U.S. and Hong Kong (2003)

State Department Noon Briefing Transcript

Following is the State Department transcript:

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BRIEFER: Richard Boucher, Spokesman

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
DAILY PRESS BRIEFING

MONDAY JANUARY 6, 2003
(ON THE RECORD UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED)

12:50 p.m. EST

[ ...Intervening Text... ]

QUESTION: Yeah, I was just wondering, with the bilateral and then trilateral talks today and tomorrow, at what point is China brought into these discussions or apprised of what went on and at what level of that plenary?

MR. BOUCHER: We have ongoing consultations with the Chinese and the Russians through our embassies, and so a lot of this material is an ongoing discussion where we may have talks here, but we would also expect to continue the discussion with others.

I'm trying to think. Under Secretary Bolton would expect to be in China on his trip later this month. I'm not sure at this point whether Assistant Secretary Kelly will have a chance to go there next week, or not.

Okay. Joel.

QUESTION: With respect to North Korea, is there any plan to get power from either China or South Korea to diminish the need for these nuclear reactors? And also, have you -- in talking with both the Russians and the Chinese, well, the North Koreans are, it seems they are building up their military even more. Is this saber-rattling a definite concern?

MR. BOUCHER: On the issue of power, I think North Korea already gets a Considerable amount of oil and power from China and from others. We've Pointed out that any restart to these reactors is a virtually Negligible contribution to the electricity supply. It's not going to warm North Korean houses this winter. It's not going to light their schools during the winter. I think the percentage was something like a potential of two or three percent of the energy needs and that's certainly not any significant benefit to restarting this reactor in terms of the losses of North Korea's reputation and ability to get other benefits by its interaction with the international community.

In terms of the conventional forces, which I guess you're talking about on the peninsula, we've always made clear that's a very significant issue for us and that is one of the issues that we were willing to sit down and have serious discussions with the North Koreans on, in terms of the approach we had been prepared to take Before we saw this program develop and, therefore, before this made it Impossible to proceed on other fronts.

[ ...Intervening Text... ]

QUESTION: Do you have anything on the extradition of the three men in Hong Kong?

MR. BOUCHER: I don't, but I should, and I'll get you something.

Thank you.

(The briefing was concluded at 1:50 p.m.)

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