SECRETARY KERRY'S PRESS AVAILABILITY WITH CHINESE FOREIGN MINISTER WANG YI

FROM:  U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
Joint Press Availability With Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi
Remarks
John Kerry
Secretary of State
Beijing, China
May 16, 2015

‎MR LU: (Via interpreter) Friends from the press, good afternoon. Just now, the two foreign ministers have held their dialogues, and they are ready to meet with you and take up your questions. Now, I would like to give the floor to Foreign Minister Wang first.

FOREIGN MINISTER WANG: (Via interpreter) Friends from the press, good afternoon. Just now, I have held a constructive meeting with Secretary Kerry, where the two of us had candid and in-depth exchange of views on China-U.S. relationship and other issues of mutual interest, and we reached a lot of agreement.

Two years ago, when the two presidents met in the Sunnyland, they agreed to build a new model of major country relationship between China and the United States. Over the past two years, thanks to the concerted efforts of both sides – in particular, thanks to the personal commitment and promotion of the leaders of both countries – this new model of relationship has made much headway in terms of both conceptual development and of the actual practice. Last year, China-U.S. two-way trade reached 555.1 billion U.S. dollars, and the stock of our two-way investment exceeded 120 billion U.S. dollars. More than 4.3 million people traveled between the two countries last year. All these numbers have set record highs in history.

Our two countries have maintained frequent contacts at the top and all the other levels, and we have had productive cooperation in important fields ranging from economy, mil-to-mil exchanges, people-to-people exchanges, and also a contact between localities. The two sides have also carried out close communication and coordination on important international and regional issues.

In September this year, President Xi will be paying a state visit to the United States. The most important task for the meeting between Secretary Kerry and me today is to make preparations for the presidential visit and to compare notes with the other side. Just now, together with Secretary Kerry, we exchanged views concerning the arrangement of events, the agenda items, and the outcomes of this visit. Both of us are of the view that this visit by President Xi to the United States is the paramount priority for China-U.S. relationship this year, which will have far-reaching and major implications for China-U.S. relationship in the days ahead. The two sides will continue to work in close tandem with each other, make careful plans, accumulate outcomes, and build up the atmosphere to make sure that the visit is smooth-going and successful.

To achieve this, we have to work together to make sure that the seventh round of the China-U.S. S&ED – the Strategic and Economic Dialogue – and the sixth round of the High-Level People-to-People Consultation between China and the United States, to be held in the United States in the latter half of June this year, to be as productive as possible. We need to further deepen our economic and trade cooperation and speed up the BIT, the bilateral investment treaty negotiations. We hope the U.S. side will take concrete measures to ease civilian-use high-tech export control vis-a-vis China.

We need to continue to maintain the good momentum of the growth of our military-to-military relationship and follow through on the mechanism of notification of major military activities between the two sides, and reach an early agreement on military aircrafts covered by the code of safe conduct for maritime and air encounters.

We need to strengthen dialogue and cooperation in the legal and the law enforcement field, and try to make new progress in the pursuit of fugitives and the recovery of their criminal proceeds. We need to strengthen communication, coordination, and cooperation on international and regional issues, including the Iranian nuclear issue, the Korean nuclear issue, Afghanistan, and the prevention and control of the Ebola epidemic, so as to continue to add new strategic dimensions to this new model of relationship – major country relationship between China and the United States.

We need to strengthen communication on Asia Pacific affairs and jointly explore the prospect of harmonious coexistence and win-win cooperation between China and the United States in this region. We need to continue to strengthen our communication and coordination on climate change to jointly ensure the success of the upcoming climate conference in Paris later this year. Meanwhile, we need to also work together to advance our bilateral practical cooperation on climate change.

This year marks the 70th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations and the end of the World Anti-Fascist War. As allies and victory parties during the Second World War, China and the United States have common interests in upholding the outcomes of the victory of the Second World War and also upholding the existing international order with the United Nations at its center.

Both sides are of the view that we have far more common interests than differences between us, and dialogue and cooperation always represent the theme of our bilateral relationship. Both sides need to act in a spirit of mutual respect, seeking common ground while shelving differences, and address the differences and sensitive issues between us in a constructive manner. China also expounds its principled stance on such issues related to Taiwan and Tibet.

