'A Step Down The Ladder'

Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you, Dick, for that most kind and gentle introduction.I expected far worse from you, but that was very nice of you. (Laughter.)

And it's a great pleasure to especially be here this evening so I can congratulate you as you assume theduties later this year of Chairman of the Asia Society. I think the board has chosen wisely, and I know thatyou will occupy the position and bring to it great distinction, energy and dedication, as well as a love forAsia and a love for making sure that our interests are represented well in that part of the world.

It's a great pleasure to be here with all of you this evening, and especially with my friend JohnWhitehead, one of the great Americans whom it's been my privilege to serve with over the years. I am alsopleased to be here with Nick Platt, your very distinguished President, who I have done many things with overthe years. And I thank Hank Greenberg for his very kind remarks, as well as the leadership for this dinnerthis evening shown by Hank and Fred Smith and Nick Scheele and John Wren and some of the others who have madethis a very, very successful evening for the Asia Society.

I want to thank Nick Platt and the Trustees of The Society for this chance for me to talk about Asia, andspecifically East Asia and the Pacific -- a region whose destiny is linked to our own by geography andgeneology, history and high-tech, trade and treaties, vital interests and enduring values.

For nearly half a century, The Asia Society has been an invaluable asset to both America and to Asia. Youhave helped to acquaint the American people and their leaders with the changing face of Asia, and Asians withus. In particular, I want to applaud your national campaign to improve teaching about Asia in our schools. Therising generation of young people here and in Asia need to learn much more about each other because they willbe building and sharing the same future. As Americans and Asians work together to meet the challenges of a21st century world, we will need the Asia Society more than ever.

Before beginning my remarks, let me say a few words, not about East Asia and Pacific, but about anotherpart of Asia, South Asia, that has captured so much of our attention in recent weeks. And that of course isthe situation, the crisis that has existed, between India and Pakistan.

I am very pleased that in the last two or three days we have seen an improvement in the situation. Formonths we watched as both sides went up an escalatory ladder that looked like it might be leading to aconflict, a conflict that neither side wanted and would not be good obviously for the region or for the world.

And I am pleased that as a result of intensive diplomatic efforts on the part of a number of people, wehave begun to see some relaxation in the tension. The Bush Administration has been hard at work on this for anumber of months -- phone calls, emissaries, consultations with other world leaders, I think started toproduce some results.

One lesson in all of this is how the international community can come together and recognize a danger andwork together to avert the consequences of that danger. The United States has worked closely with the EuropeanUnion, with the United Nations, specifically with Russia, with China, and especially with the United Kingdom,to say to both leaders that a way must be found to solve this crisis politically and without conflict. We havehad a number of emissaries go to the region from the United Kingdom, from the United States. I was thereearlier. My European colleagues have been there. And this past weekend my Deputy Secretary Richard Armitage,well known to many of you, was also in the region.

Two weeks ago, we got assurances from President Musharraf that he would cease infiltration activity acrossthe line of control. We passed those assurances on to the Indian side. And then Deputy Secretary Armitage overthis past weekend got further assurances that that cessation of activity would be visible and would bepermanent and would be followed by other activities that had to do with the dismantling of the camps that ledto the capacity to conduct these kinds of operations.

I am very pleased that the Indians received this assurance from President Musharraf, and Prime MinisterVajpayee and other Indian leaders in recent days have used this assurance to start to take additional movesthat relieve the tension that exists in the region. The announcement that India was opening up air trafficcorridors again with Pakistan is a welcome one. We have also received indications that the Indian fleet ismoving away from potential confrontation with Pakistan. I am pleased to note that the Indians have named theirnew High Commissioner to Pakistan, who of course will be accredited in due course.

In response, Pakistan has welcomed these moves, and I expect tomorrow that President Musharraf will give usfurther indications of how welcome these moves are.

This is a step down the ladder. There is more to do. We are still in a period of crisis. The situation isstill very tense. We will remain engaged. That's why Secretary Don Rumsfeld, finishing a trip to NATO and thePersian Gulf, will head tomorrow into the region to continue our consultations with both India and Pakistan inorder to bring this situation down to a point where serious de-escalation can start, where the mobilization ofthe Indian forces can now go in the other direction, as well as the mobilization of Pakistani forces.

And as we have said to both the Indian and the Pakistani leaders, the United States will remain engaged,working with the international coalition, to find a way forward, to find a way to begin discussions betweenthe two sides, to begin dialogue.

I am pleased that all sides now see that infiltration across the line of control, attacks across the lineof control, have changed in terms of intensity. And I've also noted today that the shelling, the rate ofshelling across the line of control, has also abated somewhat.

And so we're pleased at this progress, but there is still a long way to go, and I can just assure youtonight that the United States will remain engaged. President Bush has given us a top priority and instructedus to do everything we can to find a way forward that will lead to stability and peace, and not to war.

