26 June 1998
THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press Secretary (Xian, People's Republic of China) June 26, 1998 PRESS BRIEFING BY MIKE MCCURRY AND NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR SANDY BERGER Shangri-la Hotel Xian, People's Republic of China ..................... Q: Yes. I was wondering if you can give me an example of the Chinese flexibility -- BERGER: ........... I think that there is an effort on the part of the Chinese to make this successful, and I think that in the end, if our objective is to advance America's national interest across a range of issues and to make sure the President has an opportunity with the Chinese officials to raise very directly his concerns, I think that will happen. And the last thing I would say is, if you just look over the last year or two, the things that have been accomplished, I think you have to say that by and large China has moved in our direction, whether it has been giving up nuclear testing, signing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, giving up their nuclear cooperation with Iran, giving up their nuclear cooperation with Pakistan -- those are big deals. And I think signing the Chemical Weapons Convention and all of those things -- they have not done it for us, but they've done what we have asked them to do. With respect to South Asia, an area of enormous risk and danger at this point, China has played a very constructive role since the tests. So I think you have to look at the overall picture and I think if you simply look at where the President stays or take one fact out of it, I think that's a snapshot. Q: What are the prospects of a detargeting agreement? BERGER: I don't know the answer, Wolf. We certainly -- we would like such an agreement. I think such an agreement would be useful in two respects. Number one, it would be a commitment by the Chinese to us that they would not target our cities and, therefore, would preclude the danger of an accidental launch, which is not insubstantial. There was a time when entire movies were based on swans going across radar screens. And second of all, I think it would be an important statement about -- a confidence-building measure and a statement about the evolution of our relationship since adversaries point their missiles against each other and not countries that are working to build a better relationship. Q: Where does it stand right now -- BERGER: I cannot tell you that we will have -- we are unwilling to, and have been, to change our doctrine on no first use, and that's a bottom red line for us. Q: Is that what you meant when you were talking about you were looking for progress on missile issues, the detargeting thing? Or what are you talking about? BERGER: No, I think beyond detargeting -- divide the nonproliferation world into two areas, nuclear and delivery systems. On the nuclear side we've made a lot of progress. As I said, on Iran, in connection with Jiang's meeting, they agreed they had no plans to assist the Iranian nuclear program. They've said that they would not assist unsafeguarded nuclear facilities -- read that Pakistan. And they have recently adopted in their law most of the nuclear export controls of the so-called Zanger Committee, which are kind of the internationally recognized nuclear technology no-nos. That's a technical term. So that's the nuclear side. On the missile side their commitments have been more ambiguous and more subject to differing interpretations. They have said that they would adhere to the MTCR guidelines. They have not talked about looking ahead towards a day when they might join the MTCR itself, where they would actually undertake not just the principles of restraint, but also the obligations of restraint. If we could make some progress in moving them in that direction I think that would be a plus. ................ (end transcript)