APEC Preview

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Thank you. Good afternoon. As you know, Steve Hadley made clear in a press conference I think late last week, and I think those remarks are on the White House press site, the President and Mrs. Bush will depart on November 14th for Southeast Asia, and they will be traveling to three countries, Singapore, Vietnam and Indonesia. This will be the President's second trip to Singapore and Indonesia and his first trip to Vietnam.

The President is traveling to Asia to attend a leader?s meeting of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum or APEC. And his purpose is to advance the core APEC goals of economic growth, trade liberalization and trade-related security. While the President is there, he will be reinforcing the key themes of creating conditions for sustainable growth, addressing threats that stand in the way of sustainable growth, helping to build societies that actually support sustainable growth in the region and on thinking about, with other leaders, about the ways in which APEC can be reformed to continue to push that ambitious agenda.

The President will also visit Southeast Asia, a region of great, great importance to the United States. Southeast Asia is a region with an active al-Qaida-linked terrorist presence that we are working with partners throughout the region to defeat. It is a region where there are serious transnational health challenges. These include Avian Flu. And it's a region where the U.S. is cooperating with nations to control these important threats. It's also a region of dynamic and transforming economies ranging from the financial and high-tech hub of Singapore to the reforming and literally booming economy of Vietnam. It's also a region that is experiencing change and uncertainty. And in some sense this is a result of the many changing power dynamics in Asia.

This trip will allow the President to advance the interests of the American people by partnering with Asian nations to tackle these challenges that face us all, like terrorism and disease. And by ensuring that American workers and American businesses are able to reap the benefits of one of the world's most economically vibrant regions.

On his trip, the President will reiterate his appreciation for the excellent partnership we enjoy with Singapore. The President will highlight our evolving relationship with Vietnam as it reforms and reassess its role in the region and in the world. And the President will discuss our advancing relationship with Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim majority and emerging democratic partner.

Additionally, the President will seek to reaffirm the centrality of the freedom agenda in Asia and continue to encourage the efforts of those he will speak with in the war on terror and communicate his vision for smart development based on the Millennium Challenge principles of good governance, investment in people and economic freedom. So those will be the main themes of the trip. And at this time we will be happy to take any questions you have.

MODERATOR: Please wait for the mike.

QUESTION: Hi. Nadia Chow with Liberty Times. This week I think Ambassador Schwab told during this meeting Asian Pacific Free Trade Agreement will be discussed with the allies and the countries in this area. I just wondered could you elaborate more? Will there be, you know, solid discussion with the leaders or is it just on a still working level or, you know, initiate -- just initiate discussions. Thanks.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Yeah, I think we would expect that there will be two major trade issues on the agenda. One, of course, will be the Doha round. And I would expect that the leaders will discuss how to ensure that the Doha gains momentum and highlight the benefits of a successful Doha round for all the countries of the WTO and talk about what the leaders need to do to make sure that that process continues to have momentum.

In addition to that, I suspect that the leaders will also talk about a free trade agreement for the Asia Pacific. And in this area, I think their focus will be on what sorts of analysis and what sorts of working groups might be established over the next year to really understand what would need to be accomplished to make a free trade agreement of the Asia Pacific a reality and what the benefits would be to the members of APEC. And I think that the idea here would be to lay out a map of all the things that would be evaluated over the next 12 months so that this could be a topic for future discussions at next year's APEC. I think it?s important to highlight that Doha will be prominently discussed and is really the key for advancing the global trade agenda and that a discussion of a free trade agreement for each specific in no way is in conflict with the notion of a successful Doha Round.

QUESTION: Are members included in the free trade agreement?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Well, the idea is to really evaluate whether an APEC-wide free trade agreement would be a benefit to the members of APEC, so it would certainly start with the premise that APEC is a unique combination of vibrant economies from across Asia Pacific and that there would be great benefits that might be had from a free trade agreement in that region and to really evaluate how that might come together over the next twelve months -- not the agreement, but whether it would be worth putting focus on an agreement as an objective of APEC.