(Applause.)

As part of those de-escalatory steps, we have suggested other moves that we hope both sides will be makingin the days ahead.

A few weeks ago, in a gilded hall in the Kremlin, President Bush and President Putin signed the Treaty ofMoscow, an historic strategic arms reduction treaty, reducing by two-thirds the number of operationallydeployed nuclear warheads that would be kept by either side. They also signed a political declaration thatwill deepen cooperation between our two countries. And then in Rome a few days later, the President joined ourallies and President Putin in forming a NATO-Russia Council that will bring Russia closer to the Euro-Atlanticcommunity and will bring the West closer to Russia. The new Council will enable all of us to work togetherfrom North America all the way across Europe and into Russia -- also an Asian nation, as we know -- to work onterrorism and other issues of mutual concern.

When I see events like this, when I participate in events like this -- a treaty signing in the Kremlin orwelcoming Russia into a relationship with NATO -- I have a rush of memories. You've got to remember, I didn'tcome out of the academic community. All of my adult life was spent as a soldier preparing for a war with theSoviet Union, a war that, thank God, never came. From the time I was a Second Lieutenant until becomingChairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, I worried about the danger totalitarian states such as the Soviet Unionposed to the rest of the world.

But my real war, my real war, is not in Europe. It was not getting ready to fight the Soviet Union orfighting the Soviet Union. My real war was Communist aggression in Asia. I arrived in Vietnam even before DickHolbrooke. I arrived in Vietnam on Christmas Day, 1962, a young Captain sent to fight in what was to becomeAmerica’s longest and only lost war. So my personal experience of Asia goes back to the days when everybodywas talking about Communist take-overs, not economic take-offs.

I had another rush of memories last fall returning to Vietnam for the first time in 32 years. I was in a757 this time, my own plane, the Secretary of State, flying into the capital of my former enemy. I was in thecockpit looking out the window, watching as the green vegetation got closer and closer as the pilot descended,watching as he went over the little hills, slowly, slowly, until finally we landed in Hanoi. It was a movingmoment for me after 32 years. It was a very emotional moment for me to land in this place that I had spent twoyears of my life.

And I found in today’s Vietnam a nation that had set itself on a course of fundamental market reform. Isaw shopping malls and office complexes rising up, Internet cafes on street-corners, cell phones in everyone’shands, and roads clogged with motorbikes and cars. My hosts wanted to talk about a bilateral trade agreement;they didn't want to swap old war stories with some old general who suddenly showed up as the Secretary ofState. So maybe we didn’t lose the war after all. Maybe we are now winning it. And so are the Vietnamese.

I see in Europe and in Asia the same worldwide phenomenon: a growing awareness that the 21st century holdsextraordinary opportunities. Opportunities to work with allies, friends and former adversaries to resolvelongstanding conflicts, as we are doing with Russia and China in the Middle East and South Asia. Opportunitiesto form coalitions against new global challenges, as in the worldwide campaign against terrorism. Andopportunities to advance global well-being on an unprecedented scale by freeing ordinary people to pursuetheir hopes and their dreams.

It's just as President Bush put it in his recent commencement speech at West Point: "Today," hesaid, "the great powers are … increasingly united by common values, instead of divided by conflictingideologies. The United States, Japan and our Pacific friends, and now all of Europe, share a deep commitmentto human freedom… Even in China," he said, "leaders are discovering that economic reform is theonly lasting source of national wealth. In time, they will find that social and political freedom is the onlytrue source of national greatness."

Slowly, inexorably, nations one after another all over the world are learning freedom works like nothingelse. Some nations are still afraid of it. Others are determined to control its progress. Some backslide. Butthe trend is real and it is in our interest to nurture it at every turn and in every region.

Therefore, our first goal and highest priority for Asia must be to help create the secure conditions underwhich freedom can flourish -- economic freedom and political freedom.

And security, first and foremost, is essential to economic growth and political freedom. For fifty years,over 50 years, the United States has been the balance wheel of security in Asia. To this day, Asia’sstability depends on our forward-deployed presence and our key alliances with Japan, South Korea, thePhilippines, Thailand and Australia.

Our alliances convey strength, purpose, and confidence but not aggression, not hostility. Our allies havethrived on our stabilizing presence. Others in the region have also benefited, though they are sometimesreluctant to admit it.

For five decades, our presence on the Korean peninsula has provided the security that South Korea needed togrow its economy and democracy. Our 37,000 military men and women in Korea today have exactly same mission Ihad when I commanded an infantry battalion 30 years ago facing the DMZ: stop an attack from North Korea at allcosts.

Our alliance with the Republic of Korea is strong and resilient and has withstood many difficultchallenges. So strong and so resilient that it can even withstand the strain from the heart-stopping World Cuptie earlier this morning.

