[L.C.]

**MR. BUCKLEY:** This is the second hour devoted to the question: How should the United States government react to news of criminal justice abuses, political imprisonment, and detention without charge or trial in China.

To discuss that question and the relevance to security we have Dr. Jason Hu, the Government Information director of the Taiwanese government; Mr. Richard Dicker who is counsel to the Human Rights Watch Organization; Donald Gregg, who was the ambassador to South Korea; and Henry Kissinger, perhaps the outstanding policy analyst afloat.

So we bear down on the question and look back in recent history for some help. I would like to ask Dr. Kissinger's views of whether the Jackson Amendment accelerated the achievement of human rights in the Soviet Union, after which I will ask about the South African experience.

**DR. KISSINGER:** The Jackson Amendment was the one that cut off most-favored-nation status dependent on certain emigration conditions by the Soviet Union. That amendment was put forward at the end of the period where the United States had increased immigration from the Soviet Union by private diplomacy from 700 to at least 40,000 a year. Then the Soviets put on a tax and Jackson put forward his amendment and the Soviets withdrew the tax. At this point the Jackson Amendment was extremely successful. If he had dropped the amendment at that point, it would have been a perfect case of the interplay between pressure and result. However, encouraged by this relatively rapid success, he then extended it and made specific conditions: How many people had to emigrate? From what parts of the country? And then immigration fell from 40,000 a year to about no more than 5,000 a year until the Soviet Union disintegrated.

**MR. BUCKLEY:** Was this because they couldn't meet the terms or because their pride had been finally provoked?

**DR. KISSINGER:** They didn't accept the principle. There was one point at which it looked as if an agreement had been reached, and Gromyko sort of agreed that the figure of 40,000 would be maintained indefinitely. But then Jackson announced that it was a great triumph of pressure, and then everything fell apart. There is a limit beyond which governments cannot accept the proposition that outsiders by threats can make them do things that are normally considered in their domestic jurisdiction, like emigration.

**MR. BUCKLEY:** How would South Africa fit in that situation?

[L.C.]

**DR. KISSINGER:** South Africa was one of the few cases where sanctions worked, partly because the ruling minority was not strong enough to impose its will on an 80 percent majority against it, plus a united outside world, and partly because the economy of South Africa was so extraordinarily dependent on foreign trade. So if you can get a united world opinion bringing sanctions on a somewhat shaky government that cannot use defective sanctions to rally its population, then it can work.

**MR. BUCKLEY:** Dr, Hu, when it seemed all the world turned against you in 1979, were sanctions a part of the pressure imposed on you by other countries?

**DR. HU:** No, it was never so. There was no economic sanction--

**MR. BUCKLEY:** The ostracism was purely diplomatic.

**DR. HU:** Yes, it was purely political, diplomatic isolation that--

**MR. BUCKLEY:** Well, what do you call it when you--

**DR. HU:** --we tend to suffer from.

**MR. BUCKLEY:** --suspend airline service? Isn't that an economic sanction?

**DR. HU:** In a sense, but then, you know, you can try hard to try to negotiate resumption of airline services. We are still operating with 34 airlines, I think, that are operating internationally from Taipei. So it is okay.

**MR. BUCKLEY:** Yes.

**DR. HU:** It didn't degenerate to that extent with the breakoff of diplomatic ties.

**MR. BUCKLEY:** Well, Ambassador Gregg, with the sanctions against North Korea which have been going on for years and years and years, do we have here a situation like South Africa's in which it can or ought to be the ultimate instrument, or are they too autarchic in their resources?

**MR. GREGG:** I think that North Korea is really at a base level and they desperately-- One of the pressures they are working under at this point is the fact that there isn't enough food to feed their people; they are desperately trying

[LC]

to get rice in from the outside. And I think that the isolation has been effective. What really helped was when Russia and China recognized South Korea and stopped giving any concessional aid to North Korea, so that really the decline of their political fortunes also contributed to their isolation.

**MR. BUCKLEY:** Why don't they accommodate? Why aren't they more accommodating?

**MR. GREGG:** They are terribly afraid of change. There is an old Korean saying that he who rides the tiger is in imminent danger of being eaten if he tries to get off. And they are trying to get off the tiger, and **Kim Jung Il**, who I think is gradually working his way toward the assumption of power, is receiving contradictory advice from the hardliners, who say, "Be like your father. Continue self reliance," and those with the economic orientation, who say, "We've got to change; we've got to open up." Could I say one other thing on South Africa?

**MR. BUCKLEY:** Yes.

**MR. GREGG:** And that is, I think, while there were sanctions, there was also something else going on, called constructive engagement, and **Chet Crocker** was the architect of that and pursued it through thick and thin. And I don't think you really can argue with the results. I would say that perhaps Nelson Mandela is about the only truly world-class leader on the scene today. And however it came about, I think the calibration of policies really worked.

**MR. BUCKLEY:** Yes, I think Mandela is terrific, but I don't think it's quite correct to say that some form of diplomatic alchemy made him terrific. I mean, if he had been a Fidel Castro-- I don't know what we did that would have made him become a Mandela rather than a Castro, do you?

**MR. GREGG:** No, I think Nelson Mandela is Nelson Mandela, and--

**MR. BUCKLEY:** Yes.

**MR. GREGG:** --I think we are very fortunate that he is there to play the role that he is playing.

**MR. BUCKLEY:** Yes, and he pursued a certain orthodoxy; he refused to denounce terrorism right up until three or four years ago, so therefore he satisfied his hard left wing. But

he is terrific. But I guess my point is we oughtn't to think
of him as the creation--

MR. GREGG: Right.

MR. BUCKLEY: --of constructive engagement. Now, your
organization, does it call for sanctions of the kind we have
been talking about against, say, mainland China?

MR. DICKER: Well, just to go back for one second to the
question of South Africa, I think that with all due respect
to Chet Crocker, the policy of constructive engagement
towards South Africa was ineffective towards opening that
country up. I think it was the sanctions regime and the
diplomatic isolation that was much more important in
influencing the national party to make an opening that
allowed ultimately Nelson Mandela to become president of
South Africa. In regard to China, our position had been for
several years that the use of the threat of China's most-
favored-nation trade status constituted an important and
viable policy mechanism for the government of the United
States to use to try to press the Chinese to make some of
them.

MR. BUCKLEY: You mean force them in the sense that it would
cost them a lot if they didn't get it?

MR. DICKER: Well, I think frankly in 1993, 38 percent of all
China's exported goods came to the United States. The U.S.
was a huge export market for China. Still is, and that
export market and maintaining it and expanding it is critical
to the Chinese leadership's plans to stay in power. So I
think over a several-year period the MFN mechanism proved to
be, while crude, while somewhat broad--broadly focused--but
nonetheless the most effective bilateral policy mechanism in
extracting some few concessions from the Chinese leadership.
And I just want to say at this point I don't think it will be
the human rights policies of this government or other
governments that will ultimately change China. I think
that's up to the Chinese people. I think what we are trying
to do by pressing Beijing to adhere to its commitment to
international standards is to create some space for the
individuals in China who are signing the petitions today
requesting from their government greater tolerance for
dissenting political views.

MR. BUCKLEY: Do we have any kind of diplomatic-- Rather, do
we have any access to the Chinese via radio signals? Is
there a sense in which we are transmitting to them a sense of

[LC]

identification with those who are oppressed?

**MR. DICKER:** Well, I think certainly the Chinese dissident community--and Chinese people beyond the dissident community--listen to VOA broadcasts, listen to BBC broadcasts, get a great deal of information from those broadcasts, which is why in fact the Chinese leadership has jammed the signal for many years and attempted to interfere with that communication of information.

**MR. BUCKLEY:** Because they are afraid of it. Dr. Kissinger, let me ask you this. We see prospectively a situation in which China will, let's say, continue to test nuclear weapons and in the course of doing so perhaps develop a carrier system that makes them a threat. Now this impinges very sharply on American interests, indeed on world interests. Is this a matter for diplomacy or is it a stage at which we need to use muscle, assuming it were at any point relevant?

**DR. KISSINGER:** If you mean should we try to deprive China of its nuclear capability--

**MR. BUCKLEY:** Well, obviously we should.

**DR. KISSINGER:** --by force or by the threat of force, I think that would be a very dangerous course at this moment. And what I do favor is the development of a ballistic missile defense for the United States for the situations of China, of India--which is coming along--

**MR. BUCKLEY:** Japan.

**DR. KISSINGER:** --Japan, which is surely coming along--and without defining any one of them as an enemy, we also cannot say in advance what may happen 20-30 years down the road. For the United States to make itself the policeman of the world and use its military power to try to destroy the nuclear capabilities of potential superpowers like China or India, or for that matter, Japan, which sooner or later will come along--that I think would be a very grave decision.

**MR. BUCKLEY:** Could we predict, Mr. Hu, that the government of Taiwan would be a consumer of any anti-ballistic system that we develop?

