LECURE ON Future of the Pacific Rim.

London Bridge is Falling Down
End of a land base
End of a bridge--a spiritual attachment
The building of walls

Vasco De Gama
The American Century
The American Lake

The Pacific Rim

The new dogma:
Free markets
The open society
Major problem: free markets and free trade have no social policies, no sense of the common good
George Soros in the Atlantic Monthly: There has been an ongoing conflict between market values and other, more traditional value systems, which has aroused strong passions and antagonisms, unsure of what they themselves stand for, people have come to rely increasingly on money as the criterion of value. . . . In any case, there is something wrong with making the survival of the fittest a guiding principle of civilized society. The main point . . . is that cooperation is as much a part of the system as competition, and the slogan "Survival of the fittest@ distorts this fact.

Challenge to America:
Until the 1980's the goal of Am. For. Policy was to fight communism. We supported authoritarian regimes no matter how cruel. We engaged in clandestine and not so clandestine assassination, undercover operations, etc. We even allowed ourselves to overlook how the CIA and other agencies squandered our money and the lives of our allies in this war.

The end of the cold war has not met the same sacrifices that the end of WW II provided. No Marshall plan, no spending of billions to support labor unions, economic investment, aid projects.

The state dept.=s goals have shrunk along with its personnel.
The state dept. has faced and is facing three dramatic shifts in its personnel:
1. Original. East coast, high society, pro-Europe, and later pro-Pacific.
2. Vietnam War and afterwards: new social class, religious fervor--anti-communist, pro capitalism.
3. Technocrats. Economists, engineers,
Result: no longer really representing a civilization. Or the only value is the push for economic development.

No longer a plan for East Asia:

Why? Because the bridge is broken. We can no longer land our ideas;
What are the major issues?
China:
Blue water navy, use of Hong Kong, possible break up, demands on "Tibet, military attack or embargo of Taiwan."
Regionalism and intra-regionalism in the old days we just had one purpose and one ally. Now Taiwan can shatter the each of East Asia. E.g. foreign relations with North Korea.

Free trade doctrine promotes the end of barriers to China and Japan in East Asia. The Japanese are resented the Chinese feared. What is our principle?

Other problems that demand regional and worldwide controls: The Un?
Pollution
Water, disease
Armaments

We are stuck in a furrow or rut of thinking that econ. Development will resolve these issues:

But we must not let Blade Runners be our horror film of the next millennium.
There is a lot in Asia, but we refus3e to recognize it.
Fashion,
Movies, Scientific knowledge
New foods,
Languages.

What is to be done?
Work as hard with all of Asia as we have done with Western Europe.
Learn languages
Develop our own clear philosophy
Don=t sacrifice people for profit
Beware of how our terminology and our trade change our views of Asia.