PARTICIPANTS:
Jim Jeffrey, Deputy National Security Advisor
Dan Price, Deputy National Security Advisor for Economic Affairs
7:31 P.M. (Local)
MS. PERINO: Good evening. I brought with me Jim Jeffrey and Dan Price of the National Security Council. Both attended the meetings today -- well, at least Jim was in the meeting this morning and then all three of us were in the Hu Jintao meeting. So we will give you a readout on both, and then I'll be -- Jim is going to take the foreign policy side of things, Dan Price is going to talk about the economic issues, and then I can bat cleanup -- if that's the right metaphor -- on the end of it. Thanks.
MR. JEFFREY: Thank you, Dana. Good evening. What I'd like to do is to go through on the record the meeting with Hu Jintao this afternoon, and the President. The meeting lasted 90 minutes. It went over the allotted time. The reason is that both of these leaders had a great deal to discuss on both international issues, political issues, and economic issues. As Dana said, Dan will describe the economic issues in more detail in a second.
The overall tenor of the meeting was very, very warm. These two gentlemen know each other well, they're friends, they've had good relations for a good, long time. And the meeting was very productive and it was a rich meeting from the standpoint of both.
The meeting began with a discussion of political issues. First of all, Taiwan. The President reiterated his position on Taiwan, reassured Hu that his position had not changed; went through our concerns, which we've just made public, about the referendum in Taiwan about U.N. membership. The President of China indicated his concerns.
And they then discussed the Iran situation. The President underlined the need for international solidarity, particularly among the Perm 5, as we move forward with a possible third resolution against Iran. We had a good conversation on this subject. We discussed the situation with the implementation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1737 and 1747, including the transfer of arms. We have some concerns about that, as do the Chinese, and we exchanged views on how to ensure that the implementation of these resolutions is further improved. As I said, we talked in general terms about the necessity of a third resolution and we'll see in weeks ahead how that develops.
On Darfur, the Chinese side indicated that it would be deploying an engineer unit soon, and both sides agreed that we've made a major step forward with 1769, and that we need to continue working this very, very important humanitarian and political issue.
President Bush and President Hu discussed the military issue of transparency in China, specifically the series of exchanges that we've had at high levels between the two countries. Both leaders agreed that we need to continue these, we need to expand that process. We're hoping soon to conclude an agreement on a hotline between the two country's militaries, and we hope to announce that soon.
President Bush also raised the issue politically of religious freedom and democracy in China. He agreed that he would -- he accepted the invitation to go to the Olympics, and he stressed that for him that he was going to the Olympics for the sports and not for any political statement.
That's all I have on the political side, and on the security side I'm going to turn it over to Dan now. Thank you.
. . .
Q On the political front, in regards to Iran, can you characterize how President Hu responded to talks about Iran and whether there's a chance that China will change its stance in trying to block Iran from developing its nuclear program?
MR. JEFFREY: Well, China's stance has been very supportive of blocking Iran's acquisition of nuclear weapons. After all, China has supported three U.N. resolutions, two of them Chapter 7 resolutions, in roughly the last year. We're very appreciative of this.
In working on the way forward, the two leaders went over the state of play and our concern in particular that the international community has to work as a team to deal with this threat. We believe that the Chinese President is fully aware of this and that we will continue to cooperate with him.
Q It was the hope of President Bush to try to get China to be more aggressive on Iran -- at least that's what we heard going in. Do you think that he accomplished that?
MR. JEFFREY: Well, we would like to see the entire international community be more -- I wouldn't use the word "aggressive," I would use the word "concerned and active" on the Iranian account. Because President Bush believes, we all believe that this is one of the major threats to peace today, and our job is to ensure that everybody understands the same degree of urgency that we have. I think we made progress today. Once again, the proof will be in the pudding, we'll see how things develop. But again, we had a very good conversation on Iran.
Q Two questions, one following up on Bret's question, first. Did the Chinese President offer any commitment to let through another resolution on Iran or support it, anything like that?
MR. JEFFREY: I wouldn't characterize specifically what he said, but I would stand by my comment that we had a very good conversation on Iran and that we're going to work forward -- we're going to move forward together on this.
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END 7:54 P.M. (Local)