[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 187 (Monday, November 27, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S17518-S17520]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT FIDEL V. RAMOS OF THE PHILIPPINES AT THE EAST WEST
CENTER IN HONOLULU
Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I wish to submit for the Record the
statement of the distinguished President of the Philippines, Fidel V.
Ramos, on the topic of ``Regional Cooperation and Economic Development
in the Philippines.'' President Ramos delivered the statement last
month as part of the First Hawaiian Lecture Series at the East West
Center in Honolulu. The presentation was part of the ongoing efforts of
the East West Center to provide a badly needed platform for prominent
government and business leaders to comment on relations in the Asia-
Pacific region. In this endeavor, the East West Center, Mr. President,
has no equals. For the past 25 years it has been the nerve center for
bringing together opinion leaders, as is evident from President Ramos'
presence.
Mr. President, I offer President Ramos' speech as a matter of great
interest to the Members of this body. We need to know what our best
friends think of our foreign policy. Clearly, the Philippines, and
President Ramos especially, are good friends, good partners, and strong
allies of the United States.
In his statement, President Ramos makes an observation regarding the
direction of U.S. foreign policy that should not be ignored. In a few
words, he tells us not to trust old conventions or concepts that are
out of place in the post-cold-war environment. Instead, he says, and I
quote:
The United States must redefine its concept of national
security in economic and cultural terms. Like the rest of us,
America's place in the future world will be determined just
as much by the creativity of its workpeople and the daring of
its entrepreneurs as by the devastating power of its weapons.
Since virtually all of its trade deficit comes from its
East Asian commerce, the United States is looking for a new
sense of fairness in its economic relationships with the
Asia-Pacific region. Over the past 30 years, the U.S.
security umbrella--and the rich U.S. market--have enabled
East Asia to prosper. Now American leaders argue that
Americans must see their country as sharing in this
prosperity--if American taxpayers are to continue supporting
their country's continued security engagement in the region.
We of the Philippines have no problem at all with this
proposition--particularly since we do not regard economic
competition as a winner-take-all or zero-sum contest. In the
economic competition, everybody wins--and even the relative
``loser'' ends up richer than when he started.
I have selected this passage from the text of the speech because it
characterizes what I perceive to be the attitude of our Asian-Pacific
partners toward expanded trade.
I agree with President Ramos: There is a new post-cold-war
competition. We, the United States, cannot afford to distance ourselves
from regional and global participation any more than we had assumed the
heavy burden of regional and global security during the cold war.
Economic competition, like trade, tightens relationships, fosters
cultural understanding, and generally produces all winners, even though
there may be short-term losses.
President Ramos knows what he's talking about. The trade ties between
our countries are strong, with the Philippines ranking as our 26th
largest export market. In addition, the U.S. stock of foreign
investment in that country stands at nearly $2 billion. Although this
investment has been in manufacturing and banking in the past, the
restoration of such former United States military installations as
Subic Bay to the Philippines has opened still newer, mutual trade
opportunities. Today, U.S. cargo shippers are developing major staging
and warehousing facilities there, contributing to our increased trade
position in the region.
The Philippines is emerging as a reliable place for Americans to do
business. In July 1991, the Government set in motion a major program
for the reduction, restructuring, and simplification of tariffs. Its
government procurement program does not discriminate against foreign
bidders. The Philippines has excised from its books preferential rates
for export financing for domestic companies and is a signatory to the
GATT Subsidies Code. After some disagreements with the United States on
intellectual property protection, the Philippines is drafting new
legislation on trademarks, copyrights, and patents that promise to be
world class. The importance of the Philippines intellectual property
changes should not be underestimated. The country is largely dependent
on imported technology. Today, much of that comes in the form of
computer disks, tapes, and other media with embedded software. This
software provides computer-based routines for manufacturing, education,
medical, and other applications of technology essential to national
growth. Indeed, much of this software comes from my own State of Utah.
Without appropriate protection of their property, exporters of
technology would be very reluctant to market it abroad.
While there are some deficiencies remaining in the country's trade
statutes, we should commend the Philippines for their rate of progress
in the past 5 years alone.