**DR. HU:** We are very concerned about our security of course, but our basic strategy is to build up a credible deterrent. In other words, we would not be crazy to use our weapons or any military force for offensive forces against the obvious

[L.C.]

enemy, so any element that would help us to develop a credible deterrent ability would be considered, of course. I would not rule that out. Ballistic missile--defense system mainly.

MR. BUCKLEY: Well, Ambassador Gregg, on that general theme, has there been any penetration of the intentions of the North Koreans in the last few months since President Clinton arrived at that arrangement involving nuclear development?

MR. GREGG: I think it is seeing through a glass very darkly and dimly. I think they are in a terrible box, and it's I think safe to say that they are going to be very difficult to negotiate with. I think there are some indications that they may possibly be reconsidering their preference for light-water reactors, which could only come from South Korea and which would raise all kinds of psychological problems for them. So I'll be very interested to see if perhaps out of these latest talks in Kuala Lumpur there is an indication that perhaps they are considering some kind of coal-fired or oil-fired alternative to their power needs. The South Koreans have already made a study of their electrical power grids. The two grids are compatible because they are based on the Japanese, and the South is aware that within a year they could hook the two power grids together and supply North Korea's power needs that way. The problem with that is that North Korea would then be at the mercy of a pull of the switch in the South, which I think they at this stage would be very reluctant to consider.

MR. BUCKLEY: Well, to what extent has American pressure on Japan been successful in attempting to interrupt that flow of support made by North Koreas who work in Japan?

MR. GREGG: I don't think it's been very effective. It's one of the-- That voting bloc in Japan is one that the ruling party continues to count on. I might say that I don't think I've ever seen Japan in such a difficult period of time. This Aum Shinrekyo thing is a horrific manifestation. They have just elected a clown as governor of Tokyo, a television actor who spent, I think, $800 as governor of Osaka. You can spend $800 on a dinner in Tokyo these days. The Japanese are in a very, very difficult stage of self-analysis, and I think we are wrong to, say, grab the auto industry issue and just it all out of context and just squeeze it as hard as we are at a time when the Japanese are subject to all kinds of crosscurrents within their own society.

DR. KISSINGER: We ought to keep in mind two things with

[L.C.]

respect to North Korea. The Japanese really prefer to keep
Korea divided, because they feel that a united Korea will be
basically anti-Japanese and will get nuclear weapons anyway,
given its advanced--

MR. BUCKLEY: Technology.

DR. KISSINGER: --technology. Secondly, we should recognize
that Japan is bound to move in a more national direction, not
anti-American necessarily, but not so unquestioningly pro-
American as they were. Therefore we should not make issues
with them that offend their pride, even if we win, unless we
can relate them to some big objective. So I agree with you
about this automotive issue. Their general conduct in trade
requires challenge, but this is the sort of issue that is
confrontational, where at the end of the day I would be
amazed if we gained a lot.

MR. BUCKLEY: Well, on the general point of sanctions, to be
distinguished from trade retaliations, to what extent do you
feel we have a commitment to be guided by the United Nations?
The United Nations, as I remember, voted sanctions on
Rhodesia, South Africa, anybody else?

MR. GREGG: North Korea at one point.

MR. BUCKLEY: North Korea at one point. Now this is--

MR. DICKER: Currently Iraq.

MR. BUCKLEY: And currently Iraq. Now to what extent do you
think that diplomatically one is bound by the reasoning of
the United Nations?

DR. KISSINGER: I quite frankly-- I make this distinction.
If the United Nations-- First of all, it is very difficult
to see whether the United Nations can pass anything that we
strenuously oppose, certainly not in the field of sanctions.
So we should not propose sanctions unless they serve our
national interest. In the case of Iraq they clearly serve
the national and the international interest. I am not a
great admirer of the principle that we take a neutral
position in the United Nations and then whatever they vote we
will implement. That is an abdication of foreign policy
that, except in the rarest cases, I would not agree with.

MR. BUCKLEY: Well, do you think, Dr. Hu, that the United
Nations has a moral impact in these questions or is it so
obviously opportunistic that people pay it no heed at that

[LC]

level?

DR. HU: Many people are disappointed about the United Nations, to begin with. I think there is no doubt of that. But we still think that we cannot live in a world that people would feel comfortable, which is amoral, so the United Nations should have some moral obligation toward developments around the globe everywhere. Even on our reentry into the UN, people said, you know, "All the reasons you have cited are moral reasons, your own moral highgrounds," which is useless. But do we really want to live in a world in which, you know, we only talk about realpolitik and moralism is nothing. Is that the kind of world we want? I mean, yes, maybe in this world today moralism is nothing, morality is irrelevant in international politics. But can you name a country which is happy and willing to be accused of being immoral? No.

MR. BUCKLEY: Go ahead.

MR. DICKER: Well, one point, dealing with the United Nations, certainly our organization has been critical of the UN's losing sight of human rights concerns in its various peacekeeping missions, but I think looking at the UN carefully, one sees again in the case of China, China is determined and lobbies furiously to defeat resolutions that come before it at the Human Rights Commission meeting--

MR. BUCKLEY: Which is a good sign.

MR. DICKER: --which is I think a very good sign that the Chinese care a great deal. And I think another inference that one can draw from that is it provides in that instance a good mechanism by which to censure China for its widespread human rights violations. So I think a critical and careful look at different elements of the United Nations system leads us to think that the Commission on Human Rights resolutions are an effective way to proceed in terms of drawing attention to human rights violations.

DR. KISSINGER: If I may say something on this issue, I don't think this distinction that the UN is moral and everybody else is pursuing realpolitik. If you look at the way America conducts foreign policy, there is no nation that I know that is more driven by moral considerations than the United States. No other country has the same degree of human rights organizations, the same degree of public-- The problem in America is to balance the moral, to relate the moral to the necessary, never to say that pure national interest can guide

[LC]

our foreign policy. And if one looks at what the UN actually
does, it is usually American leadership that drives it in the
direction of these moral issues. It is not a free vote of
160 states in which the United States takes a passive role.

MR. BUCKLEY: Well, when I was there, however briefly, I
remember a series of travesties in which the Third Committee
would condemn, oh, any right-wing dictator in Latin America
but would refuse to condemn the Soviet Union or Red China.
For instance, there was an initiative to condemn terrorism--
an initiative, I think, by you--but they wanted to qualify
terrorism and say, "This doesn't count if that terrorism is
aimed at achieving national independence." It's okay to have
it--

DR. KISSINGER: And Cuba was on the Human Rights Commission of the United Nations.

MR. BUCKLEY: Who was?

DR. KISSINGER: Cuba was a member of the Human Rights Commission--

MR. GREGG: And still is.

DR. KISSINGER: --of the UN. They were sitting in judgment on human rights.

MR. BUCKLEY: Yes. That's right. That's right. Well, in
situations like that it seems to me that the whole currency
of human rights tends to become debased, and it's kind of
painful to listen to a representative of East Germany
deploring the lack of human rights in West Germany. It
requires you to sort of get out of gear and give up.

MR. DICKER: I think that's certainly true. I think in the
post-Cold War world we are dealing with a different
configuration and certainly the United Nations is a political
environment--I agree with what Dr. Kissinger just said a
moment ago--but I think it draws home the need, as you said,
sir, for American leadership and the leadership of
industrialized countries to really bring as broad a coalition
together as possible to make the human rights values that are
part of the UN Charter a forceful and viable policy
imperative.

MR. BUCKLEY: Well, was the United Nations ever a source of
inspiration to the people who fought for individual freedoms
in South Korea, or was it just simply an alien body

[L.C.]

accidentally around.

MR. GREGG: Well, I think the Korean War was the UN's greatest hour by accident--

MR. BUCKLEY: Yes.

MR. GREGG: --because the Soviet Union was out, they weren't able to veto the assembling of the 16-nation force. I think today in the post-Cold War era all hell has broken loose suddenly in a number of different areas, and suddenly the UN has thrown on its plate more issues than it can deal with, and yet it's the only organization which by definition is out there trying to deal with it. And I think that the leaders of the individual countries have not done a very good job in terms of sitting down and coming to terms with all of the things that have been unleashed by the end of the Cold War, which was sort of like a giant magnet that held things in place. That was removed and Yugoslavia broke down and Russia broke down and so forth and it's the poor old UN who was sort of expected to come in and bring order out of chaos.

MR. BUCKLEY: And that's because the UN doesn't have the advantage of the opinion of Taiwan, correct? [laughter]

DR. HU: We would be very useful in the UN.

MR. DICKER: Constructive.

MR. BUCKLEY: The United Nations is an enduring source of injury in the memory of the Taiwanese or do they understand that it was just one of those things that were inevitable?

DR. HU: No. It's very hard to say, of course. I think Americans are still probably the most friendly people to people in Taiwan. We've felt so for a long period. The United States is the only country that offered us aid and helped us through the difficult years. People remain grateful. We basically are just not happy about our current state. We are not vengeful, thinking who owe us what, who did this wrong to us? But we think it would be fair and useful for us and for the international community if we can be returned to the UN.

MR. BUCKLEY: Thank you, Dr. Hu, Dr. Kissinger, gentlemen; thank you, ladies and gentlemen.

