[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!

                          ____________________