Bush Arrives In South Korea

President Bush arrived Wednesday evening in Busan, South Korea, where he will attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit and hold a one-on-one meeting with South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun.

While both of those events are bound to make news, likely they will not eclipse a speech and other comments made earlier in the day by Mr. Bush while visiting Japan.

The speech, to several hundred people in a convention center, was in Kyoto - but the message was very definitely for China, which is on Mr. Bush's weekend itinerary, along with Mongolia.

President Bush took aim at the political situation in China in comments delivered while in Japan, the first stop of his eight-day, four-nation Asian trip.

CBS News correspondent Mark Knoller reports that although it is the kind of public rebuke Chinese government leaders hate, President Bush said China should open the doors wider to freedom for its people and pointed to both Japan and Taiwan as examples of nations that have successfully moved to democracy.

"At the end of World War II, some did not believe that democracy would work in your country," said President Bush, addressing his Japanese audience. "Fortunately, American leaders like President Harry Truman did not listen to the skeptics - and the Japanese people proved the skeptics wrong by embracing elections and democracy."

"Modern Taiwan is free and democratic and prosperous. By embracing freedom at all levels, Taiwan has delivered prosperity to its people and created a free and democratic Chinese society," said President Bush.

President Bush continued to hammer home his message for Beijing in comments later in the day at a joint news conference with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.

"What I say to the Chinese, as well as to others, is that a free society is in your interest," said Mr. Bush. "To allow people to worship freely, for example, in your society is part of a stable, mature society. And that leadership should not fear freedoms within their society."

Some limits on freedom in China are obvious to journalists but may be less noticeable to ordinary citizens.

CBS News correspondent Barry Petersen reports that despite promises to the contrary, China continues to

Mr. Bush and Koizumi praised each other and glossed over lingering problems, such as Japan's ban on U.S. beef imports. Tokyo is moving closer to easing the ban. The two leaders also acknowledged unhappiness by many in Okinawa about a new agreement to realign America's military presence in Japan. Koizumi said he hoped opponents would rethink their opposition, and Bush said it was a matter for the prime minister and the people of Japan.

But the leaders focused on friendship, with President Bush calling the prime minister his "buddy" and presenting him with a Segway standup motorized scooter. The president took the gift for a spin at the state guest house as he presented it to his host.

Koizumi has been an unflinching ally for Mr. Bush despite the president's record-low popularity and mounting problems at home. Koizumi supported the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and made an unpopular decision to send noncombat troops there in January 2004.

That mission expires next month, and Koizumi was noncommittal about whether he would extend it. President Bush did not press the Japanese Prime Minister publicly about the troops, saying only that this is a decision for Japan's government.

The two leaders reaffirmed their united stand about North Korea's nuclear weapons program, demanding that it be verifiably dismantled.

Japan was the first stop on Mr. Bush's Asian trip.

Speaking before an audience of several hundred people at a convention center in Kyoto Wednesday, President Bush said China's economic growth must be accompanied by more freedoms for its people.

"As China reforms its economy," the president said, "its leaders are finding that once the door to freedom is opened even a crack, it cannot be closed. As the people of China grow in prosperity, their demands for political freedom will grow as well."

Mr. Bush also lectured China about opening its economy to foreign competition to narrow the expected $200 billion trade surplus with the United States. "China needs to provide a level playing field for American businesses seeking access to China's market," Bush said. Further, he said, China must fulfill its promise to move toward a more market-based currency.

China's foreign minister brushed off President Bush's comments about Taiwan and political freedoms.

"We have to work hard and not pay attention to those people who talk about this or that, upsetting our sense of self, especially when it comes to our love of the motherland," Li Zhaoxing told reporters on the sidelines of a meeting of Pacific Rim economies in South Korea.

Without mentioning Taiwan directly, Li said all people in the greater China region "can work well together to preserve stability and achieve prosperity," he said.

In separate remarks shown on Hong Kong Cable TV, Li also defended China's human rights record, saying "everything we do is for improving the people's livelihood, that includes guaranteeing the people's material rights, political rights and cultural and education rights and democratic development rights, and so on."

President Bush's warm words about Taiwan could chill his reception in Beijing later this week when the president, to make a point about religious freedom, also plans to worship at one of five officially recognized Protestant churches in the city.

Mr. Bush said Chinese President Hu Jintao has asserted that his vision of "peaceful development" will make the Chinese people more prosperous.

"I have pointed out that the people of China want more freedom to express themselves to worship without state control, to print Bibles and other sacred texts without fear of punishment," Mr. Bush said.

By talking about Taiwan, Mr. Bush was raising an issue that has been a major U.S.-Chinese irritant.

Taiwan, 100 miles off China's southern coast, split from the mainland when nationalist leaders fled there in 1949 during China's civil war. Since then, Beijing has threatened repeatedly to use force against the self-governed island that China claims as its own.

The island has had de facto independence for more than 50 years, largely because of American support. U.S. officials were taken aback when a Chinese general said last July that Beijing might respond with nuclear weapons if the U.S. were to attack China in a conflict over Taiwan. Maj. Gen. Zhu Chenghu, a dean at China's National Defense University, said that was his personal view and not government policy.

While saluting Taiwan's progress and urging China to take more steps, President Bush stressed that the United States is not changing its official policy that there is one China - including Taiwan - or its position that there should be no unilateral attempt to change the status quo by either side. The United States, said Mr. Bush, continues to stress a need for dialogue between China and Taiwan "that leads to a peaceful resolution of their differences."