[LC]

MR. BUCKLEY: A year ago we devoted two hours to the question of United States policy and human rights in China. At that point President Clinton was running into a deadline he had set for himself: Unless China improved in specified ways in recognizing human rights, Mr. Clinton would not grant most-favored-nations status to Chinese exports. The two sides on that question were vigorously presented, and when the deadline came, Mr. Clinton backed off. Now a year has gone by and there are further complaints about human rights in China. We pick up the discussion with a very hot panel of guests.

To begin with, there is Dr. Jason Hu, Government Information director of the Republic of China, which is to say the government of Taiwan. He is in America to urge the reentry of his government into the United Nations.

Richard Dicker is back with us, the associate counsel of the body called Human Rights Watch, the largest U.S.-based human rights monitor in the field. He has focused his watch on China for four years now. Previously he was associated with Africa Watch, and he has been associated with Amnesty International. Mr. Dicker is a graduate of the University of Michigan and has two law degrees from New York University and Columbia.

Donald Gregg was ambassador to South Korea between Mr. Bush's administration and before that served as National Security Advisor to Vice President Bush. He spent many years with the Central Intelligence Agency, is a graduate of Williams College, and has been a lecturer at Georgetown University. He is currently serving as president of the Korea Society.

And Dr. Henry Kissinger is with us. It was he who planned the reentry of the United States into China, having designed the visit by President Nixon to Peking in 1972. His firm is active in China at the moment.

So let me ask Dr. Hu: Is your government's trade policy affected by how human rights fare on the mainland?

DR. HU: Basically we do not encourage trade from Taiwan with mainland China. But you cannot stop money from making money, so money capitals from Taiwan still go via Hong Kong, Japan, and all this. So, you know, it's hard to say that we have effective control to use our trade to affect the human rights situation or to reflect our feelings towards that. But we are very concerned, of course, about the human rights

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situation in mainland China.

MR. BUCKLEY: Does your press give full accounts of human rights problems?

DR. HU: Yes.

MR. BUCKLEY: It does.

DR. HU: In mainland China. Of course.

MR. BUCKLEY: Mr. Dicker, can you give us concrete reports on whether things are better or worse than the last time you appeared on the subject?

MR. DICKER: Yes. Well, in the last year since President Clinton decided to unconditionally renew China's most-favored-nation trade status, the human rights situation in the country has deteriorated dramatically. Bill, as we speak, dissidents all around the country are being rounded up, taken in for interrogation; their homes are being searched. The crime at issue here is their signing and circulating petitions to the authorities requesting greater tolerance on the part of the government for dissenting views and an official reevaluation of the events of June 4, 1989. Across the board, be it in the field of persecution of Protestant and Catholic believers not belonging to the officially recognized religious denominations in China, repression in Tibet, the human rights situation has deteriorated.

MR. BUCKLEY: Now, is this an aspect of discipline, ideological discipline, or is it an aspect of shaky security?

MR. DICKER: Well, I think certainly one factor that helps shape this is the intensifying succession struggle in China today. There is much jockeying going on as to who will replace Deng Xiaoping as China's paramount leader, and that's a factor that cannot be ignored. At the same time it has to be said that there is growing concern on the part of Chinese leaders for the mounting social dislocation in the city that has been engendered by the dramatic economic progress and change that China has made. Nonetheless the argument that we had a year ago as to whether or not unimpeded access by American business to China would improve the human rights situation, I think on the facts we can say very clearly that has not taken place.

2

[L.C.]

**MR. BUCKLEY:** Ambassador Gregg, with your experiences in South Korea, do you feel you can make predictions about what is likely to happen in China, mutatis mutandis?

**MR. GREGG:** Oh, I think what Mr. Dicker said about succession is very key. I think that the Chinese are concerned about what happens in the post-Deng era. I am an optimist in the long run on things Chinese. I think that in Chinese time a year is a rather short period of time. American businessmen are very much interested in doing business in China, and I would say looking at China over the past 10 years or so, the improving economic conditions in that country have done more to improve the general standard of human rights, apart from the fate of individual dissidents, than anything else we could have done. So China is never going to dance to the West's tune. I think it's important that we hold up a standard to them, but I think it is also equally important that we don't ask them to adhere to standards which we manifest but we ourselves do not adhere to fully.

**MR. BUCKLEY:** Which do we not adhere to that you're talking about?

**MR. GREGG:** Well, I think that human rights is a standard which we all hold out. It's an absolute toward which we work. I think we still have a way to go in terms of racial intolerance and that sort of thing in the United States. And we're moving, we're the world's leaders, but we haven't gotten there yet, and I don't think we should be too pompous about it in telling other countries how they should behave.

**MR. BUCKLEY:** Well, Dr. Kissinger, to what extent do you think the United States is damaged by its apparent insouciance on this question? Eighteen months ago President Clinton was very galvanized. Mainland China had to do x, y, and z; if they didn't, we were going to do x, y, and z, et cetera, et cetera, and that just sort of went. Now is this simply one more case of realpolitik triumphing, or is there a moral tergiversation there that we should feel bad about?

**DR. KISSINGER:** Well, I did not favor the threat, and it certainly does not help us to make gory threats and then not implement them. I didn't favor the threats not because I am not concerned with human rights, but because I believe that a government-to-government confrontation on the issue of human rights is likely to backfire and will probably lead to the situation that it did when we went through the threat. I have always favored that the United States would make clear

3

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its preferences in the human rights area. And I believe that there is a margin in China within which they will accommodate our views not on the ground that they agree with them, but on the ground that they are the practical necessities for day-to-day cooperation, especially since there are many areas of discretion which we can address without making very gory threats. I did not think that the M-F-N threat was wise or useful, and I do not believe that the argument that we withdraw it in order to promote human rights was very meaningful either. So finally, if I can say, I think realpolitik is a fact of life. The United States is in a world that it cannot micro-manage everywhere, and in which the attempt to manage everybody's domestic affairs will either make us look impotent or throw us into enterprises beyond our capacity. On the other hand, we cannot be the country we are and be indifferent to human rights issues. So we have to find in every administration the range within which we can be effective and the issues which we should advocate, and I believe that on the whole, formal confrontations are the worst way of accomplishing it.

MR. BUCKLEY: Mr. Dicker.

MR. DICKER: Well, I think the challenge is, Looking forward, the challenge is, given the new realities that we face in the world today, formulating an effective policy to press China on its human rights practices that are not representing American values but in fact representing international values that the Chinese leadership has claimed to adhere to. I think what's called for and what we are proposing is a multilateral and bilateral policy, a policy that combines both vigorous bilateral initiatives as well as concerted, coordinated multilateral drives. Specifically, human rights in China should be on the agenda, we believe, of the upcoming Group of Seven Summit meeting in Canada during June. We believe that China's key aid and trade partners working together need to formulate a common agenda and a common strategy to implement that agenda to press China to respect the universal values contained in many treaties, conventions, and declarations, again that Beijing claims it adheres to. We think that a multilateral approach pressing China to open up to the working group on arbitrary detention, a very effective mechanism of the United Nations, resuming dialogue with the International Committee of the Red Cross to allow access to Chinese prisons, is very important and needs to be framed in a multilateral fashion. At the same time, bilateral initiatives are called for by government.

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MR. BUCKLEY: Well, Dr. Hu, Mr. Dickers is telling us that there is a lot of hypocrisy going on, that in fact the practices within mainland China are barbaric in respect of human rights, but they claim otherwise. Now in claiming otherwise, do they make statements that are criticized by your government or do you feel that you have to ignore--

DR. HU: No, no--

MR. BUCKLEY: --those questions?

DR. HU: As I said, we are very concerned about human rights situations in mainland China and of course, you know, if they make hypocritical statements, untrue statements, we will criticize those statements. We think it is very important that there are some people who probably did nothing wrong but to advocate for their own human rights or that of their countrymen and have faced severe punishment and see no light in the sky for 24 hours or for ages. Somebody somewhere should be concerned about this, and so I am, perhaps more moralistic than the others, especially being a Chinese. I subscribe to Mr. Dicker's view and respect that effort very much. I mean, just imagine if we were that victim faced with a gigantic system, there is nothing you can do until somebody somewhere generates some support from foreign government holdouts. Then you see the light. So we've got to do something about it. But on the other hand I think it is also realistic for us to realize that encouragement or promotion of the economic development in mainland China tends to work to our ends too because it will perhaps generate momentum that leads to political reform coming with the economic progress in the end.

MR. BUCKLEY: Well what about--

DR. HU: So it's a very difficult situation.

MR. BUCKLEY: What about your own country? Forty years ago it was a dictatorship, quite understandably so in the judgment of many people who understand what happens during civil wars. But then there was economic freedom and economic development and a gradual increase in democratic practices and human rights. Now were these pari passu, i.e., with the granting of economic rights, was there in your judgment necessarily an increase in human rights or was it just coincidental?

