Interview With Indira Lakshmanan of Bloomberg Radio
Interview
Hillary Rodham Clinton
Secretary of State
Taj Palace Hotel
New Delhi, India
May 8, 2012
QUESTION: Thank you so much, Secretary Clinton, for being with Bloomberg Radio today. We really appreciate it.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Thank you very much, Indira.
QUESTION:
I wanted to start out by asking you, last week in China you were
involved in a roller coaster ride of backstage negotiations over a blind
legal activist, Chen Guangcheng. Take us behind the scenes. Did your
talks reach the highest levels of China’s government, and what leverage
did you have to convince President Hu Jintao to let a dissident leave
for the U.S.?
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, India, I’m
not, at this point, going to be able to go into the details. Right now
I’m focused on the here and now, which is, briefly stated, Mr. Chen
remains in the hospital obtaining medical treatment, some of which was
suggested as being necessary based on examinations that our doctors at
the Embassy gave him. We remain in close contact with him. He is meeting
with Chinese authorities in order to pursue the necessary steps to be
able to leave to pursue his studies in the United States. And we’re also
on our end expediting and making all the necessary preparations.
So
my goal is to welcome him to the United States to pursue his studies.
There’ll be plenty of time in the future for him and others to discuss
how we got to the point where we are today.
QUESTION: So you think it’ll be a matter of weeks that he’ll be in the U.S.?
SECRETARY CLINTON:
I’m not going to put any timeline on it, because we’re all working very
hard. There are a lot of people engaged in both the Chinese and the
American governments.
QUESTION: Let’s step back.
This was an unusual case. Mr. Chen escaped from house arrest and later
was picked up by a U.S. Embassy car that was chased and almost had to
abort its mission. Was it you or President Obama who authorized this
plan, and do you worry that it might spark a run on U.S. embassies in
China and beyond?
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, first
this was an exceptional case with extraordinary circumstances, and I do
not anticipate seeing any case like this again. But I am not going to
discuss any of the details at this time. There’ll be an opportune moment
to do so –
QUESTION: You certainly must have authorized it, or I can’t imagine the Embassy would have done it without you.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, we’ll let your statement stand. (Laughter.)
QUESTION:
All right. Human rights have been a defining issue of your career.
Would you have left China if this case had not been resolved? And did
you indicate to the Chinese that you couldn’t leave without a deal?
SECRETARY CLINTON:
Well, I’m not going to answer a hypothetical, because thankfully it was
resolved. And we actually resolved it twice, but the second resolution
was acceptable to Mr. Chen, who, as I said repeatedly, we were working
hard to honor both his choices and our values.
QUESTION:
What assurances have the Chinese demanded that this case not be
repeated? And are you amazed that China even agreed to a second deal
after the first one fell through?
SECRETARY CLINTON:
Well, I’m not going to characterize our negotiations or any decisions
that were made, but I would just underscore that we really have stated
clearly that this is an extraordinary case with exceptional
circumstances. And it is not something that either we or anyone
anticipates occurring again.
QUESTION: What’s
different in U.S.-China relations that China actually agreed to this
deal? Could you even have imagined something like this being negotiated a
couple of years ago?
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well,
without really commenting on any understandings that were reached, I
will say that the intensive work that I have been doing along with our
American team through the mechanism of the Strategic and Economic
Dialogues, plus all of the interim meetings and consultations that we
have established over the last three and a half years, created a level
of personal relationships and understanding between individuals and our
government institutions that is absolutely critical for us to be able to
discuss the full range of challenges we both face.
As I’ve said,
and it was interesting because every high-level Chinese official I met
repeated back to me from a speech that I gave at the U.S. Institute of
Peace in Washington that what we are trying to do – the United States
and China – is unprecedented in world history. We’re trying to find a
way for an established power and a rising power to coexist. The United
States is going to remain a power, the predominant power economically,
politically, militarily, for a long time to come, as far as I can
imagine. We recognize that China is a rising power. There will not
always be a convergence of our interests or even our perceptions about
what is happening in the world. So how we manage this relationship is
absolutely critical to peace, security, prosperity, individual freedoms –
you name it. And therefore I have invested a lot and argued strongly
for combining what were dialogues and meetings on the economic side with
disparate dialogues and meetings on the strategic side under an
overarching umbrella. Because we have to be working across our
governments and we need to be sure that no issue predominates or
undermines the potential for reaching agreement on other equally
important issues.