China-U.S. relationship is one of the most important bilateral relationships in the world, and our two countries jointly shoulder the responsibility and obligation to uphold both peace and promote world development. As long as both sides continue to act in the principle of non-confrontation, non-conflict, mutual respect, and win-win cooperation, and stay committed to the path of building a new model of relationship – major country relationship between China and the United States, we will be able to usher in a bright prospect for China-U.S. relationship and bring more benefits to the people in both countries and enduring peace and prosperity for the world.

MR. LU: (Via interpreter) Thank you, Minister Wang. Now Secretary Kerry, the floor is yours.

SECRETARY KERRY: Well, thank you very much, Minister Wang. I’m really delighted to be back in China and I thank you very much for your generous welcome today. You and your colleagues have gotten our trip off to a very constructive beginning and I appreciate the comments you made about the importance of dialogue and the importance of working through disagreements, and mostly building on the areas where we agree that great progress can be made.

As Foreign Minister Wang said, we’ve just had a very productive meeting, and one of the reasons that we’re late is that it took longer and we dug into a number of issues in depth, and we’ll continue in a few moments over lunch.

This is my fifth visit to China as Secretary of State, and the reason for that is simple. As I’ve said previously, before President Obama and I traveled to Beijing last fall, the relationship between the United States and China is certainly one of the most consequential, if not the most consequential relationship in the world. In recognition of that and America’s commitment to Asia, Under Secretary Sherman traveled here a few months ago. Deputy Secretary of State Blinken was here about a month ago. I am now here about a month before we have our economic and security dialogue to take place in Washington. And other high-level visits are continually taking place, including military-to-military as well as the Secretary of Homeland Security Johnson was here recently, and Secretary of Energy Ernie Moniz was scheduled – had to delay, but will also be here soon.

And there are three key meetings that we are all working on together to prepare for in order to build success. One is the Security and Economic Dialogue that will take place in June in Washington. Two is the summit between President Xi and President Obama to take place in September. And three is the global meeting that we are working on together regarding climate change in Paris in December.

So thanks to focused diplomacy and the leadership that President Obama and President Xi have displayed, today our nations are collaborating to address not just bilateral and regional matters, but some of the most complex global challenges that the world has ever seen. That includes our work together on curbing the disease Ebola, it includes our work together regarding the DPRK – North Korea – and its nuclear program, and it also includes our work together with respect to the P5+1 nuclear negotiations with Iran.

Foreign Minister Wang and I have already spent time discussing some of that today, and I’m personally grateful for his personal commitment and hard work, the contributions they made – China made to Lausanne, to the discussions there and the negotiations, and now to the ongoing discussions. But from the moment those talks began, China has been playing an important key role as a P5 member. Our nations remain closely aligned in this effort. We are united along with the rest of our P5+1 and EU partners. We all understand that unity has been the key to getting where we are today, and it will be the key to completing a good deal and seeing it fully implemented.

We still have a long way to go. Many technical issues remain to be resolved. But we will continue to work hard as the June 30th deadline approaches. And we are all united and committed to do all we can to finalize an agreement that cuts off all of Iran’s pathways towards enough fissile material for a nuclear weapon, and gives the international community confidence that Iran’s nuclear program is exclusively peaceful.

On another nonproliferation challenge, we have consistently agreed in all of our meetings since I became Secretary of State and we have met that North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs are a threat to regional stability, and we have consistently agreed to enhance cooperation to bring about North Korea’s denuclearization. As with Iran, Foreign Minister Wang and I have always agreed that a mix of negotiations and pressure are needed to address this challenge, and North Korea needs to live up to its international obligations and commitments. And it is obvious that North Korea needs to recognize that it will not succeed in developing its economy or breaking out of diplomatic isolation if it continues to reject denuclearization.

The United States and China are also cooperating more closely than ever to address climate change, one of the greatest threats facing our planet today. Last fall, our respective presidents came together to announce our countries’ greenhouse gas commitments, the reductions, and we continue to call on other nations around the world to set their own ambitious targets. And we agreed this morning that as we get closer to the UN Climate Conference in Paris later this year, the United States and China, the world’s two largest greenhouse gas emitters, will elevate our cooperation and coordination so that we can reach the kind of global agreement that we will need to ultimately address this threat.

