    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (2000, Book I)]
    [March 1, 2000]
    [Pages 345-350]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks to UUNET and MCI WorldCom Employees in Ashburn, Virginia
    March 1, 2000

        Thank you very much, Melissa. To
    Bernie and John
    and Mark, thank you for welcoming me and
    Ambassador Barshefsky and our whole team
    here. I leaned over to John when I looked at all of you out here, and I
    said, ``Now, I can't believe all these people are off work now. What
    terrible thing can happen?'' [Laughter] What could I be responsible for
    doing to the Internet today? [Laughter]
        I am profoundly honored to be here, and I thank all of you for
    allowing me to come. I came here to talk about your future. But because
    this is the only opportunity I'll have today to speak, through you and
    the media, to the American people, I have to make a brief comment about
    one other issue.
        Today there was another terrible shooting in the Wilkinsburg
    community in Allegheny County in western Pennsylvania. We don't know all
    the facts yet, but it was a bad situation. Yesterday, of course, that
    tragedy occurred in Michigan, where a very young child was killed by another very young child. I just talked
    to the superintendent of schools there, right
    before I came out.
        I want to say two things about it to all of you. First of all, these
    are personal tragedies that, because of instantaneous media coverage,

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    we all know and feel. And we owe the families of the victims and the
    communities our prayers and our best wishes.
        Secondly, as citizens, these incidents, particularly the one
    yesterday in Michigan, call on us to recognize the fact that we simply
    haven't done everything we can do to keep guns away from criminals and
    children. And so today I have to say again to Congress: You have had
    legislation now that would require child safety locks, would close the
    gun show loophole, would take other steps to keep guns out of the wrong
    hands for well over 6 months. You're supposed to take a recess next
    week. Before you take the recess, please send me this legislation. It
    will help keep America safer.
        Now, I want to talk to you today about your future, which is
    unfolding at a breathtaking rate. We were talking before we came out. I
    said, ``Tell me a little about the growth.'' So John said, ``Well, 5
    years ago we had 40 employees. Today, we have 8,000.'' Bernie said,
    ``Five years ago, we had 2,000 employees. Today, we have 88,000.''
    You're getting along reasonably well. [Laughter]
        I have been going around the country saying to my fellow Americans
    everywhere that in a new economy in which we have now, in the last 7
    years, 21 million new jobs, the lowest unemployment and welfare rolls in
    30 years, the lowest poverty rates in 20 years, the lowest female
    unemployment rate in 40 years, the lowest African-American and Hispanic
    unemployment rates ever recorded, the highest homeownership on record,
    and the longest economic expansion in our history, the world is changing
    so fast, if you want to keep doing well, you have to keep trying to do
    better; that it is very important that all of us understand that we'll
    never get anywhere by standing still. Although given the pace at which
    you're growing, I'm glad I'm giving you the chance to stand still for a
    little bit today. [Laughter]
        This shift in our economy is changing the landscape of our country,
    both symbolically and literally. I first saw the landscape of northern
    Virginia as a freshman in college 36 years ago. But it looks different
    than it did when I became President 7 years ago. Everywhere you look,
    there's a brandnew facility. This place is truly amazing. And beneath
    all the booming business parks and green pastures, there are countless
    miles of cable, conducting more than over half the Internet traffic in
    the entire world.
        There are more high-tech firms in northern Virginia today than there
    were farms in 1970, when the region led the State in the production of
    milk. [Laughter] Here in Loudoun County, there are more high-tech
    workers than there were residents in 1980. It has been an amazing thing.
    Workers like you and firms like UUNET are the new engines driving our
    economy. You represent about 8 percent of our employment but 30 percent
    of our growth over the last decade, something you can be very proud of.
        The new technologies that you use are also finding their ways into
    every sector of our economy, making companies of all kinds more
    competitive. UUNET provides a lot more than Internet service. Every day
    you show us something about the power of ideas, the power of
    imagination, the power of enterprise, values that are at the core of
    America's character and at the bottom of this booming new globalized
    economy, in a marketplace that is much, much wider and fuller of
    possibility than any of us could have imagined when this company sold
    its first commercial connection in 1988.
        In just 12 years, you've extended your reach to 100 countries,
    expanding your global network by more than 1,000 percent a year. The
    global network is a big part of your future, and that's what I want to
    talk about today, and what Government's role in that is.
        People ask me all the time, well, this is the highest percentage of
    growth in jobs in the private sector and the smallest percentage in the
    Government of any recovery we've ever had, since we could measure such
    things. As a matter of fact, since I've been President, we've reduced
    the size of Government to its smallest point in 40 years, since 1960. So
    people say, ``Well, what is your job, Mr. President? What is the
    Congress' job?'' I think our job is to create the conditions and provide
    the tools for you to do your job.
        What does that mean? That means we ought to invest in education and
    training and new technologies. There's a lot of research that can't
    efficiently and economically be done in the private sector. The Internet
    originally grew out of Government-funded research, which, as I was
    reminded today by your leaders, is one of the reasons there are so many
    high-tech firms in northern Virginia.
        Second, we've got to give you an overall healthy economy, which is
    why we had to get rid of the deficits and start running surpluses

