Remarks at a Meeting with the Wu Shu Troupe of the People's Republic of China

Mr. Ambassador:

We want to express our appreciation to the performers who have been here today at the White House, and I only wish that we could see the entire performance. From what I have heard, it has been an enormous success at the Kennedy Center on Wednesday night.

This is another of a series of visits between our two countries that began in the year 1972. And what we think is important is that this is another demonstration of the basic friendship between the Chinese people and the American people.

We believe that the Chinese people are a great people. We believe the American people are a great people. And we believe that our two peoples have always been destined to be friends and never enemies. And we know that as you travel through the United States that you will certainly make many friends for the Chinese people, and we know, too, that as we have an opportunity to welcome you that you will convey to our friends in the People's Republic of China our warm good wishes to Chairman Mao, to Premier Chou Enlai, and all of our good friends whom we met in 1972.

Normalization of relations between our two countries continues to be a major goal of American foreign policy, and while this, of course, is primarily an entertainment group, I can assure you that this symbolizes the efforts that both of our governments are making to bring our two countries closer together and our two peoples closer together.

And I would simply say finally that if I ever need a bodyguard, I will just take these three with me [referring to the three youngest members of the troupe].