U.S. Foreign Policy in the Asia Pacific Region: An Overview

2:04 P.M. EST

MR. KELLY: Thank you. I too apologize. I was appointed on May 1st, and this is my first time at the Foreign Press Center -- various excuses.

Rather than give you a long introductory speech about policy, we'll -- you understand that pretty well, and we'll get to that in the questions and answers -- I would just mention some things that have happened recently and that are upcoming. Most important, of course, for the entire year for us was the APEC meeting last month in Shanghai and the journey of President Bush to that meeting, which brought many things into focus -- specifically, the importance of the Asian countries in the global coalition against terrorism, the focal point for trade facilitation and liberalization that APEC always provides, and in this time, a(n) occasion for important bilateral meetings with leaders of the Asia Pacific, not least of which -- President Jiang Zemin of China, the host for this year's APEC.

Various other things coming up:

Today and tomorrow the president of the Philippines, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, is here in town. Her meeting with the president will be tomorrow, also her meeting with Secretary Powell -- various meetings today.

Tomorrow there will also be an Afghan reconstruction conference, a senior officials' meeting, held over at our department.

This has gone through various changes in recent weeks but will try to focus on some of the things that need to be done in terms of rebuilding Afghanistan. This is co-chaired by Japan and the U.S., and it's designed to really set an agenda for further efforts.

Prime Minister Thaksin of Thailand will be visiting here next month. Next week in San Francisco, we will have the fourth of our trilateral coordination group meetings with -- among Japan, Republic of Korea, and U.S. to discuss our collective and respective policies towards North Korea.

Immediately following that I'll come back and we have a U.S.- ASEAN dialogue. This is something that's held every 18 months, alternating between Asia and the U.S. This will be, then, the first one for me, with all 10 ASEAN countries and the U.S. engaging in a detailed, day-long dialogue that covers a whole variety of things.

And then I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the World Trade Organization meeting concluded at Doha. It sets an important trade agenda. We're absolutely delighted with the work Ambassador Zoellick, Undersecretary Larson from my department, and others set for the U.S. side. And of course, the accession of China and also of Taiwan into membership in the World Trade Organization is an important part of that.

So with those -- sort of array of current items, I'm ready to take your questions.

MODERATOR: Questions? Right here.

Q Good afternoon, sir. Margaret Lacson, Filipino-American Report. Sir, I'd like to find out why is it important to extend U.S. military assistance to the Philippines? And as a follow up, what are the expectations of the United States from the Arroyo administration in the Bush plan against terrorism?

MR. KELLY: Well, the military assistance to the Philippines, which is quite modest, is not directly associated with that, but it's associated with trying to help the armed forces of the Philippines deal with the terrorism problem as it exists within the Republic of the Philippines.

I was just recalling this morning, back in American base days, in Marcos times, there was, I think, hundreds of millions of dollars of military assistance. If I'm not mistaken, we hit zero not long ago, and very little aid in developmental assistance.

But there has been a pickup and there are some increases in the budget -- or rather, in the appropriation we're looking for for the Congress now, to a total of about $19 million, which is not enough, really, to buy much of anything. It is intended, however, to help the Philippine armed forces in terms of maintaining and keeping up some of the equipment that they have, particularly in terms of airlift and ability to move their boats around. We have had terrorists kidnapping people, including American citizens, from points over 250 miles across the water.

Q I am Satoru Suzuki of TV Asahi of Japan. Mr. Secretary, the Japanese cabinet late last week approved a plan for sending the self-defense forces to provide non-combat support for this war against terrorism. How much difference will it make in this military operation, especially now that the Taliban regime is collapsing already and the Japanese government, in response to this new reality, decided not to send an Aegis destroyer to the Indian Ocean? And are you also expecting Japan to play an active role in refugee assistance and possible peacekeeping operations in Afghanistan? Thank you.

MR. KELLY: That's a big question. There are a lot of different points of it. First of all, the response of Japan to the global coalition against terrorism has been exceptionally heartening. From day one, Prime Minister Koizumi not only expressed sympathy for what had gone on, but began to generate efforts within Japan to assist Pakistan, to concentrate on relief in the region, to change some legislation, in sharp contrast with the beginning of the Gulf War, so that some elements of the Japanese self-defense forces could, as you say, help out

And last week, the basic plan was approved, after the legislative action, that will allow -- let's see -- I think a tanker ship, some destroyers, health units, some air-transport aircraft -- there are several other things that are included in there. So these, I think, are going to be very helpful.

