SCENESETTER FOR THE SECRETARY'S VISIT TO CHINA,

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 BEIJING 000350 SIPDIS DEPARTMENT FOR S/ES; EAP; EAP/CM E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/05/2028 TAGS: OVIP PREL PGOV ECON PARM MARR CH TW SUBJECT: SCENESETTER FOR THE SECRETARY'S VISIT TO CHINA, FEBRUARY 20-22 Classified By: Charge d'Affaires, a.i., Daniel Piccuta. Reasons 1.4 (b /d). ¶1. (C) Madame Secretary, your having chosen to visit China during your first trip abroad as Secretary of State has special significance well understood and appreciated by the Chinese. Chinese leaders place great importance on personal relationships with foreign counterparts and on the symbolism of high-level visits. Frankly, they seem a little anxious to get off on the right foot with you. By agreeing to visit China a month after taking office and by publicly calling for a more "comprehensive dialogue with China," you have already eased some of their concerns. The leadership recognizes that China's prosperity and security are linked to strong bilateral relations with the United States and are uncertain how the new U.S. Administration will approach the relationship. They will want to use your visit to demonstrate here and abroad that the change in U.S. Administration has not resulted in a diminished or less cooperative U.S.-China relationship. They will seek your confirmation of a U.S. commitment to work with the PRC and will be looking for signals indicating where the Administration's approach will differ from the past eight years. ¶2. (C) You will meet China's top national leaders and top foreign policy managers: President Hu Jintao, Premier Wen Jiabao, State Councilor Dai Bingguo and Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi. Your interlocutors will listen intently for you to mention our one China policy and will likely subject you to a recitation of their "one-China principle" by stressing the "sensitivity" of Taiwan and its status as a "core interest" for the PRC. Reassuring your interlocutors that our three-decade-old one China policy continues into this Administration, as does its basis in the three U.S.-China Joint Communiques and the Taiwan Relations Act, is important, and you may also wish to acknowledge President Hu's more flexible Taiwan policy and its contribution to having eased cross-Strait tension. The Chinese will hope to understand your vision of how the United States sees bilateral relations and will watch for assurance that we intend to continue or even reconfigure and enhance our high-level exchanges and dialogues. If you allude to our two Presidents' conversations and upcoming opportunities to meet personally, it will create a foundation for an even stronger relationship that you and the President can build upon toward the April London G-20 Summit and beyond. ¶3. (C) I suggest you make clear our view that key to achieving the more positive, cooperative bilateral relationship that we desire with China will be concrete results from enhanced collaboration not only in the economic sphere but on critical third-country, regional and global issues as well. You can express our hope that China reaches international human rights and rule of law norms not as a sop to Western values but because no country can reach its full potential until it does so. You can explain how the U.S.-China relationship fits into President Obama's stated goal of pursuing diplomacy and international consultation by laying out concrete actions the Chinese can take to support what PRC leaders have consistently claimed are our shared objectives with regard to Iran, Darfur, Burma, North Korea and other issues. You can emphasize the critical importance of Sino-American cooperation in averting catastrophic climate change and developing sources of clean energy. You can outline our new opportunities to reach common goals in Afghanistan, Pakistan and India and our desire to deepen our military-to-military and nonproliferation exchanges. The Importance of Relationships and Frameworks -------------- - ¶4. (C) The Chinese want to build a rapport with you and with the President. They recognize the positive results from the Sino-American relationship during the previous Administration and have concluded that the improvement over the years was due to close personal links between leaders coupled with regular high-level dialogues that identified areas of mutual concern, encouraged coordination and facilitated successful outcomes. They will expect an invitation to FM Yang Jiechi for a reciprocal visit to Washington and an expression of the President's interest in meeting with President Hu Jintao and would be disappointed not to have both mentioned. BEIJING 00000350 002 OF 003 The Chinese "Roadmap" for the Relationship -------------- ¶5. (C) Eager to engage the new Administration in as positive a manner as possible, the Chinese laid out on January 15 a "roadmap for further development of relations." It would be appropriate in your meetings in Beijing to acknowledge that preparation -- one of the points was an invitation for you to visit Beijing. ¶6. (C) Another key point was China's "commitment to deepen cooperation through the Strategic Economic Dialogue and the Senior Dialogue, irrespective of their future form or focus, as well as through other dialogues." The Chinese credit the framework, level and frequency of these dialogues with keeping U.S.