13 February 2002

Powell Sees Relationships with Russia, China Moving Forward

U.S. relations with Russia and China, contrary to the expectations of some, are moving forward, and the Bush administration is working cooperatively and constructively on many other fronts, including in the Americas and in Africa as well as the Middle East and South Asia, says Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Testifying February 13 before a House Appropriations subcommittee, Powell in particular pointed to new U.S. cooperation with Russia on such issues as terrorism and drugs as a "sea change in the relationship."

But Powell added that improved U.S. relationships with such countries do not stop the United States from taking critical stands on human rights, proliferation, religious freedom and other matters.

Powell rejected the charge of unilateralism made against the administration, but said "when we have a matter of principle that we feel strongly about, we feel strongly about it, and we act on that principle, whether others are with us or not." He said he thinks this is "a hallmark of this administration."

Following is an excerpt from the transcript of Powell's opening statement to the committee:

Since that heart-rending day in September, when the terrorists struck in New York and Virginia and Pennsylvania, we have seen ... why the conduct of our foreign policy is so important. We have had great success over the past five months in the war on terrorism, especially in Afghanistan. And behind the courageous men and women of the armed forces has been the quiet, steady course of diplomacy, assisting our military's efforts to unseat the Taliban government and defeat the al-Qaida terrorists in Afghanistan.

We have reshaped the whole region, a new US-Pakistan relationship. And I just left, as you noted, a lunch with President Musharraf. And you can see here a courageous leader who has put his country on a path 180 degrees in a different direction than it was headed on the 11th of September. We have been able to set up a new Interim Authority in Kabul, and I think we should be very proud of the role that the United States and United States diplomats played in supporting the Bonn conference which resulted in the creating of an Interim Authority, and the superb work our diplomats are doing there.

The Taliban gone or on the run, terrorists dead or in jail or also on the run. We are also forming new and important relations in Central Asia with Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan. They all want to have a better relationship with the United States. What is so very, very interesting is that we have been able to achieve this without causing a problem with Russia. Russia, a year or so ago, would have been terribly distressed to see the kinds of things we are doing in that part of the world now. But I like to tell the story of my friend, Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, who I have come to know very, very well over the last year, just as President Bush has come to know President Putin. And a year ago when we first met and started measuring each other and getting to know one another, he would complain: we don't like you all in Central Asia. That's really our part of the world. Why don't you go somewhere else?

But last week he was asked at a television interview, "Foreign Minister Ivanov," -- this is in Russia -- "aren't you worried about the Americans having a presence in that part of the world? They are the enemy." And his answer was, "Wrong. The enemy is fundamentalism. The enemy is terrorism. The enemy is drugs. The enemy is smuggling. Now we are aligned, we are allied, with the Americans in meeting this common threat."

That is a sea change in the relationship, and it really reflects many changes in the relationship between us and Russia, and us and so many other nations that have been brought about in the first year of the Bush administration, and accelerated especially after the events of the 11th of September. In Russia, a solid commitment was made by President Putin to move his country forward with us, in step with us, on the campaign against terrorism. Mr. Putin was the first foreign leader to call President Bush after what happened on that terrible morning, and ever since they have been a strong supporter of everything we have been doing. Because of the fact that Russia wants to come west, not go east, and because we are working together to their south, they are on a path of being integrated into Western economic structure. And I hope at the NATO ministerial meeting in May we will be able to conclude a NATO-Russia agreement for Russia to work with "NATO at 20", as we call it. And that will be a historic move and will make things much easier as we move to the Prague summit in the fall when we will, no doubt, invite a number of nations to join NATO to add to the size of the alliance.

I think the same thing can be said with respect to our relationship with China. It is improving. Many people worried last April when we had the incident with the reconnaissance plane and the Chinese fighter, and our plane was forced down and the Chinese pilot was lost. This was going to throw the whole relationship into the refrigerator for who knows how long. Well, it turned out it wasn't for very long. With some very, I think, effective diplomacy on the part of your State Department and with open lines of communications with the Chinese leadership, we had our young men and women home soon, and our plane a little while after that. And we quickly got back on track with the Chinese. I visited China last summer. The President went there in the fall as part of the APEC summit and struck up a personal relationship with President Jiang Zemin, and he is going back next week. And so rather than the relationship going into a deep freeze, it is moving forward on the basis of common interest.

But both with Russia and China, even though things are going in the right direction and we have common interests, we do not hold back our criticism when it comes to human rights, when it comes to proliferation activities, when it comes to religious freedom, when it comes to things that go against the universal values that the President spoke about in his State of the Union Address. With these two great countries, we are moving forward, I think, on a solid path of cooperation and, where necessary, honest, open debate about the things that we are in disagreement over.

I am also pleased that the President has been able to structure an agenda for our own hemisphere that is a positive one, based on free trade. The Free Trade Area of the Americas that we launched at the Quebec Summit of the Americas last year. Bilateral trade agreements throughout the region. That's why we want the Andean Trade Preference Act extended again, because trade is the engine that will pull people out of poverty by reducing barriers to their goods and allowing us to import our goods, make our market successful, and at the same time, make it easier for us to invest in their countries.