We’re looking forward to building on our cooperation in other areas as well, including international development assistance and the fight against violent extremism. We welcome China’s increased engagement with Afghanistan and its support of an Afghan-led, Afghan-owned peace process. Together, the United States and China are committed to supporting political cohesiveness and ensuring Afghanistan never again becomes a safe haven for terrorists.

And there are many other issues that we are working on together – trade, bilateral investment treaty, any number of different considerations on a global basis. But even as we work on these many, many issues, obviously, there are also areas where our nations have differences. And Foreign Minister Wang and I discussed those as well. We discussed our mutual interests and principles on how to handle maritime disputes in the East China Sea and the South China Sea. The United States has stated that we are concerned about the pace and scope of China’s land reclamation in the South China Sea. And I urged China, through Foreign Minister Wang, to take actions that will join with everybody in helping to reduce tensions and increase the prospect of a diplomatic solution. And I think we agree that the region needs smart diplomacy in order to conclude the ASEAN-China Code of Conduct and not outposts and military strips.

And I think one of the things that characterizes the strength of – or the growing strength of our relationship and the willingness to cooperate is the fact that on a maritime dispute or on other issues – cyber issues or human rights, other areas – where we may have differing opinions, we don’t simply agree to disagree and move on. Both of our nations recognize the importance of talking to each other candidly about those disagreements and trying to find a cooperative road ahead.

It’s only by talking through differences on a regular basis that you can actually work to narrow them over time. And that is the mark of an effective partnership. So I look forward to continuing my discussions with Foreign Minister Wang through the day, and also to the meetings that I’m going to have with State Councilor Yang Jiechi, with Premier Yi, with Vice Chairman Fan, and tomorrow with President Xi. These discussions will help us to build this cooperation and this relationship. And these conversations will set the stage for what we are confident will be a productive Strategic and Economic Dialogue in June, and certainly for President Xi’s trip to Washington this fall.

There is no question but that our nations share extraordinary opportunities that are looking at us as we build the history of this century. We have a lot to accomplish together in the coming years. As two of the world’s major powers and largest economies, we have a profound opportunity to set a constructive course on a wide range of issues that will affect everybody all across this planet. So the United States looks forward to continuing to build this relationship, to work with China, to build on our partnership of today, in order to create the most constructive future that we can, and not just for the people of our two countries but for millions of people around this planet who depend on great and powerful nations to help set high standards of behavior and of aspiration. Thank you.

MR LU: (Via interpreter) Well, thank you, Secretary Kerry. And now, Foreign Minister Wang and Secretary Kerry, though their time is very limited, they will be happy to take two questions from the floor. Firstly, I would like to ask one American journalist to ask one question to Secretary Kerry.

MS HARF: Great. The U.S. question is from David Brunnstrom of Reuters. The microphone is coming to you.

QUESTION: Thank you very much. I wonder if I could ask both sides about your different visions for Asia Pacific prosperity, namely the TPP and the AIIB, and what the prospects are of China joining the former and the United States the latter at some point in the future. And to follow on from that, one of the dangers in the future to bilateral cooperation and regional prosperity posed by tensions in the South China Sea, and particularly the possibility of U.S. patrols inside China’s 12-mile limit around the Spratly Islands.

And could I ask the Secretary to clarify, does the United States plan to carry out these patrols? And for the foreign minister to tell us how China would respond in the event of those patrols taking place?

I know this is a long question, but I wanted to also add on North Korea. I wondered if you could tell us if you share concerns about the latest missile test there and whether you see the prospects of a deal on Iran’s nuclear program opening the way for one on North Korea in the future. Thank you.

SECRETARY KERRY: Well, let me try to address all four questions – (laughter) – as quickly as I can.

With respect to the AIIB, there’s an enormous amount of misunderstanding, but let me try to be clear. There is a pressing need to enhance infrastructure investment throughout Asia as well as around the world. And the United States welcomes new multilateral institutions, including the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank, provided that they share the international community’s strong commitment to high-quality standards, including genuine multilateral decision making, ever-improving lending requirements, and environmental and social safeguards. Those are the high standards that apply to global financial institutions.

