Speeches

• Second, the United States has been a Pacific nation for two centuries.  Being an active partner in Asia is both natural for us and in our national interest.

• Third, our engagement in the region pays dividends for Asia as well as for us.  When observers in the region comment on the U.S. role or profile in Asia, they do not advise us to stand down.  On the contrary, most of the time they ask us to become more involved than we already are.

• The fourth thought that I hope you take home today is this:  we should celebrate that Asia is successful because the United States shares in that success.  Building on a foundation that is already deep and strong is not headline-grabbing, but a quiet, steady process.  This process is continuing every day across the range of human activity.
  

Growing Benefits of our Relations

There is no doubt -- particularly here in the Pacific Northwest -- that the century of Asia is upon us and Asia's importance as a partner continues to rise.  The politically and economically dynamic region of East Asia is home to nearly a third of the earth’s population and produces a quarter of global GDP.  The region also accounts for over US$800 billion in two-way trade with the United States.  U.S. engagement with Asia has expanded in lockstep with the opening up of new opportunities arising from the region's growth and change.
 
Asia is transforming quickly.  Successful democratic elections across the region have given more citizens a voice in their own governance.  On the economic side, the gloomy days of the Asian financial crisis are past, and an upward curve of prosperity and economic opportunity now defines the region.

Let me cite a few facts to support that statement.

• Some of the world’s ten fastest growing economies (most notably China) are located there, and regional economies are moving toward greater economic openness.

• The United States is the number one trading partner in the region, and we are the largest or second largest partner for every major economy in Asia.

• Five of America’s top ten trading partners are in Asia (China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Malaysia).

• Taken together, the Southeast Asian nations that comprise ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) are our fourth largest trading partner.  Singapore alone is our fifteenth largest trading partner and the ninth largest destination for U.S. exports.
  

We and our trading partners are seizing opportunities.  For example, we have signed free trade agreements with Singapore and Australia, and we are negotiating FTAs with the Republic of Korea and Malaysia.

Educational and cultural links are booming across the Pacific.  In Singapore, for example, there are more than fifty university exchange programs with U.S. institutions, and new connections are established nearly every month.  The number of American students studying in Asia is growing, and rising numbers of Asian students are choosing the United States for their undergraduate and graduate education.

Asia is largely at peace.  But this does not mean that we in the United States or the nations of Asia take regional security for granted.  We are working with our five traditional allies -- Japan, the Republic of Korea, the Philippines, Australia, and Thailand -- to meet the challenges of the modern age.

In addition, the United States is an active security partner with many countries across the region that are friends and partners, but not allies -- the schedule of military training activities and exercises is impressive.  In recent years, our efforts have reflected a new focus on peacekeeping and humanitarian disaster response, and we are particularly proud of our contributions to multinational disaster preparedness and relief efforts.

Growing regional cooperation is offering new avenues for productive collaboration between the United States and Asia.  The emergence of new patterns of cooperation is sure evidence of the durability of our interests and the adaptability of the instruments we deploy to achieve them.

The region is coming together – politically, socially, and economically – through institutions such as ASEAN, APEC, and the ASEAN Regional Forum, known as ARF.  We are pleased to work with and within these organizations as well as the multitude of sub-regional programs and activities.

I'll cite a couple of areas where we are working on matters of common interest through groups defined by geography or by issues.

• We continue to explore how to boost prosperity.  Immediately after his trip to Singapore last November, President Bush attended the APEC Summit meeting in Hanoi where he and the other leaders endorsed a Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific (FTAAP) as a long-term goal.

• Prosperous economies depend on an environment that is peaceful and secure.  Therefore, we continue to strengthen our collective ability to counter terrorism by building partnerships throughout Asia.  Through APEC, the region's economies have promoted immensely valuable programs such as Secure Trade in the APEC Region or STAR. 

• The region is also addressing other transnational problems in a determined fashion.  Ministerial-level conferences have tackled issues such as trafficking in persons and money laundering.  APEC and other forums are working on detecting potential pandemics and designing responses.  The Governments of Singapore and the United States have established the Regional Emerging Diseases Intervention (or REDI) Center to promote detection, prevention, and response throughout the APEC region.

