to the sea, and if you had trade opening up to the north, to the east, to the west, it would make a huge economic difference to your country. And one of the major obstacles standing in the way is the distrust and history between India and Pakistan which blocked the kind of opportunities for investment that I think could make a huge difference.

So we are friends with both Pakistan and India. We work with both. We have given far more aid over many, many years to try to help Pakistan’s development. It’s up there with – among the top countries that we have tried to support. We have had numerous meetings with your democratically elected government in the last nine months. So we are working hard to make sure that we have good relations with both countries, and we encourage both countries to address these problems that only you and India can resolve.

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