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    and why we ought to pay this country out of debt, keep interest rates
    down, and make capital available for other companies to grow as well.
        The third thing we ought to do is to promote genuine competition.
    That was behind the gentle nudge that Bernie gave me about the Baby Bell comment. [Laughter] He was--
    actually, it was a little inside joke, but he was referring, in a
    supportive way, to the fact that the Vice President and I fought hard in
    the Telecommunications Act, when we rewrote the telecommunications bill
    for a procompetitive position. And because we fought hard, we got it.
    And you not only have companies like yours that have swollen in size in
    the last 5 years; there are hundreds and hundreds of companies that
    didn't even exist 5 years ago that are able to make it today because the
    United States took a procompetitive position in the Telecommunications
    Act. Those are our jobs. That's what we're supposed to do.
        But finally, we are a country with 22 percent of the world's income
    and 4 percent of the world's population. And you don't have to be
    Einstein or even particularly good with a computer to know that if
    you've got 22 percent of the world's income and 4 percent of the world's
    population and you would like to keep doing better, you have to sell
    something to somebody else--[laughter]--and that in a world that is
    increasingly globalized, you're better off when they're better off. It's
    not good for you that African countries which are capable of growing at
    7, 8, 10 percent a year are so burdened by debt that they can't educate
    their children or provide health care to their people. It's not good for
    you if, because we refuse to open our markets to some countries in the
    Caribbean or Latin America, they don't open their markets to ours, and
    they grow more slowly, and their people remain poorer. You'd be better
    off if they get richer and more of them will be on the Internet.
        We live in a time when, really, doing the morally right thing
    happens to be good economics. But in order to do it--again I would say,
    you will do a lot of it. I've seen enterprising kids in poor African
    villages logging onto the Internet and finally seeing a map that's up to
    date and learning geography and doing all kinds of things. People will
    take care of this if we establish the right conditions and provide the
    tools.
        One of the things that we have worked hard on is to expand trade.
    Under Ambassador Barshefsky and her
    predecessor, we completed over 270 trade agreements. But in many ways,
    perhaps the most important of all is the agreement that--or the decision
    Congress will have to make this year and in the next few months on
    whether to let China come into the World Trade Organization by giving
    them permanent normal trading relations status with the United States.
        If you've been following this debate at all, you know there is a lot
    of controversy about this in the Congress. And I won't go through all
    the arguments now, but let me just tell you, I can say this from my
    heart; you know, I'm not running for anything this year. [Laughter] And
    most days it's okay with me, but I'm not--[laughter]--most days.
        But I care a lot about what this country will be like when the young
    people here in this audience are my age, when your children are your
    age. This is a profoundly important issue. It is, in the short term, the
    kind of decision that every country would wish for. Once in a generation
    you get a chance to open a market with over a billion consumers, the
    biggest potential market in the world.
        Let me explain, first of all, what this agreement does. In return
    for China's entry as a full partner in the World Trade Organization, the
    United States would gain unprecedented access to China's markets. Today,
    with the Chinese, we have our second biggest trade deficit, tens of
    billions of dollars, because our markets are open to their products--and
    they should be, because we'll be better off if they do better. But their
    markets are not very open to our products and services. Under this
    agreement, Chinese tariffs in every sector, from telecommunications to
    automobiles to agriculture, will fall by half or more in 5 years. For
    the first time, our companies will be able to sell and distribute
    products in China made by workers here at home without transferring
    technology in manufacturing--never happened before. For the first time,
    China will agree to play by the same open trading rules we do--never
    happened before.
        Meanwhile, we'll get two tough new safeguards against surges of
    imports which would threaten to throw a lot of Americans out of work in
    a short time under unfair trade practices. So these are the kinds of
    changes any

