After visiting New Delhi in December 2000, Senator Kerry addressed the Senate on the importance of U.S. relations with India, the world’s largest democracy. He spoke about the importance of U.S. humanitarian assistance to the Indian people in the aftermath of devastating earthquakes in the western state of Gujarat, and he emphasized the great potential for the United States and India to develop a strong, cooperative relation across a broad range of issues.

As the senior Democrat – now Chairman – of the Foreign Relations Subcommittee on East Asia and the Pacific, Senator Kerry continued his leadership on the question of U.S. relations with China and Taiwan. Following up on a major speech on U.S.-China relations in 2000, Senator Kerry addressed the question of U.S. relations with Taiwan. In a speech on the Senate floor, he reiterated the importance of the long-standing U.S. “one China” policy to maintaining stability across the Taiwan Strait. While emphasizing the U.S. national interest in preserving democracy in Taiwan, he outlined the dangers of abandoning the strategic ambiguity that serves both to deter a cross-Strait attack by China as well as a precipitous declaration of independence by Taiwan that could provoke a war.

Senator Kerry also worked on the issue of U.S. relations with South Korea and the future of our policies toward North Korea. The Senator met with South Korean President Kim Dae Jung during his March 2001 visit to Washington, and pressed the Bush administration to continue to support President Kim’s efforts to normalize relations with Pyongyang. In a speech on the Senate floor, Senator Kerry also outlined the importance of continuing talks with North Korea begun during the Clinton administration, which were aimed at freezing Pyonyang’s long-range missile program.

Continuing to play a major role in the debate on U.S. National Missile Defense policy, Senator Kerry gave two major floor statements on NMD developments in the Bush administration. He restated his concerns about the rush to deploy a system that has not been fully tested, but reiterated his support for the deployment, in cooperation with U.S. allies and other nuclear powers, of an effective, limited NMD system. He urged the Administration to seriously engage Russia in discussions on ways to amend the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM) and to consult closely with U.S. allies in Europe and Asia, as well as China, to prevent changes in U.S. strategic policies from destabilizing the international environment.

Following the President’s announcement in December 2001 that he was notifying Russia of the U.S. intent to withdraw from the ABM Treaty, Senator Kerry returned to the Senate floor to express his concern that the Administration continues to emphasize the threat from ballistic missiles at a time when the United States is confronting the tremendous challenge of providing for homeland security and fighting the war on terrorism. Senator Kerry also commended the Administration’s progress on negotiating an agreement to reduce the U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear stockpiles, and once again emphasized the importance of continuing to focus on vigorous arms control and nonproliferation programs as the most effective defense against the threat from weapons of mass destruction.

In keeping with his commitment to supporting strong U.S. nonproliferation efforts, Senator Kerry took an active role in opposing the nomination of John Bolton for Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security. Mr. Bolton has expressed extreme views on a wide range of U.S. foreign policy issues, including criticizing supporters of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty as “neo-pacifists”and questioning whether the United States is ever legally bound by its treaty obligations. Both in hearings before the Foreign Relations Committee and in a statement on the Senate floor, Senator Kerry outlined his deep concern about confirming Mr. Bolton for a position responsible for issues on which the nominees views are contrary to those held by most Americans.

Senator Kerry worked in 2000 with a bipartisan group of Foreign Relations Committee members to author and pass the then-largest response by the Federal Government to the AIDS epidemic. Since that time, the Senator has continued his work in this field by securing Senate support for the vaccine tax credit to bolster research and development of vaccines against AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria. He is also co-Chair, along with Senator Bill Frist, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies HIV/AIDS Task Force. Finally, Senator Kerry continued his efforts to develop legislation to lay out a strategic U.S. approach to the global HIV/AIDS epidemic.

In the last few months of 2001, the main focus of the Senator’s foreign policy work was the U.S. response to the events of September 11th. From the beginning, Senator Kerry has played a leadership role in supporting the U.S. response to the attacks both at home and abroad. In a speech on the Senate floor on September 12, he said, “...our hearts [are] literally heavy and aching with the pain of what we have witnessed and what we know so many families are experiencing today, and also with a sense of outrage at the loss of every innocent citizen...These losses are felt by all of us in a very searing way.”

In the months since the attacks, the Senator has discussed the U.S. diplomatic, financial, and military efforts against terrorism in meetings with the President, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. In a hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in October, he pressed Secretary Powell to ensure that U.S. involvement with the Afghan people will not end when our military objectives have been achieved, and he called for the UN Security Council to take the lead in ensuring a serious, long-term international commitment to rebuilding Afghanistan and preventing it from once again becoming a haven for terror and chaos. He continues to follow these developments closely through classified briefings and meetings with Administration officials.

In January of this year, Senator Kerry traveled to the Middle East – specifically to Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Israel – to discuss with high-level officials the question of the roots of anti-American terrorism, and what steps we as well as these governments can take to address this problem. In each country, the Senator had a broad range of discussions on these and other critical issues in the region, including the Arab-Israeli situation and Iraq.

Defense

Senator Kerry has worked hard to guarantee that our national defense remains second to none. The events of September 11 clearly demonstrated the importance of strengthening our capacity to confront today’s most pressing security concerns, particularly the all-too real threat of terrorism against the American homeland and the potential that rogue states may be willing to employ weapons of mass destruction delivered by unconventional means. To protect U.S. national security, it is essential that the United States continue to recruit and retain highly-skilled personnel by providing our servicemembers with adequate pay, housing, medical care, and other services and benefits.

The Senator continues to work to ensure that our limited resources are allocated to defense programs that best safeguard U.S. interests while providing for the military personnel who defend them. The Senator supported the Department of Defense Appropriations bill, which the Senate approved on December 20, 2001. This legislation provides $317.6 billion in funding for national defense programs and $20 billion in emergency supplemental funding for homeland security, defense activities to combat terrorism, and aid and recovery programs for victims of the terrorist attacks.

Senator Kerry continues to work with the technology community to make available to the Departments of Defense and State the cutting-edge, security-related products being developed in Massachusetts. While working closely with large, traditional defense contractors in the state, the Senator continues to promote the work of the many smaller research and development firms that form the core of the Commonwealth’s new economy. As a result, the men and women of the U.S. armed forces reap the benefit of advanced technology in everything from light-weight, hi-tech cold weather gear to more reliable stores of blood for training and battlefield emergencies.

The Senator also works with various Defense Department agencies to ensure that environmental and public health concerns arising at former and current DoD use sites in the Commonwealth are addressed in a timely and proper way. The Senator supports a U.S. military that is second to none, and is committed to finding ways to advance this objective without sacrificing the health and environmental concerns of his constituents.