Now the situation in South Asia and in Afghanistan is changing constantly. And of course, I mentioned already that Japan is co- chairing the senior officials conference, beginning tomorrow, on reconstruction of Afghanistan. So that's another very important role for Japan to play.

Exactly what role the armed forces will play, I don't know. I don't think anybody does, particularly because the situation is changing so rapidly in South Asia and offshore. But I am quite sure that most of those forces are going to find a way to be very helpful as they deploy and get down close to the scene, in terms of refueling ships, looking for troublesome characters approaching from one line or another. And I don't expect that Japanese forces are going to engaged in combat, which is, I think, against the rules there.

So it should be a good, solid contribution. An Aegis ship would have been capabilities that we wouldn't have had from any other helping countries and I think might have turned out to be useful. But I think within the context of the overall effort, we're just delighted.

MODERATOR: (Off mike.)

Q Thank you. Salmy Hashim, Bernama, Malaysia.

Sir, in the upcoming dialogue with the ASEAN countries, would terrorists be high on the agenda? Is there a special joint plan between U.S. and ASEAN to root out terrorist cells and to freeze their assets in the ASEAN countries?

MR. KELLY: I wouldn't call it a joint plan between ourselves and the ASEAN countries. There's no question the ASEAN dialogue, as with all dialogues nowadays with the American government, that the global effort against terrorism is certain to be front and center in the topics.

As to freezing terrorists' financial assets, that's part of the United Nations Resolution 1373.

And we've already been in contact not only with the countries of ASEAN, but with everybody else, and are getting, by and large, excellent support, in particular from Malaysia, I think has been very quick and very helpful to respond.

Q John Zhan (ph) with Power TV of Taiwan. Mr. Secretary, in an earlier speech at the Heritage Foundation, you spoke of sharpening differences between China and Taiwan, despite a reduction of tension in the Taiwan Straits. What do you think Taiwan can do, especially after the legislature elections in December, and China can do, as well as the U.S. can do, to help reduce those differences?

And also, on a more general note, what are the differences between the policies of the Bush administration to China and Taiwan, as compared to those of the Clinton administration?

Thank you.

MR. KELLY: With respect to the cross-straits issue, I think you've got it right. I indicated that I think tensions are not higher than they have been there; they're lower than they have been. That said, there are a lot of contrasting issues, statements, between the Mainland and Taiwan.

After the election in Taiwan, we've got a period of time which probably, because it looks like an exceptionally close election, will be involved in building coalitions. That could take a long time; I have no idea how long it will take.

Then, on the Mainland side, we have the run-up to the 16th Party Congress of a year from now, and the leadership changes that that suggests.

So it may not be the best time, with both sides involved in domestic issues, to get into the serious kinds of negotiations that probably will be necessary at some time. What the U.S. can do on that is probably not very much. We're happy that the tensions are not high, and we hope they remain that way.

With respect to differences of this administration and the last, we really don't think of it in those terms. We think in terms of what our policy should be towards China. Everything is not measured in exactly what it was or what it was said to be. For one thing, during the eight years of the Clinton administration, almost every conceivable policy seemed to have been in force at one time or another. So the -- deciding which policies we're taking that are different, the basic fact is, though, that there's a lot of consistency in terms of cross-straits policy.

Every American administration, certainly going back to normalization with the PRC in 1979, has based the cross-straits policy on the three communiques between the PRC and China and the Taiwan Relations Act as passed by the Congress and not modified in all these years. It's stood up quite remarkably. And so that division or that assessment of policy, I think, continues to overall guide American policy.

MODERATOR: Let's go to -- (off mike).

Q (Inaudible) -- TV of Hong Kong. I have two questions. One is on the U.S.-Japan meeting tomorrow. Is that part of the series of meetings, the six-plus-two meetings held in the U.N.? And the second question -- or the first one -- or is that a separate U.S.-Japan and maybe World Bank only initiative? The second question is, the U.S.-Japan-Korea meeting, are you going to touch upon the missile defense?

