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World Leaders Meet at APEC Summit; Bringing War Home; Imagine a World

Aired November 11, 2014 - 14:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN HOST (voice-over): Tonight: breaking the ice in Beijing. Australia's former prime minister, Kevin Rudd, tells me that

China and the United States have a tough line to tread.

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KEVIN RUDD, FORMER PRIME MINISTER OF AUSTRALIA: . how do you manage to conduct a relationship between an existing and established great power,

namely the United States, and a rising power, namely China, in a manner which does not result in inevitable conflict and war?

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AMANPOUR (voice-over): Plus on this Armistice Day, memories from the battlefield. The photojournalist who risked his life to capture the

world's most difficult wartime invasion and the extraordinary man who got the pictures onto the front page, John G. Morris joins me in the studio.

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AMANPOUR: Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the program. I'm Christiane Amanpour.

It is the biggest gathering of world leaders in China since the 2008 Beijing Olympics and it's China's chance to flex some global muscle. The

two most watched figures at this APEC Summit are, of course, the Chinese president, Xi Jinping and the U.S. president, Barack Obama. The two powers

still vying for supremacy in the Pacific.

President Obama is still pushing for a Pacific Rim trade deal but perhaps the summit's biggest success is the handshake between the Chinese president

and the Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, as my guest tonight, former Australian prime minister, Kevin Rudd, tells us.

But he also says the U.S. and China must develop some constructive realm in order to manage tensions in some areas and work together in others. In his

words, if China does become the undisputed world's largest economy, it will be the first time since King George III that a non-English speaking, non-

Western, non-democratic country has led the global economy.

And with the summit in full swing, Rudd joined me from Dubai to discuss the shape of relations with a nation whose rise he called without precedent in

modern history.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Mr. Rudd, welcome to the program. Thanks for joining us.

RUDD: Good to be on the program.

AMANPOUR: How do you assess the APEC Summit so far?

Success or not?

RUDD: Well, given that it's more than a year now since there's been a substantial meeting of any length between President Obama and Xi Jinping,

that is a good opportunity to discuss the relationship of the century and its future.

And at a second level, this provided an opportunity for the beginnings of some level of normalization in the China-Japan relationship. So against

those two benchmarks, I think so far, so good.

But as you know, one swallow doth not a summer make.

AMANPOUR: What do you think regarding President Obama having gone to China at a time of that political drubbing during the midterms?

Would Xi be wise to think of President Obama as sort of like the autumn of the patriarch, so to speak?

RUDD: I think the bottom line is the Chinese, whether it's under President Xi Jinping or his predecessors, back through Jiang Zemin, back through Hu

Jintao and back to Deng Xiaoping and before, have always taken U.S. presidents seriously.

That is, that they've seen Republicans and Democrats come and go. They've seen them in good political seasons and in bad. The key thing is the core

strategic content of the relationship.

And can you construct this relationship between the two largest economies in the world in a manner which preserves the peace and stability of East

Asia into the remaining decades of the century?

AMANPOUR: Well, can you?

You have now got a very important new position where you are studying this. And you obviously have decades of your own experience with China. You

speak Mandarin fluently. You have talked about a new constructive realism.

What exactly does that mean?

RUDD: What I argue is pretty simple. One: a framework which acknowledges in realist terms, in realistic terms, the fact that there are certain, at

this stage, irreconcilable bottom lines. They are countries with different political value systems. They're countries with different geopolitical

interests in parts of Asia.

But secondly, it's not an exclusively realist relationship which is destined towards conflict. There are constructive elements of the

relationship where there's sufficient commonality, sufficient commonality of interests and values for the two countries to really do good things

together bilaterally, regionally and globally.

AMANPOUR: Well, let's talk about one of those when it comes to security. Obviously the United States heavily implicated and involved in its ally,

Japan, in the region and that whole dispute between Japan and China over those islands in the South China Sea.

We all saw this rather strained handshake between President Xi and Prime Minister Abe at the beginning of the summit.

Has anything been achieved?

Or is just that handshake itself significant?

RUDD: Well, I think it's six months of diplomacy, which lie behind that handshake. Let's be very realistic about it. The Japan-China

relationship, as of six months ago, was probably in the worst condition it's been in since the normalization of diplomatic relations way back in

the early '70s.

And so both sides, I believe, recognize that it was not in either of their interests to risk, A, the possibility of conflict and, B, they had more to

gain in fact by removing political obstacles which currently exist to the further expansion of the Japan-China economic relationship.