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DR. HU: Well, to begin with, I don't think our system was ever a dictatorship, but that would take time to ague. But in any case I think we do all agree that there are some people in Peking who now believe that they can enjoy the benefit of economic reforms and not have to pay a political price in the end. But I think if you give it five or 10 years they will discover--maybe they will not be there--but they will discover that they were wrong. I think in the end, if you have economic reform, more and more people will feel like being the middle class, and they will be very concerned about their, you know, their wealth, their children's education, and they will want to participate in the political process. And then you have a real opening up of the political system. Those who think they can carry out market economy reform and still maintain an authoritarian system will discover in the end that they are wrong. So that's what I said. Encouragement of a society moving toward free market economy would work perhaps to improve the human rights situation in the end.

MR. BUCKLEY: Well, Dr. Kissinger, in what forums do you think that the United States properly engages in criticisms of Peking's internal policies on human rights?

DR. KISSINGER: Well, first of all, I think organizations like Asia Watch, any private organization that alerts public opinion is performing a useful function, because any foreign government will be sensitive to American public opinion. There are also UN organizations in which the United States can properly express its views on human rights practices. On the whole I believe that on the government-to-government level, we are better advised telling our Chinese counterparts clearly what our view is and what area we will be paying attention to.

MR. BUCKLEY: Privately?

DR. KISSINGER: Yes, privately. On the whole, privately. But the president can make an occasional speech, especially if he doesn't single out China, but speaks about human rights globally, in which this can be done. In the Nixon administration we raised the level of immigration from the Soviet Union from about 700 a year to about close to 50,000--well over 40,000--a year entirely by private representation.

MR. BUCKLEY: Well now, were you around when President Ford greeted Solzhenitsyn or were you not?

6

[LC]

DR. KISSINGER: Was I around?

MR. BUCKLEY: Were you-- I'm talking about-- Yes, you were secretary of state at the time.

DR. KISSINGER: Yes.

MR. BUCKLEY: Were you consulted or was that just a spontaneous gesture?

DR. KISSINGER: Well, I was actually out of the country when the actual decision was made, but I agreed with the decision. But there was one aspect that was not generally recognized. We had been a major factor in the release of Solzhenitsyn. We had told the Soviet government--that is we, President Ford and myself--that if they would let Solzhenitsyn leave the country--

MR. BUCKLEY: You would not opportunize?

DR. KISSINGER: --we would not make any political use of him and we as a government would do nothing that would use him against the Soviet Union. Therefore when he showed up in Washington, President Ford offered to receive him privately, and that fact was in itself a certain demonstration. Solzhenitsyn insisted on television being present. What we did not want-- We wanted to keep our promise on the basis of which he was released. We had interceded passionately to get him released, but then we also felt we owed--we had to keep our promise. This was never fully understood in the criticism I had given-- The first book I had given to President Ford when he became president to help him understand what he was up against--

MR. BUCKLEY: Gulag.

DR. KISSINGER: --was The Gulag Archipelago.

MR. BUCKLEY: Well, Dr. Hu, when the dissenter was invited to the American embassy for dinner 8-10 years ago, and there was this huge fuss over that. In your judgment was that a diplomatic error of a major magnitude? Was that too provocative?

DR. HU: No, no, I wouldn't think so. I think Dr. Kissinger was right in saying that perhaps one should pursue private matters-- You know, pursue these matters privately as much

7

[LC]

as possible. But sometimes it doesn't work. You may try the best of your intentions in a private manner but the other side simply just don't respond. So what can you do? Sometimes you need to do something in public just to show them that you have the public opinion, you know, and the world on your side.

MR. BUCKLEY: Mr. Gregg--

DR. HU: This is almost like a --, in a sense.

MR. BUCKLEY: --was it that way in Korea? In other words, we know that the progression on the human rights field in South Korea was enormous over a period of 15-20 years. How was that enhanced?

MR. GREGG: Well, it was primarily through very quiet--

MR. BUCKLEY: Diplomacy?

MR. GREGG: --but very strong representations. There was a very interesting case just at the end of the Carter administration where Kim DeJung, the opposition leader, was under sentence of death in South Korea for allegedly having fomented an uprising in the city of Kwangiu. And there was a passionate debate within the Carter administration as to how we should protest the sentence. And the assistant secretary for human rights at the Department of State wanted to make a public protest. The assistant secretary for East Asian Pacific, Dick Holbrook, and I felt that this would be counterproductive and would probably result in Kim de Jung's being executed. Finally we reached an impasse. I wrote a paper through Dr. Brzezinski to President Carter, Carter came down on the side of quiet diplomacy and I went out to Seoul with Harold Brown to discuss the Kim de Jung case with President ____ And he in essence said to us that had we protested publicly he would have had no choice but to have executed Kim. He said it was a tremendously difficult chore for him because his military all wanted him dead because he had violated some of the Confucian tenets of disrupting relations between the ruler and the ruled. But there was a very good hand-off from the outgoing Carter administration to incoming Reagan and so it worked out, so Kim de Jung is alive.

MR. BUCKLEY: What about a comment on that? Do you go along that there ought to be these private communications, but that

8

[LC]

they don't work if you make them public, leaving it to
organizations like yours to do the public job? Does that
make sense to you?

MR. DICKER: I think there is an important role here for both private and public diplomacy. And I think what we have seen vis-a-vis China over the last period of time is the emergence of strictly private diplomacy, so that when Ron Brown, our secretary of commerce, goes to China leading a presidential delegation, he will raise human rights concerns in private but make no public mention of what the United States government's concerns and problems are in terms of China's human rights practices. We believe that a combination of both private and public--

MR. BUCKLEY: Well, what about Clinton on Chechnya and
Moscow? Was it uncouth for him to express concern about the
Chechnya developments?

MR. DICKER: I think that there is a role for public
diplomacy on behalf of human rights. The problem, Bill, is
if it's all conducted in private, then the credibility of
pressure is lessened considerably, and what we have seen, as
I have said, is just a policy of private, quiet diplomacy
that in regard to China has just not worked. And we need a
combination, I think, a calibrated and sophisticated
combination of both private and public measures.

MR. BUCKLEY: Well, do you believe that America should resort to sanctions against mainland China if it doesn't shape up on the human rights field?

DR. HU: I have to be honest--I mean, I am being honest all the time-- [laughter] I am the only one here who still works for a government now, a foreign government, so it is perhaps unwise for me to criticize or to offer suggestions on a U.S. government decision. You asked me this question two years ago. I gave you the same answer. You know, I wouldn't want to end up on the list that that I also could not come to the states for a visit. [laughter] But my response, I am very concerned about the human rights situation in mainland China.

MR. BUCKLEY: Well, Don Gregg, do we come out of this with no formula--i.e., sometimes private injunctions serve; sometimes they don't serve; when they don't serve, there should be popular demonstrations? So is each case something that has to be analyzed discretely?

9

[LC]

MR. GREGG: I think so, but I think there is a fair amount of agreement here. I certainly think there is a role for Mr. Dickers' organization. I very much agree with Dr. Kissinger that government-to-government confrontations are usually counterproductive if they are held in public. But I think there does have to be a calibration, and I think it's extremely important to fly the human rights flag, but I think you have to know the people you are dealing with, you have to know who your ambassador is, you have to know who can deliver the mail most effectively.

DR. KISSINGER: I think it is also important to have some understanding of the psychology of the countries we are dealing with.

MR. GREGG: Absolutely.

DR. KISSINGER: Mr. Hu will agree with me I am sure that for Chinese people, Westerners advising them on their domestic practices is not considered an unmixed blessing, considering the 100 years of colonialism to which they were exposed. So even if Westerners make a sensible comment, then the government can appeal to the nationalism of foreign intervention. Secondly, one has to make a distinction between those things that are human rights violations by universal standards and other things that are more culturally determined in Confucian, anarchical societies like the Korean and Chinese. And therefore one should concentrate on a few major issues rather than on a scatter-shot approach. Thirdly, one should take into account some of the sensitivities. For example, on President Bush's visit, the problem was not the invitation to dissidents. The problem was to invite dissidents who had personally attacked Deng Xiaoping to a dinner at which Deng Xiaoping came. A separate meeting by President Bush with these dissidents would have been highly appropriate.

MR. BUCKLEY: Thank you, Dr. Kissinger, gentlemen. We'll be back. Ladies and gentlemen.

10

MR. BUCKLEY: For 22 years after the UN was founded, the government that calls itself the Republic of China, which is quartered in Taiwan, occupied the permanent Chinese seat in the Security Council of the United Nations. Then came Resolution 2758 in the fall of 1971. The ROC was ousted and the Peking government, which calls itself the People's Republic of China, took over. After 22 years of isolation, the ROC Taiwanese government now seeks reentry into the UN.

Here in New York to plead his case is Dr. Jason Hu. Dr. Hu is the director-general of the information office of the ROC. He was a guest of this program a couple of years ago when we broadcast from Taipei. Dr. Hu was born in China but attended college in the United States and received his doctorate from Oxford. He has taught at several American universities before returning to Taipei.

