1、 MR. MORRISON: Well, thank you. Aloha. I want to welcome everyone. And for our onlineaudience, and also for the Secretary, Id like to describe who is here in our audience. We havethe mayor of Honolulu, Mayor Caldwell. We have our senator, Mazie Hirono. We have ourformer governor, George Ariyoshi, an
2、d our other former governor, John Waihee. We have manymembers of the business and intellectual and public affairs community here in Honolulu. Wehave members of the diplomatic corps. We have members of our men and women in uniform.We have the members of the board of governors of the East-West Center.
3、 We have the staff ofthe East-West Center. We have friends of the East-West Center. And most importantly, we havefuture leaders of the Asia Pacific region. And I was just telling the Secretary, I think yesterdaywe welcomed 130 new participants from the United States and 40 other countries. Theyre he
4、reon a unique program to prepare them for being future regional and global leaders. Now, how do you introduce a man who is so well-known for his own leadership and - SECRETARY KERRY: First thing, you can just tell everybody to sit down. Oh. （Laughter.） Please sit down, yes. （Laughter.） Thank you, Mr
5、. Secretary.Anyway, as you know, he has served in war and peace. He was a senator for 28 years; 59million Americans voted for him for president, including 54 percent of the voters of Hawaii. （Laughter and applause.） But as a former senate staff person, I thought the way to reallycheck him out was to
6、 see how his confirmation hearing went. Now, the issues werecontroversial but the nominee was not controversial, and what his former colleagues saidabout him, Republicans and Democrats, I think give the essence of the man: extremely wellprepared, born in a Foreign Service family, served all 28 years
7、 on the Senate Foreign RelationsCommittee, four years as the chairman of that committee. He knows the languages – severalforeign languages, countries, leaders, and issues. He is a man of incredible moral andintellectual integrity. He brings conviction and compassion to his job and great energy
8、. Hehas been, I think, on his seventh trip to Asia, coming back and so we want to welcome him backto the United States. We want to welcome him to our most Asia Pacific state, and we want towelcome him to the East-West Center, an institution thats building community with thisvast region which is so s
9、ystemically important to the future of the United States. Mr. Secretary of State. （Applause.） Thank you. Well, good afternoon, everybody. Aloha. Its wonderful to behere in Hawaii, and man, I cant tell you how I wish I was as relaxed as some of you in yourbeautiful shirts. （Laughter.） Here I am in my
10、 & whatever you call it & uniform. Uniform, somewould say. But it is such a pleasure to be here. Mr. Mayor, its great to be here with you. AndMazie, thank you. Its wonderful to see you, Senator. Im very happy to see you. Thanks forbeing here. And governors, thank you for being here very much. Ladies
11、 and gentlemen, distinguished guests all, its a great, great pleasure for me to be ableto be here. And President Morrison, thank you very much for that generous introduction. Iappreciate it very much. Charles was way ahead of the curve, folks, in seeing the trend towards regionalism in the AsiaPacif
12、ic in the early 1990s. And he was calling for community-building within East Asia wellbefore it became a standard topic of discussion on the think tank circuit. So clearly, and toeveryones benefit, hes had an ability to focus on the long game. And that is a talent that heactually shares with one of
13、the founding fathers of this institution, a former colleague,beloved to all of you, who became a great friend to me, and thats Senator Dan Inouye. Duringmy sort of latter years, I actually moved up to about seventh in seniority or something in theUnited States Senate, and had I not been appointed to
14、 this job, with all of the retirements thatare taking place, I dont know, I might have been third or fourth or something, which is kind ofintimidating. But as a result of that, I got to sit beside the great Dan Inouye for four or fiveyears in the Senate. Our desks were beside each other, and we beca
15、me very good friends. Hewas one of the early supporters of mine when I decided to run for President in 04, 03. Butmost importantly, Dan Inouye, as all of you know, was a patriot above all who commandedremarle respect and affection of all of his colleagues. And Hawaii was so wise to keep himin office
16、 for so many years. Having just visited yesterday Guadalcanal, having stood up on what was called Bloody Ridge,Edsons Ridge, and walked into one of the still remaining bunkers that Marines were dug in onagainst 3,000-plus Japanese who kept coming at them wave after wave in the evening, its & itwas a
