    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: George H. W. Bush (1991, Book I)]
    [June 16, 1991]
    [Pages 673-677]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks to the Asian-Pacific Community in Fountain Valley, California
    June 16, 1991

        Thank you all very, very much. Senator Seymour, first of all, thank
    you, sir. Senator Seymour, a brand-new Senator doing a first-class job
    for California and for the United

    [[Page 674]]

    States. I had the pleasure to support him, endorse him, and I'm glad to
    be introduced by him.
        And let me single out other Members of Congress: Dana Rohrabacher is
    here with me. All of you know him, and you should if you don't. Bob
    Dornan, my steadfast supporter, and Congressman Cox, Chris Cox. And
    Congressman Mineta with us here today. This is a nonpartisan, bipartisan
    group, and I'm delighted to see him with us. Congressman Dreier I didn't
    see. Dave didn't make it, darn it; don't hold it against him. [Laughter]
    Congressman Faleomavaega.
        Elaine Chao, our Deputy Secretary of Transportation back here. And
    to the others: Mr. Kwan, Miss Porntip, Elizabeth Szu--what a job she's
    done on this marvelous day. Inder Singh, another leader of all of this.
    Ky Ngo; Johnny Tsu, my old friend from San Francisco; and most of all,
    my fellow Americans. I'm proud to be with you on this very special day.
        It's wonderful to be here. I just toured some cultural exhibits. I
    hope all of you will have a chance to see them. And I've seen some that
    were fascinating, and I also have heard that the performers did a superb
    job. I'm sorry I didn't get to do that.
        I'm also glad to be with you on Father's Day. I don't know about
    your kids, but I know about mine, and they guided me through life by
    using those three magic words: ``Ask your mother.'' [Laughter] Let me
    also say, as someone who just had a birthday, it's a pleasure to be with
    people whose cultures revere old age. But I don't feel old. This great
    turnout--Elizabeth says 60,000 people--make me feel like a spring colt,
    young indeed. And I'm proud to be with you all.
        And I am proud to have had the chance to salute the various groups
    who form the Asian-Pacific-American community. This community combines
    groups diverse in name but united by ideals: discipline, self-sacrifice,
    belief in hard work, and most fundamentally, devotion to freedom. These
    ideals brought your grandparents and parents, and also some of you, many
    of you, to this country. These ideals have always uplifted the United
    States of America.
        You know, for more than 200 years, this nation has built free
    markets and protected free people. There is no question: Opportunity in
    America is the envy of the world. You came in search of opportunity, and
    you're finding it. You came to build a better America, and you are
    building it in a myriad of thousands of ways. You've enhanced our
    schools, our professions, our small and large businesses. For America's
    Asian-Pacific community, growth is not a code word; it's a watchword
    that helped the entire American community. And I congratulate you for
    that contribution to the greatest country on the face of the Earth.
        As Senator Seymour just told us, Asian-Americans have made the
    American dream a reality. According to the latest National Assessment of
    Educational Progress, Asian-Americans are excelling where we need to
    excel, in subjects such as math. Your greatest contributions, I'm
    convinced, lie ahead. The Asian-Pacific community has increased in size
    over the last decade, more than any other ethnic group. I look forward
    to more pioneers like Henry Tang, physicist Leo Esaki. They know how
    merit and opportunity beget growth and opportunity and brotherhood.
        You know, we also must understand, though, that growth abroad can
    help the United States. We can find a perfect example in East Asia, a
    dynamic region that will spur America's growth. I think you all know
    this, but a lot of Americans don't: Already, our transpacific trade has
    surpassed our transatlantic trade. In 1990, we exported more to
    Singapore than we did to Spain or Italy, to Malaysia more than to the
    Soviet Union, to Indonesia more than to all of Central Europe. This is
    what you all are doing, and this is what we believe in. The FAA
    estimates that by 1993, traffic on Pacific routes will surpass the
    Atlantic on a passenger-mile basis. Consider, too, that more than 1,000
    U.S. companies have invested over $4 billion in the People's Republic of
    China and that China buys about $5 billion of American products from
    computers to cotton. You take away these exports, and you take American
    jobs.
        So, let me just say a word about that. I acted
    3 weeks ago to expand this growth by asking Congress to renew for
    another year

    [[Page 675]]

