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

The White House

For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
March 26, 2008

Press Briefing by National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley on the President's Trip to the NATO Summit

James S. Brady Press Briefing Room

3:25 P.M. EDT

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Q: In his talk today -- or telephone conversation with President Hu, did the question of the missile fuses come up? Was there a discussion of that? What did the President say?

MR. HADLEY: It came up very briefly, and basically the President indicated that a mistake had been made. There was very little discussion about it. You've probably seen the press release that came out from the Chinese side on President Hu's side of the conservation as -- if you noticed, it didn't even get mentioned. So it was a very small part of the conversation.

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Q: If I can go back to China for a second, two questions about the call today. First of all, was there anything that the President heard in his conversation with the Chinese President that made it more encouraging than the public statements we've heard from the Chinese so far that they are interested in some kind of dialogue with the Dalai Lama, or more open to some of the things that the President has been urging? And more broadly, on Chinese relations, is the President concerned that China, as the Olympics is approaching, is proving to be cracking down on civil liberties, openness, dissent. Are they worried about their corporation on the whole gamut of issues that were mentioned in the statement today -- Burma, Darfur, things like that? Do you feel like there's basically -- is he worried that there's backsliding from the Chinese on some of these issues as the Olympics approaches?

MR. HADLEY: Well, look, he takes these issues that you described very seriously. They need to address -- and his purpose -- whether Olympics or no Olympics, these are important issues that need to be addressed. And what the President wanted to do, as he said, was use the relationship he's built with President Hu over time to raise these issues and speak very clearly and frankly with him about them. And it was a very good exchange.

We can -- I think a couple things that struck me about the conversation -- and I would refer you to the readout the Chinese authorities did in Beijing of the conversation -- couple things are of interest. He said that it is China's consistent stand that the Chinese mainland and Taiwan should restore consultation and talks on the basis of the 1992 consensus, which sees both sides recognize there is only one China, but agree to differ on its definitions.

The interesting thing is whether this is an indication or a signal of a willingness to open dialogue on a basis that in previous years had been accepted by both parties. That was very -- pretty interesting. Secondly, I thought it was interesting -- the President pushed very hard on the need to -- concern about violence in Tibet, the need for restraint, the need for consultation with representatives of the Dalai Lama. As you know, there have been consultations between Chinese authorities and representatives of the Dalai Lama in the past. Those have been suspended. The President urged that those be restored as part of a process for Chinese authorities to addressing, reaching out to and addressing the grievance of the people in Tibet.

And I thought it was interesting that President Hu said that the government was willing to continue contacts in consultation with the Dalai Lama as long as -- and, again, as he said, there's an abandonment of Tibetan independence and stopping activities that involved crimes and the use of violence. And of course, as you know, the Dalai Lama has been very public in his views on both the issue of independence and the use of violence.

So again, the question is whether this will turn out to be an opening for a consultation process between Chinese authorities and representatives of the Dalai Lama. So we'll have to see. There were some interesting elements of the statement and I think we'll have to see over time whether they come to fruition in respect to both the Taiwan and --

Q: President Hu did not just brush of the President on Tibet?

MR. HADLEY: No, it was a very lengthy exchange. And it was well prepared, and you got a good flavor of it in the release that was issues by Beijing's authorities. It was a serious conversation on really all of the issues, and they were Taiwan, Tibet, North Korea and Burma.

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Q: Mr. Hadley, I was wondering -- back to China and the phone call today -- was there one particular thing that prompted the President to call today? The violence in Tibet has been going on for almost a couple weeks now. Is there anything that triggered today --

MR. HADLEY: Well, there are a couple things. One, the Taiwanese election presents an opportunity to encourage China to reach out to Taiwan and to try and resolve differences, and the President did not want to let that go by. And that election, of course, was just this last weekend.

Secondly, there seemed to us to be -- we have talked a lot about Tibet. The Secretary of State has made some comments. We've sent messages through a lot of channels. Particularly since the President was going to be talking to President Hu Jintao about Taiwan, he wanted to use that as an opportunity to talk about Tibet. And in some sense, the message is the same. There's an opportunity here and China needs to seize it.

Three, there have been ongoing discussions, as you know, on North Korea, an effort to get North Korea to come forward with a complete and correct declaration. This has been going on for a while. It's time to bring this to conclusion. As you know, China, as part of the six-party talks, has been critical in this conversation that members of the six-party talks together have had with North Korea. It was time, I think, for the President to signal to Hu Jintao that it's time for all the parties of the six-party talks, including China, to reengage with North Korea. And, again, if you've got that agenda, you don't want to not talk about Burma, because Burma is a very important issue, and China has real influence on it.

So you put all those together, seemed like a good time, and seemed like to be a fairly robust agenda. And as you can see from the readouts by the two sides, it was a very substantive conversation.

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4:00 P.M. EDT