QUESTION: I need to switch to
South Asia. U.S.-Pakistan talks are stalled over reopening supply lines
to Afghanistan and allowing drone strikes. Why is the U.S. ambassador to
Pakistan leaving early at such a critical time, and can the U.S.
continue counter-terror operations and achieve peace with the Taliban as
U.S. troops draw down from Afghanistan even if Pakistan is unwilling to
help?
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I don’t, as a
matter of course, comment on personnel matters. But I will say that the
ambassador has served ably and well under very difficult circumstances.
And it’s not unusual in these very difficult assignments that we have
now – Afghanistan, before that Iraq, Pakistan, others – that the
intensity of the work that is required, it leads someone to say I’m
going full out for two years and then I am going to need to step off
this fast track. So I’m very understanding of that. It was totally his
request, and we’re going to honor it.
QUESTION:
So the U.S.-Pakistani negotiations which continue over GLOCs and drone
strikes, how do you see those playing out and the U.S. getting the vital
cooperation it needs? What if Pakistan says no dice? Can we still
continue doing what we need to do?
SECRETARY CLINTON:
Well, we’ve made clear what our redlines are, and we stand ready to
negotiate over areas of concern between Pakistan and the United States.
They’ve had, as you know, some difficult political issues. We’ve waited
patiently for them to be resolved. There are still some outstanding
ones, apparently, that have not yet been so. But we have negotiations
from our Embassy and teams going over on a regular basis.
QUESTION: Do you see any breakthrough now?
SECRETARY CLINTON: I think it’s a matter of continuing to persevere.
QUESTION:
Here in India you’ve been talking about a range of strategic issues,
including cooperation on Iran. Now, Indian Government officials have
told me that they are cutting orders for Iranian crude by 20 percent
this fiscal year. Did Indian leaders pledge the same specific cuts to
you, and will that be enough to win them an exemption from U.S.
sanctions?
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, we are aware
that refineries have cut their orders and the actual purchases have been
reduced. So we’re encouraged by what India has done. I’m sending my
energy coordinator, Ambassador Carlos Pascual, with a team of experts
here to India next week, and they will be discussing the full range of
energy issues. Because I fully appreciate the Indian Government’s
concerns about fueling their economy. They still have an enormous amount
of work to do. They still have to extend electricity. They still have
to keep it going at affordable and predictable rates. They have a lot of
economic challenges they have to address.
So I think what they
are doing is certainly noteworthy. We think they can do more, but we
think it’s only fair that we sit down and discuss with them how they can
meet their legitimate energy needs while supporting the international
consensus of which they are part to end Iran’s nuclear weapons program.
QUESTION:
Last question on today’s news, the terror plot that has been exposed.
When did you know about that, and how does this fit into your view of
the continuing U.S. counterterrorism efforts. You mentioned al-Zawahiri,
you believe, is hiding in Pakistan. So is that – explain how this fits
into U.S. efforts to continue fighting terrorism (inaudible).
SECRETARY CLINTON:
Well, I mean, I’ve known about this for some time. I’ve certainly known
about the efforts to do something like it even longer. So I’ve been
someone who’s followed it closely. Look, I mean, you’re dealing with
such evil, perverse human beings, who sit around plotting about ways for
people to kill themselves and kill others at the same time. I mean, it
is so sick, Indira, truly.
And yet we have to remain vigilant and
attentive and quick and agile in our response, which thankfully we
continue to be, and working closely with the countries that I visited
this week. Counterterrorism is always on the agenda because we have to
defeat those who would use this tactic that is just designed to sow
death and destruction. It’s not a political agenda really. It’s not
intended to provide anybody with a better life. It’s a terrible vestige
of an attitude that somehow violence is a substitute for participating
in a legitimate political process.
QUESTION: So we can expect a strike on al-Zawahiri next?
SECRETARY CLINTON:
Well, I was very sad to see the video produced by al-Qaida of Mr.
Weinstein, who was kidnapped, is being held by al-Qaida in Pakistan, we
believe in the tribal areas. He was living in Lahore, Pakistan, from
which he was abducted. He was there doing development work to help the
poor people of Pakistan, and it’s just tragic. But since Zawahiri
inherited the mantle of leadership from bin Ladin and we continue to
believe he’s in Pakistan, we are going to pursue him and all those who
threaten Americans and our friends and allies.
QUESTION: Secretary Clinton, thank you so much for your time.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Thank you, Indira. Good to see you.