(Applause.)

There can also be no doubt, my friends, that postwar Japan was able to recover and prosper by relying, byseeing, American military power. For that same past half century, our strength has made it possible for Japanto limit its defense expenditures and concentrate its enormous energy on economic growth, ondemocracy-building. And in recent years, our alliance with Japan has provided a framework within which Japancan contribute more to its own defense as well as to peace and security worldwide.

Last September, I participated in a moving ceremony marking the 50th anniversary of the United States-Japanalliance. It was held at the Presidio in San Francisco, overlooking a Pacific that was truly at peace. Wehailed our living alliance and declared it capable of adapting to the 21st century environment.

Little did we know that three days later on September 11 our words would be put to the test.

We could not have asked for a more resolute response from Japan. Japan went out of its way to help, byfirst passing legislation that for the first time ever permits its Maritime Self Defense ships to participatefar from Japan’s shores in anti-terrorism efforts. Today, as part of Operation Enduring Freedom inAfghanistan, Japanese vessels provide fuel and logistical support to American ships plying the Indian Oceanand the Arabian Sea. And Japan has renewed this naval support for another six months.

Japan’s superb leadership as co-sponsor of the Afghan Reconstruction Conference last January resulted in$4.5 billion in pledges from sixty countries, $296 million from the United States in this fiscal year alone.Japan itself pledged over half a billion dollars to Afghan reconstruction over the next several years.

At the Tokyo Conference, I will never forget Hamid Karzai, the head of Afghanistan’s Interim Authority,as he listened with quiet dignity as nation after nation pledged to help his people build a future, a futurebuilt on freedom and hope. As nation after nation pledged that they would never again abandon Afghanistan backto chaos and terror. And I guarantee you tonight that we will not. We will be there for Afghanistan.

(Applause.)

In Afghanistan today, Australians fight shoulder-to-shoulder and wing-to-wing with us in the war againstterrorism, just as the Australians have done in every war of the last century. Indeed, the first non-Americanserviceman to die in Operation Enduring Freedom was a sergeant in Australia’s Special Air Service.

Troops from New Zealand also serve alongside us in Operation Enduring Freedom and in the InternationalSecurity Assistance Force in Afghanistan. A South Korean medical unit cares for the ill and the injured.Thailand is now preparing to send peacekeepers, a military commitment that I hope others in Asia will make.

Beyond their efforts in Afghanistan, Asian nations are contributing to the global anti-terrorism campaignby tightening law enforcement, border controls and intelligence cooperation to make it harder for terroriststo move about, to communicate and to plot their evil deeds against us. We also deeply appreciate the effortsof a number of Asian countries to deny funds to terrorist groups that operate under the guise of legitimatebusinesses or charities.

In their own backyards, the governments of Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore are cracking terrorist cells,arresting terrorism suspects and uncovering new leads, cooperating fully with us in the campaign againstterrorism.

The Armed Forces of the Philippines fight courageously against indigenous terrorist organizations thatclearly have international ties. I am proud, so proud, that American forces are helping to train and equiptheir Philippine Army counterparts to combat groups such as Abu Sayyaf, a terrorist organization whichregularly kidnaps, as you know too well, civilians for ransom.

Just last week, Philippine forces encountered the Abu Sayyaf holding two American missionaries, Martin andGracia Burnham, and a Filipina nurse Ediborah Yap. The Burnhams had been hostages for over a year. Tragically,despite the best efforts of the Government of the Philippines to secure a safe release of the hostages, MartinBurnham and Ms. Yap died in the firefight that followed and Gracia Burnham was wounded. Seven Philippineservicemen also were wounded. Mrs. Burnham is now back in her home in Kansas. And wonderful, gracious ladythat she is, despite the loss of her husband, and despite what she must have gone through over the past year,she was gracious enough in her grief to express her appreciation and admiration for what the PhilippineGovernment had done.

Vicious groups like Abu Sayyaf stop at nothing. They fear no one. The murderous example of Abu Sayyaf showshow right President Bush has been to lead a global campaign against all terrorists, all forms of terrorism,and not just against al-Qaida.

We recognize the domestic concerns that exist that make some Asian states with large Muslim populations ofttimes reluctant to confront terrorism. They fear that taking action against terrorists will create martyrs.This fear stems from a popular misconception, fed by extremists, that the global campaign against terrorism isa war against Islam. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is not we who threaten Islam. It is theterrorists who murder, who murder men, women and children and violate Islam’s fundamental precepts oftolerance and peace. They threaten Islam. They do a disservice to a proud and noble religion.

Far, far greater dangers come from ignoring the problem of terrorism and letting radical minorities drivedomestic politics, rather than taking strong action against terrorists and their sympathizers.