Clinton on Russia’s Protests, China’s Shortcuts and Gingrich’s Comments

In a wide-ranging interview with Jim Lehrer at the Newseum Wednesday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton defended critical comments she made about Russia’s recent elections and called China’s shortcuts in the marketplace “deeply distressing.” View highlights from their interview, and read some of her remarks below.

On Russia’s elections and protests:

“I’m not into just criticizing for the sake of criticizing. You’re trying to, you know, give voice to and support to people who are standing up for values that are important.”

On China and intellectual property rights:

“When China was opening up, they were very welcoming and American businesses took advantage of that. Well now, they’re trying to say to themselves, okay, we want to do this ourselves now. And we think we have advanced to the point where we can begin doing this. So what’s the shortcut? And we see it. We see the shortcuts being taken. And it’s deeply distressing.”

On Newt Gingrich’s comments about “an invented Palestinian people”:

“I think he realized that was one of those innovative moments that happen in politics.”

On the Arab Spring:

“Our emphasis has been, how do we support their democratic aspirations? And how do we ensure that their economic aspirations are married to that? Because in all of these transitions, people expect change immediately.”

On whether the cost of the Iraq war was worth it:

“I think that’ll be a retrospective for historians. But, you know, the Iraqi people now have a chance to chart their own future, which they didn’t have before.”

View more of the interview on Wednesday’s broadcast and read the full transcript here. See all of our World coverage and follow us on Twitter.