Thomas M. Countryman: “The U.S. relationship with China is one of the most important and complex relationships we have in the world.”

It is not a giveaway. It rather is a mutual recognition that the U.S. and China have reciprocal obligations to each other that each must meet.

China says--and I think it is borne out by their actions--that they do not support North Korea as a nuclear weapons state and that they wish to see the entire Korean Peninsula denuclearized.

This agreement is not a commercial contract. It does not provide for the sale of nuclear equipment or technology to China.

I would like to see this administration and this Congress make a long-term commitment to steadily expanded resources for the International Atomic Energy Agency because, yes, it is that central to U.S. security and to global security.