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CNN Saturday Morning News

Reporter's Notebook: Powell's Trip to Beijing

Aired July 28, 2001 - 09:36   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.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: It's time now for our "Reporter's Notebook." We're focusing today on Secretary of State Colin Powell's whirlwind trip to Beijing.

BRIAN NELSON, CNN ANCHOR: Powell is covering a lot of diplomatic ground in a very few short hours, and some of the issues he's raising, like human rights and exporting weapons technology, are very touchy issues between China and the U.S.

Our State Department correspondent Andrea Koppel is covering Secretary of State Powell's trip, and she joins us from Beijing to answer your questions.

I guess this is good evening to you, Andrea.

ANDREA KOPPEL, CNN STATE DEPARTMENT CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it is. Good evening -- good morning to you, Brian.

NELSON: All right. Why don't we take our first e-mail for you and see what it has to say? Well, no, we're going to take a phone call first.

KOPPEL: OK.

NELSON: This will be Bob from Virginia. Bob, go ahead.

CALLER: This is Joe from Georgia.

NELSON: OK, Joe...

CALLER: Yes, Andrea, I'd like to ask you, with the sorry track record with the Chinese on human rights violations and also trying to buy U.S. relations, how can the Americans ever trust the Chinese communist government?

KOPPEL: Well, I don't think they do, and I don't think that you would hear anyone within the Bush administration saying that they will. I think it's really about trying to have a constructive engagement with a country that's 1.3 billion people. It's a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, it has nuclear weapons, and is going to be a pretty significant player in this region in the not-too- distant future.

And so I don't think it's a matter of the U.S. trusting or not trusting China. But the fact is, you can't ignore China. And so they're trying to deal with China.

NELSON: All right.

PHILLIPS: Want to go to the e-mails?

NELSON: Let's do an e-mail.

PHILLIPS: All right, let's go straight to the e-mails. This one comes from Scott Rene. "I support improving relations with China but am torn because of the razing" -- or -- I think he says -- yes, "the razing of Tibet. How can we give up on Tibet?"

KOPPEL: Well, again, I think you would hear the Bush administration say that they haven't forgotten about Tibet. You don't hear them talk about it, though, publicly, and certainly the questions that journalists have been asking Secretary Powell and others in the Bush administration, when it comes to human rights, have tended, at least in the last number of weeks, to focus on those U.S. residents, the Chinese-born U.S. residents who were detained and sentenced to prison here in China.

And so that's -- you know, that's a very good question. I think that if you were to ask the Bush administration, they would say that that's certainly something on their agenda. But you don't hear them talk about it.

NELSON: No, you're right, Andrea. Let's take another call now. We've got a call from Bob now in Virginia...

CALLER: Good morning, Brian and Kyra, and good evening, Andrea. My question to you is this. What does Colin Powell hope to accomplish on his trip, A? B, will China change the record on human rights, and at some point will China ever hold free and fair elections?

KOPPEL: Well, how about if I take your third question first? And I can tell you, because I lived in China up until 1998, and went down into the Chinese countryside at one point to do a story for about a week on Chinese democratic village elections. And so on the most fundamental grassroots level in China, there are democratic elections. I have to say, though, that most of the time the Communist Party does win.

But the fact of the matter is, sometimes the opposition candidate has won. Now, in terms of what the -- actually, can you please repeat your first question?

NELSON: Bob, you still there?

PHILLIPS: You still on the phone, Bob?

NELSON: I think we've lost him.

KOPPEL: Is Bob still there?

NELSON: No, we'll -- he -- we're -- we've lost him, Andrea, sorry. KOPPEL: You guys happen to remember what his first question was?

NELSON: Well, yes, I think the first question was...

PHILLIPS: Accomplishing...

NELSON: ... he -- what does Powell expect to accomplish on this visit?

KOPPEL: Thank you, short-term memory loss. What he hopes to accomplish, Bob, is something very simple, and that is to be able to say that the bad times are behind us, that U.S. EP-3 spy that collided with the Chinese fighter jet back in April, that that incident is now closed, done, finished, and now the U.S. and Chinese governments can look forward. And why are they looking forward? Well, because they want to have a successful visit when President Bush comes here in October.