Areas of Concern

Of course, there are issues of particular urgency and seriousness in every region of the world.  The United States is engaged in efforts to address potential hot spots and hot issues.  Among these issues are North Korea and the Six-Party Talks, Burma, and cross-Strait peace and stability between China and Taiwan.  Our involvement is a natural component of our interest in peace, stability, and welfare in the region.  The concerned parties and populations of Asia broadly encourage United States’ involvement when it supports the positive trends that have already emerged or adds extra leverage to prevent hostilities from erupting.

Building on Strong Foundations

I would like to turn now to my earlier point about the quiet but steady work of building upon strong foundations.  To illustrate the point, let’s take a brief look at U.S. relations with Southeast Asia in general and Singapore in particular.   I hope you will agree that, even if adding building blocks to a sturdy foundation may not generate headlines, it does add up to something bigger and stronger every day.

ASEAN

Our founding membership in the ASEAN Regional Forum (or ARF) has long been an important element of our interaction with Southeast Asia.  The group is working on how to address a broad range of traditional and non-traditional security issues through the framework of the ARF, including proliferation, maritime security, and humanitarian crisis response.  Today, the renewed dynamism evident throughout Southeast Asia is mirrored by a reinvigoration of ASEAN-United States ties, and our relations with ASEAN are expanding both quantitatively and qualitatively, regionally and bilaterally.  We’re working together to expand economic opportunity, fight corruption, combat terrorism, provide security, and safeguard our populations' health.

We are now embarked on a long-term project that will bring Americans and Southeast Asians even closer together.  This project is unfolding thanks to a series of important decisions.  In November 2005, President Bush and ASEAN leaders issued a Joint Vision Statement on the ASEAN – U.S. Enhanced Partnership.  At the ASEAN Post Ministerial Conference meeting in Kuala Lumpur last July, Secretary of State Rice and the ASEAN Ministers signed the Plan of Action for the Enhanced Partnership.  This comprehensive initiative addresses all areas of mutual interest in our expanding relationship, including economic, educational, cultural, and security cooperation.  We are working with Singapore (which is the ASEAN Country Coordinator for the United States) to implement the Plan of Action.

In addition, we signed a Trade and Investment Framework Arrangement (TIFA) with ASEAN last July.  The TIFA serves as a framework for further building our ties and aims to increase trade and investment between ASEAN and the United States.  Our TIFA starts with three initial projects.  We are

• supporting the development of the ASEAN Single Window, which essentially consists of a standardized set of customs procedures designed to facilitate the flow of goods within ASEAN and between ASEAN and the United States;

• cooperating on sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) issues to foster additional trade in specific agricultural goods; and

• working on pharmaceutical regulatory issues to speed the delivery of innovative medicines to ASEAN countries.   
  

2007 marks the 30^th anniversary of the ASEAN-U.S. Dialogue and we have a number of activities this year to commemorate our close ties.  For example, just last week in that other Washington, the Department of State hosted an Open Forum discussion on the ASEAN Charter with Singapore Deputy Prime Minister Jayakumar and ASEAN Secretary General Ong Keng Yong.

In order to make ASEAN a more effective organization, its leaders have agreed to develop an ASEAN Charter.  The Charter will serve as the legal and institutional framework for the organization as it moves towards greater integration and an ASEAN Economic Community.  Singapore, as Chair of ASEAN beginning in July, hopes to complete the Charter by the time it hosts the ASEAN leaders’ summit in November.  The United States supports ASEAN integration, both to make it easier for U.S. businesses to operate in Southeast Asia and to enhance regional stability.

Singapore

Now I’d like to touch on our bilateral relations with Singapore, which are at a historic high point.  We are not treaty allies, but we are close partners on a range of economic and strategic issues.   Our partnership is based on historic friendship, common interests, substantial trade and investment ties, shared strategic perspectives, and unremitting efforts to expand cooperation where it benefits us both.