-China relations crisis-free in recent years and will be very much looking for confirmation that we will continue our substantive senior-level exchanges and for signals about changes proposed or contemplated. They want to know how you envision "a more comprehensive dialogue with China." The more specific you can be on this subject, the more quickly and seriously are the Chinese likely to get down to business. ¶7. (C) In addition, the Chinese described their "desire to strengthen cooperation on international and regional issues, such as the global financial crisis, India/Pakistan and North Korea, and to improve conditions for better military-to-military relations." The Chinese will be keen to learn what particular topics you might add or choose to emphasize. Your Interlocutors -------------- ¶8. (C) You will meet China's top two leaders and their top foreign policy managers: -- President Hu Jintao is China's top leader, simultaneously holding the three key levers of power in the Chinese system: General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (since 11/15/02),President of the People's Republic of China (since 3/15/03) and Chairman of the Central Military Commission (since 9/19/04). This is the meeting to lay out the President's and your vision for the bilateral relationship. President Hu is expected to remain China's top leader until fall 2012. Hu is currently at the peak of his power -- though he rules largely by consensus with eight other top Communist Party leaders. A pragmatic and cautious technocrat, Hu's signature policies, "Scientific Development" and "Harmonious Society," are designed to shift China from a growth-at-all-costs mentality to a more sustainable growth model and a redistribution of resources to assist those left behind in China's "economic miracle." On Taiwan, Hu has pursued more realistic, flexible and less urgent policies than his predecessors and appears eager to continue the improvements in cross-Strait relations witnessed over the past year. President Hu is visiting Saudi Arabia, Mali, Senegal, Tanzania and Mauritius February 10-17. -- Premier Wen Jiabao's primary responsibility is managing the Chinese economy and your meeting with Premier Wen will be your best opportunity to engage the Chinese leadership on economic issues. Like Hu, Wen is expected to step down in ¶2012. Frequently in the media spotlight both domestically and abroad, Wen is media savvy -- his Facebook profile was the most popular of any non-American in the world. Well-known for his common touch, Wen is referred to popularly as "the people's premier" and was President Hu's point man in responding to the SARS crisis in 2003 and the devastating Sichuan earthquake of May 2008. Even before the global financial crisis, Wen made high-profile efforts to alleviate the plight of the rural poor and migrant workers. In January, Wen attended the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Before and after Davos, Wen traveled to Brussels, Germany, Spain and the UK pushing the message that China can contribute to global recovery by maintaining its own domestic growth. On the trip, Wen pointedly circled but did not stop in France to express continued Chinese displeasure with President Sarkozy's having met with the Dalai Lama in December. BEIJING 00000350 003 OF 003 -- State Councilor Dai Bingguo is China's senior-most foreign policy official. On the State Council, Dai concurrently serves as head of the Communist Party's Central Foreign Affairs Office, providing him close access to China's top leaders and allowing him to monitor foreign relations conducted by the Foreign Ministry as well as high-level exchanges managed by senior Party officials. Dai is a former Executive (Senior) Vice Foreign Minister responsible for the North Korean nuclear issue. He led the Chinese side in our twice-yearly bilateral Senior Dialogue on strategic political and security issues. An ethnic Tujia minority from poor and distant Guizhou province, Dai has risen from a hard-scrabble, literally "barefoot" childhood to the top levels of China's government. -- Yang Jiechi is China's youngest-ever Foreign Minister. A fluent English speaker, Yang was educated in the UK and served twice in Washington -- he was China's Ambassador to the United States from 2001-2005. FM Yang will want to hear U.S. plans for bilateral dialogues and will be prepared to respond on almost any foreign policy issue. Yang is accompanying President Hu on his trip to Saudi Arabia and Africa and accompanied Premier Wen on his trip to Davos. Yang visited Rwanda, Uganda, South Africa, Malawi, Brazil and Portugal January 13-21. His daughter is a sophomore at Yale. ¶9. (C) Madame Secretary, all of us at Embassy Beijing look forward to your arrival and want to contribute to the success of your first visit to China. PICCUTA