John Edwards: The Future of US-China Relations

[Catchawave]

This man has the intelligence, the vision, great judgment and compassion to be President.

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LESLIE STAHL: Nice to see you. Senator Edwards and I are veterans at the interviewee/interviewer game because I interviewed him - not once in 2004 for 60 Minutes, but twice. But I get ahead of myself. Henry Kissinger once said that no one should run for president unless they have had a major tragedy in their life or a major setback in their life and have learned how to weather and bounce back. And Senator Edwards is that person. He was a trial lawyer, a very successful trial lawyer in North Carolina, sort of humming along when he had a tragedy. His beloved son, Wade, was killed in a freak car accident. And through that healing he decided to completely change his life and go into public service. And that is when he ran for the Senate from North Carolina, was a Senator for one term, ran for President in 2004, was chosen by John Kennedy to run.

SENATOR EDWARDS: Kerry.

LESLIE STAHL: Kerry. We're in trouble. We're already in trouble. Can you hear us way in the back? Look how many people are here!

SENATOR EDWARDS: Yeah, that was great. Can I just point out?

LESLIE STAHL: Yeah.

SENATOR EDWARDS: Kennedy would have chosen me, too, but I was only eight at the time!

LESLIE STAHL: Kennedy definitely would have chosen you! But, anyway, obviously, the run for Vice-President is not the end of the story. By all appearances, it quacks like a duck, the Senator is going to try again. And we are delighted that he is here today to share his views with us on foreign policy issues. But you've just come back from China.

SENATOR EDWARDS: I have.

LESLIE STAHL: And we are anxious for your briefing to start us off.

SENATOR EDWARDS: Okay. Thank you, Leslie, very much. Thank you, Leslie, very much. And also let me say a thank you to Richard and to the Asia Society for their hosting this event and to my friend, Steve Orlins, and the National Committee on US-China Relations, who hosted me in my trip to China. I just came back, maybe about a week or ten days ago, I guess. We had a terrific trip. Short, unfortunately, but it was very valuable from my perspective. Let me begin. I'm going to speak for a short time because I want us to have a conversation and then I want to have a conversation with you. And by the way, I'm going to speak only about China and one other subject that's important to me personally now, but we'll broaden the discussion when Leslie starts asking questions and you start to ask questions.

You know, it was clear to me before I went to China and it became even clearer while I was there, that there is no more important relationship that America has than our relationship with China. It's a relationship that, from my perspective as a Democrat, has not gotten the attention that it should have gotten over the last few years, for obvious reasons - Iraq, Iran, the Middle East, other priorities of this administration. And I think the relationship has suffered some as a result and I think we have a reason to be concerned about that. What I want to do today is talk just about a few very specific things and then I want to talk very briefly about a trip I made to Uganda and a piece that's in The Washington Post today, that I wrote about what's happening in Uganda right now.

Let me talk first about the immediate issue with China, which is North Korea and North Korea's testing of both missiles and nuclear weapons. For those of you who may not have seen the news, the Chinese have just announced that the North Koreans have agreed to come back to the Six Party Talks. Haven't been scheduled yet but they made this announcement within the last twenty-four hours, which is encouraging. That's a good thing. There was also some news in the last few days. It came out as part of a regular reporting process. But apparently in September China did not sell any oil to North Korea. Now, the Chinese did not announce this so we don't know if it's part of their policy and we don't know if it's a sanction that China has imposed. There's no way to know at this point. There's a lot of speculation about it. But one of the things that we were concerned about while we were in China and meeting with government leaders was the extent to which the Chinese were actually willing to enforce the UN sanctions, how committed they were to the enforcement of those sanctions. I think a lot of us, including me, have some concern about their willingness to do that. When we met with the Foreign Minister, which was actually one of the best meetings we had while we were there, we spent some time in the room where the Six Party Talks have been going on. And what he said to me is, he said, It would be very easy for the Americans, if they were willing to do it, to come in the context of the Six Party Talks, and the American representative and the North Korean representative just go over into that corner. He said, It's very important to the North Koreans, not just as a matter of substance but as a matter of how the world perceives North Korea. A matter of some pride for them, he says. And from my perspective - and this is, again, this is the opinion of John Edwards - I think it is very important for America to be willing to negotiate directly with the North Koreans. I don't think it's a sign of weakness. I think it creates a greater possibility of us being able to resolve this situation. And I think it's certainly less likely for us to be able to address this issue in a successful way if we're not willing to deal directly with the North Koreans. The Chinese are very, very supportive of America engaging in a direct dialogue with the North Koreans. So there's some encouraging news. It appears the Six Party Talks are going to resume. I'd love to see America get more engaged and be willing to dialogue directly with the North Koreans. I think this is a very, very serious issue. I'm sure today, as Leslie told me before we came in, we'll also talk about Iraq, talk about Iran and how all these things are connected, because - at least in my judgment - they are.

much more at link below

http://www.asiasociety.org/speeches/06ny_edwards.html