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

U.S. Department of State

Daily Press Briefing

Sean McCormack, Spokesman
Washington, DC
January 14, 2008

12:41 p.m. EST

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QUESTION: It appears that the Chinese and the Russians are still uncomfortable with some of your suggestions for the resolution. The --

MR. MCCORMACK: Well, part of the negotiating process, even among parties that are working very closely together with the same strategic objective, is to get to everybody's comfort level, so you have the overlap in the Venn diagram where everybody can agree upon something and hopefully, that is something that is meaningful in terms of getting the Iranians to change their behavior.

As a group, we have not yet been successful in that. One would hope that the leadership of the Iranian Government would start to make a different kind of calculation about the costs and benefits to continuing to pursue a uranium enrichment program. The Security Council has called upon them to suspend those operations and in return, they can have negotiations with all the members of the P-5+1, including us.

QUESTION: Is the NIE still providing a good excuse for the Russians and the Chinese not to sign onto some more punitive actions against Iran?

MR. MCCORMACK: Well, I think -- I'll let the Russians and the Chinese speak for themselves -- but I think what most took away from the NIE in reading it was a confirmation that the Iranians did have a military nuclear weapons program in violation of their IAEA obligations. And that is something that Director General Mohamed ElBaradei is following up with the Iranians.

We fully support the efforts of the IAEA to have the Iranians come clean on their past history of a nuclear weapons program and what it is exactly that they were doing and a full explanation of how far they progressed in those efforts. The international community does not, at this point, have those answers, so certainly, we support the IAEA in those efforts. But also, Iran needs to comply with the demands of the Security Council.

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QUESTION: Do you have anything about the arrest of Hu Jia, the Beijing-based human rights activist and the following house arrest of his wife and his attorney?

MR. MCCORMACK: Right. Yeah, this is a case that we have been following closely and we've brought it up with Chinese authorities. It's disturbing and I would expect that the Chinese Government would want to provide some details about this case. It's one that is important and that our Embassy here -- our Embassy in Beijing is following quite closely.

Yeah.

QUESTION: Do you have any comment on Taiwan's parliamentary election results?

MR. MCCORMACK: What I would say is that we have seen the results and offer our congratulations to the people of Taiwan for a successful democratic election. We look forward to continued, close, unofficial relations with the people of Taiwan.

QUESTION: Do you think that this an indictment on President Chen Shui-bian's --

MR. MCCORMACK: I can read this to you again. (Laughter.)

QUESTION: That won't be necessary.

MR. MCCORMACK: Okay.

QUESTION: Thank you.

MR. MCCORMACK: All right. Thanks.

(The briefing was concluded at 1:01 p.m.)