Clearly, the pace at which the Philippines is entering the world
trade arena will establish it as a competitive and worthy partner of
which all fair trade countries will want to take notice. For these and
the reasons stated earlier, I commend the balance of President Ramos'
remarks to the Record and ask unanimous consent that the entire speech
be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the speech was ordered to be printed in the
Record, as follows:
America's Role in East Asia
(Address of H.E. President Fidel V. Ramos, before the East-West Center,
October 16, 1995)
introduction and theme statement
From your vantage point here on these lovely islands, even
to doubt whether the United States will remain an Asia-
Pacific power seems no less than ridiculous.
But perspectives shift with longitude--and I must tell you
that concerns about America's staying power--specifically,
concerns about the strength of the U.S. commitment to
intervene in future regional crises--are beginning to
preoccupy most countries in East Asia.
Over this past generation, the regional stability
underwritten by the United States has given our countries the
leisure to cultivate economic growth. Now the fear is
widespread among them that the United States is turning
inward--that it will revert to the isolationism which has
characterized its foreign policy throughout much of its
history.
I must add that we of the Philippines believe the United
States will remain in the Asia-Pacific--and not out of
altruism, but in its own interest.
You more than any others realize how the tilt of U.S.
population away from its Atlantic Coast, the influx of Asian
migrants, and the attraction of East Asian trade and
investments have made your country a true Asia-Pacific power.
And so it cannot afford to leave the Asian Continent in the
hands of a single dominant power--any more than it could
tolerate Western Europe's being in the same situation.
America's role in East Asia is my topic here this
afternoon. Let me summarize the four points I wish to make
before I elaborate on them:
First--over the foreseeable future, the United States must
continue to be the fulcrum of East Asia's balance of power.
Second--economic competition between the United States and
East Asia is not ``winner-take-all'' but a game both sides
can win.
[[Page S 17519]]
A vigorous American economy is just as good for East Asia as it is for
Americans themselves.
Third--now that political values have become just as
important as traditional security concerns and economic
interests in the relations between countries, I ask you not
to underestimate the power of America's democratic ideals to
help shape East Asian political systems.
Fourth--America's military hegemony in the post-cold war
period gives it the historic opportunity to bring political
morality to international relationships--to shape a moral
world order. And this is a chance America must grasp--before
it slips away.
Now let me take up these four points one by one.
fulcrum of the east asian balance of power
Over these last 50 years, the sustained United States
presence in East Asia--and its willingness to mediate East
Asia's conflicts--have ensured there would be no repetition
of the Korean war--and that the Vietnam war ``dominoes''
would fall the other way.
By interposing itself between the Chinese civil war
protagonists across the Taiwan Straits, the United States
presence enabled Beijing and Taipei to cool off their
enmities--and in fact to cooperate in the South China growth
triangle with Hong Kong. The United States has also acted as
a buffer between Japan and China--and between them separately
and the Soviet Union.
The cold war's end has not ended the usefulness of the
American presence. Over the foreseeable future, the United
States must continue to be the main prop of the East Asian
balance of power--if only to preserve the bubble of stability
that keeps East Asia's ``economic miracle'' going.
In this role, the United States has no competitor. Its
military presence is--uniquely--acceptable to all the powers
with legitimate interests in the region.
Over the future we contemplate, Russia's energies will be
directed inward--to problems at home--and to relationships
with its commonwealth neighbors in the former Soviet Union.
Meanwhile, fifty years after the Pacific war, Japan has
neither completely reconciled with East Asia nor decided on
its new role in the region.
CHINA WILL BE EAST ASIA'S MOST SERIOUS CONCERN
China--over these next 25 years--by the World Bank's
estimate--will become the world's largest economy. Over this
next quarter-century, China will unavoidably press--
politically and militarily--on East Asia, even if Beijing
made no effort to build up its capability to project power
beyond its strategic borders.
How China exercises its political and military clout must
concern us all. (The opposite possibility--of China's
economic collapse and its reversion to ``Warlordism''--is, if
anything, even more alarming.)
The allies in Western Europe solved a roughly similar
problem by integrating postwar Germany into the European
Union. So must we endeavor to integrate China into the Asia-
Pacific Community--economically through the Asia-Pacific
Economic Cooperation [APEC] and politically through the Asean
Regional Forum [ARF]--if we are to have lasting regional
stability.
Only with America's help--only with America's leadership--
can this be carried out successfully.