QUESTION: Thank you. Kaori Lida with NHK Japanese Public Television. If I can follow up on that. Will this APEC FTA be proposed by the United States? And also can you talk a little bit about the significance of the President -- the President going to Vietnam and also about the importance of the PNTR being concluded by that time?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Why don?t I take the first question and then you can take the others? I want to be very clear that I don't expect that the President will propose an FTA and the United States is not proposing an FTA for Asia Pacific. In fact, I think there are a number of members of APEC who are identifying the possibility of an APEC-wide Asia Pacific FTA as something worth evaluating. And so I think the discussion will be around what steps would we need to take as members of APEC to understand the viability and the path to consider an Asia Pacific FTA, but not to announce movement on one, but really to lay out the game plan for determining how one might come together.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL TWO: In terms of the trip to Vietnam, we really hope with the President's trip this year to open a new chapter in U.S.-Vietnamese relations. I notice a Vietnamese official is quoted in the press today as saying this is a new American invasion, and in a sense it is. In a sense, with the WTO opening up Vietnam for more direct foreign investment, you find a lot of American companies terribly eager to go into Vietnam. I notice Intel has just announced a new expansion of their computer chip operations in Vietnam. Many other American companies?

The President will meet with some of those Americans who are coming into Vietnam, some of whom are actually refugees from Vietnam who have returned to do business in Vietnam, some of them who are soldiers from the war era who are now coming back and helping Vietnam build a new Vietnam.

And so I think this is a terribly significant visit. I know the President is very eager to see Vietnam. He's never been there. He's excited to see the changes that are going on in Vietnam, the booming of the economy. Really, Vietnam, in many ways, is a country at takeoff. If you look at it, it is somewhat similar, although not totally the same, as China in the 1980s when it began to really move from a command to a market economy. And so it's an important trip and one that we think can accomplish a lot.

PNTR -- we are very hopeful that the Congress this week will take up the issue. We are hopeful that it will pass in the U.S. Congress in the next few days and the President will have that in his pocket as he visits Vietnam. That's good for American business. That's good for American consumers. It's the right thing to do. As you know, Vietnam has already been granted accession into the WTO by the governing board of the WTO. So if we don't have PNTR, it will simply restrict the activities of American companies without actually stopping the WTO accession of Vietnam, so it's in our interest to move ahead with that.

QUESTION: Thanks. I think the North Korean nuclear issue -- my name is Wada from Japan's Mainichi newspaper. I think North Korea nuclear issue is one of the major problems you have to discuss at the APEC leaders meeting. What is your goal there? Also, President Bush is going to meet with Japanese Prime Minister Abe for the first time since his election to prime ministership. What kind of expectation does the President have for the meeting? Thank you.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Well, first of all, you're absolutely right that North Korea will be a subject of discussion, particularly at the bilateral meetings that are held by the President and other leaders at the APEC summit.

One of the things that we like about the APEC summit, the President likes about the APEC summit, is when you get 21 leaders of economies together you get a lot of opportunities for discussion. Clearly we are at a point on the North Korean nuclear issue where we are trying to map out the way ahead to the next round of the six-party talks and in that sense he will have the opportunity to meet with four of the six players in the six-party talks at APEC, discuss what we should try and accomplish when we do begin the next round of the six-party talks.

As the President has said he wants a diplomatic solution to this issue. He wants to work multilaterally. He thinks the six-party process is the way to move this forward and he'll have the chance to discuss it with President Hu, President Putin, President Roh and of course Prime Minister Abe.

In terms of the meeting with Prime Minster Abe, the two have actually met before. They met at Crawford when Prime Minister Abe came with then-Prime Minister Kozumi. So this won't be their first meeting but it will be their first chance to really sit down together, get to know each other a little bit better. We've designed it so they'll have lunch together which is a bit more informal a setting, the ability of the two men to have a chance to really understand each other. Of course the President will be looking forward to hearing what Prime Minister Abe's goals are both domestic and internationally. He'll be very eager to hear about the meetings that Prime Minister Abe held in South Korea and China earlier this fall. And another thing is that the First Ladies will get their first chance to meet each other. And we understand that the First Lady of Japan is a very interesting and accomplished woman and I think the First Lady of the United States is going to enjoy very much her chance to meet with her.