And the meeting between the two, however difficult that was, was the formalization of the beginnings of a renormalization.

(CROSSTALK)

AMANPOUR: But what exactly --

RUDD: Everyone should be modestly happy with that.

AMANPOUR: -- modestly happy, but what exactly does it mean? Because they say we agree to disagree. There is still a dispute over the claim of it.

RUDD: I think there is probably two or three elements to that, Christiane. The first is that Boze was telling us (ph) closely will tell you the number

of military and naval assets deployed by both sides to this disputed area is now being decreased in the last several months rather than being

increased.

Secondly, there are early discussions underway in terms of a hotline between the two militaries about how you can manage an incident if it were

to occur through the accidental collision of aircraft or ships at sea rather than just have uncontrolled incident escalation.

And I think the other thing to bear in mind is that both sides have worked out, with a weak Japanese economy right now and slowing growth in China, it

makes sense, common sense, for them to open the economic doors to each other more comprehensively.

So I think -- I think -- we've made a turning point. It doesn't solve the problem. But, frankly, with this dispute, it's far best to kick the can

down the road to the long-term future rather than having been the absolute zero-sum game focus, which we've had for the last couple of years.

AMANPOUR: You talk about the relative economies between the two. And of course, President Obama goes to China as its economy is kind of sluggish a

little bit, while the U.S. economy is picking up steam.

That surely must make an impression on Xi as well.

RUDD: Well, I think that's a very key observation, Christiane, for this sense. The Chinese, a year or so ago, may have been reaching conclusions

that the U.S. was never going to exit the vortex which it descended into after the global financial crisis.

Well, that level of Chinese skepticism, I think, has disappeared in the last six months or so.

So I believe that as this meeting occurs, there will be a sense of some mutual respect about the respective state of their economies and remember

momentarily the U.S. remains the vastly dominant economic power in the region still, despite the Chinese military modernization program.

AMANPOUR: So what is your assessment?

China is obviously a regional power. It actually doesn't have a huge number of friends and allies unless you count North Korea.

Is it going to be, anytime soon, a global power?

And attached to that question, who is President Xi?

He was described by the "FT" as "Xi talks like Deng Xiaoping, who opened China up to the world, but acts like Mao Zedong," of course, the Communist

dictator strongman.

Who is this man?

And should we be concerned about him?

RUDD: Well, President Xi Jinping -- and I've had the privilege of spending some time with him in various capacities over the years in a number of

conversations -- he is first and foremost a person who is deeply committed to the future role of the Communist Party in China.

People should not see the -- his leadership as meaning that he's simply preparing a political transition to some other form of political

administration. He's not. That's why he's launched this massive anti- corruption campaign, in order to restore the party's credibility in the eyes of the Chinese people.

I think the other thing to know about President Xi Jinping is that he has a profound nationalist vision, which is all about -- to use the Chinese word

-- China's restoration of its -- of its former national greatness, its foshing (ph), the return of China to the way in which it was in earlier

periods in history.

And they're right now in a profound reengineering of the structure of the Chinese economy, and for him that is the long-term basis of Chinese power,

a properly functioning economy.

So he's a person with a defined mission, a clear sense of how he intends to get there.

But frankly, it's probably the most complex job that any head of government has anywhere in the world today.

AMANPOUR: Fascinating stuff. And just finally, obviously I note that it is Australia that launched and started the APEC Summit 25 years ago.

So do we have you to thank for those silly suits? Have the suits gone too far?

RUDD: Well, we had APEC in Australia not too many years ago and we confined ourself (sic) to a couple of sort of overcoats, bush overcoats, to

wear when you're out in the Australian outback. It's just Asia. That's what we do out there. Everyone should relax. It's fine. It takes the

edge off some of these occasions.

The core thing, though, is frankly that prior to APEC being around, Christiane, it's worth remembering there was no regular forum in Asia at

all for heads of government to get together. If it means wearing silly pajamas, which I've had to wear in the past, fine. That's just life.

The core thing is you're getting together. And as Churchill always said, it's better to jaw, jaw, jaw than to war, war, war, even if you're wearing

slightly exotic outfits on the day.

AMANPOUR: How right you are. Former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, thank you so much for joining me.

RUDD: Thank you for having me on the program.

