Baker to Talk About U.S.-Asian Relations

CONTACT: Michael Cinelli
PHONE: (713) 831-4794

BAKER TO TALK ABOUT U.S.-ASIAN RELATIONS

Note to reporters and editors: The following excerpts are taken
from a speech that James A. Baker, III, the 61st U.S. secretary of
state, will deliver tonight at the Asia Society/Baker Institute
conference on “China, the United States and Asia: Challenges for
U.S. Policy and Business.” A text of the speech as prepared for
delivery, entitled “The United States and the Other Great Asian
Powers: Russia, Japan and China,” can be obtained by contacting
Michael Cinelli, director of the Rice University News Office, at
(713) 831-4794.

“…We should be prepared, at a minimum, for several years of
occasionally uneasy U.S.-Russian relations as the latter grapples
anxiously with the vast domestic and foreign challenges before it.
Economically, as long as Russia continues to purse macro-economic
stabilization, calls for a cut-off in Western aid are premature.
Politically, suggestions that NATO be refashioned into an explicitly
anti-Russian alliance are not only foolish but dangerous to the
achievement of our overall policy goal of peace and stability in
Eurasia. The best way to make an enemy is to look for one.”

“Clearly, the maintenance of the U.S.-Japan security
relationship is a top priority. So, too, is a general lowering of
the rhetoric on trade issues, where patient negotiation, I regret to
say, has all too often been replaced by public posturing during
recent years. Above all, the United States should work to ensure
that regional economic integration occurs through fora, like APEC,
which assures a continued major American role.”

“…The much awaited transition has in fact already occurred and
that the current leadership, whoever its nominal head, will continue
to preside over a stable, if authoritarian China, for the
foreseeable future.”

“In sum, the United States and its allies in East Asia plainly
have a powerful interest in China’s long-term stability…that
stability is best served by an approach that balances support for
greater political freedom in China with continued efforts to deepen
Beijing’s economic links with the outside world…. this balance in
turn requires more discipline and consistency in American foreign
policy. Over the last few years, such discipline and consistency
have often been sorely missing.”

“…We must maintain a policy of constructive engagement with
Beijing based on mutual respect and understanding.”

“…We must continue to use the three communiques and the Taiwan
Relations Act as the basis of American foreign policy-specifically
that there is only one China, that Taiwan is part of it, that the
United States will support any peaceful resolution of the
differences between the People’s Republic and the people of Taiwan,
and that we will have broad, unofficial relations with Taiwan.”

“…We need to sustain a serious high level political dialogue
with China in an attempt to reconcile differences over trade, human
rights and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.”

“…The Administration needs to reach a bipartisan accord with
Congress as we did in 1989 on Central America to remove China policy
from our domestic political debate. It is absolutely vital, given
the sensitivities involved, to ensure that the American government
speak with one voice in our dealings with Beijing.”

“…We need to encourage the leadership in Beijing and Taipei to
concentrate on substance not symbols. We should encourage direct
contact between them.”

“..We need to avoid the false choices that suggest American
foreign policy must be entirely based either on high principle or
material advantage-in short, exclusively on either idealism or
realism.”

“There are indeed clear limits to American influence in Moscow,
Tokyo, and Beijing. But there are also practical measures by which
we can advance American interests through maximizing opportunities
and minimizing risks during a period of profound change for Russia,
Japan, and China.”

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