And so both sides, really, are trying to put the best face possible on the U.S.-China relationship. Secretary Powell, at least in the short term, just wanted to be able to come here, get through a day of meetings, and be able to leave, as he will in a number of hours now, saying that the U.S.-China relationship is on sounder footing.

NELSON: All right, thank you, Andrea.

Let's take another e-mail for you right now. This comes from Joseph Williams in Wichita, Kansas, who says, "Has China's recent control of both Hong Kong and Macau, which brought about the one country-two systems, have any effects on U.S.-China relations?"

I think -- can you understand that one?

KOPPEL: Well -- yes, I think I do, and I would say that certainly the U.S. has a lot of trade with Hong Kong, for one, and there have been questions raised since the 1997 hand-over, in particular, of Hong Kong, as to whether or not the Chinese are in fact honoring that one country-two systems formula, and whether or not, in fact, they're allowing Hong Kong the same religious freedom, the same freedom of the press, that it had had for dozens of years under the British occupation.

And so that I think that as far as the U.S. relationship with China, as of the hand-over of Hong Kong, in particular, you could say that there have been questions raised, and certainly the U.S. government is raising this, as to whether or not the Chinese government is doing enough to keep its promise to respect China's (sic) system of government -- and the democratic system of government that exists there now.

NELSON: And I should just point out that the United States just restarted, as it were, port calls in Hong Kong, which was -- were interrupted by the EP-3 incident.

KOPPEL: Exactly.

NELSON: Another e-mail?

PHILLIPS: Yes, let's take another e-mail. This one from Charles Brown. "What's the difference between China's human rights record as opposed to the United States' record? Both countries execute their citizens, both countries have personal agendas."

Well, that one's an interesting one for Andrea.

NELSON: Yes, there's a toughie.

PHILLIPS: That's a tough one.

KOPPEL: Well, certainly -- that's certainly a -- that's certainly a point that the Chinese government likes to raise in its conversations with the U.S. side on human rights. But I would certainly point out that the number of citizens -- and I believe that the United States is probably -- has one of the largest numbers of executions of its citizens in the world, but believe it or not, the Chinese top that. And the Chinese don't give their citizens a fair and free trial, as is supposed to take place in the United States.

And usually, believe it or not, the period of time that takes place between when a Chinese prisoner is sentenced to be executed and the time that he is actually executed can sometimes be a matter of hours, whereas as we all know, back in the United States, a citizen who's on death row, a person on death row can be on death row for years and years and years before he's ever executed, if ever.

And so I would certainly say that that's a good point. The Chinese have questioned the U.S. record on human rights, but in terms of sort of seeing any similarity or any -- or equality between the two sides, I would say that China's record is a little worse than the U.S.

NELSON: All right. We've got one more for you before we go, Andrea. Let's read that off here now. This is from Ken in Fairfield, Connecticut. "Do you see any hope for more democracy and human rights in China's near-term future, especially as the U.S.-China relations improve?" And I think having been back there after a bit of an absence, you may be able to have some perspective.

KOPPEL: Well, I can tell you that what the Chinese government likes to say, and certainly what correspondents such as myself have observed on the ground to be true, is that the average Chinese citizen's life has dramatically improved over a period of -- within the last 20 years, a period when people were afraid to talk to you, to even have a private conversation with you, and with they -- in which they would share their real feelings about the government, about life, about anything in general.

That has changed. Now you can interview people on TV about that. But having said that, the gap is still there between what exists in the United States, where we can write as a journalist anything we want criticizing our government, or we can say whatever we want, and not fear being arrested for being critical of the government, that doesn't exist in a very public way here in China. You still really don't have a free press, and you still really don't have freedom of speech when it comes to criticizing the government.

And so I can tell you that it has improved a whole lot in the last 20 or so years. I can't tell you how much longer it's going to be, but certainly what the U.S. has said and what the international community has said is, the more that China is forced to open its economy, the more Western influence will filter in. And part of that Western influence being the democratic sort of free speech, freedom to live your life as you like, that those values would also come into this country.

PHILLIPS: And looking ahead to the Olympics, we'll be interested to see the effects from that also.

NELSON: It'll play out between now and the Olympics.

PHILLIPS: Our State Department correspondent, Andrea Koppel, she is covering Secretary of State Colin Powell's trip. She joins us live from Beijing. Andrea, thanks so much for your insight this morning.

NELSON: Thanks, Andrea, good to see you.

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