MR. KELLY: Okay. Afghanistan and South Asia are outside of my basic area. But the six-plus-two, it is my understanding, is really primarily about political. This is about the economic reconstruction. And it's not a U.S.-Japan meeting, it's a meeting that U.S. and Japan are chairing. And many, many other countries -- in fact, so many that I don't have the list of them here, but we're talking certainly 20 or so other countries, including China, Korea and many European countries -- will be here to talk about that sort of effort that will be needed for the future.

This is just the beginning of something. There's a donor's conference on Afghanistan to be held in Germany, I think next month. There will certainly be other efforts made. And in the end, countries involved are going to have to put up money for it as well.

The TCOG meeting, will it talk about missile defense? Probably a little but probably not very much. It's not particularly a current issue. The problem of the proliferation of ballistic missiles and sale of ballistic missiles by North Korea to other parts of the year (sic) -- of the world, and the hazard that those missiles obtain, is a part of the overall problem with North Korea.

This has been part but not all of the focus of our own offer to North Koreans to have talks. And this offer has not been responded to. We've offered at, you know, what -- any time, any place, without preconditions, to begin this dialogue with North Korea ever since our policy review finished up on June 6th. And so that hasn't happened, and so I don't know that an awful lot new has occurred in the area of missiles, and I think probably we'll be going into other more detailed subjects. It won't be the focal point, at any event, of our discussions.

Q Charles Snyder of the Taipei Times. The position of a representative of the American Institute in Taipei has been vacant for some time. Could you give us an idea of when that might be filled, and can you give us an idea of whether the vacancy has had an impact on U.S. dealings with Taiwan?

MR. KELLY: I don't think the vacancy has had any impact. Where -- it's been maybe what, two months since Mr. Burghardt left. And Ms. Flutes (sp), the deputy, is a very experienced and competent officer who has, I think, continued that relationship.

We do have -- hope to have a person designated and announced. In case anybody here hasn't figured it out, the U.S. has very involved and lengthy procedures for getting anybody into any kind of a fairly senior job, and those procedures are going forth at their usual pace, which is not too fast. And whenever it's done -- and I wish I knew when it would be done -- we'll be making an announcement, which I do expect within a period of weeks, rather than months. But -- so we should have a representative fully designated there then. But in the meantime, I think we're very well-served.

MODERATOR: The gentleman there. (Off mike) -- standing up right there.

Q Mr. Secretary, I'm Jay Chen, Central News Agency. In October, at the Sandia National Lab, there was a workshop involving the global Taiwanese officials. Now that's at the cooperative monitoring center. The subject of that workshop was confidence- building measures.

I'm wondering whether you were aware of that, and if so, what did the workshop -- the fact that the workshop took place indicated an encouragement for such a mechanism to be built up across the Taiwan Strait from the United States? Thank you.

MR. KELLY: I would not be aware of that workshop from anything I'm doing in my present job. But in my past job, in the private sector, I was head of a little think tank that ran something a track to multilateral security dialogue. I think the conference you're talking to is a part of that that has to do with addressing multilateral safety issues of nuclear power plants. And since you tell me, I guess there was a meeting last month and I guess Taiwan was there. I don't know who else was there, and I wouldn't say that the confidence-building measures that were discussed there would have much relationship to, say, the general cross-straits as you -- I think that had to do with nuclear power generation facilities and building transparency among the various economies that operate these.

MODERATOR: The lady -- there.

Q Thank you. My name is Mercedes Andrei, and I'm correspondent for Business World of Manila. Mr. Secretary, do you have any update on the two American hostages in Mindanao with the Abu Sayyaf? And do you have any comment on the new -- the MNLF has started to act up again in Mindanao and they have massacred as many as 52 people?

MR. KELLY: Was that in Mindanao or in Jolo?

Q Yeah, Jolo.

MR. KELLY: Yeah, okay. I've read that press account, and it's quite distressing that there was a shooting and loss of life in this island, and the MNLF and the Abu Sayyaf. And I've got to tell you, I couldn't -- I don't have a clear view of what was happening there, except that it exemplifies the problem which the Philippines has had with some of these groups in the southern part of the Philippines.

