Q: Can you comment on the significance of the apparent agreement now with the United States and China to conduct joint military exercises?
A: Well, first of all, let me say that China and the United States have been working on ways to improve military to military relationships since December of 1996, when the Defense Minister -- Chinese Defense Minister Chi came and visited Secretary Perry. Then, at the summit here last year in November between President Jiang and President Clinton, there was discussion of ways to work together in exercises and to improve military to military relationships. Secretary Cohen discussed this same theme in Beijing in January and it was obviously one of the topics that came up on President Clinton's visit to China last month and early this month.
We have already had joint search-and-rescue exercises with China. We had air exercises at the end of December in 1997. We had a long series of joint search-and-rescue exercises with the British forces operating out of Hong Kong. The British left and China took over the security of Hong Kong and we continued the same types of exercises with the Chinese forces. So, the first one we held was, as I said, late last December and that was with the Hong Kong Civil Aviation Department, the U.S. Air Force, and the U.S. Coast Guard.
There's another one planned to take place this December and that will, I assume, go ahead as scheduled. That will be another joint search-and-rescue exercise with the Hong Kong Civil Aviation Department, the U.S. Air Force and, I believe, the Coast Guard as well. So far, I believe those are the only joint exercises we've had with the Chinese military.
We have, long before the summit, invited them to send observers to several exercises and one just started yesterday. It's called RIMPAC 1998. It's an annual Naval exercise that takes place in the Pacific. It's a large Naval exercise and the Chinese have agreed to send two observers to that exercise. They will be aboard ships participating in the exercise. I believe there are six countries in the exercise. They will be aboard ships between July 15th and July 20th in and around Hawaii.
There's a second exercise that will begin later this month and that is called Cooperative Cope-Thunder, which is an air exercise -- multi-lateral air exercise -- that will take place in Alaska. That will involve air forces -- air force representatives -- from the United Kingdom, United States, Australia, Japan, Singapore, and there will be two Chinese observers watching that exercise as well. As I said, these arrangements were made long before the President's trip to China.
What was new and a breakthrough on the President's trip to China was an agreement to have reciprocal observer missions watching joint exercises in the two countries. The details of that haven't been worked out yet, but there was a fact sheet issued by the National Security Council when the President was in China that said both countries had agreed to send observers. That means we would send observers to China to watch certain military exercises and, on a reciprocal basis, they would be able to send observers to the United States to watch certain exercises.
So, over the next weeks and months, representatives from China and the United States will sit down and work out a schedule of joint exercises in each country that will be observed by the other country. And that was significant, because it's the first time that we've moved to a reciprocal observer status. Previously, we have invited the Chinese, and they haven't always invited us to watch their exercises.
Q: Further on China?
Q: Just on this point, is there a stated number of reciprocal exercises?
A: No, there was not a stated number. I mean, the fact sheet that was issued in China just contains a sentence -- two or three sentences, I guess -- on this explaining what's going to happen, saying that the details would be worked out. And I can give you a copy of that fact sheet if you don't have one already.
Q: Just so I understand, all the specific exercise information that you gave us before, that is stuff that was already planned? That was not covered by this new breakthrough, is it?
A: The Chinese observers, the PRC observers that had been sent to watch -- that will be sent to watch RIMPAC and that will be sent to watch Cooperative Cope-Thunder in Alaska -- those arrangements were made prior to the President's visit. They were very much in the spirit of the earlier summit that President Clinton had had with President Jiang here in late 1997.
Q: Have they reciprocated yet and planned any other -- any exercises that U.S. observers would go to?
A: I don't believe so, but that's exactly what was going to be worked out in talks following up on the summit.
Q: This used to be a rather modest number of observers. What's the value of this? I mean, does it go beyond the actual numbers? I mean --
A: I think it's actually a rather important confidence-building measure. It shows that, one, we have nothing to hide in these exercises involving several countries. And two, it shows the Chinese that we're willing to come and watch our exercises and other countries working together. We've been working very hard for the last couple of years to get the Chinese to subscribe to these types of confidence-building measures and also to become more open in their own planning and their own exercising, so that it will reduce the possibility of miscalculation by neighboring countries.
We've appealed to them, for instance, to brief our neighboring countries on their budgetary plans, their defense modernization and spending plans. And we've sent Assistant Secretary Warner and teams of people to China to brief them on our budget. They get briefings similar to what you get down here in the Pentagon press room on our modernization plans.
Q: I've got another China question. With regard to the detargeting arrangement that was announced a week ago by the President, Ken I understand that there are no details that had been worked out in that agreement yet. Is that correct? Is it much the same as the observer matter and -- was it even mentioned that there might be observers or visitations of various representatives to each nuclear arsenal of each country?
A: I'm not up on the details of that, but the President just returned on July 4th. He's only been back in the country for three days, so it's not surprising that there may be some details that aren't completely worked out yet. But my understanding is that those details will be worked out as necessary.
Q: All right. One other point I wanted to pursue in this particular matter, is the United States nuclear forces, especially the missile forces, are they currently de-targeted completely and would it be necessary for the U.S. to do anything at all to meet the detargeting agreement with the Chinese?
A: Our forces have been detargeted since 1994. They have not been aimed at any country. That was the -- we detargeted our forces after our agreement with the Russians in 1994.
...................Press: Thank you.