    China's most-favored-nation status. I knew that ending MFN would
    increase the cost of Chinese imports. It would hurt Hong Kong, a bastion
    of freedom and free trade, as well as investors in south China's export
    industries--south China, the center of China's prodemocracy movement
    now. I know many of you have families and visited your families--the
    students, some of whom I've just met with, maybe some of whom I just
    see. You brought with you your American ideas: democracy, human rights,
    free enterprise. We should not cut off this flow of hope, of goods, of
    ideas and ideals because, you see, these nourish the desire for freedom.
    Our policy relies on an obvious fact: To influence China, one simply
    cannot isolate China. And I do not want to be the President to isolate
    China. I want to be the President to facilitate change for human rights
    in China.
        Let me give you one reminder of this, and I'll get on to another--I
    want to talk about these guys. You guys wait; I'm going to get to you
    because I agree with you. And when I ask you to hold that sign up,
    please do it. Now let me finish this one point here.
        I have another example. In December of 1989, over strong objections
    from many in the Congress, I vetoed the so-called Pelosi bill. I don't
    mistrust her intentions, but she was wrong--unnecessary legislation. If
    that bill had become law, I am convinced in my mind that Beijing would
    have used it as a pretext to stop permitting Chinese young people to
    study in the United States. Instead, I extended even greater protections
    than provided for in the Pelosi bill, first through a Presidential
    memorandum, then through a far-reaching Executive order. And you know,
    in the last year alone, we issued 11,500 visas to Chinese students and
    scholars to study in the United States. That would have been 11,500
    opportunities lost if we had turned our back on China.
        And I might say, I met with some of the student leaders, the real
    student leaders, just a minute ago--Chinese people studying in the
    United States, four of them having stood in Tiananmen Square. And these
    signs say it: Renew MFN for China without condition because we want to
    be able to effect change for human rights in China.
        So, we'll be continuing to urge China to reform internally and to
    rejoin the community of nations. We can't be sure of success, but we can
    be sure that without American dialog, without your commitment to freedom
    being understood in China, the movement for reform in China would be set
    back. And I don't want to be here as President when we set back the
    chance for human rights in any country.
        Now, here's my signs back here. Get them up high so the press can
    see them. Where's the one with ``SADDAM''? Where is it? Well, I don't
    see it. But let me tell you, they are right. They are absolutely
    correct. We will not remove sanctions from Iraq as long as the brutal
    Saddam Hussein remains in power.
        And I might say peripherally how proud I am. I was in there a minute
    ago, and an Asian lieutenant, an Asian-American lieutenant in the Air
    Force, came up to me, and she said, ``Thank you for Desert Storm.'' And
    I turned to her and I said, ``Don't thank me, you thank your colleagues
    in the Air Force, the Army, the Navy, the Coast Guard, and the Marines
    that made our country proud again.''
        So, you guys are right. And we'll do everything we can to see that
    we have a reasoned administration there with whom we can deal with
    respect, integrity, and honor. But it isn't going to be there as long as
    it's the brutalization of the Kurds in the north, the Shiites in the
    south, and as long as there's this environmental degradation that Saddam
    has wreaked upon the entire world. So, we were right in kicking him out
    of Kuwait.
        And let me say another point--human rights; you got it. Let me make
    another point. We've got to brush away arbitrary discrimination. And if
    that means fighting quotas that harm talented Americans like the
    thousands of Asian students in our universities, then we're going to
    fight all the way. You know the awful tolls: Quotas penalize achievers.
    They slam shut opportunity's door. Here in California, in this great,
    largest State, and across the Nation, we have seen the conflicts that
    quotas can incite, and we have come to appreciate more than ever before
    the importance of excellence and opportunity.

    [[Page 676]]