And we will continue to engage directly with China and with other countries in order to provide suggestions as to how the AIIB can best adopt and implement these particular standards. But with that, we welcome the AIIB, and we encourage it to co-finance some projects with existing institutions like the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank. And we are confident that under those circumstances, it can make an enormous difference, and we would strongly encourage it, as we talk today, to embrace a percentage of its allocation to – a significant percentage to clean energy, alternative energy, renewable energy, to sustainable environmental and other kinds of projects. And because of climate change in the United States, we are ending any funding – public money – that funds coal-fired power projects because of their impact on the climate. And we encourage China and other countries to do the same.

Now on the TPP, we welcome any country – we have a group of countries now come together to negotiate, but we welcome any country to come in to meet the standards of the TPP, and ultimately account for a standardization of the way in which people will approach trade, development, and investment. And I want to emphasize this – the TPP is not in opposition to anyone, any region, or anything. It is a proactive effort to raise the trade standards and transparency accountability of doing business on a global basis. It will set high standards on issues like labor, the environment, state-owned enterprises, intellectual property protection, in a part of the world where we believe those standards are still in flux and being determined. And this will help to create the rules of the road in a way where everybody benefits.

You may ask, “Why is that?” Because in today’s knowledge economy, in the knowledge economy of a global marketplace, stronger intellectual property rights protection actually encourages greater industrial production and it encourages foreign direct investment because it provides accountability for people’s investments. And what we have found in the United States, where today, we’re blessed to have unemployment below 5 percent, and where – around 5 percent, excuse me – and where we have enormous growth and innovation and entrepreneurial activity taking place, we believe that these standards encourage foreign direct investment in technology-intensive industries; it supports higher wages; and it fosters technology transfer and innovation.

Now I’ve taken a little longer than I wanted, but let me come very quickly to Korea and Iran. China is a vital partner in the Six-Party process with a very unique role to play because of its economic, diplomatic, and historical ties with North Korea. We share the common goal of peace and stability in the Korean Peninsula, and we agree on the need for denuclearization in a peaceful manner. President Xi and President Obama affirmed their fundamental agreement and commitment to the denuclearization of Korea – North Korea in their public comments at the bilateral summit last November. So we intend to remain deeply engaged with China, which has unique leverage, and we appreciate many of the steps China has taken already over the past two years to implement the UN Security Council sanctions. But we will continue to work to make it absolutely clear to the DPRK that their actions, their destabilizing behavior, is unacceptable against any international standard.

And I’m sure that Foreign Minister Wang would join me in expressing the hope that if we can get an agreement with Iran, that that – excuse me – that if we can get an agreement with Iran, that that agreement would indeed have some impact or have a positive influence in describing how you can come to the realization that your economy can do better, your country can do better, and you can enter into a good standing with the rest of the global community by recognizing that there is a verifiable, irreversible denuclearization for weaponization, even as you could have a peaceful nuclear power program. And hopefully, that could be a message, but whether or not DPRK is capable of internalizing that kind of message or not, that’s still to be proven.

QUESTION: Sorry, can I just follow up?

MS HARF: I think we’re a little tight on time, sorry.

SECRETARY KERRY: Four is enough. (Laughter.)

MR. LU: (Via interpreter) Now I would like to ask one Chinese journalist to ask one question to Foreign Minister Wang from CRI.

QUESTION: (Via interpreter) From China Radio International. My question is: Recently, some American experts, scholars, and media are of the view that Chinese proposals, including the Asia security concept, the AIIB, setting up the Silk Road Fund and the maritime and land Silk Road initiative are all geared to challenge the position and role of the U.S. in the Asia Pacific region and squeeze the United States outside of Asia. How do you look at this issue?

SECRETARY KERRY: We look – is that for me?

FOREIGN MINISTER WANG: That question for me. Okay. (Via interpreter) Well, such notion does crop up frequently, but I have to say that the fact we are seeing is there are more and more interaction between China and the United States in Asia, and our cooperation is becoming increasingly more close. And the Asia Pacific region has become the priority place for China and the United States in their effort to put in place a new model of major country relationship. And I talked about a whole range of cooperation items with Secretary Kerry just now, and many of them are issues in Asia.

