U.S. Dept. of State - IIP: The United States and China

Transcript: Excerpts of Deputy Secretary of Defense Interview
(Wolfowitz discusses ABM treaty, U.S.-China relations)

Following are excerpts from U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz's October 26 interview with reporters from Far Eastern Economic Review:

NEWS TRANSCRIPT from the United States Department of Defense

DoD News Briefing
Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz
Friday, October 26, 2001

(Interview with Michael Vatikiotis and Murray Hiebert, Far Eastern Economic Review.)

Q: Is there a message for China in the discussions about changing the ABM treaty?

Wolfowitz: There isn't particularly a China element to it. Clearly what we are trying to get into is a situation where we are not vulnerable to the threat or use of limited ballistic missile attacks as an instrument of coercion, or war. That's in the interest of everybody in Asia frankly, including the Chinese. There's a lot of interest in Japan and South Korea for example.

This doesn't threaten China. The idea that we would start a war with China because we have the ability to provide defense of our population -- if that's the theory -- is just nonsense. I think what September 11th demonstrates is there are nasty people out there who are determined to do us harm and a lot of them have invested very heavily in ballistic missile capabilities --

Q: But is the current U.S.-Russian relationship going to convince China to limit ballistic missiles?

Wolfowitz: I don't think it forces anything on China. I do think it's in China's interest to be a member of the club, so to speak. I don't mean the nuclear club, but the club of responsible powerful countries in the world. China is becoming a powerful country, hopefully it's becoming a powerful and responsible country.

This is one of the things that people need to get over. It's the sort of Cold War mentality in which we focus on enmities. I think we're talking more about relationships among countries where the common interests really do dominate the competitive ones. I really don't doubt we can reach a balance in which China feels secure and China doesn't threaten other people.

And that's really what we're working on in the relationship between the US and Russia. It will be a failure if we to back to a world where the threat of nuclear war is so imminent that we have to make these very precise calculations of nuclear advantage or disadvantage.

Q: On China, the linkage between economic growth and security expansion. Is that really a concern?

Wolfowitz: There's a leap of logic there. The faster China grows, the more powerful its going to be militarily, that I think is almost a fact of life. But more powerful militarily does not have to mean military expansion, and should not mean military expansion.

It would be a terrible mistake if China ends up going down that road. The historical pessimists say that's exactly what Germany and Japan did when they became major powers a hundred years ago. I don't think history has to repeat itself. Japan isn't repeating its history. China's economic growth gives it enormous military potential, but its economic growth also gives it a huge stake in peace.

Q: Has the current campaign in Afghanistan brought China and the U.S. closer together?

Wolfowitz: I think it's helped. It certainly isn't like the old Soviet era. Then we really had a common enemy. The Chinese have been helpful, but I think except for their Uighur problem, I'm not sure they see nearly as direct a threat as the Russians do. But on the other hand, I do think it has helped build a certain solidarity among all the countries that find this kind of behavior threatening, and the Chinese are on our side which is a very good thing.

(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)