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A U.S. Asian partnership.

Article Excerpt
[The following are excerpts from a speech delivered to the American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong, September 17, 2008.]

The United States has been a Pacific power for much of its history. Indeed, our relations with Asia began not far from here when, not even a decade after our country's birth, an American merchant ship first docked in the port of Guangzhou. And in 1833--175 years ago--we signed our first treaty of friendship with an Asian power, Thailand.

In the course of my own career, and certainly in the course of American history, our presence as a Pacific power has taken many shapes. But in 1961, when I arrived in Hong Kong, and throughout that decade, when I was working on Vietnam policy, I could not have imagined the extraordinary transformation Asia would undergo in the coming decades. As President Bush noted last month in Bangkok, "Asia has gone from an area mired in poverty and recovering from world war to a thriving and dynamic region." Asia has avoided military conflict for nearly three decades, and relations among its major powers have never been better. Nearly all of Asia's economies are market-based, and robust democratic systems are flourishing throughout the region. The 21 APEC [Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation] economies now account for 60 percent of global GDP [Gross Domestic Product] and half of global trade. All of this makes Asia a key component of a rapidly globalizing world. And so, America's status as a Pacific power has never been more important than it is today.

Those of us fortunate enough to witness Asia's transformation know that it was neither inevitable nor accidental. Asians, who recognize the value of education and hard work, deserve...