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CNN Live Saturday

Family Support for George W. Bush Could Provide Diplomatic Support As Well

Aired April 07, 2001 -   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DONNA KELLEY, CNN ANCHOR: When it comes to his negotiations with China, President Bush need only look to a former ambassador to China for advice, another man named George Bush.

CNN's Garrick Utley has this report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GARRICK UTLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): When a president speaks out on an issue as sensitive as the Americans being held in China, there's no shortage of advice: advice from the State Department, the Pentagon, from inside the White House.

(on camera): And there's another source of advice this president can draw on, a very close inside source, his family.

(voice-over): The two Bush presidents are not exactly like father like son. Bush the elder was deeply involved in world affairs. Following Richard Nixon's opening to China in 1972, Bush went to Beijing as the first American ambassador to Communist China. It was during the Bush's two years there that son George W. visited his parents for a month, his longest stay ever outside the United States.

And then there is his uncle, Prescott Bush, who formed a U.S- China chamber of commerce in 1993 to promote investment, including his own, in China. In a message to prospective members, he notes that, my brother, George, has been instrumental in the development of U.S. and China relations.

Of course, those relations are primarily trade, business, the vision of China as the world's largest consumer market. But there's also a darker view, China as a potential military threat to American interests, a view held by those more repelled by communism than attracted by China's growing capitalism.

In 1989, barely one month after his inauguration, President George Bush was in Beijing pushing the open door to China even wider.

GEORGE BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And another old friend, thank you.

UTLEY: Old friends, such as China's leader Deng Xiaoping, with whom Bush had played bridge. But then came Tiananmen Square, student demands for greater freedom followed by bloody repression. Like his son 12 years later, the elder Bush would stand firm, suspending weapons sales to China, but not slamming the door.

BUSH: What I want to do is preserve this relationship as best I can, and I hope the conditions that lie ahead will permit me to preserve this relationship.

UTLEY (on camera): Of course, we don't know what private conversations the Bushes have had over China, but no son can forget what his father did.

(voice-over): And it appears that George W. Bush has adopted his father's way of playing the big power game with China. In public, speak firmly; in private, work hard to solve the problem. That may be a consistent policy. With China, it's also a family legacy.

Garrick Utley, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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