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Building a new Pacific community - President Bill Clinton speech - Transcript
US Department of State Dispatch, July 12, 1993
President Clinton
Address to students and faculty at Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan, July 7, 1993 (opening remarks deleted)
It is a great pleasure for me and for the First Lady to be here at this distinguished university today. Waseda is a center of true academic excellence and a training ground for many of Japan's most distinguished leaders. I am proud to be the first American President to visit here.
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But as has already been said, 31 years ago another American whom I admired very much, Robert Kennedy, spoke in this hall. It was a very different time. The modern economies of Japan and Asia were just emerging; it was the middle of the Cold War; fierce arguments raged here, as in other nations, about where the future lay--with communism or democracy, with socialism or capitalism. On that evening in 1962, those arguments spilled onto this stage. When members of the student communist movement heckled Robert Kennedy, he challenged their leader to come up and join him. In his characteristic way, Kennedy transformed a diatribe into a dialogue, and closed-mindedness into an open debate.
That is what I hope we will have here today. The exchange that followed was heated, but it demonstrated the best of the values of freedom and democracy that our two nations share. Three decades later, on this day in this place, the times are very different, but no less challenging. The need for vigorous and open dialogue remains.
The time has come for America to join with Japan and others in this region to create a new Pacific community. And this, to be sure, will require both of our nations to lead, and both of our nations to change.
The new Pacific community will rest on a revived partnership between the United States and Japan, on progress toward more open economies and greater trade, and on support for democracy. Our community must also rest on the firm and continuing commitment of the United States to maintain its treaty alliances and its forward military presence in Japan and Korea and throughout this region.
Is it appropriate? I believe it is--to address these issues here in Japan. The post-Cold War relationship between our two nations is one of the great success stories of the latter half of the 20th century.
We have built a vital friendship. We continue to anchor this region's security and to fuel its development. Japan is an increasingly important global partner in peace-keeping, in promoting democracy, in protecting the environment, in addressing major challenges in this region and throughout the world. Because our relationship has been built on enduring common interests and genuine friendship, it has transcended particular leaders in each country, and it will continue to do so.
History has decided the debate that raged here in 1962--a debate over whether communism works; it didn't. Its ruins litter the world stage. Our two nations have proved that capitalism works, that democracy works, that freedom works. Still, no system is perfect. New problems and challenges constantly arise. Old problems deeply rooted in cultures find prejudices remain.
Positive Global Change
To make the most of this new world, we both must change. As Robert Kennedy once noted, "Progress is a nice word, but its motivator is change, and change has its enemies."
The Cold War passed from the world stage as the global flow of information pierced the Iron Curtain with news of other ways of living. And the world moved steadily toward a more integrated global economy. Money, management, and technology are increasingly mobile today. Trillions of dollars in capital traverse the globe every day. In one generation, international trade has nearly tripled as a percentage of global output. In the late 1980s, increased trade accounted for well over half of the new jobs in the United States.
Meanwhile, there have been huge changes in the organization and the nature of work itself. We are moving away from an economy based on standardized mass production to one dominated by an explosion of customized production and services. The volume of information is increasing at an astonishing rate. Change has become the only constant of life. And only firms that are flexible and innovative with very well-trained people are doing very well.
The new global economy requires little explanation here in Japan. You have pioneered the modernization of Asia. Now from Taipei to Seoul, from Bangkok to Shanghai, Asian economies are growing at dramatic rates, providing jobs and incomes, providing consumer goods and services to people who could not have even dreamed of them just a generation ago.
To be sure, Asia's progress is uneven, there are still millions in abject poverty. Four of the world's last five communist regimes and other repressive regimes continue to defy the clear laws of human nature and the future. But the scenes of life in this region paint an unmistakable picture of change and vitality and opportunity and growth.
A generation ago in Singapore, bumboats floated up to Boat Quay to unload their cargoes of produce and cloth which were sent out into a labyrinth of smoky shophouses and small family markets. Today, such scenes are joined by those of container ships steaming into Singapore's modern port--one every six minutes--disgorging their goods into mechanized warehouses and modern supermarkets. In China's Guangdong Province, young entrepreneurs are leaving safe jobs in state-owned enterprises to start their own companies. To describe their daring spirit, the Chinese have coined a phrase that literally means "to plunge into the sea."
