Clinton Foreign Policy Reader: Presidential Speeches With Commentary: Presidential Speeches With Commentary by Alvin Z. Rubinstein

Author:Alvin Z. Rubinstein [Rubinstein, Alvin Z.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Leadership, Political Science, Political Process, General
ISBN: 9781317474289
Google: YeY4CQAAQBAJ
Amazon: B00XI14C98
Goodreads: 36445567
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2015-05-11T00:00:00+00:00

4-5 Troublesome Times; Staying the Course

Speech at the United States Institute of Peace

Washington DC

April 7, 1999

In February I gave a speech in San Francisco about America’s role in the century to come. We all know it’s an extraordinary moment when there is no overriding threat to our security, when no great power need feel that any other is a military threat, when freedom is expanding, and open markets and technology are raising living standards on every continent, bringing the world closer together in countless ways (See Chapter 1, Speech 5)….

The United States, as the largest and strongest country in the world at this moment—largest in economic terms and military terms—has the unavoidable responsibility to lead in this increasingly interdependent world, to try to help meet the challenges of this new era.

Clearly, our first challenge is to build a more peaceful world, one that will apparently be dominated by ethnic and religious conflicts we once thought of—primitive but which Senator Moynihan, for example, has referred to now as postmodern. We know that we cannot stop all such conflicts. But when the harm is great and when our values and interests are at stake and when we have the means to make a difference, we should try.

That is what we and our NATO allies are doing in Kosovo, trying to end the horrible war there, trying to aid the struggling democracies of southeastern Europe, all of whom are threatened by the violence, the hatred, the human exodus President Milosevic’s brutal campaign has unleashed. We are determined to stay united and to persist until we prevail….

The second challenge … is that of bringing our former adversaries Russia and China into the international system as open, prosperous, and stable nations. Today I want to speak especially about our relationship with China, one that is being tested and hotly debated today as China’s Premier, Zhu Rongji, travels to Washington….

For a long time, it seems to me, we have argued about China with competing caricatures. Is this a country to be engaged or isolated? Is this a country beyond our power to influence or a country that is ours to gain and ours to lose? Now we hear that China is a country to be feared. A growing number of people say that it is the next great threat to our security and our well-being.

What about this argument? Well, those who say it point out, factually, that if China’s economy continues to grow on its present trajectory, it will be the world’s largest in the next century. They argue, correctly, that the Chinese Government often defines its interests in ways sharply divergent from ours. They are concerned, rightly, by Chinese missiles aimed at Taiwan and at others. From this they conclude that China is or will be our enemy.

They claim it is building up its military machine for aggression and using the profits of our trade to pay for it. They urge us, therefore, to contain China, to deny it access to our markets, our technology,

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