QUESTION: Just to quickly follow up the North Korean portion, do you plan -- do you expect to see some kind of joint statement or joint communiqu? on North Korea nuclear issue from leaders meeting?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL TWO: Sure. Obviously with the missile test this summer on 4 or 5 July and then the nuclear test on October 9th, the North Koreans have committed some acts that pose grave concern for both international security and security in the region. Therefore, we think it's very appropriate for there to be discussion in the leaders meeting on this issue and we would think it would be appropriate to have some recognition of that in the leaders' statement.

QUESTION: Thank you. I'm Sharon from the Voice of America. And I read a report that Mr. Bush were going to have a separate meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao and is there any particular economic or business issue on the agenda? Thank you.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL TWO: As you may know we have inaugurated a new dialogue with the Chinese on economic issues, called the Strategic Economic Dialogue. And Secretary Paulson is in the lead on that dialogue and will be traveling in December to Beijing. I am sure that President Bush and President Hu will discuss our goals for that new dialogue, how we can broaden and deepen our economic relationship, the agenda for that dialogue so I think there will be a detailed discussion of what we hope to achieve on that front.

QUESTION: Ponnudurai Parameswaran from France Presse. The senior envoy to APEC -- U.S. senior envoy to APEC at a briefing recently said that President Bush would suggest reforms for the APEC free trade agenda. And can I ask whether the free trade agreement is part of this reforms which he's planning to explain to the leaders, the other leaders? And whether -- what is the U.S. perspective of such an agreement and how do you see this in terms of selling it to others? Thank you.

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL ONE: Well, I would separate the idea of an Asia Pacific Free Trade Agreement and the idea of APEC reform. I think as we have talked with other countries, members of APEC, there's been many that we've talked to that have recognized that APEC really provides a unique forum, an economic forum, within the region for promoting a very important agenda among a very important set of countries. And when you step back and look at the amount of dollars and resources that goes into supporting APEC, it's relatively small compared to other similar forums.

So, I think you'll find that as we have these discussions in the coming week that the United States will be very interested in talking about how the members of APEC might make additional commitments in resources to include the United States and also what reforms might take place within APEC to ensure that the ambitious agenda that many of its members are seeking is able to be realized. It's a different topic from the idea of a free trade agreement for the Asia Pacific. And the free trade agreement for the Asia Pacific is not a United States' idea, it's an idea frankly that's been contemplated for many years, most recently in 2004 when ABAC, the business arm of APEC came forward with that idea. And I think what you'll find in this upcoming APEC is a number of countries to include the United States that would like to begin to understand how that might become a reality and explore what steps the countries of APEC might need to take to understand how and why and what the benefits of such an approach might be. So I think this is a discussion that will really lay out next steps to being able to discuss this in much more detail in 2007.

QUESTION: (Inaudible) FTA within the Asia Pacific area?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Well, I think the President's been very clear that free trade agreements around the world and free trade that's based on transparency and based on a consistent set of rules and guidelines is the benefit of all countries and we certainly feel that way about APEC. And so whether APEC can be a forum that really delivers on the free trade vision that the President's outlined I think is something we need to explore. But certainly you will find the United States very interested in understanding how a free trade agreement for the Asia Pacific might come together and what the steps ahead might be, and I think we're not unique in that. I think there are a number of countries in APEC that are of a similar mind.

QUESTION: Tony Walker, Financial Review of Australia. I have a two-part question. The first reverts back to the Doha round. Is the President going to unveil, outline any new proposals to build on his October 2005 market opening suggestions to try and energize the process? And pull a rabbit out of the hat I guess I'm asking.

And the second element to the question is do you see this discussion of a region-wide free trade agreement as a means of exerting additional pressure, which is needed, on the Europeans to be more helpful on the Doha matter?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Well, I think the President's position on Doha has been very steadfast, and I think will continue to be steadfast in saying that we believe a successful Doha round is of great benefit to the United States and really all the members of the WTO, and the consequences of a failed Doha round are significant. The costs are significant for us all.