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    President, regardless of party, would welcome, because Presidents,
    regardless of party, have worked to bring out these changes for more
    than 30 years now.
        This is a good deal for American workers, for American farmers, for
    American business. It's a good deal for America. But the only way we can
    get this agreement is for Congress to give China permanent normal
    trading relations. This is one of the most important votes Congress will
    pass in this year and for many years to come. Next month, our Commerce
    Secretary, Bill Daley, and our Agriculture
    Secretary, Dan Glickman, are going on missions
    to China with dozens of Members of Congress to meet with people in
    Government and business and religious leaders who are interested in
    change in China.
        It's very interesting to me that the more people go to China and
    spend time there, no matter what they do for a living or what their
    perspective is, the more likely they are to favor our bringing China
    into the world system of rule-based trade, because this is about
    economics and more than economics, and I want to say more about that in
    a minute.
        But just think about the economics of high-tech companies. Today,
    China's tariffs on information technology products average 13 percent.
    When China joins the WTO, those tariffs will start to fall and be
    eliminated by 2005. China will open its Internet and its telecom markets
    to American investment and services for the first time. That's a huge
    deal.
        Now, the magnitude of all this almost defies measurement. The number
    of Chinese Internet users--let's just take that--quadrupled in the last
    year alone, from 2 million to 9 million. This year, the number will
    exceed 20 million. And you know what the internal dynamics of this
    technology are. You know how much your company has grown. Now, project
    that rate of growth onto a country that has over 1.2 billion people. And
    keep in mind, the United States is not being asked to do anything to get
    this agreement, except to treat them like a normal trading partner on a
    permanent basis and bring them into the WTO.
        So what are we going to do? China doesn't have the information
    infrastructure to support 500 million Internet users yet. But UUNET
    already has a presence in Hong Kong. You could help them to build it.
        Let's look at what happens if we didn't do it. Today, we've got a
    huge advantage in high-tech trade internationally. What would happen if
    we didn't take advantage of this? China will grow anyway, and someone
    else, not you, will reap the benefits of it. So if we turn our backs on
    this opportunity, we will be unilaterally disarming in perhaps the most
    vital area of our future economic growth.
        And let me say, finally, this is about more than money. I saw a lot
    of you nodding when I said it was good morally and good economics to
    help lift the burden of debt from the poorest African countries if
    they're working to try to do better. I saw a lot of you nodding when I
    said it was the right thing to do to buy more from the Caribbean and
    Latin American countries if they were doing the right thing and opening
    their markets to us.
        We have a decision to make here. The people who don't want to do
    this by and large think that China should not be taken into the World
    Trade Organization because we don't agree with all their political
    decisions. We don't like it when they repress human rights or political
    rights or religious expression. We don't agree with them that we should
    take little or no account of environmental impacts of economic decisions
    or that we shouldn't take strong steps to eliminate child labor and
    slave labor and things like that. We have differences.
        But think of this. You know how much the Internet has changed
    America, and we were already an open society. I can look out in this
    crowd and tell that many of you come from some place else. You know how
    much the Internet is changing where you came from and how much it could
    change if it were there. The same thing is true in China.
        Everything I have learned about human nature in my life plus
    everything I have learned about China as President convinces me that
    we're a lot better off bringing them into the family of nations, into
    this common endeavor, than shutting them out. Do we know what China will
    be like in 20 years? Of course we don't. We can't control what they do.
    All we can control is what we do. But here again, I think our values
    will be advanced, along with our economic interests, if we give people a
    chance to be good partners. If you don't give them a chance, it's almost
    certain that they will react in a negative way.