Our relationship is bound by a web of important bilateral agreements, among them the Free Trade Agreement (or FTA) and the Strategic Framework Agreement.  Since the FTA entered into force in January 2004, two-way trade has expanded 34 percent.  Remarkably, U.S. exports to Singapore’s 4.5 million people are nearly one-half of our exports to China’s 1.3 billion people.  Furthermore, out of all 50 states, Washington State is the third largest exporter to Singapore.  In 2006, Washington State exports to Singapore exceeded $2.3 billion.  The amount of U.S. foreign direct investment in Singapore is more than double our foreign direct investment in China.  Major U.S. investors in Singapore include Seagate in electronics, ExxonMobil in petroleum, Pfizer in pharmaceuticals, and Pratt & Whitney in aviation.  Additionally, the United States is welcoming growing amounts of Singaporean investment to our shores.

The Strategic Framework Agreement or SFA, highlights the close and growing security relationship between the United States and Singapore.  The SFA was signed by President Bush and Prime Minister Lee in Washington, D.C. in 2005.  It recognizes our shared interest in regional stability and provides the foundation for cooperation across the range of security issues.  As with the Free Trade Agreement, the SFA makes a good working relationship even better.  We regularly conduct bilateral exercises with the Republic of Singapore Armed Forces (SAF), and the SAF trains extensively in the United States.  U.S.-Singapore collaboration in relief efforts after the December 26, 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and Singapore's assistance to us after Hurricane Katrina demonstrated the importance of the familiarity, inter-operability, and access afforded by our close relationship.

We also greatly appreciate all of the diplomatic and material support Singapore has provided for Iraq.  Singapore has deployed military aircraft and naval vessels to support Coalition forces in the Gulf and has provided police trainers for the new Iraqi police force.

The United States and Singapore also work closely together to promote security in and beyond Asia.  Earlier this month, Singapore announced that it would contribute two groups of personnel to support Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) in Afghanistan.  The PRTs are playing an essential role in promoting and enhancing security and facilitating humanitarian relief and reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan.

Singapore is a leader in adopting high-tech solutions for cargo and passenger screening, and strongly supports non-proliferation and trade security initiatives.  Singapore is an active member of counterproliferation programs such as the Proliferation Security Initiative, and was the first country in Asia to join the Container Security Initiative and the Department of Energy’s Megaports Initiative.  Late last year, Singapore was among six countries that joined the United States in a pilot program to test the effectiveness of new technologies for screening cargo, called the Secure Freight Initiative.  Singapore works with its neighbors to enhance security in the Malacca Strait, to the benefit of all users, including the United States.

The growth of our bilateral relationship multiplies opportunities for contact between Americans and Singaporeans.  About 15,600 Americans live in Singapore, and the number of Singaporeans applying for work or student visas to the United States continues to grow.  This past year, the number of Singapore students who obtained visas to study in the United States set an all-time record.  More than 5,000 Singaporeans work or study in the United States, and Singapore travelers accounted for more than 80,000 entries to the United States on the Visa Waiver Program last year.

Lastly, I should mention that senior officials from the United States and Singapore meet regularly.  President and Mrs. Bush visited Singapore this past November, their second visit there.  Last fall, in October, Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew visited the United States.  It was my pleasure to attend his meetings in Washington with the President, Vice President, Secretary of Defense, Secretary of State, Treasury Secretary and then Director of National Security, John Negroponte.  Last June, Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong visited the United States, and I’ve already referred to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s visit in July of 2005.  These visits reflect and serve to deepen further the strong bilateral relations between our countries.

Conclusion

It probably goes against human nature, and certainly against the daily news cycle, to take time to quietly savor success.  Asia has been a great success story.  The United States has both played an important role in creating that success and has benefited from it as well.  Relations between the United States and Asia will continue to expand and strengthen -- because of the irrepressible dynamism on both sides of the Pacific and because of our convergent interests.

Thank you for inviting me to join you today.  It’s been a pleasure to see so many familiar faces and have the opportunity to talk about U.S. relations with Singapore and our committed involvement in the East Asia-Pacific region.  I look forward to your questions.