So the President remains every bit as committed as he has ever been, perhaps more so, to a successful conclusion to Doha. And that means that the United States will continue to try to exert a leadership role, the President has said and Ambassador Schwab has said, and her remarks would be a good point of reference here. She just spoke here last Thursday, that the United States is -- continues to be willing to exhibit flexibility but that flexibility is really dependent on market access around the world. And so I think you'll continue to hear the President reinforce that message.

QUESTION: (Off-mike.)

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Well, I think you'll hear the President reinforcing the same themes and the same message that he has in the past. With regard to the Asia Pacific FTA idea, the Asia Pacific FTA idea is an idea, as I said, that's been around for quite some time. And if successful in the future is an idea that stands on its own and could be of great benefit to the members of APEC and so it should be explored within that context. And again, our President's very clear on his commitment to free trade everywhere through a variety of fora to include regional, bilateral and WTO-based multilateral agreement.

QUESTION: Ken Choi from Chosun Daily Newspaper, Korea. Would there be any discussions about PSI because the security matter is one of the important issues in APEC? And I'm just wondering if all 21 APEC countries agreed to PSI or something similar to that North Koreans would not be able to transfer its, you know, nuclear materials or any illicit stuffs out of the country so.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL TWO: The PSI is one of many initiatives we have at this point and that we use to try and monitor the movement of weapons of mass destruction technology. It's not the only one. And there are many members of APEC who, for their own reasons, have not yet become members of the PSI. But in many other cases there are some who are members of PSI. There are others who are members of our container security initiative and our mega ports initiative, and these are initiatives to improve the inspection of containers, the security of ports in order to make sure that the illicit transfer of technology that could assist in the creation of bombs does not occur.

The UN resolution that was just passed by a unanimous vote, 1718, of course is very important in this regard, and we are working with other countries to implement that UN Security Council resolution because one of the greatest dangers that we face is that the North Koreans might at some point be tempted to export their nuclear technology to either a state or a nonstate actor. And that is one of the reasons why the UN resolution was very strong on this question. You have seen us already, I think, working with other countries and entities around the world to monitor more closely North Korean shipping, and we will continue to do that.

QUESTION: (Off-mike.)

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL TWO: Absolutely.

QUESTION: Giampiero Gramaglia, Italian news agency, ANSA. Two questions. First question is about the meeting with President Putin. There will be a bilateral with President Putin in Hanoi? And will President Bush address the issue of the Iranian nuclear threat with President Putin and President Hu?

And the second question is I don?t understand which kind of a relation there is between the free trade area APEC and the existing ASEAN country organization. Do the free trade APEC area will absorb the ASEAN countries organization or there will be different relations?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL TWO: First of all, on the issue of Iran and whether or not it will be discussed in Hanoi, I think you can be quite assured that our concerns about the Iranian situation will be part of the discussion, many of the bilateral discussions that the President has.

As you know, our position is that as with North Korea, we feel there needs to be some steps taken in order to show the Iranians strongly that there are consequences of their actions and that the UN Security Council needs to move forward in this direction, and I'm sure the President will be discussing those steps with the various leaders including President Putin.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Yeah, on the question of a variety of alternative economic fora in the Asia region, there are a number of different architectures that are being considered and being proposed by various countries within Asia. I think the point of view of the United States is that APEC stands out as being uniquely well-positioned to really drive a whole series of innovations and integration within the region and is unique in terms of the countries that participate and unique in terms of the role of the United States and the participation of the United States. So we recognize there will be other alternatives in Asia that may be Asian only, and we certainly expect that to be the case.

There are those sorts of forums in other parts of the world, but we think APEC is unique and a forum that we're uniquely committed to because of the role of the United States. If you step back and look at the role of the United States in the Asia Pacific region from an economic standpoint, from a security standpoint, the United States plays a unique role. And so we believe that any forum that's really going to drive dramatic benefits in terms of economic integration and trade liberalization is going to involve the United States.