With us to discuss the question is Dr. Henry Kissinger, who was of course national security adviser to President Richard Nixon when the ROC were kicked out of the UN on the eve of Mr. Nixon's visit to China. There is a story there of great interest told in Dr. Kissinger's eloquent memoirs.

I should like to begin by asking Dr. Hu: How can the United Nations accept your government, given that it claims sovereignty over Mainland China?

DR. HU: Ever since 1991 I think we have been pragmatic enough to announce that we do not at this moment control mainland China. What we are trying to tell the world is that under this One China principle, to which everybody has expressed support, we think that China is at this moment divided. The reality is that there are two parts within that one China and none of each party exercises jurisdiction over the other. And therefore we need to be represented in the UN. And the fact that here are divided nations that were represented in the past, obviously in the case of Germany, didn't really impact or create problems for the unification in the end. So at this moment we are saying that 21 million people in Taiwan do not have proper representation in any of the important international government organizations and it would not harm the international community. And it would also meet the needs of our dignity and needs for us to be reinvolved.

MR. BUCKLEY: Well, before we pursue that question, isn't there this difference between Germany--West Germany and East Germany--and your government and mainland China's, which is:

[LC]

Theirs was a separation brought on by war, yours by civil
war--so that you have a kind of ambiguity here that the
Germanies or the Koreas, for instance, didn't have? Is that
not correct?

DR. HU: Quite right, sir. Because you cannot find two cases exactly the same. Of course the German cases and the Korean cases will not be the same as our cases. But what I was trying to say is that if people say that we are trying to get in and then that would perhaps produce two Chinas or permanent separation, that's what I was trying to say. When you have perhaps two entities under the One China principle, that does not necessarily mean it would never be reunified again. That's what I was trying to say--

MR. BUCKLEY: Well, Dr.--

DR. HU: --by using the case of Germany.

MR. BUCKLEY: Let me ask Dr. Kissinger this question. In your view, is the question proposed by Dr. Hu something that gets adjudicated with reference to protocol or with reference to politics?

DR. KISSINGER: I understand Dr. Hu's point of view, and I
can understand that a Taiwanese representative of the
Republic of Taiwan would hold--

DR. HU: China. The Republic of China.

DR. KISSINGER: The Republic of China. Sorry.

DR. HU: That's all right.

DR. KISSINGER: --would hold this point of view. I have to
look at it from the U.S. point of view. From the U.S. point
of view, four American presidents of two parties have stated
that they recognize only one China, and that they would do
nothing to promote two Chinas. This was done even by so
conservative a president as President Reagan-- President
Nixon, President Carter, President Reagan, and President
Bush. So I believe that what Mr. Hu is proposing is
something that should be negotiated first between Beijing and
Taipei. The United States has absolutely no reason to oppose
it. The United States would have every reason to support it
if there is some prior understanding between the two--
between--

2

[LC]

MR. BUCKLEY: The two governments.

DR. KISSINGER: --the two governments in China.

MR. BUCKLEY: Is that in prospect, Dr. Hu?

DR. KISSINGER: And I if can make just one more point, the
German case was only settled after the two German
governments--

DR. HU: Agreed.

DR. KISSINGER: --had come to some agreement--

DR. HU: Yes, yes.

DR. KISSINGER: --and had agreed between themselves, and then
it was also supported by the United States.

DR. HU: Yes. I agree entirely to what Dr. Kissinger was
saying, but let me repeat again that our wish to be
reinvolved in the United Nations does not violate the One
China Principle in any way, as I have stated already. We're
going in, hopefully, to receive and achieve an international
status that is really vital for our own survival and
development prior to reunification of one China. But at this
moment China is divided, and there is--

MR. BUCKLEY: Why is it vital? Why is it vital? I mean,
you've been terribly isolated in the past.

DR. HU: Yes.

MR. BUCKLEY: Twenty years ago people wouldn't talk to you
practically--

DR. HU: Yes, that's right.

MR. BUCKLEY: --except me and Dr. Kissinger.

DR. HU: A dirty word. [laughter]

MR. BUCKLEY: That's right. But since then the vibrancy of
your own economy and your extraordinary reestablishment of
democracy have made you a powerful country. Why does
membership in the United Nations mean so much to you?

3

[L.C.]

DR. HU: Yes. Two things, sir. First, the fact that we have been able to do all right in the past without being positively or actively involved in the international organizations does not mean that in the future, when the world may be becoming more smaller and interdependent perhaps, with the World Trade Organization being formed, more interactions, that would also guarantee our future prosperity. In other words, we have been able to do this, being isolated in the past. But we worry that perhaps in the future when everybody else is in the party, we are the only one left alone. While they are making decisions, important international decisions, we are not being considered, and you know, people at home jokingly said, "What do you want us to do? You want us to fail our economy so we are more qualified to be admitted into the UN?" I mean, we are now being accused of being too successful so we don't need the U.N. But the fact of the matter is our people feel very frustrated when we are not treated with perhaps fairness when we travel. You do not know perhaps--

DR. KISSINGER: Let me say--

DR. HU: No, one thing--

MR. BUCKLEY: Yes.

DR. HU: We tried to give $2 million U.S. dollars as an impartial aid to the refugees in Rwanda, and that was turned down--

MR. BUCKLEY: Sounds like Yale.

DR. HU: --because we are not a U.N. member. You know, how would our people feel?

MR. BUCKLEY: Well, let me ask Dr. Kissinger this. After the ouster of Taiwan, the Taiwan Relations Act was passed in the House and Senate, and it said in effect to mainland China: Don't try to occupy Taiwan, because we are not going to let it happen. Now, do you interpret that act as extending such protections as Taiwan would need in the event of its diplomatic isolation, as Dr. Hu fears?

DR. KISSINGER: Starting with the first visit in China and even in the Shanghai Communiqué, the United States stated its conviction that unification of China should be achieved by peaceful means. And in every subsequent American

4

[LC]

declaration, including the China Relations Act, which I think happened in the Carter Administration, that conviction was asserted, and therefore the United States certainly would oppose the use of force in the settlement of the Taiwan issue. My view is not that Taiwan should not be in the United Nations. My view is that that issue should be faced after some discussions between Beijing and Taipei. I believe also that Jiang Zemin, the president of China, in February made a speech on which it would possible to build unless there are some Chinese formulations in that eluded my less-developed brain, because he said that China did not want to have Chinese fight each other, that Taiwan could have its own diplomatic representation, its own military force, so long as some formula could be found to recognize that there was one China. And in a number of international institutions, the Asian Development Bank and a number of other places. The Olympic Games, a formula has been found by which Taiwan participated as a clear entity--

DR. HU: Entity, that's right.

DR. KISSINGER: --and yet the principle of One China was recognized. I believe that a more constructive approach would be for the United States to encourage China and Taiwan to settle that issue and then for the Republic of China to enter the United Nations the way the two Germanies did.

MR. BUCKLEY: Dr. Hu, is--

DR. KISSINGER: And my impression is that it is achievable.

MR. BUCKLEY: Is this possible--

DR. HU: No, this is not possible.

MR. BUCKLEY: --or is this simply a dialectical or certainly an improbability. Is it a dialectical impossibility--

DR. HU: Actually it is not possible at this moment, the way we see it. Dr. Kissinger mentions the Olympic Committee, the ADB, but in all these cases--in the case of the International Olympic Committee, in the case of the Asian Development Bank, in the case of APAC, and in the case of GATT, which is going to happen--in all these cases, where Peking and Taipei are both perhaps member units, we have to fight very hard to secure enough international support. It didn't happen as a result of our direct negotiation or communication or talking

5

[LC]

with Peking and then reached consensus. We have to secure
enough international support, and then, sadly admitting, our
Chinese own brothers then decided there is no way they could
stop us, then they say: Okay, you come in, but you have to be
called Chinese Taipei or Taiwan Comma; China or Taiwan
bracket whatever, and then they fiddle with names. We
pragmatically have to accept whatever that was agreed. But
it didn't really work whenever we first start talking to
them. This is why we need enough international support and
where there is enough international consensus, then we talk
to them. And also it is not our intention trying to drag
everybody in. It may seem that we are trying to drag the
Americans in. No, it is not our intention. What we are
trying to do is that-- You know, people say they remain
neutral. The Chinese should solve it yourselves. You should
talk to Peking and solve your UN problem. But, you know, all
the major countries in the world are supporting Beijing's
position. They recognize Beijing, they accept Beijing's UN
policy, they don't want us to get in. How do you think we
can work? I mean--

MR. BUCKLEY: Well, you've got--

DR. HU: --is that neutrality or is that not neutrality?

MR. BUCKLEY: You've got 22 countries that recognize Taiwan
has a hundred--

DR. HU: Twenty-nine now.

MR. BUCKLEY: Twenty-nine?

DR. HU: Twenty-nine.

MR. BUCKLEY: You've been hard at work. [laughter]

DR. HU: We have to.

MR. BUCKLEY: And 100 that recognize Peking. Now, are we talking about the same kind of thing that prevented the restoration of the Bourbon Monarchy in France in the 19th century, that they wouldn't permit a particular flag that had Jacobinical traces?