17、 remarle sense of the battle that turned the war. And no place knows the meaning ofall of that better than here in Hawaii. Yesterday commemorated really one of the great battles of the Second World War, and so itgave me a chance to reflect with special pride and with humility about Dans service to o
18、urcountry. He was a hero in the war, against difficult circumstances which we all understand toowell. But he became the first Japanese American to serve in the House of Representatives andthe United States Senate, against all the odds of what was still a prevailing sense in ourcountry of misundersta
19、nding between people. And he just never let that get in the way. Heshared a very personal commitment to strengthening ties between the United States and theAsia Pacific. And thats why he championed the East-West Center for decades, and I want you toknow that President Obama and I strongly support yo
20、ur mission of bringing people together tothink creatively about the future of our role in the region and how we overcome the kinds ofinherent, visceral differences that sometimes are allowed to get in the way of relationships, andfrankly, in the way of common sense. We remember too well in America t
21、hat slavery was written into our Constitution long before itwas written out of it. And we all know the struggle that it took & excuse me & to write it out. Soas we look at the world today & complicated, difficult, tumultuous, volatile & for so many ofus who have spent decades working on issues centr
22、al to the Asia Pacific, theres actuallysomething particularly exciting about this moment. Its almost exhilarating when you look atAsias transformation. And like Dan Inouye, I have had the privilege, as many of you havehere I can see, youve lived a lot of that transformation firsthand. A number of my
23、 & （coughing） & excuse me, its the virtue of many hours in an airplane. Anumber of my ancestors from Boston and from Massachusetts were merchants whose shipsdropped anchor in Hong Kong as they plied the lonely trade routes to China. My grandfather,actually, was born in Shanghai and was a businessman
24、 who had a partnership with a Chinesebusinessman. So in our family and in Massachusetts, weve had a long sense of the possibilitiesand of this relationship. Today, East Asia is one of the largest, fastest growing, most dynamicregions in the entire world. And when the Trans-Pacific Partnership negoti
25、ations are complete,about 40 percent of global GDP will be linked by a high-standard trade agreement, a tradeagreement that creates a race to the top, not a race to the bottom, where people understandthe rules of engagement and theres accountability and transparency, and business andcapital know exa
26、ctly what the rules of the road will be so theyre attracted to invest each in eachothers countries. After college, I had the privilege of serving in the United States Navy. And I went throughPearl Harbor. I had a remarle several days here as a young officer on a frigate before weset sail to cross th
27、e Pacific. And I drove all over the island everywhere, in places I probablywasnt supposed to. But I loved it and then spent a second tour in the rivers of Vietnam. Andback then, the word Vietnam & just saying Vietnam & carried with it an ominous meaning. Itmeant war. It meant huge dissent in America
28、, families torn apart. But today, Vietnam, whenyou say it, has a whole different meaning to most people. Its now a dynamic country filledwith economic opportunity. Its a market for our businesses and our investors. Its a classroomfor our children. It has one of the largest Fulbright programs in the
29、world. And its a partner intackling regional economic and security challenges. Such extraordinary transformations have actually become almost the norm in this region. Illnever forget, 15 years ago, I visited in then Burma & no confusion with Myanmar but nowpeople choose what they want to call it. Bu
30、t I visited with Daw Aung Sung Sui Kyi in the veryhome in which she was imprisoned for nearly two decades. And this week, I had the privilegeof again going back to the very same house & it hadnt changed, looked the same. She, by theway, 20 years later looks the same. And she is now free to speak her
31、 mind as a member ofparliament. Its remarle. It doesnt mean all the president are solved. But these transformations arejust some of what makes Asia the most exciting and promising places on the planet. I am returning, as President Morrison has said, from actually my sixth trip to the Asia Pacific in
32、18 months as Secretary of State. And later today, Ill be meeting with our outstandingCommander of United States Forces in the Pacific to review a range of Americas formidablemilitary presence issues. I have We know that Americas security and prosperity are closely and increasingly linked to the AsiaPacific. And thats why President Obama began what is known as the rebalance to Asia in 2021.Thats why hes asked me to redouble my own efforts in the region over the next two and halfyears. And thats
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