QUESTION: Thanks. Betty Lin of the World Journal. This is follow-up on the previous question on meeting with Chinese President Hu. I'd like to know whether, well, since the State Department just released its International Religious Freedom Report. So is the President going to talk to President Hu on that? And also, when President Hu was here in April, the President talk about IPR currency issues. Is he going to push on that? And President Hu is going to meet with President Musharraf later this month and they may sign an agreement on nuclear cooperation. Do you have any comment or expectation on that?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL TWO: As you probably know, this President has a personal strong interest in the subject of religious freedom worldwide, and every meeting he's had with a Chinese leader since he came into office he has discussed the issue of personal freedom and religious freedom. He puts it in this context, and I think it's important to understand, he believes that it is good for China. It is not so much that the United States is asking China to do something that is being imposed on them, but rather that China and President Hu talk about creating a harmonious society. Harmonious societies, in our view, are societies where people are allowed to express their personal individuality, their personal freedom, the right to gather and worship in a fashion that they wish to. And so I think you can be assured that the President will, once again, raise these issues with President Hu during their meeting. I'm sure the issue, as it has before, the Dalai Lama will come up between the two leaders because of the importance that we have placed on believing that a dialogue needs to be a strong dialogue between China and the Dalai Lama to move toward some resolution of a very longstanding issue.

I'm losing track of the other questions.

QUESTION: IPR.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL TWO: And -- there was IPR and -- no, no, no, I'm sorry, there was the second part of the -- currency.

As I said before, we have the strategic economic dialogue beginning in December and certainly all of those kinds of issues will be part of that dialogue. Madame Wu Yi, of course, has led an effort on the Chinese side to move forward on IPR protections. She has, I think, a 14-point plan that she is implementing. We will look forward in December to hearing how that plan is moving forward, how progress is going forward on IPR protections.

Again, I want to stress IPR protection is for the good of the Chinese people as well as the good of the American people and other people because we believe that a society where your intellectual property is protected is a society where you can be as creative as you want to be. And so I think if China is going to move to the next step of economic development, they will find that IPR protection is a critical part of this and I think you already find Chinese companies calling for stronger protection of their own intellectual property rights.

As far as China's relationship with Pakistan is concerned, we have on many occasions spoken very clearly to the Chinese Government about our concerns about proliferation and proliferation by Chinese entities to Pakistan. So if the issue were to come up, I think that would be reiterated.

QUESTION: Takashi Sadahiro with the Yomiuri Shimbun. Is there still a chance to have so-called on North Korea five-party talks or six-minus-one during series of meeting? If yes, when? If no, why?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: I think -- and you know, I am treading on a little thin ground here because I'm thinking of Dr. Rice's schedule instead of the schedule of the President. I think the decision has been made to have an informal foreign ministers meeting at APEC and in that meeting I think there will be a full, fulsome discussion of North Korean issues. I think that's the preferred venue rather than trying to put together a five-party meeting, have a meeting of foreign ministers in which this is discussed.

In terms of whether or not there will be lots of contact, Ambassador Hill will be in Hanoi. He certainly will have plenty of opportunities for contact with his counterparts, so I think you can be assured that the North Korean issue will not suffer from inattention in Hanoi.

QUESTION: I'm Satoshi Ukai from the Asahi Shimbun. It's kind of a similar question. Do you expect to have the U.S.-Japan-Korea trilateral summit meeting during the APEC time? And how do you see the idea of having such a meeting?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: I think there's a lot of interest in having a meeting of that sort. Let me say at this point that we are trying to work out a trilateral meeting if schedules allow. We hope that that will be a possibility. Actually, there may be trilaterals at a couple of levels. There might be a foreign ministers? trilateral and there may be a heads of state.

Part of the difficulty, frankly, in arranging such a thing is the business of schedules, but we are looking at that.