China is a member in Asia, and very naturally, we need to contribute our share to Asia’s peace and development. To achieve this, China has framed a series of important and positive proposals, including the Asia security concept and the land and maritime Silk Road initiatives and so on, which testify fully to China’s readiness to work with all countries for Asia’s peace and stability. These, of course, have been very widely, warmly received and supported by countries in Asia. Asia, of course, in the first place, is the Asia of the Asian people.

Meanwhile, we always believe that Asia should be an open and inclusive Asia, because only inclusiveness and openness could make sure that Asia would always keep abreast with the rest of the world for enduring peace – for enduring development and prosperity. Take the AIIB as an example. Right now, it has got 57 founding member countries, and among them, 23 are from regions outside of Asia. This shows fully that when we talk about openness and inclusiveness, we are not simply talking the talk; we are actually walking the walk.

The United States is an important country in the Asia Pacific region, and we welcome a positive and constructive role of the U.S. in Asia Pacific affairs. And we stand ready to strengthen communication and cooperation with the U.S. side on this. As globalization continues to grow, today’s world is a world of cooperation instead of confrontation. It is a world of win-win outcomes instead of a zero-sum game. President Xi has proposed to build a new model of international relationship with win-win cooperation at the center. And I believe China and the United States are fully capable of continuing to strengthen strategic communication at both the bilateral and at the international levels, and carry out useful cooperation in all regions in the world, including the Asia Pacific, so as to continue to make our due contribution to world peace and prosperity.

Just now, the Secretary talked about maritime issues. Though the journalist violated the rule that one question only, but I respect your right to ask questions, so I would like to add a couple of words on this. Firstly, I would like to re-emphasize or reaffirm here that the determination of the Chinese side to safeguard our own sovereignty and territorial integrity is as firm as a rock, and it is unshakable. It is the request from our people and their government, as well as a legitimate right of ours.

Meanwhile, it has always been our view that we need to find appropriate solutions to the issues we have through consultations and negotiations among the parties directly concerned with peaceful means, in particular with the diplomatic means, as mentioned by the Secretary just now, on the basis of respecting historical facts and international law. This is our set policy, and this position will remain unchanged in the future.

And another thing I would like to let you know is that as a signatory party to the UNCLOS, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, China will of course honor our international obligations enshrined in this document. And on China’s development on some of the islands and reefs in Nansha, this is something that falls fully within the scope of China’s sovereignty. However, regarding the concerns from the parties on this matter, we hope to continue to have dialogues to better our mutual understanding. We are having such dialogues with the United States, and we are also continuing the talks with the ASEAN countries. And we will continue with this practice of conducting dialogues on this matter.

China and the United States do have differences on the South China Sea issue, but we also have a lot of agreement. For instance, we both hope to maintain peace and stability of the South China Sea, and we are both committed to the international freedom of navigation enshrined by international law. And we are both for settlement of the disputes through dialogues and consultation in a peaceful way. And as for the differences, our attitude is it is okay to have differences as long as we could avoid misunderstanding, and even more importantly, avoid miscalculation.

We welcome the positive remarks made by the Secretary on the AIIB. The AIIB is a multilateral institution, so naturally, its operation will be observing international rules. And the AIIB is also ready to carry out cooperation with other multilateral institutions, including the World Bank and the Asia Development Bank. You also raised the question on the relationship between the AIIB and the TPP.

And I wish to tell you here on this is that the defining feature of the AIIB is its openness. And for TPP, we’ll hope, as the Secretary has said just now, will be an open institution so that it will dovetail with the existing multilateral trading regime for the promotion of free trade in the world.

You also asked questions on the Iranian and nuclear – Korean nuclear issues. Secretary Kerry has said a lot on them already. What I would like to add is that as members – permanent members of the UN Security Council and as key members of the nonproliferation regime, China and the United States have the responsibility to work together with the rest of the international community to uphold the sanctity of the international nonproliferation regime, and use diplomatic means to find appropriate solutions to those nuclear issues to achieve lasting peace and stability in the regions concerned. We stand ready to work together with all countries in the world on those issues. Thank you.

SECRETARY KERRY: I just have one question for the foreign minister. I want to know if “Talk and talk and walk the walk” rhymes as well in Chinese. (Laughter.)

