Speech before the Los Angeles World Affairs Council on March 14

Speech before the Los Angeles World Affairs Council on June 11 2002

Yingfan Wang
Ambassador of China to the United Nations

Thank you, Curtis [Mack], for your generous introduction. Mr. Chairman, friends, ladies and gentlemen. It's really a great honor for me and my wife to be invited to Los Angeles. It's my third trip to this city but the first time for me to meet with such a large gathering of friends working closely with China in one way or the other. So I'm particularly grateful to the Asia Society and to the L.A. World Affairs Council in organizing this function and certainly I'm grateful to my friend, Mr. Paul Underwood, who has helped sponsor the Ambassadors Across America trip that has brought me here.

I'm supposed to speak on the China-U.S. relationship. I must say that this is a very important relationship in international relations. China has a population of something like 1.3 billion, a little less than that actually, and our citizenry now constitutes number 6 in the whole world. So what China is doing will affect the whole world and for China we attach great importance to our relations with all countries, America in particular. We hope to build up a stronger and more stable relationship with the United States. I'm happy to note that since President Bush has taken office with accolades from both sides, our bilateral relations are improving, especially after the exchange of high level visits like President Bush's visit to Shanghai to attend the APEC meeting in October of last year and then his visit in January this year to China, his first official visit to my country, and then recently, in late April/early May we had our Vice President Hu Jintao and I think you all know his name, he might be a very powerful leader in China. And in the time to come in October we will have President Jiang Zemin come to visit this country again. Such face-to-face meetings of top leaders have contributed a great deal to strengthening our relationship. For a diplomat my responsibility is certainly to promote a stronger relationship between our two countries, and, I think, to build a stronger relationship is important for us to enhance our mutual understanding, to build our trust in each other. For that advantage, it is imperative that we should try very hard to respect each other. It's unavoidable to have differences, but [we should] build our relations on common grounds while acknowledging our differences and seeing to it that these differences will not be intensified so that they become obstacles in our relationship. I often thought on my way to Los Angeles that in building a relationship with China, I think, it is important for people to have a correct view, or maybe a good view, of my country. Whether China is a force for peace or a force for trouble, a constructive force or a destructive force — that's very important.

Today I will give you some examples of my work in the United Nation’s Security Council. I'm talking about our relations in the context of the United Nations because in the U.N. we have bilateral relations as well. I have to leave the overall relationships of this issue to our embassy in Washington, D.C., to our consulate here in L.A., and in other cities, because that's their responsibility. My domain and experience is the United Nations. And in the United Nations we try very hard to build a better, constructive relationship with the United States and other member states, especially inside the Security Council, fighting our common struggle against terrorism when we saw what happened on September 11. We were as shocked as were the Americans about what happened in New York and Washington, D.C. This was an attack launched by terrorists against the American people, but it was also an attack on the world's civilizations. It is an attack against people of all countries, so in our struggle against terrorism we must join hands, we must have international cooperation. China is opposed to terrorism in any form and anywhere. Right after September 11, the Security Council adopted a resolution on September 12 in which, I think, the Security Council, representing the whole U.N. membership, very much determined in our joint struggle against terrorists. And China voted for that resolution.

We have provided diplomatic support for the U.S. fight against terrorism and also all the facilities we could manage for your fight against terrorism. We have been approached by the U.S. administration, asking China to provide intelligence here and there, to tighten our border control, and we have done that. We have also helped the U.S. administration in cutting off financial links of terrorist institutions. We have also enforced our law to tighten our controls and avoid giving any group room for terrorist activities from abroad. And this concrete cooperation provided by the Chinese government and Chinese people are highly appreciated by your government. We are truly aware, as are the American people, that this fight against terrorism is a long struggle — it takes time. We need to mobilize all our resources in all ways and means, diplomatic, political, economic and, sometimes, also military.

