[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.

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    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

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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.