U.S. and Hong Kong (2001)

State Department Noon Briefing, July 9, 2001

Following is the State Department transcript:

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U.S. Department of State

Daily Press Briefing
Monday, July 9, 2001
Briefer: Richard Boucher, Spokesman

[ ...Intervening Text... ]

Q: Are you going to pay -- is the US going to pay the million dollar bill to China?

MR. BOUCHER: Our colleagues at the Department of Defense, I think they have received the bill from the Chinese, received a request for payment from the Chinese. They will be going over that carefully to determine what charges might be legitimate expenses concerning the return of the aircraft. After we have gone through that review, the United States will be responding to the Chinese appropriately. So, at this point, I cannot go much farther than that.

Q: Are you going to do -- is the State Department going to do their own accounting on the expense?

MR. BOUCHER: We worked together on this one and our Defense colleagues will be the ones, I think, that have the most careful interest in reviewing the items that are claimed by the Chinese.

Q: Can you confirm that one of the charges on the list is a landing charge?

MR. BOUCHER: No. I am not going to go into any particular detail on what the Chinese might have presented. It will be for them to try to explain or justify what they have presented to us. We will review this very carefully. The Defense Department is looking at it very carefully, and the United States will respond when our review is complete.

Q: (Inaudible) -- minister talks between US and North Korea this month in Vietnam?

MR. BOUCHER: There is nothing scheduled at this point. It is possible, but there is nothing scheduled.

Q: Did the issue of these charges come up in the negotiations for the EP-3 crew?

MR. BOUCHER: The correct answer is, I don't remember. Somewhere -- I think we have made quite clear along the way, and I do not remember if it was when we were talking about the crew or when we were talking about getting the airplane back. We made clear that we recognize that there were certain legitimate costs that might be involved in returning our airplane in particular, and I think we and our colleagues at Defense made clear that we were prepared to pay for legitimate expenses, legitimate costs of recovering the aircraft and moving it back from China.

I don't remember exactly what moment the issue came up, or when it was discussed with the Chinese, but I think there has been no problem from our side in saying that we would pay the costs associated with the recovery. The questions before us now is what are the legitimate costs associated with that operation.

Q: Richard, also on China, did you see the story about the Chinese agreement to a port call in Hong Kong by a US vessel? Do you -- can you confirm that?

MR. BOUCHER: Yes.

Q: Good news?

MR. BOUCHER: Let me get you something more elaborate on that. As I understand, the Chinese have approved several port calls by US ships. As you know, we see Hong Kong as an important port, and that US port calls -- US Navy ship port calls there -- represent an important sign of Hong Kong's openness.

So we are always happy to go there. It is a great place for our Navy. And we think it is important for Hong Kong to be open in that fashion.

Q: Another on Hong Kong? Tung Chee-hwa is due here I think Wednesday, and he is visiting the White House.

MR. BOUCHER: Yes.

Q: Can you tell us yet when the report on Hong Kong from the State Department will be released, and will you be sharing the information in it with him?

MR. BOUCHER: I will have to double-check to see if we have a date. I think previously we said mid-July. And it is getting close, isn't it? (Laughter.) I will double-check and see if we have it ready.

The Secretary will be seeing him on Wednesday -- morning; I don't remember exactly when.

Q: Does that mean the US is concerned about Hong Kong? I mean, he is meeting the Secretary, he is meeting the President?

MR. BOUCHER: The US has always taken a very great interest in Hong Kong. We continue to take a very great interest in Hong Kong, and in particular in Hong Kong's autonomy under the provisions of the basic law.

Q: Why? Why does the US have this interest in Hong Kong?

MR. BOUCHER: Because it is a great city.

Q: Do you have anything more on the scholars that we didn't have last week?

MR. BOUCHER: What do we know? Let's see.

Q: We have a date for one trial, but not for the other, as I remember.

MR. BOUCHER: No, we don't have any new dates for trials. We have submitted a formal request for permission to send an officer to attend the trial of US legal permanent resident Gao Zhan. We will have to see how the Chinese respond to that.

We have repeatedly urged the Chinese to resolve these cases quickly. They have given us no indication of possible outcomes of the trials, so we would urge them once again to resolve the cases quickly so that detainees can be reunited with their families.

Q: What is the current US policy toward a launching of satellites built in the United States, or containing US components, on Chinese rockets?

MR. BOUCHER: Those requests are processed by the State Department at this point. The applications come to the State Department, and we look at them and evaluate them on a case-by-case basis. I'm not sure I can say that there is much more policy than that. It is a question that is addressed each time in terms of the appropriateness of the launch and the kinds of satellites and the kinds of controls that are made on the important technologies.

Q: Is there any progress on making it easier for US satellite companies to get export licenses? The reason I bring it up is, just this weekend, a US company, Loral, and a Hong Kong company, partially owned by the Chinese, APT Satellite, they had an agreement where a satellite export license was needed by July 8th, and they have agreed to some more time for this now. But the point is that when that contract was signed in January, there was great hope that within six months they could get it resolved. And apparently it hasn't been.

So really I was wondering, on that satellite, if you can update --

MR. BOUCHER: I think we will do everything possible to improve the processing times to handle the workload as well as we can. I know there has been some talk about State and Commerce, and frankly, even giving the increased workload that we have found here with some of the licensing requirements that we have, that we process licenses in about the same time as the Commerce Department does. We have recently increased staff to meet the workload that we have. The licensing of satellites, as you know, is sort of with us, and then at Commerce, and then back again. So as that workload increased, we have increased staff over here and try to continuously improve the performance and the handling of these licenses.

[ ...Intervening Text... ]

Q: Hong Kong, what's the topic that the Secretary is going to discuss with Tung Chee-hwa on Wednesday?

MR. BOUCHER: The state of affairs in Hong Kong, I don't know I can go more detailed than that. But certainly our interest in Hong Kong is economic, it has to do with Hong Kong's status, it has to do with Hong Kong's vibrancy and its future, and we will be discussing all those with the Chief Executive when he comes.

[ ...Intervening Text... ]

Q: One more. Are you trying to work out a payment schedule before the Secretary's visit maybe back to China?

MR. BOUCHER: We will review the Chinese charges and get back to them as appropriate. I don't think there is any particular schedule for that.

Q: Okay.

Q: Thank you.

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