DR. HU: Yes.

MR. BUCKLEY: Or are you saying that it is more than that,

6

that it's a problem of realpolitik? I guess what I am asking
you is, if you were to accept a nominalist change in your
name for these purposes, would that satisfy you or would that
be simply refused on the grounds of pride?

DR. HU: Sir, are we talking about the general thing as a
return to the international community or are we talking
about--

MR. BUCKLEY: We're talking about the UN.

DR. HU: --the United Nations as such?

MR. BUCKLEY: Yes, we're talking about the UN.

DR. HU: Well, at this moment we are being very reasonable
and modest. What we really want at this moment is the
establishment of a study committee by the UN to study the
question of the nonrepresentation of the 21 million people
that need to be represented in the international
organizations. We're not saying anything.

MR. BUCKLEY: Dr. Kissinger, you don't have a problem with
that, do you?

DR. HU: We're just asking for a study committee.

DR. KISSINGER: If I were conducting U.S. policy or advising
on U.S. policy, I would be very, very sympathetic to a
dialogue between Beijing and Taipei, and I would strongly
encourage it, and I would let both sides know that our good
will is related to this. I would not want to get the United
States into a position of confrontation with Beijing when we
have problems with Japan, when we have unsettled conditions
in Russia and other parts of Asia. We went to Beijing not
because we loved the system, originally, but because we
thought it was needed in the American national interest.

DR. HU: I agree. I agree.

DR. KISSINGER: So we should always calibrate it, but
certainly a dialogue between Beijing and Taipei is highly
desireable. A study commission, it depends-- The problem is,
both Chinese sides are extraordinarily clever-- [laughter]

DR. HU: We're not as clever as you are, sir.

[LC]

DR. KISSINGER: I once said to the Communist Chinese Prime Minister, Zhou Enlai, he said to me, "You are a very intelligent man," and I said, "By this you mean by Western standards; by Chinese standards you think I am of average intelligence." He didn't say, "Oh, no, you're smart even by--" [laughter]

DR. HU: No, by Chinese standards you are also intelligent. [laughter] I'll make your day. I'll make your day.

DR. KISSINGER: You made my day. Anyway, I want to make sure that there are not some arcane formulas which are difficult for us to grasp which drive the other side right up the wall-

DR. HU: No.

DR. KISSINGER: --and which are designed for that purpose. I happen to believe that a solution is possible, and not just from a position of total neutrality, because I think Beijing is realistic and it realizes that this issue cannot be left hanging forever.

MR. BUCKLEY: Well, let me ask this question--a technical question. Does the veto authority of mainland China in the Security Council extend to vetoing a proposed commission of the kind you are talking about, or is that simply up to the General Secretary?

DR. HU: I think these were defeated twice last year and the year before.

MR. BUCKLEY: Defeated where?

DR. HU: Defeated, I think, in the steering committee or the agenda committee, whatever it is.

MR. BUCKLEY: So--

DR. HU: It didn't even become a live agenda, an item on the agenda. It was moved by--

MR. BUCKLEY: But a veto was not exercised, obviously.

DR. HU: No, it was not necessary then. It hasn't even reached that stage. Our friends, some of the member states of the UN, only proposed--I think it was 14 or 18, you know,

8

[LC]

proposed the establishment of a study committee--that's all we ask for. We're not talking about names, formulas, dates.

**MR. BUCKLEY:** How do you account for its defeat at the administrative level? Was it pressure from China, from mainland China?

**DR. HU:** Well, obviously. I mean a lot of people spoke against it.

**DR. KISSINGER:** The question, does the study commission imply-- What is it supposed to study, the modalities of entry or whether it should endeavor--

**DR. HU:** How-- The question, this obvious question of the lack of representation of the 21 million people in Taiwan--

**DR. KISSINGER:** Yes, but it already presupposes that there will be an entry, that the only question to be studied would be the modality.

**DR. HU:** Not necessarily. It could be a long list of options from a certain kind of status to a certain kind of status. We are very careful. We are not even making public these options because we know someone would make sure that when it does become a live item on the agenda, if we say these are our options, someone will make sure that we start from the bottom and work our way down.

**MR. BUCKLEY:** Would you accept observer status?

**DR. HU:** So we will not say anything now.

**MR. BUCKLEY:** Would you accept observer status like the PLO or--

**DR. HU:** Sir, you are asking me to do just what I said I wouldn't do now. [laughter] You know, because I just cannot do that. We've learned our lesson--bitter lessons in the past. We are actually nice people. We want to make friends with the world, even with Dr. Kissinger, you can see that. [laughter] So are we asking too much to be just a member of the United Nations--a very important organization, as you know.

**MR. BUCKLEY:** Well, Peking obviously does think you're asking too much, and since they are the most formidable obstacle to

9

[LC]

your getting back in, we have to weigh their motives and
their authority, right? What are their motives?

DR. HU: This is what Dr. Kissinger said. This is what he
said.

DR. KISSINGER: Just a minute. I want it made clear, based
on a comment of Mr. Hu. I am not even remotely unfriendly to
Taiwan.

DR. HU: I didn't say you--

DR. KISSINGER: I have to look at this from the fundamental
issue of the United States, its position in Asia, its
relationship to all the other countries, and the role of the
country that has a 1,200,000,000 population. And I would
like to navigate this crisis by the United States maintaining
good relations with Beijing and using these good relations to
protect the ability of the people in Taiwan to lead their own
lives, which has been my consistent position this is the only
issue here. And I believe, as I said before, that this issue
can be resolved between Beijing and Taipei without a
confrontation between the United States and Beijing. That's
the only difference--

DR. HU: I agree. I agree.

DR. KISSINGER: --between us. Many of these modalities you
are talking about I think can be worked out.

DR. HU: Yes, there was a time that a lot of decisions had to
be made, adjustments in policy had to be made in the past.
But there also comes to a time at this moment when people say
that one billion people should not be ignored by that
important international organization. It was right. But now
also this country of one million people should not be ignored
by the same token, and we are also trying hard to talk to
them.

MR. BUCKLEY: Retrospectively, you are saying mainland China
should have been recognized before it was?

DR. HU: Well, this is a decision for the countries, you
know, the United States and other countries, to decide, isn't
it?

MR. BUCKLEY: I didn't ask you that.

10

[c]

DR. HU: Now it seems that one has to be realistic. They are there. They need to be reckoned with as a major factor in the international relations. We have no problem with that. But we just don't want to be victimized by the bilateral confederation between a major power and their relationship with mainland China. Let it be too parallel lines, not a triangle over which we are always victimized.

DR. KISSINGER: And the only difference between Mr. Hu and myself is: Should this be imposed on Beijing by pressure from the outside or should it be encouraged in Beijing by discussion? And I believe that discussion is--

DR. HU: Important.

DR. KISSINGER: --the better way, and in the end probably the more effective way.

DR. HU: We are trying. I haven't had a chance to explain that we have been trying to talk to the people in mainland China for about three years now. Just last week an important talk was held. We are trying to nourish a better atmosphere. We do not want to be hostile to anybody. This country of one million people in Taiwan, and we do not want to be confrontational with anybody, even mainland China. We want to have a good relationship. We are at this moment number two largest investors in mainland China. We want to see it change.

MR. BUCKLEY: You try, and what happens? They don't return the mail? Or how do they rebuff you?

DR. HU: Well, at this moment we think they are not being realistic in the sense that they will never treat us as an equal in any talks. And it is very difficult to move on if you are not even given the basic standing as an equal in any bilateral exchanges. And there are some stalemates, problems perhaps, that need to be solved. After all, we have been separated for 45 years.

MR. BUCKLEY: Under whose auspices do you conduct those negotiations with them that you have conducted having to do, for instance, with permitting Taiwanese to visit mainland China--six million people have. And if they refuse to talk to you as a result of these obstacles, how do you accomplish talk at that level? Through Switzerland or through--

11

[LC]

DR. HU: No, no.

MR. BUCKLEY: --Singapore, through Hong Kong?

DR. HU: No, no. These were all dealt with between Beijing and Taipei directly. No third party was ever involved. And if we are not getting much in return, we just have to try patiently, you know, and go on trying. That's all. If there is no concrete agreement that can be reached, at least you maintain the door open and let's settle it next time. I think Dr. Kissinger--

MR. BUCKLEY: Well, what is the role of Washington in accelerating that communion of forces, of wills? What can President Clinton do to help Taiwan out in approaching Peking to discuss these questions?

DR. HU: We are trying to make people in Peking understand that we do need a proper room in the international community. And if any foreign leaders can help us to also help Peking to understand us, you know--because the fact that they are trying to isolate us in the international community tends to alienate a lot of people in Taiwan. So--

DR. KISSINGER: To answer your question, Mr. Buckley, it's a very tricky, sensitive point. If we say how can we help Taiwan out, if we say this to Beijing, there will be no less activity or whatever, because they look at Taiwan as a province of China and they don't admit our status in adjudicating the integrity, as they see it, of China. On the other hand, in the context of a strong U.S.-Chinese relationships, in the context of a common assessment of the international situation--

MR. BUCKLEY: Fifteen seconds.