I wish I had some news about the two American hostages. There is rumors floating around, and there were seven hostages that were released last week. But I don't have any news, and I don't have any new facts. As far as I know, the couple are still held by the Abu Sayyaf group. And I know the government of the Philippines is working very hard to safely rescue these people, and I very much hope they are successful.

And I very much hope they are successful.

MODERATOR: (Off mike.)

Q Heesup Jun of Yonhap News Agency of Korea.

Mr. Secretary, as you know, recent North and South Korean ministerial-level talks has ended without producing any result. North Korean side pretext was that the South Korean government is supporting the United States' war against terrorism. In the context of the United States' war against terrorism, do you expect -- is the Bush administration expecting -- by any chance that the talks between U.S. and North Korea can be restarted any time?

MR. KELLY: We are hopeful they can be restarted, and that breakup of the -- what was it? -- sixth ministerial held in Kumgang- san last week was not very good news, and especially bad news was that there was nothing about the fourth family-reunification meeting that was scheduled to be held within the next month. That's precisely one of the things we're looking forward to -- talking about in-depth with our Korean counterparts and also our Japanese counterparts next week, at our TCOG meeting.

But I don't conclude from this that any hope of dialogue with North Korea has ended. North Korea is a strange place, and their statements are mostly negative, but every now and then, they stick something in there that suggests that maybe they do want to talk, after all, though, I think patience is indicated, and I think that's what we and, I think, Seoul are going to offer.

MODERATOR: Let's go to the gentleman in the back there.

Q Jinzan Chen (ph) with the United Daily News, Taiwan.

Mr. Secretary, we know that both Taiwan and China have been approved to join the WTO last week. I'm just wondering: Do you think the WTO is the proper forum for the two sides to resume dialogue, whatever politically or economically? And would the U.S. encourage both sides to resume dialogue in the WTO?

MR. KELLY: I don't think so. The WTO is a place for resolving trade disputes. And that's not a bad place to begin, but trying to load up all kinds of political dialogues on and have the Americans try to foster it, strikes me as a good way to ruin what we've got.

So, no, I think there will be plenty of trade issues -- lord knows -- the investment of Taiwan in the Mainland, the Taiwan- Mainland trade is quite substantial. The trade of both sides with everybody else is major indeed. I think there's plenty to work on in the WTO.

MODERATOR: Let's go up front again -- (off mike).

Q I'm Yoshi Nashida (ph) of the Sankei, Japanese daily. Mr. Secretary, North Korea appointed one of the deputy foreign ministers, who has a long experience in the United States, as the next ambassador to the United Nations. How do you read that? Is it a positive sign or negative sign, or neither? And in what sense?

MR. KELLY: (Chuckles.) Good question, Mr. Nashida (ph), but I'm not smart enough to know. (Laughter.)

I thought it was kind of interesting that this Mr. Pak Yowan (ph) was going to come back to New York after a number of years away. But I've got to say, I didn't read it as particularly good or particularly bad. It's probably not bad. At least a person who is experienced around there and has had dialogue, because that's where our day-to-day contacts with North Korea go on, is in New York. And we've had quite a few of them because we have the people in North Korea who perform the verification on the agreed framework. We have the whole Korea peninsula energy effort that's going on, that's been going on since '94, '95. We have these POW/MIA things. And we have all the food aid that goes ahead. There end up being a lot of details to talk about. And we hope he'll be someone we can talk to. But I don't think I could load any particular aspirations on him.

MODERATOR: This gentlemen -- (off mike).

Q Mr. Secretary, I am Sujono, from Indonesian Suara Merdeka. I'm just wondering about the prospect of restoring military-to- military relations between the U.S. and Indonesia. Thank you.

MR. KELLY: Well, I think the U.S.-Indonesian military relations should be rebuilding shortly. I don't want to get the words wrong, but the embargo against any kind of training or military sales I think was lifted. But there are still very sharp limitations on these from our Congress. There remain issues from the past, as required in our law. So I think this is going to be a slow and long process.

But as I've testified before Congress, I think the Indonesian armed forces, the so-called TNI, are -- have been part of the problem in Indonesia in the past, but they're also a part of the solution for Indonesia in the future. And we do not want to be completely out of touch with them, and so we hope to rebuild that.

