U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE

Office of the Spokesman

Press Briefing
On Upcoming Travel To Japan, Vietnam, The Republic Of Korea, The People's Republic Of China, And Australia
Colin L. Powell, Secretary Of State
Washington, D.C.
July 20, 2001

SECRETARY POWELL: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. How are you all today? I'm pleased to have a few minutes to spend with you to talk about the Asia trip that I am about to undertake.

As you know, I leave for Asia on Sunday afternoon on a trip that will take me to Tokyo, to two ASEAN meetings in Hanoi, to Beijing, to Seoul, and finally to Canberra. It is a long trip and an exciting one to a dynamic region. I have been looking forward to this trip, having spent the first six months of my term as Secretary of State in Europe, in Africa, in the Middle East, and here in our hemisphere, working on issues in our hemisphere, a number of successful, frankly, meetings we have had here in our hemisphere -- our meetings with the Canadians and the meeting with President Fox of Mexico and then the Summit of the Americas. Now I have the opportunity to go to Asia and to cover a lot of ground in a short period of time. It's an exciting region in the midst of great transformation.

But you will hear from me in Asia the same themes that the President took to Quebec, to the Summit of the Americas, and that he has taken to Europe: That we want to work with our allies and friends in the region, that we are not looking for enemies, that we will support reform and change, that we will work with nations who are willing to open up to the challenges and benefits of the new world and to take advantage of the opportunities that this modern world offers to nations that put themselves on the right path to the future. The benefits of this openness are shown by Asia's past few decades, by Asia's present, and I'm sure by Asia's future.

In Japan, I hope to learn more about Japan's reform agenda, which President Bush and Prime Minister Koizumi discussed at Camp David, and which I discussed with my colleague, Minister Tanaka, in Rome earlier this week. With Japan, I will also focus on how we can support the reduction of tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

In Hanoi, I will express our solid backing for ASEAN and its efforts to advance integration and economic openness in an area long rent by strife and conflict. I look forward especially to visiting Vietnam, a nation with one of the youngest populations in the world, and I hope that we can encourage them to move forward with reform and openness that will give these young people a new future.

It will be my first time back in Vietnam in 32 years, since I left there, and it certainly is a quite different Vietnam than the one I left 32 years ago. So I look forward to my visit to Hanoi.

In Seoul, I return to a nation where I served also as a soldier, where as allies and working with Japan, we have supported each other for many years in our efforts to reduce tensions, but at the same time, keeping the peace on the peninsula and watching South Korea thrive during this period of peace.

I head to China confident that we can build a more stable, a more constructive relationship with the Chinese, and I am also looking forward to the opportunity of speaking to the Chinese leaders about President Bush's forthcoming trip this fall.

The foundation of our relationship with China is the tremendous transformation that has been brought about by the opening up of China and economic reform that has taken place. I will tell the Chinese leaders that we will work with them as they continue on that path of reform, as they join world institutions and adopt world standards in trade and economics.

And I also will say that with proliferation and human rights and religious freedom issues, we will be candid in our conversations as befits two nations who are on a path to even better, friendly relations than exist now. We have dealt with the EP-3 incident that was a bit of an irritation a few months ago. And I am looking forward to making it absolutely clear to the Chinese leaders that we are looking for a better relationship. The United States is not seeking enmity with China.

Finally, I will end my trip in Australia. Secretary Rumsfeld will join me in talks with Australian defense and foreign ministers in advancing our common security, as we celebrate this year the fiftieth anniversary of our alliance.

So it will be an important and exciting trip. There are many more specific issues to discuss in the course of that week long -- a little better than a week-long adventure. But overall, I will be taking President Bush's foreign policy priorities to a region that, like the United States itself, reflects the luster of change in its many forms and, like the United States itself, the lights of promise as well.

With that, I would be delighted to take whatever questions you may have.

QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, one of your fellow diplomats, Doug Peterson, has said that every soldier who goes back to Vietnam for the first time experiences a sense of catharsis. Could you reflect a little how you feel personally about going back to Vietnam?

SECRETARY POWELL: I served in Vietnam twice, 40 years ago almost, as a young captain, brand new captain, serving in the A Shau Valley in the Highlands. And I went back a little later as a major. So two years of my life were spent fighting in Vietnam against that system. And I lost many of my friends, some of my best friends from college, fraternity members, and a lot of people I was close to.

