The United States is a Pacific nation, as much as it is an Atlantic nation.
Our interests in Asia are as important to us as our interests in Europe.
Our trade with Asia is as great as our trade with Europe. During the past
four years we have regained a strong, dynamic and flexible posture for the
United States in this vital region.
Our major alliances with Japan, Australia and New Zealand are now stronger
than they ever have been, and together with the nations of western Europe,
we have begun to form the basic political structure for dealing with
international crises that affect us all. Japan, Australia and New Zealand
have given us strong support in developing a strategy for responding to
instability in the Persian Gulf.
Normalization of U.S. relations with China has facilitated China's full
entry into the international community and encouraged a constructive
Chinese role in the Asia-Pacific region. Our relations with China have been
rapidly consolidated over the past year through the conclusion of a series
of bilateral agreements. We have established a pattern of frequent and
frank consultations between our two governments, exemplified by a series of
high-level visits and by regular exchanges at the working level, through
which we have been able to identify increasingly broad areas of common
interest on which we can cooperate.
United States relations with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations
(ASEAN) have also expanded dramatically in the past four years. ASEAN is
now the focus for U.S. policy in Southeast Asia, and its cohesion and
strength are essential to stability in this critical area and beyond.
Soviet-supported Vietnamese aggression in Indo-china has posed a major
challenge to regional stability. In response, we have reiterated our
security commitment to Thailand and have provided emergency security
assistance for Thai forces facing a Vietnamese military threat along the
Thai-Cambodian border. We have worked closely with ASEAN and the U.N. to
press for withdrawal of Vietnamese forces from Cambodia and to encourage a
political settlement in Cambodia which permits that nation to be governed
by leaders of its own choice. We still look forward to the day when
Cambodia peacefully can begin the process of rebuilding its social,
economic and political institutions, after years of devastation and
occupation. And, on humanitarian grounds and in support of our friends in
the region, we have worked vigorously with international organizations to
arrange relief and resettlement for the exodus of Indo-chinese refugees
which threatened to overwhelm these nations.
We have maintained our alliance with Korea and helped assure Korea's
security during a difficult period of political transition.
We have amended our military base agreement with the Philippines, ensuring
stable access to these bases through 1991. The importance of our Philippine
bases to the strategic flexibility of U.S. forces and our access to the
Indian Ocean is self-evident.
Finally, we are in the process of concluding a long negotiation
establishing Micronesia's status as a freely associated state.
We enter the 1980's with a firm strategic footing in East Asia and the
Pacific, based on stable and productive U.S. relations with the majority of
countries of the region. We have established a stable level of U.S.
involvement in the region, appropriate to our own interests and to the
interests of our friends and allies there.