China and the United States--the ``Elephant'' and the
``Whale,'' Walter Lippmann once called them--one a land--and
the other a maritime-power, so that their interests were not
antagonistic but complementary.
But, today, the elephant is learning to swim: China is
building itself a blue-water navy. Since the collapse of the
Soviet Union, America's political and military dominance has
been unchallenged. Is China gearing up to become the only
counterforce to United States hegemony in the post-cold war
world?
Over these past 15 years or so, China has set aside its
historical grievances, its ideological mission and its
geopolitical ambitions in its pursuit of economic growth.
Will it return to these causes once its economic growth is
assured?
China's encroachment into mischief reef--part of our
Kalayaan (Freedom) group of islets in the Spratlys--should
warn us that China claims nearly two million square miles of
land in adjacent countries; and that it also has unresolved
territorial or maritime disputes with Russia, India, North
Korea, Tajikistan, Japan, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, and
Indonesia--any one of which could spark off a local conflict.
Containment or engagement?
How are we--its neighbors--to deal with China?
The debate rages between those who urge ``containment''--
after the way the west restrained an expansionist U.S.S.R. in
the early years of the cold war--and those who believe
China's ``engagement'' into our peaceful network of economic
and political institutions to be the better course.
We in the Philippines believe we must apply one or the
other response as the emerging situation demands.
We must discourage any Chinese aggressiveness--yes--but we
must also encourage every trend that ties the Chinese economy
more tightly to those of its neighbors in the Asia-Pacific.
Obviously, we cannot approach today's China with
preconceived notions when this huge and complex country--a
civilization in itself--is in the middle of such an epochal
transition.
This is why the Asean states refuse to commit themselves
prematurely to the proposal for ``prepositioning'' United
States materiel.
This caution is partly a lesson remembered from the
colonial period--when the weak were wise to stay away from
the quarrels of the strong. But it also results from an
appreciation of the chance that the dismantling of the
American naval and air bases removes a potential provocation
to Asean's giant neighbor--and invites China to live-and-let-
live with Southeast Asia.
Meanwhile, even the reduced United States deployments close
to the Asean region are a counterweight enough in the
region's security balance.
Some say that, if Beijing should continue encroaching on
the South China Sea, then this aggressiveness will accelerate
security cooperation among the Southeast Asian countries--and
between them and the United States.
But, for the moment, the Asean states are betting that
interdependence and intensified cooperation will preempt the
rise of long-standing political antagonisms.
Economic interdependence may not by itself prevent
conflicts. But it does raise the cost--and the threshold--for
using force, especially among the great powers.
japan, our other main concern
About Japan, we of the Philippines have two basic concerns.
The first is that the alliance between Japan and the United
States must be preserved; and the second is that Japan must
find a political role in the world proportionate to its
economic power.
Like all the other Southeast Asian countries, we want
Japan's alliance with the United States to continue--although
we now accept the alliance must be redefined into something
closer to a genuine partnership.
There is an inherent anomaly--similar to the original West
European effort to keep apart the two Germanys--in today's
Japan remaining a strategic client of the United States. This
can only fan an unhealthy kind of nationalism in a country
acutely aware of both its economic strength and its cultural
uniqueness--increasing the danger that the trade disputes of
the United States and Japan would spill over into their
security relationship.
The Philippines supports--within the context of United
Nations reforms--Japan's bid for a permanent seat in the
Security Council.
We see this as enhancing Japan's integration into the world
community. And we are reasonably confident Japan's political
role will be exercised on the side of peace--if only because
the Japanese people have suffered so much of war.
To sum up this section--we of the Philippines believe any
dilution of the American commitment to East Asian stability
will severely undermine regional confidence--put an end to
the region's economic miracle--and perhaps set off an arms
race that could have incalculable, tragic consequences for
all of us.
Let me now turn to the economic ties between the United
States and East Asia.
economic ties between u.s. and east asia
Economic interdependence among the Asia-Pacific countries
has largely been market-driven: Only now are the APEC
governments trying to manage it. And the key to the region's
tremendous growth has been the shift to free-market economies
among its democratic and authoritarian states alike.
Already the United States exports more to East Asia than it
does to its traditional markets in Europe and Latin America.
And East Asia's market is becoming even more attractive.
