Gore Visits China (3/24/97)
With Issues Galore, Gore Faces Diplomatic Test In China (3/23/97)
What Did China Want? (3/17/97)
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Gore: China Campaign Controversy No Stumbling Block
Vice president tells Chinese leaders that relations should remain on even keel
BEIJING (AllPolitics, March 25) -- Vice President Al Gore assured Chinese leaders that the controversy over China's alleged attempts to influence U.S. elections would not interfere with relations between the two countries.
Instead, Gore picked up a theme that President Bill Clinton and Russian President Boris Yeltsin expressed in Helsinki last week. "Both sides are clearly expressing a desire to lend forward momentum to the relationship, recognizing areas where we agree to disagree," Gore said.
When Chinese Premier Li Peng mentioned the controversy casually in talking with Gore today, the vice president, "intervened very forthrightly and very directly" to say the allegations were "very obviously in the air" and were being looked into, a U.S. official who was in the meeting told The Associated Press.
But Gore stressed that "the important point was that this in no way would deflect the administration from pursuing its policy of engagement with China," the official told AP.
In the talks with Gore, Chinese Premier Li Peng repeated his denials of Chinese involvement in American elections.
Few firm details have leaked from Gore's sessions with Chinese leaders, though officials would confirm that topics addressed included human rights abuses, arms sales and the July 1 transfer of Hong Kong to Chinese control. Gore is also laying the groundwork for a planned 1998 visit by Clinton.
The trip has put Gore in the uncomfortable position of appearing in public with Li, who declared martial law during the pro-democracy Tiananmen Square protests in 1989 and whom many blame for the bloody showdown that followed.
Gore and Li clinked champagne glasses to toast the signing of three contracts with U.S. companies.
"That was an ordinary thing that happens after signing ceremonies," Gore spokeswoman Ginny Terzano told AP. "You rent the room and you get the glasses."