[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: George H. W. Bush (1992, Book I)]
[January 7, 1992]
[Pages 45-47]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks to Japanese and American Students in Kyoto, Japan

January 7, 1992
    Thank you all very much. Why don't you all please be seated? 
[Laughter] Let me just say what a pleasure it is to be here with our 
very able Ambassador in Tokyo, Mike Armacost, who is doing a superb job. 
He's one of the great career Ambassadors of our service, and he's in a 
difficult and an important post, and he is doing an outstanding job. And 
I'm very pleased that he's here with us today.
    I want to also say how pleased I am to be here with the former Prime 
Minister, Toshiki Kaifu. When he was Prime Minister and I was President, 
we worked very closely together on a lot of matters relating to world 
peace, better understanding between Japan and the United States. He was 
frank; he was straightforward; he was friendly to our great country. And 
I can tell you, I will never forget his many courtesies to me, and I 
will never forget what he did to strengthen the relationship between 
these two great countries, Japan and the United States. So Toshiki, 
thank you, sir, for all you've done.
    And it's a great pleasure to have this first day of our trip to 
visit these ancient centers and shrines of really the Japanese soul and 
the Japanese nation, Kyoto and, later this afternoon, Kashihara in Nara 
Prefecture. But I come as a friend. I come with some ideas that we're 
going to be discussing with the Government in Tokyo starting tomorrow, 
and I also bring an open interest in learning a lot more about this 
great country.
    I want to take note of the achievements of three mayors, Mayor 
Kumakura, Mayor Aoki, and Mayor Kudo, over here. These guys, they're 
from small towns in rural Japan, and these mayors have been instrumental 
in the establishment of branch campuses of American universities. And I 
really firmly believe, and you all are better equipped to speak to it 
than I, that these grassroots exchanges pay important benefits to both 
our countries. So, thank you very, very much, sir, all three of you, for 
what you're doing.
    Let me just say to the students, this is kind of what we call in the 
trade a cameo appearance; you're in here and you're out of here in a 
hurry. But to the students of the Stanford Center, well, one or two 
here--[laughter]--and the Kyoto program students at Doshisha 
University--[laughter]--how many are there? When I click all these 
things off, it would be fun to see. University of Michigan, how many 
there? [Applause] All right. And how about the Aggies, Texas A&M? 
[Applause] Small but vocal contingent over here.
    Incidentally, what the former Prime Minister was referring to is 
that each President, as you all know, Americans know, when he gets out 
of office, has a library, archive for the papers. And mine is going to 
be in my home State, but at Texas A&M. And I'm looking forward to that 
very, very much; not too soon. [Laughter]
    Let me just click off, for some of the journalists with us today, 
some things that I know you all know. About 2,000 American students now 
attend undergraduate and graduate programs in Japan. Many more Japanese 
students take part in comparable programs back in the U.S. And more than

[[Page 46]]

