U.S.-Vietnam relations: a new chapter - Secretary of State Warren Christopher, Aug 6, 1995 - Transcript

US Department of State Dispatch, August 14, 1995

Of course, we cannot heal every wound or settle every debate from the past. We will leave that to students of history and to future generations. This moment belongs to the families looking for answers about lost loved ones and to the Vietnamese villagers who have given them a helping hand. It belongs to the American veterans who have returned to this country to provide prosthetics to victims of the war and to the Vietnamese veterans who welcome them as friends. It belongs to the entrepreneurs who are rebuilding this country, now that it is finally at peace. It belongs to the students such as you who question old assumptions and embrace new ways of thinking. As the great Vietnamese poet and statesman Nguyen Trai put it 500 years ago: "After so many years of war, only life remains."

After so many years of war and turmoil, Vietnam is turning its face to a changed world. Colonial empires have vanished, and the age of independence struggles is over. In the last two decades, 45 more sovereign countries have emerged. But it is not only new nations that have been born and maps that have been redrawn. A powerful revolution of ideas has swept the world. Indeed, the main story of the late 20th century is the ascendancy of open societies and open markets in country after country, which has the effect of lifting the lives of hundreds of millions of people.

Today in the Western Hemisphere, for example, every nation but one has a freely elected government and a market economy. After decades of struggle, South Africa is now a multiracial democracy. The former Soviet Union has also been transformed. In Europe, the fastest-growing economies are those Eastern nations that moved most decisively toward economic and political reform.

Communications technology is pushing the expansion of freedom for the individual at the same time as it is shrinking the distances between nations. This speech, for example, will be broadcast back to the United States by satellite. Through the Internet, it will be available to almost anyone in the world with a computer and a phone line. Governments cannot control the movement of ideas in this Information Age, even if they want to.

Consider how much Southeast Asia has changed as well. New civilian governments have been freely elected in Thailand, Cambodia, and the Philippines. Nations such as Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia are 10 to 20 times wealthier today than they were in 1965. My visit this last week to Kuala Lumpur underscored for me the enormous scale and dynamism of this region's transformation.

Because of these remarkable changes, America's relationship with the nations of Southeast Asia has been transformed as well. Twenty-five years ago, the largest American communities in the region revolved around military bases. The United States has vital military alliances and a substantial military alliances and a substantial military presence in the region that are widely welcomed. Our security presence will continue to provide the stability and reassurance necessary for sustained economic growth. But today, American communities in the region also revolve around Chambers of Commerce and universities. The most common interaction across the Pacific takes place today among private citizens--among business people, scholars, and tourists. I believe that these currents of culture and commerce are bringing us closer to a New Pacific Community stretching from Los Angeles to Kuala Lumpur.