DR. KISSINGER: --if we explained the necessity of better relations within the Taiwan Strait, I think we would be listened to. And that is the role I think we can play.

DR. HU: I have no problem with that.

MR. BUCKLEY: Thank you, Dr. Hu, Dr. Kissinger, ladies and gentlemen. We'll be back.

12

[L.C.]

MR. BUCKLEY: This is the second hour devoted to examining the question of United Nations policy on the matter of Taiwan. A concise sentence tells us what is the position of the government of the Republic of China--ROC, as they call themselves: "Under one China there are two political entities, neither one of which has jurisdiction over the other, whereas both are international juridical bodies in the world community."

Our guests are Dr. Jason Hu, who is the director-general of the Government Information Office. If it is your impression that he speaks extraordinarily good English, that perhaps is traceable to the fact that he has a doctorate from Oxford University and has taught in American colleges.

And our other guest is Dr. Henry Kissinger. He was present at the creation of the problem. [laughter] When Taiwan lost its seat in Peking in 1971, Dr. Kissinger was national security adviser to President Nixon.

I would be interested in hearing from Dr. Hu whether in his judgment public opinion could bring about a turn in Peking's policy on your entry into the UN.

DR. HU: Public opinion in the West or in-- There is probably not such a thing, no such thing as public opinion in mainland China. But for the past 20 months or so, we have calculated that in the media--the world countries--not in Chinese media--but over the world, there were 2,200 pieces of commentaries and articles supporting our return to the United Nations. Every single important newspaper has publicized something.

MR. BUCKLEY: Well, have they had any impact? Have they had any impact?

DR. HU: I don't know. I think there should be an impact, but we are realistic and pragmatic enough to recognize that there is a gap between media and academic support and concrete government support, i.e., votes at the UN. How do we bridge that gap is a very important task for us to try to perhaps do.

MR. BUCKLEY: Let me ask Dr. Kissinger an academic question. Suppose that tomorrow the people of Taiwan announced that they were a separate state and that they sought admission into the United Nations. Peking says, "No, you're not a separate state. You belong to us. You are one of our

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provinces." There is then, let's say in this hypothesis, a plebiscite, and they vote 98 percent for independence. What in the United Nations would govern in respect of the question, Ought it to be recognized as a separate state?

DR. KISSINGER: I don't know that there is a legal precedent. I would think this would be determined very importantly on the basis of the political importance various nations attach to their relations to the chief contestants. But the principle that if a part of a country secedes and declares itself independent, that the United Nations does not automatically recognize that country. In fact, I don't know any instance where the United Nations has done that.

MR. BUCKLEY: Well, I didn't say automatically. I said after a plebiscite.

DR. KISSINGER: Well, even after a--

MR. BUCKLEY: You lead to self-government.

DR. KISSINGER: --plebiscite. I don't know any instance off the top of my head in the history of the United Nations that a country achieved independence against the opposition of the home country on the basis of secession and even a plebiscite.

MR. BUCKLEY: You have a situation where the PROC has never governed Taiwan.

DR. HU: No.

MR. BUCKLEY: And does that give it at least presumptively the right to determine its own destiny, given that it has been doing so for the last 50 years.

DR. HU: There are several things in this. I think we are also realistic enough to recognize that our entry or reentry into the UN is not really a legal matter, so it probably wouldn't help that much trying to settle it through the legal argument or legal way. It is, you know, pretty much a political matter, with one of the major members, permanent members of the Security Council, the PROC, objecting to it. But, if I may, also if there are many countries who would justify their support on our position based on their relationship with us, for a return to the UN at this moment, they would do it now. They do not need for a plebiscite. Because there is no higher power, sovereignty, above us. We

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are a sovereignty ourself. And on the other hand--lastly,
sir, I am sorry--but one has to recognize, and sadly
admitting the fact, that if we do perhaps declare
independence, change the name, showing actions moving
permanently away from China, or PRC, then perhaps it wouldn't
take a day or two before we apply to the UN, something
drastic would happen. Peking has made it time and again
clearly that they would reserve the use of military power
should Taiwan declare independence or try to break away
permanently, a permanent separation. So we are not going to
get anything out of that. It is a very difficult situation.

MR. BUCKLEY: No, I wasn't suggesting that you would get the acquiescence of Peking, but Peking would have a very difficult time if a plebiscite of the people, the 21 billion people, said, "We want independent status including membership in the United Nations, irrespective of historical ties and how recently they were reaffirmed." Isn't that correct?

DR. KISSINGER: I believe that independence is absolutely the
worst way for entry into the United Nations. Beijing,
rightly or wrongly--and in its view rightly--would fight. If
a state of the American union seceded, even with a
plebiscite, we would not recognize, Washington would not
recognize this, and did not in fact recognize it during the
Civil War.

MR. BUCKLEY: Well, we have invited Puerto Rico to have as
many plebiscites as they want, haven't we?

DR. KISSINGER: No, we have-- No, but they--

DR. HU: It's a very different situation.

DR. KISSINGER: I mean, if Beijing agreed, of course it could
happen. But Puerto Rico was never an integral part, it was
never a state of the union. I believe any observer of the
situation would recognize that a declaration of independence
by Taiwan would create huge problems, first of all for the
United States, which in four--

DR. HU: The One China Principle.

DR. KISSINGER: --important documents has asserted one China,
that it recognizes one China. Secondly, Beijing would
certainly resist by force, any country accepting the

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independence of Taiwan, and thirdly, your formula does not
make that claim. I believe your formula in fact is a method
by which Taiwan will enter international institutions, and in
time even the United Nations. The only difference really
between you and me is that I believe it should be done
through discussions with Beijing--

DR. HU: Well, even on that point there is no difference. We
are trying. We just don't give up any possible options.

DR. KISSINGER: --and not by confrontation with Beijing. It
has been proved that Taiwan can enter international
institutions. But independence I would feel would lead to--

DR. HU: The people in Taiwan--

DR. KISSINGER: --a terrible situation.

DR. HU: The people in Taiwan also realize that if they do
perhaps take that option up, declare independence, there
would be devastation, destruction ultimately.

MR. BUCKLEY: You mean at the hands of mainland China.

DR. HU: Yes. Obviously. We're giving them an invitation in
a sense.

MR. BUCKLEY: Look, there isn't anything that hurts me or any
member of this audience over the existing situation, i.e., if
you are pleased with it, Peking is pleased with it, Dr.
Kissinger is pleased with it, why get in the way?

DR. HU: What is he blessed with, I don't know. [laughter]

MR. BUCKLEY: But the fact is that you are not entirely
pleased with it. And as a result we are perpetuating an
abstraction, which is that this is one China. We all know it
isn't one China. It is one China only as a result of a
historical presumption. To say that we agreed in Peking in
the Manifesto of Dr. Kissinger and President Nixon that we
recommend unification by peaceful means, is simply to wish
the problem away chronologically. Nothing indicates 22 years
later that there is going to be unification by peaceful
means.

DR. HU: No.

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[L]

MR. BUCKLEY: You stand by your ground, Peking stands by its
ground--

DR. HU: Well, we're not--

MR. BUCKLEY: So what's the commotion about?

DR. HU: We are not that pessimistic. I mean, given the
change in mainland China today, if we have another 22 years--
I mean there were 22 years when we were in the UN; now they
are their 22 years. Before we woke up that we need to be
returned--

MR. BUCKLEY: Maybe the Great Wall will come down.

DR. HU: Well, I think given the fact that they are moving,
you know, rapidly toward a market economy, free market
economy, and given the fact that they are more open, and
hopefully--hopefully--there will be stability after the
succession crisis or whatever--

MR. BUCKLEY: Okay--

DR. HU: --and they will move, you know--

MR. BUCKLEY: Okay, let's take that hypothesis. Let's say
that five years from now the equivalent of the Berlin Wall
happens in China and they have an election and that they are
now a democratic country of 1.2 billion people and they then
urge you to feel free to send a representative to the General
Assembly. I don't think that's going to appeal to the people
of Taiwan so much, is it?

DR. HU: Well, by then I think the democratic system would
not force us with a gun, would they? So it would still
become better. I mean, I think things are moving perhaps
more optimistically. This system is not going to be there
forever.

DR. KISSINGER: I think the Chinese are distinguished by
their enormous practical sense. And when one travels around
China one sees so many accommodations that one never could
see in the Soviet Union, for example. As Mr. Hu pointed out,
there is a lot of Taiwanese investment in China.

DR. HU: Yes, on mainland China.

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DR. KISSINGER: Not by accident, much of it in Fujian Province, which is right across--

DR. HU: The Taiwan Straits

DR. KISSINGER: --from the Taiwan Strait. And I can see many practical arrangements that will emerge. And then if one takes the Jiang Zemin speech, which on the face of it, Mr. Hu thinks was not unacceptable on the face of it, if some details could be worked out, I can imagine that there will never be a dramatic moment where you will say, "Now it's all settled."