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AMANPOUR: And, by the way, if you think this year's suits are funny- looking, check out New Zealand's former prime minister, Helen Clark, putting a brave face on her APEC 2006 suit in Vietnam.

But it was a shawl that's caused uproar this time around. A video of President Putin putting a shawl across the shoulders of a chilly Chinese

first lady has been disappeared by Chinese censors. A smiling Peng Liyuan kindly accepted the gesture, but seconds later slipped it off into the

hands of a waiting aide. Even comments about the small act of chivalry were deleted from Chinese social media.

Go figure.

And coming up next on the program, honoring the fallen. A final ceramic poppy has been placed at the Tower of London to complete a poignant art

installation that's captured the heart of a nation. Large crowds watched 13-year-old Army Cadet Harry Hayes place the last of more than 888,000

flowers, each one represented a British or Colonial life lost in World War I. The young cadet's great-great-great uncle was one of them.

Their stories of courage and sacrifice wouldn't have reached us, of course, without the brave photojournalists who documented the bloodshed. And up

next, the world's most famous photo editor, who put history on the front page.

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AMANPOUR: Welcome back to the program.

It's 100 years since the end of World War I and on this day, Allies here and around the world and in the United States paused to remember the dead

and the sacrifice of so many.

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AMANPOUR (voice-over): The sacrifice of soldiers and also of war correspondents who put their lives on the line to bring the reality of

battle to the millions back home. One of the greatest ever was Robert Capa, who, 70 years ago, snapped those legendary frames of the D-Day

Normandy landings. His picture editor at the time was John Morris, now 98, he has seen it all and he's just published his own book of war photos.

I asked him how the iconic images got onto the front pages and into our history books.

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AMANPOUR: John Morris, welcome to the program.

Great to see you again. And at this amazingly poignant time, 100 years since the First World War, we're right in the middle of Armistice and

remembrance of fallen heroes.

I want you to take me back to those incredible days: Normandy landing, D- Day 1944, where you were the editor, photo editor, for young Robert Capa.

These amazing pictures of soldiers disembarking onto those beaches on D- Day, how did Robert Capa manage to get so close?

JOHN G. MORRIS, PHOTO EDITOR: Well, he was partly lucky, but he was also very courageous. It took a lot of guts to do that.

I was the London picture editor of "Life," and it was my job to get the pictures back to America in time for a deadline, which was Saturday

afternoon in New York, when "Life" closed an issue every week.

So were in -- let's face it. We were all propagandists. We wanted an Allied victory.

AMANPOUR: And you wanted to get these -- I guess heroic pictures back to show the world.

MORRIS: We felt that was a war that had to be won, unlike many subsequent wars, which I have not believed in at all. Capa was stuck with his own

reputation. He had -- he had, fortunately or unfortunately, built up a reputation as the greatest war photographer.

So he was stuck with it. He almost had to land with the first wave -- and he did.

AMANPOUR: And yet you discovered that only a handful of about 106 frames that he had shot that day were usable.

MORRIS: We were under terrible deadline pressure. We rushed development. And the darkroom lab came rushing them out, saying, John, the films are

ruined, you were in such a hurry.

I put them in the cabinet to dry and hung them and they -- and the emulsion melted. I couldn't believe it, but I ran back to the darkroom with them,

where, of four rolls, found 11 frames, which we told the story.

AMANPOUR: It still makes me sick to my stomach to think that that evidence may have been lost forever.

MORRIS: Well, it now seems that maybe there was nothing on the other three rolls to begin with. Experts recently have said you can't melt the

emulsion off films like that. And he just never shot them.

So I now believe that it's quite possible that Bob just bundled all his 35 together and just shipped it off back to London, knowing that on one of

those rolls there would be the pictures he actually shot that morning.

So we may not have lost anything at all that he had shot. That remains to be seen.

AMANPOUR: That's news.

MORRIS: That's new.

AMANPOUR: You called him the most famous war correspondent, war photographer of all time.

And you yourself became the most famous editor of all time. But one of the things that's little known until now is this book of your own pictures,

that very same D-Day summer.

How on Earth and why on Earth did you decide to go to Normandy?

MORRIS: Well, I was a little crazy. So for four weeks, I carried a camera. I never felt that I -- I never thought of myself as a

photographer. After all, I'd worked with the best photographers in history. And you don't go around shooting pictures beside Cartier-Bresson

if you're working with him. So anyway, but I shot the -- I just shot things that interested me.

And the result is this book and an exhibition.

