Remarks With Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi Before Meeting

FOREIGN MINISTER YANG:

I’m very glad to – it’s my first trip to the United States as Foreign Minister and I’m looking forward to a (inaudible) in-depth discussion with you, Madame Secretary. I think our two presidents had a very good meeting (inaudible), so we need to work very hard on the consensus reached between us.

SECRETARY RICE:

Yes.

FOREIGN MINISTER YANG:

And there is good cooperation between China and the United States on many issues. The relationship is going in the right direction on the whole, so I’m looking forward to a good discussion with (inaudible) for cooperation both on the bilateral side and on the multilateral (inaudible).

SECRETARY RICE:

Well, thank you. Well, it’s good to have you here and it may be your first visit to the United States as Foreign Minister, but it’s certainly not your first visit to the United States. (Laughter.) I know you well as someone who knows the United States very well, having been Ambassador, a very successful Ambassador here.

FOREIGN MINISTER YANG:

Thank you.

SECRETARY RICE:

And I do think that the presidents have had a really very good relationship, both personally and in their work, and it’s our job to further that and to expand it. We also, of course, have a number of important fora in which we meet. We have the Strategic Economic Dialogue with Secretary Paulson. We have the Strategic Dialogue that John Negroponte is doing with your leadership. And so we really look forward to expanding that, so I think we’ll make it work.

QUESTION:

Thank you.

QUESTION:

Madame Secretary, what do you hope to get out of the six-party talks that begin this week?

SECRETARY RICE:

Well, the Minister and I are going to talk about exactly that. But obviously, the phases moving forward have been somewhat already delineated in the February 13^th agreement and I think we will -- now with the first phase well underway, almost completed, I know that they will hear a report of the experts who went to Yongbyon. I think they had very good access. But there are, frankly, a lot of questions that remain to be answered and we want to be able to answer questions about all aspects of the North Korean nuclear program. So that’s very important.

QUESTION:

Madame Secretary, could both leaders speak about the rising protests in Myanmar and the move for democracy in Myanmar?

SECRETARY RICE:

Well, certainly, we are watching very carefully and the President has been very outspoken about what is happening in Burma. The Burmese people deserve better. They deserve a life to be able to live in freedom, just as everyone does. And the brutality of this regime is well known, and so we will be speaking about that and I think the President will be speaking about it with many of his colleagues.

Thank you.

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