In order to win this long fight we have been saying that it's necessary to address some basic issues of the root cause of terrorism, like the poverty, the conflicts in different parts of the world, whether in Africa, the Middle East or in South Asia. On the issue of the Middle East, I think that's a major concern in our fight against terrorism and also, for the whole peace process in that part of the world, we have good cooperation with members of the U.N., especially inside the Security Council. I would say that our role in the Security Council on this particular issue is very much constructive. For the American delegation, your representatives there do not always see eye-to-eye with the Arab states, and sometimes we have dropped a resolution from the Arab states inside the Security Council to which the American delegation would not agree, and the American delegation sometimes threatens to use its veto. When we have this kind of situation, as a representative from China, I would try to work on both ways so that we can have unanimity. We could achieve consensus. We need to join efforts of the member states. We do have consensus in passing four resolutions since April of this year on the Middle East issue alone.

For China, certainly we denounce terrorism, we denounce and condemn suicide bombers, we condemn violence, and at the same time certainly China is, or the Chinese people are, very sympathetic to the just causes of the Palestinian people and people of the Arab countries, and we have diplomatic relations with Israel. So China is trying to promote political dialogue between the Arab states and Israel, between the United States and Arab countries. We do not wish to see confrontation between the Arab states and the United States or Israel. We have been advocating inside the Security Council that we should try to identify our common interests, common grounds, while acknowledging differences. And China's constructive role inside the Security Council is certainly very much appreciated by my colleagues there.

Another very hard issue facing us is the conflict between India and Pakistan. Because of the positions taken by some member states for the Security Council we could not officially discuss this issue, although it's a big issue concerning peace and stability that is the primary responsibility of the Security Council. We could not have official debate on this issue, but in the corridors, through bilateral contacts, we have a lot of discussion on this issue too, and we have good coordination with the U.S. delegation. My Foreign Minister and your Foreign Secretary Powell, they have constant telephone exchanges, informing each other what they are doing, informing any updates about this issue.

You know, recently our President Jiang Zemin went to Kazakhstan, together with some other heads of state to attend the conference on interaction and confidence building measures for Asian states, particularly attended by representatives of 16 countries from Asia. President Putin of Russia, invited President Musharraf of Pakistan and Prime Minister Vajpayee of India to attend that conference, too. So the world watched closely what was happening because of Russia and China's presence there and India and Pakistan’s heads of states or government. Our President had bilaterals with President Musharraf and Prime Minister Vajpayee on the issue of India and Pakistan. After the meeting India, in the U.S. delegation, and other delegations from the United Kingdom, France, and Russia met. So we are really working together for peace in our part of the world — South China. For China, we are certainly very much concerned. Both Pakistan and India are neighbors of China, and both of them have nuclear weapons. So like Americans and people in other parts of the world, we do not wish a big trouble occurring in our part [of the world]. So there we have a common interest, I mean the Americans and Chinese, and we do work together for peace.

I talked just now about how we have differences, and I will not elaborate on that. I see that I should not talk too much because many friends wish to ask questions, but I will say that after September 11 we have much better coordination and cooperation inside the United Nations, especially inside the Security Council among the major players and we meet more frequently than before. So on the important issue of building up and maintaining world peace, we have a lot of common ground and common interests with the Americans; we have many issues, we do work together.

I must make [one] point to you before I conclude, and that is I know among the friends and [ladies and gentlemen] gathered in this room so many of you have worked very hard to promote friendship between our two countries — and many from business circles. I just talked with the lady who sat beside me [and said] that the business people in this country have contributed a great deal to a better understanding of our two countries and two peoples. Without your contribution, I could not imagine we could have the present state of our bilateral relations. Without your contribution, I doubt whether we could have entered the World Trade organization for which we have taken so much time, but the time might be much longer. So we are grateful, indeed, not only as Chinese diplomats but also as ordinary Chinese. I appreciate what you have done for China in the interest of our two peoples.

I know, also, a lot of friends who have contributed in other ways apart from business. In cultural and technological circles we have a lot of exchanges with the United States as well. So I wish that in the time to come we can join our efforts. I’m sure with further efforts we will have a much stronger and more stable relationship between our two countries and I'm sure the Americans and also the Chinese will all benefit from that kind of relationship.

Thank you so much.