AMANPOUR: One of the things that I know affected you a lot and it's an amazing picture, really, is this young boy, at the very end of the book.

And you say, "The Face of My Enemy."

MORRIS: One day, I was working near the front with Capa on the outskirts of Saint-Malo. And he took me across the street, inland, and the shots

rang out. So I said, "Run for it when we go back," which I did.

And more shots. An hour or so later, they've brought in a bunch of prisoners, including this kid.

And when I looked at him, I thought, my God, he's -- he must be 15 years old.

And I thought, that's my enemy. It's ridiculous.

And I photographed him and wrote a piece about it, called, "The Face of My Enemy," because, see, I don't believe in war. I believe in peace.

AMANPOUR: I know, John, I know. And many of us would like to believe in the triumph of peace over war.

And in fact, you did take that sentiment to your next editorship, when you were editor, picture editor at "The New York Times."

And you put two of the most shocking war photos from the Vietnam War on the front cover, on the front page in "The New York Times," the famous shot of

the execution.

MORRIS: One day in early 1968, the war in Vietnam had intensified. Lyndon Johnson was now sending thousands and thousands of troops to Vietnam. And

I was totally opposed to that war. And when this picture by Eddie Adams of AP came over the wire in mid-afternoon, I was determined that it would be

prominently played on page one.

And that picture really shocked people to the point where it, I think, it had an influence.

And the second picture that had such an influence was the picture of a naked girl --

(CROSSTALK)

AMANPOUR: The young -- the young girl with the napalm, running through the streets.

Yes, I mean, it's shocking still to this day.

MORRIS: Right, exactly.

I'll never forget the news editor discussing that page one with me, as he made it up and saying, it's a good thing that she's not showing.

AMANPOUR: That she hadn't reached puberty.

MORRIS: Exactly.

AMANPOUR: Because otherwise you wouldn't have put that on the front page of "The Times."

MORRIS: He would have been nervous about putting it on page one. Now we accept it, but it was -- it was revolutionary at that time.

AMANPOUR: And what did you hope that these pictures would achieve?

MORRIS: It was to build public pressure for peace.

AMANPOUR: Now you keep saying your judgment, your opinion. I wasn't, you know, for this. I was against this.

By what right?

Who voted you president?

MORRIS: I ain't president. I never fooled myself that I had the power to stop war. But all I had to do -- I had the compulsion to try to stop war.

That's all. That is all I could try to do.

AMANPOUR: And you've been at it for all these decades. And we really, really appreciate you being here. It's a wonderful book, this, that shows

the ordinary face of people caught up in war. And it's really important to remind everybody about that.

John Morris, thank you very much.

MORRIS: Thank you. It was my pleasure.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: And while we honor the sacrifice of all the fallen -- and the journalists who risked their lives to tell their story -- after a break,

imagine a world where that danger is still present and that sacrifice still necessary.

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AMANPOUR: And finally tonight, on Armistice Day here or Veterans Day that's called in the United States, many do take the time to remember and

honor what so few, so many did for so few. But sadly, you don't have to imagine a world where returning vets are too often ignored and left to fend

for themselves once they're back home.

The American fake news star, Jon Stewart, the satirist who mercilessly lampoons the powerful, including the press, for falling down on the job,

celebrates sacrifice and serious journalism in his first film, "Rosewater," which opens this week.

When we spoke about it, he also told me why he's such a passionate advocate for the veterans of his country's recent wars.

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JON STEWART, HOST, "THE DAILY SHOW": I began to see just how their integrity and sacrifice was in the shadows, and that when they were useful

to the purpose, they were held aloft.

But when you're five years out and you've got PTSD and you're living 50 miles away from a V.A. and you need a new, you know, you're on your own.

And that injustice truly upset me.

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AMANPOUR: And that theme was sounded more than a century ago by one of the great British writers and war poets, Rudyard Kipling, whose own son was

killed in World War I. And his famous earlier work, "Tommy," lamented society rejecting their returning foot soldiers only to call them up again

when the war drums started to beat again.

"O, it's Tommy this an' Tommy that an' 'Tommy, go away'; "But it's 'Thank you, Mister Atkins,' when the band begins to play."

And perhaps that's why so many millions have turned up to remember and to say thank you at this installation at the Tower of London.

And that is it for our program tonight. Remember you can always watch our show online at amanpour.com, and follow me on Facebook and Twitter. Thank

you for watching and goodbye from London.

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