        You know, our administration does believe in affirmative action, in
    offering a hand, in opening the door of opportunity. But we don't
    believe in an America by the numbers. We do not believe in
    discriminating by quotas or by the numbers.
        And very candidly, and I hope this doesn't sound egotistical, but I
    take pride in the fact that we have a good record on civil rights. We've
    nurtured equality of opportunity and equality under the law. We've
    promoted a civil rights bill that would strengthen our laws against
    discrimination, and we've tried to build a spirit of cooperation, not
    litigation.
        I've put forward a major piece of civil rights legislation to fight
    against discrimination in the workplace. Congress should pass my bill.
    Let me be clear: I will not sign any civil rights bill that allows
    quotas, directly or indirectly, explicitly or implicitly.
        And if I might just say a word--take a word of pride in what our
    administration has done. We've practiced the kind of affirmative action
    I'm talking about. I'm proud to have named more Asian-Pacific-Americans
    to top management and advisory roles than any President in history. And
    I'm going to keep on finding good men and women from the Asian community
    to serve this great country. This may be hard for some of you to
    understand--successful in business, leaders and students--but I was the
    first to appoint a Government agency head, Pat Saiki--Pat Saiki leading
    now the SBA. The first as a Deputy Secretary of a Cabinet Department,
    the second highest level, right there next to the Secretary--and of
    course, you know her, Elaine Chao, in whom I take such great pride once
    again. The first as an Ambassador--I found this hard to believe, but the
    first, Ambassador Julia Chang Bloch. And of course, I can't tell you how
    proud I am to have at my side a guy that many of you know, Sichan Siv,
    who's working in the White House. What a job he's done for us.
        You know why they were picked? They weren't picked because they were
    Asian-Americans; they were picked because they were the best men and
    women for the job. And that's the American way.
        I mentioned the ideals that enrich the Asian-Pacific community. Let
    me close with a passage from a Chinese author, Lin Yutang. ``Today,'' he
    said, ``some are afraid of simple words like goodness and mercy and
    kindness. They don't believe in the good old words because they don't
    believe in the good old values.''
        Well, Asian-Pacific-Americans have always believed in these good
    old-fashioned values--mercy, goodness, kindness, and I would add family,
    the strength of the American family. Asian-Pacific-Americans have always
    believed in these values--respect for dignity, yes, belief in family,
    hard work, free enterprise, belief in ideals and causes larger than
    ourselves.
        So, I wanted to say I am very proud to have been here today. I see
    the signs from the various countries, and thank heavens, I've been
    enriched by being in almost every one of them. I think of the tragedies
    in Bangladesh, and then I think of our helicopter pilots that went in on
    their way home, gave up coming home to save lives there. I think of Iraq
    and what our young men and women did. And yes, I think of those who lost
    their lives in Iraq. And it would never have happened if the brutality
    of Saddam Hussein hadn't overcome reason and rationality. I think of
    Cambodia and India and Pakistan. And I think of all of these--and
    Vietnam--you are right, you are right, Vietnam--look at what the
    contribution Vietnamese have made to our great country. And we're never
    going to forget that Vietnam is not free and democratic, as some of our
    critics would have you believe.
        So, I know I'm going to get in trouble for forgetting them--Iran,
    Iran. I want to see a free Iran full of human rights, where we can have
    better relations again. And thank God, relations are getting a little
    better, but I want to see them good, the way you people want them right
    here.
        Now, thank you all--hey, listen, I'm going to get in trouble.
    [Laughter] But I came out here, Barbara and I did, to say thank you for
    the contribution to this great country, thank you for what you are
    doing. And I look forward to working with each and every one of the
    60,000 of you to make things better for our great country, America, and
    for the countries from which you came. Many thanks. And may God bless
    you

    [[Page 677]]

    all. But most of all, may God bless the United States of America. Thank
    you very much. Thank you.

                        Note: The President spoke at 12:38 p.m. at Mile
                            Square Park. In his remarks, he referred to
                            Senator John Seymour; Representatives Dana
                            Rohrabacher, Robert K. Dornan, C. Christopher
                            Cox, Norman Y. Mineta, David Dreier, and Nancy
                            Pelosi; Delegate to Congress Eni F.H.
                            Faleomavaega; Deputy Secretary of Transportation
                            Elaine L. Chao; Frank Kwan, a producer for
                            television station KNBC; Porntip Narkhirunkanok,
                            1989 Miss Universe; Elizabeth Szu, Inder Singh,
                            and Ky Ngo, coordinators for the event; John
                            Tsu, senior adviser for the event; Henry Tang,
                            an education and sports leader in the community;
                            Leo Esaki, 1973 Nobel Prize winner for physics;
                            President Saddam Hussein of Iraq; Patricia F.
                            Saiki, Administrator of the Small Business
                            Administration; Julia Chang Bloch, U.S.
                            Ambassador to Nepal; and Sichan Siv, Deputy
                            Assistant to the President for Public Liaison.