QUESTION: Hello. Kim Landers from Australian Broadcasting. I just wanted to ask if you could speak specifically about the meeting that the President is expected to have with Prime Minister John Howard and what the issues may be there, particularly if there are issues like Iraq and North Korea on the table.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL TWO: As you know, President Bush and Prime Minister Howard are very good friends at this point. They speak candidly and frequently with each other on a lot of issues. The support that we have been provided by Australia in various ways throughout the years in terms of deploying with U.S. troops wherever they've gone is greatly appreciated, and we continue to appreciate the involvement of Australian troops in both Iraq and Afghanistan and the other contributions they are making to the war against terrorism. I am sure that they will continue to discuss the way forward in Iraq, the role that Australia might play in the international compact and with troops on the ground.

There are a lot of other issues, however, in our relationship with Australia moving forward. There is a large security dimension. The President will be interested in hearing how things are in the Southwest Pacific, the situation in Timor and elsewhere in that area, for the Australians who take a leading role in trying to build and defend democracy in that region of the world. So I think they have a rich set of issues. They will also be having lunch together and so they'll have plenty of opportunity for discussion.

QUESTION: One more question about North Korean issue and informal foreign ministers? meeting you just mentioned. Could you try and level that out a little bit about the setup? I understand it's going to be held on the 16th with the participation of 19 countries and one of the issues would be how to implement the UN Security Council Resolution 1718, but are there any other issues you can share with us that are going to be discussed there? Thank you.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Well, I do think discussion of 1718 is extremely important. This was a unanimous vote of the UN Security Council standing group and it is something that we think it is necessary in the process of moving toward the six-party talks. In other words, we have said and the world has said that North Korea's ambition to be a nuclear power cannot be tolerated. We have to back that up with actions. We have to demonstrate to the North Koreans that this is the wrong path and that if you go down that path there will be consequences.

So you have seen in that resolution a call for, for example, cutting off the delivery of luxury goods to North Korea. Why? Because the common man in North Korea has no access to luxury goods, but a group of some estimate perhaps 600 families who run the dictatorship that is the North Korean government at this point do have access to those luxury goods. And we think it's important that that group of people understand that the decisions they are making will have consequences and that we will strongly, internationally, as one voice united, meet the threat that North Korea is now posing to peace and stability in the region.

This is not a U.S.-North Korea issue. This is an issue of security for an entire region, for the trans-Pacific region, and therefore having the 19 leaders or foreign ministers get together and discuss this issue is very important. And it's not just about North Korean missiles and nuclear weapons. It is also about human rights in North Korea and the terrifically poor condition in which North Korean people are forced to live because their leadership would prefer to spend money on weapons of mass destruction than on building their economy.

QUESTION: Laszlo Trankovits, German Press Agency. There was a briefing last week by the CSIS and Michael Green told us that he thinks that the U.S. missed chances in Southeastern Asian region and the President has reason to repair some damages which were done with bilateral -- some bilateral relations between U.S. and Asian countries. Do you think that there has to be a change in the approach to this region and there is more commitment necessary from the U.S. to this region?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL TWO: Well, far be it from me to correct Dr. Michael Green of CSIS. I think he may, if he actually said that, it may be an overstatement. If you look at what we have done in this region, our role that we have played in the last 50 years since World War II, you will see that the United States has been a key partner in Southeast Asia. We have $800 billion worth of trade with East Asia. That is not any small involvement in this region. We have defense relationships, very secure, very good relationships with many of the players in this region. This is a region of great interest to the United States, great interest to American companies.

I think the new factor that people have pointed to is that China has a rising interest as well in this region. But I think it's sometimes misunderstood that China's growing role, growing interest in the region, somehow means that there is some zero-sum game here. We really don't see it that way. If you look at trade patterns in the region, you will see that even though there is more intraregional trade, much of that intraregional trade is to serve consumers in the United States and Europe. It's intraregional trade that then comes to the United States in the form of luxury goods and other things that the American consumer wants.

And so our role, I don't think, in this region is diminished. And if you talk to leaders in this region, certainly you don't get the impression that any of them are interested in our leaving the region or diminishing our presence in the region. We're there. We're there to stay. We're a Pacific nation. Just visit California or Washington state and you will very quickly get the idea of how much we are looking to East Asia for our future.

MODERATOR: I'm afraid that's all we have time for. Thank you very much.