Interview with Central China Television in Shanghai: July 1, 1998

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, July 6, 1998

I'll give you another example. We want to do everything we can to end the stalemate between North and South Korea. But if China had not been willing to work with us, I don't think we could have started these four-party talks again or we would be very effective in urging North Korea and South Korea to talk directly. But because we can work with China, we can have more influence.

Here, I come to China, and I say, we want to be your friends; we share the security interest, and we're working together with India and Pakistan on the nuclear tests; we're working to stop the transfer of dangerous weapons; we're working to cooperate in environmental projects; and we know we have differences, and I want to tell you why I believe in religious freedom or political freedom. If you think about it, that's a leadership issue for the United States. But the success of the leadership depends upon having a partnership with China.

So it's a different sort of world leadership than in the past where it's just a question of who has the biggest army gets to send a list of instructions to another country, and you think it will be done. That's not the way the world works now. You have to have - sometimes you have to stand strong for what you believe in, in terms of sending the soldiers into Bosnia or imposing economic sanctions on South Africa, as both China and the U.S. did in the time of apartheid. But most days you get more done by finding a way to engage countries and work with them and persuade them that you're doing the right thing. It's important to have allies in the world we live in - to be more cooperative, even from a leader's point of view you have to have allies and people that will work with you.

Q. According to my understanding, Mr. President, the role of America in the world, I mean, the United States in the world, in international affairs is not, as some people believe or argue, the role of world cop according to your understanding?

The President. No. We're not the world's policeman. But sometimes we have to be prepared to do things that other countries can't or won't do. For example, I think we did absolutely the right thing these last several years to insist that we keep economic sanction on Iraq until they give up their weapons of mass destruction program. I think we did the right thing to go into Bosnia. I think we did the right thing to restore democracy in Haiti.

But most times the problems cannot be solved by military means. And most times, even if we take initiative, we should be trying to create a world in the 21st century, where there is a structure where peace and prosperity and the ability to solve new problems - like the environmental problems - where that kind of structure works, and where you minimize weapons of mass destruction, drug trafficking, ethnic wars, like we had from Rwanda to the Middle East to Northern Ireland.

And so the United States' role, I think, is to try to create a structure where more likely than not the right things will be done when problems arise - not to just do it all ourselves or tell other people what to do.