So I am sure that there will be an emotional tinge when I get there and when I see the country. I have never been to Hanoi before, of course. And there are no ghosts within me that need exercision. But at the same time, I am sure, the years will peel back three and four decades and the emotions will be powerful and strong. And I am looking forward to the experience, I am looking forward to meeting the leaders of Vietnam and looking forward with them -- not looking backwards -- but looking forward, letting them know we wish to be friends now, we wish to resolve the issues of the past, who wish to move forward as Ambassador Peterson has so effectively helped our two nations do for the last several years during his tenure as Ambassador to Vietnam.

So I go as the Secretary of State, but I also go as a former battalion advisor, a former operations officer of an American infantry division and a soldier who fought there. And I am sure there will be a flood of emotions when I arrive.

QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, good morning. This is a kind cool period between India and Pakistan after the talks, peace talks, failed in Delhi. You have met and are fortunately meeting with both the foreign ministers of India and Pakistan here in this building. I do not know what they told you about the peace talks, how they will go, and what you think about this now. And Mr. Armitage went to India but he bypassed Pakistan. Now, Ms. Christina Rocca is going to India, Pakistan and Nepal, but bypassing Bangladesh.

So what do you think now when you are going to make your trip to India and what of the future of -- because now so many high-level trips are taking between India and the United States. And I am sure that President Bush is also making a trip next year. So what do you think, where the two countries are heading, and what is the future of the India-Pakistan problems?

SECRETARY POWELL: I am pleased that the two leaders were able to find an opportunity to meet. I am sure we are all, to include them, disappointed that the meeting didn't produce as much progress or didn't have the success we might have hoped, but nevertheless, they did meet.

I have not spoken to the foreign ministers of the two countries since their leaders met, but I did have meetings with them before, as you noted. We plan to work very hard with both countries to make sure that our relations with both countries are strong and thriving and growing. Ambassador Armitage has been to the region, and Ambassador Rocca is going to the region. I don't have a trip planned yet, but I certainly will be planning one, and look forward to visiting in the region.

We will do everything we can to lend our good offices to the improvement of relations between the two countries and the difficult outstanding issues, whether it is Kashmir or nuclear issues.

So you will see us deeply engaged in the region and trying to have balanced and strong relations with both countries.

QUESTION: Back on Vietnam, at least one of your predecessors has called American involvement there a mistake. Do you share that view?

SECRETARY POWELL: No. I went as a young advisor with thousands of others to try to help a people that were under attack by a system that we disapproved of. We weren't successful. But I would never say to those young men and women who, as I, were veterans, that it was the wrong cause in the beginning.

Toward the end, as I have written about extensively, it became clear that we were not going to prevail, and maybe different political and military judgments should have been made at that point. But when I went over and arrived in Saigon on Christmas Day of 1962, I was convinced that we were doing the right thing, and I think we were doing the right thing. It didn't turn out the way we expected it to or wanted it to or perhaps should have, but that is now history. We have to look forward.

QUESTION: I notice that you seem to have dropped the campaign term, "strategic competitor," when referring to China. I wonder, as a soldier-diplomat, if you could describe what you see to be the most worrisome thing about the Chinese military now and in the medium- to long-term for the United States?

SECRETARY POWELL: I don't know that I have dropped anything out of my vocabulary or lexicon. I may not just use them all in every statement. Otherwise, our meetings might become too long down here.

I see China as an important and powerful country that is going through a transformation, an economic transformation, a political transformation. It is trying to control that transformation and trying to control transforming forces that are within the society. They have liberalized quite a bit in the last 20 or 30 years in ways we couldn't have imagined 20 or 30 years ago with respect to the society and the openness in the society. It is not as open as our society or we would, you know, encourage them to be. They still do not practice human rights to the standards that we think are appropriate and they undertake proliferation activities that are troublesome to us. And we will discuss all these issues.

At the same time, it is a nation that need not be seen as an enemy. I would expect the Chinese military to modernize and transform itself and to use some of its newfound wealth to do that. This is not shocking or surprising to me.

We encourage Chinese military leaders to talk to our military leaders so we have a better understanding of the nature of that transformation, and it would be very useful if we had more transparency into what both sides are doing, and in that way have some confidence in the security relationship between the two of us. I do not yet see efforts on the part of the Chinese military to transform themselves in a way that we should see them as a potential enemy. But, at the same time, we should watch what's happening. And, of course, there is always the potential danger of misjudgments with respect to Taiwan and we will always keep that in mind of well.

QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, you and the Secretary of Justice are working on an immigration issue with Mexico. My question to you is, what is exactly your position about an amnesty for more than three million Mexicans illegally working in the United States? And that was a proposal by the Mexican Government or it was an idea by this administration?