By the year 2000, the World Bank estimates that half the
growth in the global economy will come from East Asia alone.
In five years' time, one billion East Asians will have
significant consumer spending power; and of these, 400
million will have average disposable income as high as their
European or American counterparts, if not higher.
This means the economic dimension to Asia-Pacific
relationships will be stronger than it is already.
Like the rest of us, the United States must redefine its
concept of national security in economic and cultural terms.
Like the rest of us, America's place in the future world
will be determined just as much by the creativity of its
workpeople and the daring of its entrepreneurs as by the
devastating power of its weapons.
Since virtually all of its trade deficit comes from its
East Asian commerce, the United States is looking for a new
sense of fairness in its economic relationships with the
Asia-Pacific region.
Over the past 30 years, the United States security
umbrella--and the rich United States market--have enabled
East Asia to prosper. now American leaders argue that
Americans must see their country as sharing in this
prosperity--if American taxpayers are to continue supporting
their country's continued security engagement in the region.
We of the Philippines have no problem at all with this
proposition--particulary since we do not regard economic
rivalry as a winner-take all or zero-sum contest. In economic
competition, everybody wins--and even the relative ``loser''
ends up richer than when he started.
Since it takes two to trade, a strong American economy is
as good for us in East Asia as it is for you in America.
[[Page S 17520]]
In sum--we do not want an underperforming, undersaving,
under-investing American economy any more than you do--if
only because a weakened American economy will trigger off
strong protectionist tendencies in the United States.
the U.S. as an influence on east asian democratization
Ladies and gentlemen:
Over the past half-century, a spacious sense of its self-
interest has impelled the United States to help shape East
Asian development--in fact, to make East Asian development
happen.
And this enlightened self-interest derives from the very
idea that is America. Its Founding Fathers saw their country
as a venture greater than just another national enterprise.
They saw their country as bringing a message of revolutionary
enlightenment to all humankind.
That revolutionary message has not lost its relevance-
particularly for East Asian people who--as they become richer
and more secure--are demanding respect from their rulers--and
a say in how they are governed.
Authoritian regimes may seek their legitimacy by sponsoring
capitalist growth. But economic development cannot--forever--
substitute for democracy. And it is to the idea of America
that East Asia looks--in its groping for freedom. Look at how
the Chinese student-militants of 1989 dared to raise a 30-
foot plaster model of the Statue of Liberty on Tiananmen
Square.
During the cold war, America was sometimes accused of a
cynical willingness to sacrifice democracy abroad to preserve
democracy at home. Now, at last, America can reconcile power
and morality in its foreign relations.
Despite a decline in its relative wealth, capacity and
influence, the United States today is the world's only
superpower. And it is at the cutting edge of a revolution in
both military technology and doctrine which promises to
preserve its military preeminence in the world for at least
another generation.
Because of its hegemonic power, America ``can afford the
luxury of attending to principle.''
America can be to the world what its founders meant it to
be--the ultimate refuge of all those ``yearning to breathe
free.''
worthwhile causes for american idealism
And--although the ideological challenge from messianic
communism has collapsed--there is no lack of worthwhile
causes for American idealism.
We are as far away from a stable--and moral--international
order as we were at the end of World War II. Far too many
regions of the world are still subject to regimes of varying
barbarism; while other national societies are disintegrating
in anarchy.
If only America can gather its resolve, it can also lead
the global community to begin dealing with the tremendous
income disparities among nations--and alleviating the mass-
poverty of regions like South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.
Then there is the care and protection of the global
environment--a task so susceptible to the free-rider axiom
that it needs exceptional leadership to organize effectively
and equitably.
In these vital missions of reawakening America to its
historical role--and of propagating in the Asia-Pacific the
ideals and values America stands for--this center of
intellect and scholarship will continue to play an ever-
increasing role.
Throughout its time on Earth, humankind has been striving
for the ideal society. Unless we of the Asia-Pacific and
America embark on a win-win Direction, that ideal may forever
remain beyond our grasp.
But, if America remains true to its original sense of
revolutionary enlightenment, perhaps it can lead the world to
approximate that ideal: To banish pain and fear and hunger--
to bring a measure of peace and prosperity to every region--
to enable every nation to discover the extraordinary
possibilities of ordinary people.
Thank you and good day!
____________________