    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1993, Book II)]
    [November 19, 1993]
    [Pages 2025-2026]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at a Dinner for the APEC Forum and Business Leaders in Seattle
    November 19, 1993

        To my fellow leaders of the APEC nations and distinguished guests,
    we gather here tonight in Washington State at an historic moment. At
    least two other times during this century a great global struggle has
    ended and a new era has dawned. That has happened again today. It falls
    to each of us, as it fell to leaders then, to imagine and to build a new
    future for our people. I deeply appreciate the willingness that each of
    you has shown to make the long trip here to be together today.
        I want to express my appreciation for the warm hospitality of the
    people and the elected officials of this beautiful city of Seattle in
    the Evergreen State of Washington. All of us in the Asian Pacific live
    as neighbors in a region that has long been characterized by both its
    commerce and its conflicts. The question for our future is whether we
    can reap the bounty of the Pacific without bringing its storms. There
    are vast differences among our economies and our people; yet these can
    be a great source of enrichment.
        I hear the complex music of our many differing languages, and I know
    that in each of them our words for work, for opportunity, for children,
    for hope carry the same meaning. I see the roots of our many ancient
    civilizations, whether Confucian or Islamic or Judeo-Christian. I know
    there is much we can learn from each other's rich and proud cultures.
    Above all, I look at the perpetual motion of this region's ports, its
    factories, its shipping lanes, its inventors, its workers, its
    consumers, and I know we are all united in a desire to convert that
    restless energy into better lives for our people.
        Tomorrow all of us will go for a day of discussion on beautiful
    Blake Island. I believe that discussion can help to foster among us a
    sense of community, not a community of formal, legal economic
    integration as in Europe but a community such as neighbors create when
    they sit down together over coffee or tea to talk about house repairs or
    their children's schools, the kind of community that families and
    friends create when they gather on holidays to rejoice in

    [[Page 2026]]

    their common blessings. Such gatherings are not driven by charters or
    bylaws but by shared interests and aspirations, bonds that are often
    more powerful, enduring than those which are written down.
        So it is with this community I hope we can create together. We have
    common concerns about the conditions in our neighborhood, about regional
    trade barriers, about our shared environment. We have common
    aspirations: good jobs for our workers, rising standards of living for
    our children, and peace among our nations. And now we have a common
    forum for pursuing our common goals. Tonight and tomorrow let us
    continue developing a shared sense of purpose as expansive as the ocean
    that unites our lands.
        Our great novelist Herman Melville once wrote this about the Pacific
    Ocean. He said it rolls the midmost waters of the world, the Indian
    Ocean and the Atlantic being but its arms. Thus this mysterious, divine
    Pacific zones the world's whole bulk about, makes all coasts bay to it,
    seams the tide beating of the Earth.
         Working as partners we have an historic opportunity to harness the
    tides of the Pacific so that they may lift all our people to a better
    future.
        Tonight I ask each and every one of you here to join me in a toast
    to the Pacific community, a region at peace, prosperous, and free. Hear,
    hear.
        Thank you.

    Note: The President spoke at 8:30 p.m. in the Spanish Ballroom at the
    Four Seasons Hotel.