SECRETARY POWELL: We are working very hard to satisfy the concerns that have been expressed by both sides with respect to illegal immigrants in the United States. We are proud of the fact that we offer opportunities for people who come to this country to make a living, some to go back, some to ultimately become American citizens. We want to regularize this. We want to make it less dangerous, less threatening to become a citizen, if that is where your destiny takes you.

And so we are looking at ways that both of us can work together to solve this problem. I am very pleased that the Mexicans have said clearly that this is something both of us have to work on, and it is not just an American problem. And we have had some excellent meetings with our Mexican colleagues.

At the moment, we are coming up with a series of recommendations that will be presented to the President in due course, and I will be discussing these possible recommendations with Foreign Minister Castaneda on the 9th of August. They do not at the moment include just simply a blanket amnesty for everybody who is in the country. But I am sure the recommendations will include ways for some of those who are in the country to remain in the country and try to regularize the flow of people back and forth, and to make it a more fair and equitable system that serves the interests of both countries.

QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, as you know, the North Korean Foreign Minister has already canceled his trip to Hanoi, Vietnam, and I am wondering whether you are still positive to see some of their delegation during your stay in Hanoi to deliver your message to the regime of Pyongyang?

And on China, during your stay, do you expect to see Chinese President Jiang Zemin, and if so, are you going to bring some message from President Bush to humanitarian? Thank you.

SECRETARY POWELL: The North Koreans will have a delegation in Hanoi and we will be in a conference room together. I can't say what conversations might transpire.

With respect to -- and I also might add that we are in regular contact with North Korean officials in New York. So there is a dialogue that is going on between the United States and North Korea. I do expect to see all the prominent principal leaders in Beijing, and I am looking forward to that, and I am sure I will be carrying a message from the President, but I would prefer to deliver it personally rather than right now.

QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, could I take you back to another area, to the Middle East, and can you talk about the possibility of any US troops being used as monitors or observers?

SECRETARY POWELL: As you know, the subject of monitoring has come up quite a bit in recent weeks. It was mentioned during my last trip to the Middle East, and my G-8 colleagues in Rome earlier this week talked about monitoring, and it was in our statement at the end of our meeting.

And what we were talking about is, as you enter the Mitchell Plan, and with the agreement of both sides -- because that is the only monitoring will work; to suggest that you can sort of impose monitoring on one side but not the other just doesn't make sense -- so with the agreement of the parties, and such agreement can be reached, and as part of the Mitchell implementation, there could be a role for monitors. The exact function they would perform and how they would work is something we would have to work out. And they need not be troops. They could be civilian observers, they could be representatives of the trilateral security committee that works there. We were looking for a way to show that if we can get into the Mitchell Report implementation steps, it could be useful to have monitors in to help that process move along.

Remember, there is a six-week cooling period that begins at the very beginning of Mitchell, and it might be very useful to have monitors. And the United States would, at that point, consider how best we could participate in that, if at all. But no mechanism has yet been established and no people have been called for from different countries or organizations as yet.

QUESTION: (Inaudible) regarding Japan's position on the missile defense, Foreign Minister Tanaka said in a television interview earlier this week that she now supports the President's proposals. She has gone beyond the Japanese Government's earlier position of understanding the President's plans.

Now, are you happy with that latest comment? And in this connection, do you anticipate that Japan's constitutional prohibition against collective self-defense would become an obstacle to the continuation of the TMD research and possible development and deployment of the TMD system with the United States, as well as to other steps Japan might take for closer security cooperation between the two countries? Are you going to discuss these issues and others?

SECRETARY POWELL: She and I had a good discussion earlier this week in Rome on a variety of bilateral issues and we talked about the President's plans on missile defense and the need for missile defense and the effect it would eventually have as we move forward on the ABM treaty. We had a good discussion. She also, of course, was present in the G-8 meeting, so she heard it again as we discussed it as a group.

I am pleased the Japanese Government has an open mind on the issue and wants to hear about our plans, and she asked questions. I don't know about her specific statement, where you suggest there was a difference. My understanding, and I think it is a correct understanding, is that the Japanese Government has an open mind, wants to hear more about it, wants to be part of the consultative process, and they certainly will be. I am sure we will talk about it again when I see the Prime Minister in Tokyo and when I see Mrs. Tanaka again in Hanoi, we will have a chance to talk about it some more.

The program is not yet developed to the point that I can say to you that there will be some form of collaboration or cooperation with the Japanese authorities, and the Japanese authorities that would require some study of the constitution to see whether it is permitted or not. We just are not that far along and we have not placed any demands yet on the Japanese that would cause them to have to go to the question you just raised.

Thank you very much.

END