MODERATOR: Yeah -- (off mike).

Q Thomas Nagano (sp), Northeast Asia Economic Forum. Could you please tell me the U.S. policy change toward Northeast Asia, particularly after September 11 -- in case of Afghanistan, the peace- building activities going on? As Korean peninsula is unstable region, do you have any plans to organize a conference related to preventive diplomacies in Northeast Asia?

MR. KELLY: The ASEAN Regional Forum has various efforts that are proceeding along in terms of preventive diplomacy, confidence-building measures. But Northeast Asia has always been perhaps the most difficult part, and it's because of the unique situation of North Korea, with its isolation, with its seriously damaged and failed economy, with its starvation situation, and with its great big army all lined up along the demilitarized zone. And so this is not a situation that has exact parallels in other parts of the world, so there has been a slow process in developing this active kind of effort.

I don't think that this has really changed with the global coalition against terrorism. It's part of the perhaps mistaken notion that the North Koreans had that the alerting of forces in South Korea, of police and army, because of the kind of the kind of attacks that might have occurred against U.S. installations and bases -- somehow apparently the North Koreans saw this as just focused on them. Well, if you go out to National Airport, there's some guys in uniform with guns that weren't there before September 11th, and the same with every other airport here and most of the airports in the world. But if you never go to anybody else's airport, maybe you think it's only you that it's focused on.

So I think there is once again a misjudgment going on by North Korea that things are happening all over the world, and they think it's just about them. It's not.

MODERATOR: There's time for two more questions. The lady in back, in the red sweater. (Off mike.)

Q Mr. Secretary, Dawn Martin (sp) from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Can you share with us how important you think the links of terrorism are in Indonesia? How important? How much money is coming out of there? What kind of succor is being given from Indonesia? What do you expect the government to do, and what do you think their record on this front is so far?

MR. KELLY: There -- al Qaeda operates in many places in the world, including the USA, and has in the past, as we know to our horror, and there have been some links of al Qaeda with various countries in Southeast Asia -- of Malaysia, Philippines, and, I think, also Indonesia, to some extent.

There is also a fundamentalist Islamic movement that exists there that is hard for me to judge how major it is from within.

So, that said, I think there is quite a lot of controversy. Our ambassador met with many Islamic groups recently, and I think that was good news, but they all told him, without exception, that they thought we should stop any of our combat activity in and around Afghanistan. And we haven't finished our job there and we're not able to do that. So I think there are some differences. And the Indonesian government's response to these has been varied. We have been very happy, though, that despite some pretty serious threats, that our diplomatic properties and people have been well protected recently.

This is a part of the rebuilding of Indonesia. Indonesia deteriorated for a long time, and this process of democracy, in a country of that size and geography and complexity, is a very slow process. So I wouldn't want to be critical of the tough job the Indonesian government has got. I think in many respects they're doing a good job. But there's a terrorism threat to Indonesia and to others that I think still exists there, at least at some level.

MODERATOR: And the last question to -- (off mike).

Q I'm Insun Kan (ph) from Chosun Daily News from Korea. And Mr. Secretary, you just mentioned that actually there was no meaningful response from North Korea, terrorism talks. Do U.S. have any plan to give North Korea so-called "incentives" not to misjudge the situation in terrorism, the talks between two countries?

MR. KELLY: On the first part, some of the North Korean responses have not been bad; and if I suggested otherwise, I would want to correct that. They sent a condolence message and, I believe, have signed one or possibly two of the United Nations anti-terrorism treaties. And I think that's very good news. It's certainly not bad.

Do we have -- do we plan particular incentives to try to get North Korea to speak to us? Well, that's the sort of thing we're going to be talking about with TCOG, but we've been reluctant to provide rewards to just come and talk to us in advance. But we're willing to -- we're very anxious -- or we're very happy to have these talks begin, and we're not sure they need specific incentives. Who knows what they'll discover if they begin them, though.

MODERATOR: Well, thank you very much, Assistant Secretary Kelly. We hope this is the first of many appearances in a long tenure. And thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your good questions.

MR. KELLY: Thank you. I promise to come back, and it won't be six months. (Laughter.)

 END.

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