FOREIGN MINISTER WANG: (Laughter.)

MR LU: (Via interpreter) That’s the end of the press conference. Thank you for coming.

WHITE HOUSE FACT SHEET: U.S.-AUSTRALIA ALLIANCE

FROM:  THE WHITE HOUSE KOREA 

November 10, 2014

FACT SHEET: The U.S.-Australia Alliance

Reinforcing our long history of close cooperation and partnership, President Obama and Prime Minister Abbott today reviewed a series of initiatives to expand and deepen collaboration between the United States and Australia.

Security and Defense Cooperation

The U.S.-Australia alliance is an anchor of peace and stability not only in the Asia-Pacific region but around the world.  The United States and Australia will work together – bilaterally, in regional bodies, and through the UN – to advance peace and security from the coast of Somalia to Afghanistan and to confront international challenges, such as Syria; Russia’s military aggression in Ukraine; and North Korea.

In responding to the threat posed by ISIL and foreign terrorist fighters, the United States and Australia are working together with an international coalition to degrade and defeat ISIL by providing military support to Iraq, cutting off ISIL’s funding, countering its warped ideology, and stemming the flow of foreign terrorist fighters into its ranks.  The United States and Australia are coordinating closely through the Global Counterterrorism Forum.  Australia supported U.S.-drafted United Nations Security Council Resolution 2178, which condemns violent extremism and underscores the need to stem support for foreign terrorist fighters, and the two countries will work together toward its implementation.  Additionally, together, we continue to provide critical humanitarian support to the victims of conflict in Syria and Iraq.

In Afghanistan, the United States and Australia have worked to together to enable the Afghan government to provide effective security across the country and develop the new Afghan security forces to ensure Afghanistan can never again become a safe haven for terrorists.  The United States and Afghanistan will continue this close partnership, focused on the development and sustainment of Afghan security forces and institutions, after the combat mission ends in Afghanistan this year and the Resolute Support Mission begins.

The U.S.-Australian Force Posture Agreement, announced by the President and Prime Minister in June and signed in August, deepens our long-standing defense cooperation and the advancement of a peaceful, secure, and prosperous Asia-Pacific region.  While implementing the force posture initiatives jointly announced in 2011, the United States and Australia continuously seek opportunities to strengthen our interoperability, coordination, and cooperation.

As Pacific nations,  the United States and Australia share an abiding interest in peaceful resolution of disputes in the maritime domain; respect for international law and unimpeded lawful commerce; and preserving freedom of navigation and overflight.  Both countries oppose the use of intimidation, coercion, or force to advance territorial or maritime claims in the East and South China Seas.  In their June 2014 joint op-ed, the two leaders called on claimants to clarify and pursue claims in accordance with international law, including the Law of the Sea Convention, and expressed support for the rights of claimants to seek peaceful resolution of disputes through legal mechanisms, including arbitration, under the Convention.  Both countries continue to call for ASEAN and China to reach early agreement on a meaningful Code of Conduct in the South China Sea.

The United States and Australia are responding to the Ebola epidemic in West Africa and supporting the Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA) to accelerate measureable progress toward a world safe and secure from infectious disease threats.

The United States congratulates Australia as it nears the end of its two years on the United Nations Security Council, during which time Australia has been a powerful and important voice on a range of issues relating to international peace and security, especially the ongoing conflict in Syria and the global threat posed by terrorism.

Cooperation for Economic Growth and Prosperity

The United States and Australia share a commitment to deepening further economic ties, including by concluding the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a high-standard, 21st century agreement that will promote economic growth and job creation in both countries and around the region.  In January 2015, the Australia-U.S. Free Trade Agreement will celebrate ten years of facilitating trade and investment between our two countries, having nearly doubled our goods trade and increased our services trade by more than 122 percent.

The United States remains the largest foreign investor in Australia, accounting for over a quarter of its foreign investment.  The United States and Australia also work closely in multilateral institutions such as APEC to promote sustainable growth and shared prosperity in the region.

A vital aspect of economic growth is promoting greater gender equality.  The United States and Australia are working together to enhance women’s political and economic participation.  As founding members of the Equal Futures Partnership, our two nations continue to collaborate to expand economic opportunities for women and increase women’s participation in leadership positions in politics, civic society, and economic life.