1,000 Americans now teach in Japanese schools. And I hope that we will 
continue to do everything that we can to promote greater and greater 
participation in these important exchanges in the years to come.
    They open up, in my view, new intellectual and cultural horizons, 
and these experiences really, I think, turn an awful lot of participants 
into the great leaders of our country, and both countries I might say. 
Look at today's Prime Minister of Japan, Prime Minister Miyazawa. When 
he was a university student, some may not know this, he took part in the 
sixth Japan-America student conference at the University of Southern 
California.
    I also want to single out once again Prime Minister Kaifu. Toshiki's 
first travel to the United States was through the U.S. Information 
Agency's International Visitors Program. And then as Minister of 
Education and later as Prime Minister, he made great efforts to promote 
educational and executive exchanges that really do foster understanding 
between our two countries. Another leader who recognized the value of 
exchanges was my friend the late Minister Abe, Foreign Minister of 
Japan, who passed away. But the Global Partnership Fund, which he was so 
instrumental in organizing, carries on his good work today in supporting 
these student exchanges.
    So in all, they are an aspect of the major purpose of this visit to 
Japan, namely to open and expand opportunities for interchange between 
our countries. And I want the people of our countries to have a far 
better understanding of one another. We need more Americans who can 
speak Japanese and who understand the workings of the Japanese 
marketplace.
    I want to increase access for American goods and services in these 
Japanese markets. Open markets, like student exchanges, yield a bounty 
for all who participate. They help each other better understand. Open 
markets lift the technical progress to new heights. And they raise 
everybody's standards and benefit consumers, as a matter of fact, 
through the expanse of the global marketplace.
    I've been saying this as I've traveled on this trip through Asia, 
but I am strongly convinced--I'm sure there are some economic majors out 
here--I am strongly convinced that free and open commerce is not a zero-
sum game. Free trade on a level playing field creates jobs and lifts 
standards in both of our countries. So, the challenge of global 
competition can be driving our efforts for educational reform.
    I don't know whether it's caught up with you all here, but we have a 
nationwide program called America 2000, has people from both sides of 
the aisle, Democrats and Republicans, from Governors in all States, 
helped me set the six major educational goals. American educational 
leaders and experts look to Japan for some examples as to how we can 
improve our schools.
    David Kearns, I don't know if that name rings a bell. He's our 
number two at the Department of Education. But he visited Japan many, 
many times to examine Japanese quality products, first when he was the 
chairman and chief executive officer of one of our great companies, 
Xerox. He came back with a lot of ideas that he's now trying to help us 
implement there at the Department. American education experts attach 
importance to the fact that Japanese parents, more than in our country, 
are active in the children's schools and demand better performance. So, 
we're trying to find ways to increase parental interest.
    And if I might say a pleasant word of my bride of 47 years as of 
yesterday, newlyweds we are, I think what Barbara is trying to do in 
terms of getting kids and getting families to read to their kids and 
kids to read to one another and adult education all adds into this 
program which we call America 2000.
    Next spring, actually, we're going to hold a meeting of the 
education ministers of the APEC, the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation 
group. And it's going to bring together the total experiences of 15 
member societies to raise our common educational standards and to draw 
the most from our precious resource, the imagination and the energy of 
our people.
    So, student exchanges reach beyond the technical and the expert 
level. They enrich the individual spirit, and they nourish the cultures 
of communities and nations. So, we need them. And while we need them to

[[Page 47]]

promote efficiency in markets and institutions, we simply must not 
neglect exchanges in the humanities, in history, fine arts, philosophy, 
the study of religion, languages, and literature.
    Octavio Paz, the 1990 Nobel laureate for literature, put it well 
when he wrote, ``If human beings forget poetry, they will forget 
themselves.'' So, those of you all involved in the liberal arts, you 
have nothing to do but be proud of the work you're engaged in. And if 
you don't believe it, just ask old Octavio Paz, winner of the Nobel 
Prize. [Laughter]
    But look, I do honor you, salute you for your spirit of scholarship 
and adventure. And if you get a little lonely from time to time, keep it 
in the big perspective. As I see it, with the crying need for better 
education, the crying need for peoples to understand each other better, 
you are doing something important just being here, just working, just 
understanding the culture of this great country. In my view, you're 
really doing something important.
    I will simply conclude by this broad comment on my job 
opportunities, my own, that is. I can't think of a more exciting time in 
the history of this country, in the recent history of this country, to 
be President of the United States. Now, you go back to where things were 
just a couple of years ago as you look at Eastern Europe; you look at 
parties in the Middle East that weren't even willing to talk to each 
other; you look at the Soviet Union that we lived in fear of when you 
all were two or three years younger. You wondered whether we were going 
to evolve into some kind of a nuclear holocaust, little kids going to 
bed scared in our country and in other countries all around the world. 
And that's changing, and it's changing for the better.
    And so, it is a very exciting time to represent the only, I guess in 
terms of both military and economic, the only remaining, what they call 
superpower. But what we want to do is use our ingenuity and use our 
energies, well-represented by this group here today, to help people 
around the world; to assure the peace; to raise the standards of living 
of our own people by, as I said earlier on, opening markets and having 
our economy much more vibrant.
    So, it's a wonderful time to be fighting these battles and accepting 
these challenges that will always be with whoever is President of the 
United States. This, as I say, is a cameo appearance; it's a quick drop-
by. But looking around here, I can get a little sense of enthusiasm that 
occupies this crowd. And I really wanted to wish you a very, very happy 
new year. And may God bless you in your important work.
    Thank you all very, very much.

                    Note: The President spoke at 2:29 p.m. in the Cosmos 
                        Ballroom at the Miyako Hotel.