Christopher R. Hill, Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs made following testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs on June 7, 2005:
For three decades, seven Administrations have sought to integrate China and its people into the international system. We have succeeded in developing a bipartisan policy that has met with considerable success since 1972. Today’s challenge is different from 30 years ago: the key question is how a more integrated and powerful China uses its growing influence and whether it will do so in concert with the United States and its allies.
Will it accept the challenge of the international community to help enhance the peace, prosperity, and stability of the region and in doing so, positively change the international system as we know it today? As Secretary of State Rice said in a March 19 speech in Tokyo, the U.S. “welcomes the rise of a confident, peaceful, and prosperous China [and wants] China as a global partner,” but one that is “able and willing to match its growing capabilities to its international responsibilities.”
We also seek a China that is moving toward greater openness and rule of law at home, though it clearly has a long way to go. How China changes depends mostly on the people of China, but how others and we interact with it will have an impact on the environment in which China makes its choices.
