U.S. Relations with the People's Republic of China (2005)

State's Frazer Heralds Spread of Democracy in Africa

Assistant secretary also cites concern over human rights in Ethiopia

Following is the transcript of the briefing:

(begin transcript)

FOREIGN PRESS CENTER BRIEFING WITH ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR AFRICAN AFFAIRS JENDAYI FRAZER

TOPIC: "AFRICA UPDATE: DEMOCRACY AND HUMAN RIGHTS"

THE WASHINGTON FOREIGN PRESS CENTER, WASHINGTON, DC
MONDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2005, 1:45 P.M. EST

MR. BAILY: Good afternoon and welcome to the Foreign Press Center. This afternoon we have a briefing from Assistant Secretary for African Affairs, Ambassador Jendayi Frazer. She will open with a statement and then be happy to take your questions.

Ambassador Frazer is just back from several trips to Africa, which included stops in Liberia and Sudan and also for consultations in China on African issues.

Thank you.

[ ...Intervening Text... ]

QUESTION: Jim Lobe, Inter Press Service. I have several questions but I think they can all be answered relatively quickly. One, can you tell us a little bit about your trip to China and what you hoped and did, in fact, achieve?

Second, the Council on Foreign Relations just put out a report yesterday. One of the things they criticized that has to do with human rights is they said -- they implied that the military and intelligence agencies, but the military in particular, have too much control over a lot of these programs and the State Department should exert much more control. I'm interested in your opinion about that.

And also, do you have an opinion as to whether Hissene Habre should be extradited to Belgium now that the Senegalese Government has said they're going to refer this to the AU?

AMBASSADOR FRAZER: Okay. The first question was my consultations in China. I had a -- I was part -- I was there to carry out part of Deputy Secretary Zoellick's Strategic Dialogue with China and I went as the first sub-regional dialogue. We started with Africa. So I had an opportunity to meet with the -- basically the Vice Foreign Minister Dai, who should be here today continuing his discussions with Ambassador Zoellick; also, their assistant secretary level, the equivalent, for African affairs and their equivalent for the director of policy and planning. I also had an opportunity to meet and talk to graduate students at the University of Peking International Affairs program.

So it was broad consultations. We talked about our historical relationship, the United States' historical relationship with Africa, China's historical relationship with Africa. We also had an opportunity to talk about the principles, values and interests that inform our policies and our programs in Africa. And we had a chance to talk about specific countries and ways in which we might cooperate together in terms of helping to advance the NEPAD [New Partnership for Africa's Development] vision that Africans themselves have set up for the development of their continent.

So it was quite, I think, very productive and quite constructive and I'm looking forward to continuing this dialogue. I've invited my equivalent to come to the United States so that we can continue our dialogue. There are many areas I think where we actually can cooperate to strengthen Africa's capacity, agriculture, infrastructure, et cetera.

On the question of -- what was the second question?

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QUESTION: Steve Collingsay with AFP. Does the U.S. Government agree with the findings of the Council on Foreign Relations report that the African Union will be unable to fully man its small peacekeeping force for Darfur and that it's now time for an international non-UN coalition of nations to go in there and protect civilians? One member of the commission even raised the prospect of NATO being involved. How do you feel about that?

And just to follow up on the China question, the same report seems to think that or finds that in many cases China's engagement in Africa is in competition to U.S. goals and in some cases [is] directly contradictory to U.S. goals in Africa. How [do] you view China's position there?

AMBASSADOR FRAZER: Thank you. I would say on the report on Darfur and the role of the AU or outside forces that there are even dissenting views within the report itself on that recommendation. So the taskforce didn't come out with a single voice on that issue and I think that that reflects really the complexity of the problem in Darfur and how to address it. There's no right answer. I think our policy is correct. We very much back the African Union force in Darfur. Now, there is an assessment that it would take up to a 12,000-troop force to be able to secure Darfur. Well, probably it will take even more than 12,000. Right now, the AU has 6,700 or so, about 7,000 troops on the ground. It's a huge space. Darfur is a large space. What we need to do is focus on a political solution to the problem.

In the interim, certainly we believe that we have to continue to help build the capacity of the AU to increase the security. We're calling on all of the parties to respect their commitments to a cease-fire and we will look at how we can strengthen the capacity. For the AU to get from 7,000 to 12,000 is going to be very difficult because one thing about the AU and African forces is they're deployed all over the continent. They're in Burundi, they're in Cote d'Ivoire, they're in Liberia, they're in Sierra Leone, they're in the Congo. And so when we go to the normal troop contributors -- let's say, Nigeria, South Africa, Ghana, Senegal, you know, Ethiopia even -- it's hard to see where they're going to come up with more forces.

So we have to look at other options to get that troop ceiling up to about 12,000 and that may include looking at UN troop contributors. The AU hasn't made that request yet but we certainly are considering it as one of the options to strengthen the force. But again, that can't be a panacea for what is the true solution in Darfur, which is a political settlement. And that's where the talks in Abuja are so important.

And you asked -- did you ask a second question?

QUESTION: I asked about China.

AMBASSADOR FRAZER: No, I don't agree with the report that China -- China's interests or China's engagement in Africa is in direct competition to the United States. I think that that's a very small view of what's needed in Africa. I think that China has just as great a right to engage in Africa as any other country -- France, England, U.S., Norway, all of them. You know, I mean, why should we see ourselves in competition really with any country in Africa? There's enough good to be done. There are areas, countries in which clearly our policies don't -- aren't -- don't cohere, I should say, that being particularly Sudan and in Zimbabwe, in which we've tried to talk to China about responsible action in the context of Africa.

Particularly, let's look at Zimbabwe. China's main trading partner in Sub-Saharan Africa is South Africa. It has very little economic interest, frankly, in Zimbabwe, but yet, because of the freefall of the economy in Zimbabwe, you see all of these economic refugees flowing into South Africa and potentially undermining stability and economic progress in that country. So China should have an interest, a national interest, in seeing a return to democracy, in seeing the rule of law, in seeing an economy that is being restored in Zimbabwe.

And so just in its own interest, you would think that its policy -- and China's argument is that it has a policy of non-interference in the internal affairs of countries. But this policy is not even consistent with the African Union. That was an old OAU line: non-interference in the internal affairs of countries. But the African Union has said that we all have a collective responsibility to ensure the stability and the progress of countries. And so we would expect China to join with the others in the international community to try to help the Zimbabwean people restore democracy and to reform that economy.

And so, you know, there are areas where, obviously, with any country, you're going to have disagreements over policy, foreign policy towards other countries. But no, I do not agree that we're in direct competition with China in Africa.

[ ...Intervening Text... ]

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