DR. HU: It's evolutionary. Evolutionary.

DR. KISSINGER: Two or three years from now one could say they have come so close that many of the differences are less relevant.

DR. HU: We are even more patient. It may take longer than that. But we hope it will turn for the better. For instance, I can stress that we do not want to be confrontational with anybody. And we think that system will change for the better to the direction that we all want it to change, better for the Chinese.

MR. BUCKLEY: It doesn't have the stuff of causes militant, does it? That is to say, people aren't going to say, "Well, then there was the civil rights in the South and then there was getting out of Vietnam. Now there is getting Taiwan into the United Nations." It's not a mobilizing pressure. They've got to know a) why you want it, b) why they don't want it, and c) what can one do, assuming one is friendly to Taiwan-- as I am, as he is--to advance that goal, other than say 21 million people shouldn't be ignored, to which they say, Well, they are ignored to the extent that they consider themselves merely a province of China.

DR. HU: We don't. We are part of China, but not a province of the People's Republic of China. One has to appreciate the difference and distinction between the proper China and the People's Republic of China, which is a communist system.

DR. KISSINGER: But in the Asian Development Bank, that is exactly your status. I mean, you are not a province of China there.

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DR. HU: No. No.

DR. KISSINGER: You are there in your own right.

DR. HU: We would never be. You know-- We would never accept that kind of arrangement. We would not be a responsible government. We would not be a responsible government to allow independence to take place in Taiwan.

MR. BUCKLEY: Well, do you give up on any prospect of generating popular international movement to advance your position?

DR. HU: We don't. We of course like to see popular international support movement.

MR. BUCKLEY: I know you would like to see it, but I say but what is a--

DR. HU: It is possible.

MR. BUCKLEY: It seems to have no sex. People can say, "Well, that would be very nice to have a seat in the United Nations, but so they don't have it now, they haven't had it for 22 years, they are prospering. They are wonderfully well off. The future may bring a collapse of communism in the mainland. Then they can negotiate a relationship." Isn't that the attitude of most people? And what can you do to ginger up that attitude?

DR. HU: Well, for today talking to Bill Buckley and Henry Kissinger is one good start. I think people will look at this program and try to understand it. I think things like this in the media. But what we really need to tell the world is that we are the 14th largest trading economy in the world, the 20th largest GNP in the world. We have substantial economic relationships with all these countries. It is not to the benefit of the international community to keep us out of all these important international government organizations. We are not even a member of the International Red Cross, for instance--Interpol, for instance. You name it, we're not in. Will this serve the world or will it not serve the world?

MR. BUCKLEY: Can you isolate which of your positions were ignored in virtue of your not being present at this series of meetings?

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DR. HU: You're saying--

MR. BUCKLEY: For instance, you are not a member of the Red Cross. That means concretely what?

DR. HU: Well, that means concretely even when we try to help other people, you cannot be given a chance.

MR. BUCKLEY: Okay, that hurts.

DR. HU: People say that's not important.

MR. BUCKLEY: Oh, it's very important, but--

DR. HU: Yes, it's important to the people in Taiwan. We are a democratic system. One has to realize this prospect that I have not explained. We are a very democratic society in Taiwan. Our people travel around the world. They feel very much being treated as a second-class tourist in a sense. They need more time to get a visa. They could never--in most cases, they need a separate paper. "Visa" cannot be stamped on the passport, because we do not have diplomatic relations. We do not have diplomatic relations with many countries, no proper relation with many countries because we are not a member of the UN, you know. And people came back--

MR. BUCKLEY: We've only just now authorized the president to stop at a men's room in America.

DR. HU: That's right. And people now return and say what is the government doing? They should do better trying to give us a better international status. And we have to do something about this.

MR. BUCKLEY: Have you got a problem with that, Dr. Kissinger? Is there any way in which we can act in a more civilized way towards the public officials of Taiwan without--

DR. KISSINGER: I don't know all the details with which they are treated. I think it was a mistake last year not to permit the president--

MR. BUCKLEY: To go to Cornell.

DR. KISSINGER: --to leave the airplane in Hawaii last year, and I also think that issue could have been handled in a more

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skillful way. I agree that he should not be received as the president of a country here, because that would really then raise the issue--

DR. HU: Yes.

DR. KISSINGER: --that we are recognizing two Chinas. But within, I think, these human aspects, one has to avoid that Taiwan appears as if it is trying to generate a confrontation--

DR. HU: No.

DR. KISSINGER: --between Beijing and the United States, for the reasons that I gave before. Within these limits I think many human adjustments can and should be made. I don't know all the details.

DR. HU: You see, this is exactly what I was just saying when you said what could the United States government do. In fact we could all try to convince leaders in Peking to give us a little bit more room in the international community. It wouldn't hurt anybody. It actually would perhaps generate better feelings from us towards them. This is what we can do--

DR. KISSINGER: I would rather do whatever needs to be done at once than every three months say, Well, we are doing this because it doesn't mean anything. And then the question is, if it doesn't mean anything, why do you do it? So it creates suspicion in Beijing and no satisfaction anywhere else.

DR. HU: But as I said, we don't mind you have a good relationship with Peking. We just want to be two sets of parallel relationships. We don't want to be involved. We don't want to be chips--or victimized--in the relationship between Washington and Peking. And also Bill asked me awhile ago--I've been thinking about it--what could we tell the world in one short sentence that we need to be reinvolved in the UN and all that, you know, as a matter of urgency. I couldn't give you--I could give you a lot of good reasons, but I couldn't give you one good sharp reason. But one has to stop and think, why keep us out? You know, everybody is in. Why should we be kept out?

MR. BUCKLEY: Well now, wait a minute. Didn't we agree a moment ago that there was no analogy? That is to say, there

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is no other country that is de facto independent in the law dependent-- There is no other place in the geography of the world, is there, that duplicates your situation?

DR. HU: No, this is a very unique situation.

MR. BUCKLEY: So therefore, you are not being picked on; you're being treated as unique.

DR. HU: We are. We are unique. But that doesn't mean that we should just leave it unsolved. You know, we can solve it. It's not that difficult. Actually people forget--

MR. BUCKLEY: Yes, if you could give a lobotomy to Peking you might be able to solve it, but short of that-- [laughter]

DR. HU: Well, we are still trying. We are talking to them, as I said. We are talking to everybody.

MR. BUCKLEY: Well now, the instrument that they use, is it the raw power that they have in the United Nations or do they have economic sanctions? I should think they wouldn't be nearly as powerful as your own. If you have got to be picked on, you would rather be picked on by mainland China than by Taiwan, wouldn't you, if you were, say, Sweden?

DR. HU: That's right, in economic reprisal or sanction. But still I think political weight and economic sanctions that we could take, retaliation, reprisal, whatever, still matters a lot to a lot of people.

MR. BUCKLEY: Well, let me ask Dr. Kissinger whether-- Since everybody anticipates a lot of changes in mainland China when this administration passes on to a better world, is one of those changes conceivably one that will be more propitiatory on the Taiwan question?

DR. KISSINGER: Incidentally, I don't anticipate such huge changes in China after Deng dies, because I believe he is substantially not conducting government affairs today. And so I would expect gradual changes. But a country cannot have the economic transformations that China has had in the last decade without adapting its political system to the modernization that has already been taking place in economics. I believe that at least in their language the existing Chinese government has been fairly propitiatory. It has not had enough flexibility perhaps to implement what they

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have said and therefore I believe that over a period of years
much of what we are talking about here can occur. Funnily
enough, the problem is not so much what Mr. Hu is saying.
The problem is that some of the friends of Taiwan in this
country believe that only by a direct confrontation with
Beijing can they aid the cause of their friends in Taiwan,
and I believe that this--

MR. BUCKLEY: Yes.

DR. KISSINGER: --is probably wrong.

MR. BUCKLEY: Now are these forces that are primarily driven
by nostalgic memories, or are you talking about live
political forces?

DR. KISSINGER: Well, I think there are some live political
forces and then there are many people who like me are
extremely anti-communist, but who, unlike me, are not willing
to accept the necessities that the complexity of Asia imposes
on us and who therefore prefer a more confrontational
approach. Ideologically I am opposed to a communist system.
I believe, however, that the economic changes that have taken
place in China will make it impossible to operate a classic
communist system there, and indeed today, when I compare my
visits to China now, when I first came to China I would
receive visiting cards, in which the officials would tell me
their party positions. Today you never get a visiting card
with a party position. They tell you their governmental
position. And that means that--

DR. HU: They're changing, yes.

DR. KISSINGER: --that the system is changing and becoming
not more democratic yet, but more constitutional and more
transparent. And as that develops, I believe the
relationship between the two parts of China can prosper.

DR. HU: We have to try. We are optimistic.

MR. BUCKLEY: We only have a couple of minutes. Let me ask
you this, which we haven't touched on. When in 1949 the
movement into Taiwan led by General Chiang happened, the
proportion then was about what, nine-to-one Taiwanese versus
mainland Chinese? Now is there a total unification of
sentiment between those to the ethnic Taiwanese and the

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