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CNN Saturday Morning News

Powell Meets With Chinese President

Aired July 28, 2001 - 07:04   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.
BRIAN NELSON, CNN ANCHOR: Secretary of State Colin Powell met with the Chinese President Jiang Zemin and other government leaders today. It's a short visit to Beijing, and Powell wasted no time moving to the key points of his agenda, including expressing U.S. concerns about China exporting missile and weapons technology.

And CNN's Andrea Koppel joins us on the phone now from Beijing with the latest.

Andrea, good morning, or good afternoon, I should say to you, depending on where we are.

Hello, Andrea?

ANDREA KOPPEL, CNN STATE DEPARTMENT CORRESPONDENT: Powell just finished his one and only briefing here of -- with reporters following a full day of back-to-back meetings with senior Chinese leaders. He said that they were productive, but he also called himself "the advance party for President Bush," that is, as everyone knows, this visit was about laying the groundwork for the visit of President Bush to China later in October.

Now, as you mentioned, one of the key issues coming into the meeting today beyond the matter of President Bush's visit was the matter of U.S. allegations that China is not abiding by a November agreement that was signed with the Clinton administration to stop exporting missile technology -- this would be nuclear-capable ballistic missiles -- to countries like Pakistan and Iran. The Bush administration says that it has evidence that China has not abided by this agreement, and in fact has continued to export this type of technology.

It appears Secretary Powell didn't make much progress on that front. He said that there will be expert meetings between the U.S. and China in coming weeks. But in point of fact, they didn't get the acknowledgment from China that they had hoped to get, that in fact this is going on, and that they will stop it.

Now, on another matter of real central concern to the Bush administration, on human rights, Secretary Powell said that he will be and the U.S. and China will be resuming dialogue on human rights in coming months. He said that while he didn't raise specific cases per se, he felt that it was more important to look at the whole issue of human rights, the rule of law, rather than raising specific issues. And he said he did this, Brian, in every single meeting.

He said that they really had a candid exchange of views and that as far as he is concerned, the EP-3 incident -- that's that April 1 spy plane, U.S. spy plane, that collided with the Chinese fighter jet off Hainan Island -- that that incident really is behind them, both sides, Brian, going out of their way really to make the point that they feel that U.S.-China relations are now moving in a more positive direction. This, of course, of real concern to China, which wants to have a successful meeting in October when it hosts an economic -- rather, regional meeting of economic leaders here in China.

They're also hoping to sort of follow up on the upswing in international recognition that China has received since it got the 2008 Olympics earlier this month.

And so as Secretary Powell wraps up his trip here this evening, both sides are saying that the visit was a success, but in point of fact, Brian, the specific progress that the U.S. had hoped to make on matters of human rights and on the missile proliferation seem to be rather small -- Brian.

NELSON: All right, thanks, Andrea. CNN's Andrea Koppel in Beijing.

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