So I think things are going in a positive direction there. People often say that we are unilateralist compared to our European friends, when in reality, President Bush has reached out in the most effective way with our European allies. We are working closely with the European Union, with NATO, and we have a steady stream of visitors coming to see the President and coming to see your Secretary of State. And we are as multilateral as a man can stand. Trust me. I spend my whole life in this multilateral world.

But when we have a matter of principle that we feel strongly about, we feel strongly about it, and we act on that principle, whether others are with us or not. And more often they are. And when they are not, then we stand on principle and we do what we think is right, because it's in our best interest, but more importantly, because it's the right thing to do. And that's, I think, a hallmark of this administration.

I could not leave this brief tour of the horizon without touching on Africa. Africa is a major priority for this administration. President Bush is totally committed to the African Growth and Opportunity Act. He wants to see it expanded. We had the first forum to implement that act last fall; we'll do it again this year. President Bush responded immediately when I called him one morning. Or after calling Secretary Thompson, I went into the Oval Office one morning and said to the President that Tommy Thompson and I wanted to co-chair a task force on HIV/AIDS because of the nature of this crisis, and especially the way it affects sub-Saharan Africa. Before the last sentence was out of my mouth, he said do it; I want to do this. And he has given it full support. We wish we could give it even more money than we have, but I think we have made a very responsible contribution, and we are the leader of the world with respect to our assault against HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases.

There are very dark spots remaining on this landscape. The Middle East is an area that consumes a great deal of my time. Our strategy is simple: the Mitchell peace plan is there as a way to get to negotiations that will lead to a solution where these two peoples can live side by side in their individual states, Israel a Jewish state, secure behind its borders; Palestine a land for the Palestinian people, secure and free behind their borders; both sides trading with each other and friendship and partnership, not hatred. That remains our vision. To get to that vision, we need a cease-fire. So we continue to apply pressure to Mr. Arafat and encourage restraint on the part of Mr. Sharon until we can get the violence down and get the discussions started again.

The President talked about other dark spots in his State of the Union Address when he talked about an "axis of evil." He wasn't talking about people who are evil. He was talking about regimes who are evil or do evil things. And I think he spoke with clear-headedness and with a realistic point of view. It doesn't mean anybody is declaring war on these states tomorrow, but we call them the way they are. Korea, a state, North Korea, a state that we provide a great deal of its food and we have an agreement to help them get power that they need. We are also anxious to engage with them, as the President has said and I have said repeatedly, any time, any place, without any preconditions. All they have to do is say so. And it is a despotic regime and we should not shrink from calling it what it is. But at the same time, we are absolutely aligned with our South Korean friends in encouraging engagement so that these two states can ultimately become a joined people again, as the Korean people were joined for much of their long history.

We also have a problem with nations such as Iran, which is trying to find its own way. In some ways, Iran has been very helpful to our efforts. It was very helpful at the Bonn conference and the Tokyo conference with respect to Afghanistan. But at the same time, we have to be troubled by a regime that is pursuing weapons of mass destruction and nuclear capability and that is supporting terrorism. And for us to say, well, they've done these good things and let's ignore all the unpleasant things they are doing I think would be hypocritical of us and not consistent.

We are also concerned about some of the actions they are now taking in Afghanistan with respect to perhaps introducing weapons or doing other things that might not be stabilizing in the western part of Afghanistan. And so the President called it the way it is.

With respect to Iraq, we have long had a policy of regime change, believing that the Iraqi people deserve better leadership than they have had for the last 30 years. And we also work within the UN framework to keep the sanctions in place. When I became Secretary of State on the 20th of January of last year, the sanctions were collapsing. All of Permanent Members of the Security Council were moving in different directions. We arrested that. The sanctions are in place. The Security Council has come together. And I believe by the end of May we will have moved to smart sanctions so the Iraqis can no longer claim that we are somehow affecting the well-being of their citizens. It was a false claim all along, and this will show the falsity of it for the whole world to see.

And so there are these dark spots that we worry about, but we worry about them from a position of strength. We have allies around the world who have joined with us in this campaign against terrorism, this campaign for freedom, whether it's in Asia -- and I've just touched on a couple. I could also mention the strong support we receive from Japan and Australia and so many other nations there. We should be proud that we have such friends and partners. We should be very proud of the coalition that President Bush has been able to put together over the last five months, a coalition that, in my humble judgment, will be for more than just terrorism. It will go beyond terrorism. It will find ways to work together to combat HIV/AIDS, to provide more development assistance to countries in need, to open the doors to free trade. It's a coalition that we should not just say, fine, we've dealt with terrorism, let's break it up and move on. No, let's continue to pursue these universal values that we all believe in. It's a coalition that I think can keep going because it has a common purpose, and it's a noble purpose.

Mr. Chairman, I'll stop at this point because I think it is much more interesting to get into your questions, at least I hope so, than to listen to my speech.