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SUBJECT: Lake Meeting·with President Jacques Chirac of France
PARTICIPANTS:
French President Jacques' Chirac Jean-David Levitte, Diplomatic Counselor to President Chirac Bernard Ernie, Deputy Diplomatic Counselor to President Chirac VADM Jean-Luc Delaunay, Military Advisor
U.S. Anthony Lake, Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs Pamela Harriman, Ambassador to France Peter Tarnoff, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Alexander Vershbow, Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for European Affairs, NSC (Notetaker) .
DATE TIME AND PLACE:
November 1, 1996, 12:00 Elysee Palace, Paris - 2:4
President Chirac: They have been fighting for centuries and won't stop. A word regarding China. I am not sure we are always treating China with the necessary respect. There is a group of high-level Chinese historians who are completing a dictionary of humiliations of the past 150 years. We need to keep in mind that they are the oldest living civilization in the world. They were at the peak of art and science when we were all climbing in the trees. And this fact has left its trace. For fifty years we tried to profit from China's weakness and systematically humiliated China. Now for the first time they believe they can become masters of the world. I know Chinese civilization well. They will make us pay a heavy price in 20-30 years if we are not careful now. They will become the leading economic power and then the world's leading power, so we have to be careful for our grandchildren's sake.
For example, every year we perform a ridiculous exercise in Geneva. We introduce a motion to condemn human rights violations in China at the UN Huma~ Rights Commission, where a majority of countries reject it. This proves globally the wisdom.of the United Nations.· We both look stupid and ridiculous. We recognize that there are human rights probiems, and we certainly accept the universal value of human rights. But for 2,500 to S,000 years the Chinese have been affected by Confucianism under which th~ question is "how does man serve society," rather than society serving man. Therefore, we need to find the right way to present the issue. When we were fighting each other as savages, in China they h,ad the· first judges. I believe we should move from a strategy of confrontation that is a dead end to a strategy of discussion. I tried .last year but didn't succeed. Let us work with them so that we can agree on a common approach.
https://www.archives.gov/files/declassification/iscap/pdf/2016-140-doc13.pdf
PARTICIPANTS:
French President Jacques' Chirac Jean-David Levitte, Diplomatic Counselor to President Chirac Bernard Ernie, Deputy Diplomatic Counselor to President Chirac VADM Jean-Luc Delaunay, Military Advisor
U.S. Anthony Lake, Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs Pamela Harriman, Ambassador to France Peter Tarnoff, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Alexander Vershbow, Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for European Affairs, NSC (Notetaker) .
DATE TIME AND PLACE:
November 1, 1996, 12:00 Elysee Palace, Paris - 2:4
President Chirac: They have been fighting for centuries and won't stop. A word regarding China. I am not sure we are always treating China with the necessary respect. There is a group of high-level Chinese historians who are completing a dictionary of humiliations of the past 150 years. We need to keep in mind that they are the oldest living civilization in the world. They were at the peak of art and science when we were all climbing in the trees. And this fact has left its trace. For fifty years we tried to profit from China's weakness and systematically humiliated China. Now for the first time they believe they can become masters of the world. I know Chinese civilization well. They will make us pay a heavy price in 20-30 years if we are not careful now. They will become the leading economic power and then the world's leading power, so we have to be careful for our grandchildren's sake.
For example, every year we perform a ridiculous exercise in Geneva. We introduce a motion to condemn human rights violations in China at the UN Huma~ Rights Commission, where a majority of countries reject it. This proves globally the wisdom.of the United Nations.· We both look stupid and ridiculous. We recognize that there are human rights probiems, and we certainly accept the universal value of human rights. But for 2,500 to S,000 years the Chinese have been affected by Confucianism under which th~ question is "how does man serve society," rather than society serving man. Therefore, we need to find the right way to present the issue. When we were fighting each other as savages, in China they h,ad the· first judges. I believe we should move from a strategy of confrontation that is a dead end to a strategy of discussion. I tried .last year but didn't succeed. Let us work with them so that we can agree on a common approach.
https://www.archives.gov/files/declassification/iscap/pdf/2016-140-doc13.pdf