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        So I ask all of you to think about this, because normally, Americans
    don't think about foreign policy much. But you know that with every
    passing day in a globalized economy, there is no longer a clear, bright
    line between an issue which is a domestic political issue and an issue
    which is a foreign policy issue.
        With every passing day, these issues grow closer together. Do I like
    it when people's religious liberty is oppressed in China? No, I don't.
    But it's very interesting; most of the evangelicals I know who have
    missions in China want China in the WTO because they know that that will
    make it more likely that there will be more freedom of expression, more
    contact with the outside world, and a bigger stake in working with other
    countries.
        This is about money, yes, but it's about more than money. It's about
    whether we can create a world where there's the kind of harmony across
    race and ethnicity and religion that there must be in this workplace
    that I can see just by looking around the room here. Wouldn't you like
    it if the world worked the way you do here? How could it be bad if
    companies like UUNET are able to make the tools of communications
    cheaper and better and more widely available to more Chinese people? It
    has to be good.

        So I will say to you, I don't agree with everything the Chinese do.
    I'm sure they don't agree with everything I do. [Laughter] And far be it
    for me to equate the two disagreements. [Laughter] I don't believe--in
    all seriousness, I don't believe it's right to crack down on people for
    their religious views or their political expression or because they want
    to be in an association like the Falun Gong. I don't think that's right.
    But I don't believe that we will have more influence on China by giving
    them the back of our hand instead of giving them a chance to build a
    different future.

        That's what this is about. And I want every one of you to think
    about this. Look, economically, this is a no-brainer. It's in your
    interest. It will make this company a lot more jobs. But I don't ask you
    as citizens to check your values at the door. Every one of us believes
    in some things that money can't buy.

        But I'm telling you, you just think about what you have learned in
    your life about human nature. The leaders of China are not foolish
    people; they're intelligent people. They know, if they open these
    markets, they know, if you go in there and everybody gets connected to
    the Internet, that change is coming more rapidly in ways that you cannot
    control. And people will be able to define their future, independent of
    the Government's ability to control it, more than ever before, whether
    you're talking about religion or politics or personal life choices or
    anything else. They know that, and they have made this decision. And we
    cannot let our disagreements with Government policy get in the way of
    our interest in a long-term partnership with the most populous country
    on Earth. So again I say, what is good economics is also consistent with
    our values.

        The late Chief Justice Earl Warren once said that, ``Liberty is the
    most contagious force in the world.'' I believe the Internet inevitably
    is an instrument of human liberty, and it will be in China as well, if
    we continue to reach out to people.

        So I'm asking you to do something if you agree with this. I want you
    to tell the Members of Congress, without regard to party, that represent
    your State--if you live here, if you live in Maryland, you live in West
    Virginia--I want you to ask them to support this. And I want you to tell
    them--I want you to tell them that you will stay with them on this
    decision if they do, because this is very, very important.

        You know, I'm grateful that since I've been President, America has
    done well. I'm grateful for the chance I've had to make a contribution
    to it. But frankly, I'm much more interested in whether America
    continues to do well long after my tenure in office. And again I say to
    you, if you know in your business that--if you want to keep doing well,
    you always have to keep trying to do better and looking to the future,
    anticipating the changes, imagining how you want it to be.

        I can't imagine a world that I want for my child and my
    grandchildren that doesn't include partnerships that are constructive
    with the big countries of the world, which promote human liberty as well
    as economic progress. That's what this whole thing is about.

        So I say to you, I came here today because you are the symbol of
    21st century America. You are the embodiment of what I want for the
    future. And because of what you do for a living every day, because of
    how you see and

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    feel the way the world is changing and how you see what it can become,
    you are in a position, that most of your fellow Americans are not in, to
    understand the importance of this. So again I say to you, you're doing
    great. I want you to do better. And I think we can do better and do
    good, but we have to start this year by making sure that we don't turn
    away from this profoundly important opportunity.

        Thank you very much.

    Note: The President spoke at 3:15 p.m. at UUNET Technologies. In his
    remarks, he referred to Melissa Pizzo, vice president and general
    manager, service delivery organization, John Sidgmore, chairman, and
    Mark Spagnolo, president and chief executive officer, UUNET; Bernard J.
    Ebbers, president and chief executive officer, MCI WorldCom, Inc.; Kayla
    Rolland, who died after she was shot by 6-year-old classmate Dedrick
    Owens in Mount Morris Township, MI; Larry J. Allen, superintendent,
    Mount Morris School District; and former U.S. Trade Representative
    Michael (Mickey) Kantor.