U.S. and Hong Kong (2000)

The White House

PRESS BRIEFING BY JOE LOCKHART

The Briefing Room

12:15 P.M. EST

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Q: Joe, two questions. According to an intelligence report, Chinese influence in the Panama Canal Treaty will be a danger to the U.S. national security, number one. Number two, Dr. Henry Kissinger is supposedly a friend to the President and advisor behind the curtains, but now he's saying that most of the President's policy has failed, the foreign policy.

LOCKHART: Let me take the first one, which is I obviously can't get into a particular piece of intelligence, but I can tell you with no uncertainty and no doubt that the United States does not believe that a Hong Kong company controlling -- running the ports, loading and offloading ships at the Panama Canal poses any threat to the United States or to our national security, and that is an unequivocal statement.

On the second question, I didn't realize that Henry Kissinger was a behind-the-curtains supporter of the administration. He is a voice in foreign policy, one of many. And if he believes that the foreign policy has been a failure, I think we've achieved an awful lot in the Middle East, an awful lot in Northern Ireland, an awful lot in the Balkans as far as promoting peace. We have 5,000 less nuclear weapons than when this President took office, through our work with the Russians. That's a record that is certainly one to be envied, and perhaps that's what's at the root of the comments.

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