The United States and Australia recognize the threat of climate change, including in the Pacific, and the need to take bold steps to boost clean energy, cut greenhouse gas emissions, and help ensure a successful and ambitious global climate change agreement in Paris next year.  The United States underscored the importance of submitting ambitious post-2020 climate commitments for the new agreement as soon as possible and preferably by the end of March 2015.   Both countries are collaborating with Pacific Island countries to promote sustainable development practices.

The President congratulated Prime Minister Abbott on the preparations for the G20 Summit, and noted he looks forward to the important and vibrant discussions ahead.

Science, Technology, and Innovation

U.S.-Australia science, technology, and innovation cooperation will strengthen our work on cutting edge issues, ranging from neuroscience to clean energy to information technology.  Under the auspices of the U.S.-Australia Science and Technology Agreement, our two countries collaborate on clean energy, marine, and health research.

Through the Ambassador of the United States’ Innovation Roundtables, the United States and Australia are creating an additional platform to leverage U.S.-Australia innovation partnerships and strengthen our interactions in innovative areas and promote a positive, future-oriented vision of our bilateral relationship.

The United States and Australia are two of the founding partners of the new $200 million Global Innovation Fund (GIF), which will invest in social innovations that aim to improve the lives of and opportunities for millions of people in the developing world.

People-to-People Ties

The U.S.-Australia Alliance is based on a long tradition of cooperation at all levels of government, business and civil society.

In partnership with the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney and the Perth USAsia Centre at the University of Western Australia, the United States established the “Alliance 21 Fellowship,” a three-year exchange of senior scholars and policy analysts that will further examine the shared interests and mutual benefits of the U.S.-Australia alliance through research and public engagement.

The United States and Australia form a partnership that is key to the future of both countries and peace and prosperity around the globe.

SECRETARY KERRY'S REMARKS AT NATIONAL CENTER FOR ASIA-PACIFIC ECONOMIC COOPERATION LUNCHEON

FROM:  U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
Remarks at the National Center for Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Luncheon
Remarks
John Kerry
Secretary of State
Intercontinental Beijing
Beijing, China
November 8, 2014

SECRETARY KERRY: Scott, thank you. Thank you very much. I apologize for being a little bit late. And it’s an honor for me to be able to be here. I’m delighted to be here with everybody. I’m particularly happy to be here with my good friend and colleague, the Foreign Minister from the Philippines, Albert Del Rosario. Albert, always good to be with you, and thank you very much. Albert said to me he was deathly afraid he was going to be late and he was glad I was the guy who was. (Laughter.) Modern diplomacy.

Scott, I’m really grateful to you. Monica sort of described it in her introductory comments, but we’re really delighted with what you have done to make NC-APEC what it is at this moment at the 20th anniversary celebration. And I think nobody who knows Scott is going to be surprised by what he has been able to accomplish, congratulate you on your new and large role. But through programs like Direct Farm at Walmart, he’s made it his mission to balance the needs of customers with corporate social responsibility, and I think all of us are very grateful to him for the leadership that he has shown.

I also want to thank Monica. When you think about the progress that we have made in building a public-private partnership here in the Pacific, it’s fair to say that Monica has been there every single step of the way. And I’m delighted that she is able to be here with us this afternoon. I also want to acknowledge a few folks that are in the APEC Business Advisory Council. All of them contribute significantly. I had the pleasure to be starting a conversation last year in Bali. Particularly from an American point of view, I want to single out Bart Peterson of Eli Lily, Peggy Johnson of Microsoft, Ed Rapp of Caterpillar, and we’re delighted for all that they represent in terms of their corporate engagement and the ability of their companies.

When you consider the long list of challenges that we are discussing here at APEC, it’s interesting for me to note how APEC itself has been somewhat transformed not just into an economic forum, but frankly, it has also evolved so much and has become such a competent place of discussion of important issues, and it’s also security (inaudible). And I think it’s fair to say that in today’s world, a world with ISIL and Ebola, Ukraine, Syria, climate change, it’s impossible not to recognize the relatedness of a lot of the choices that we make economically with the choices that are also (inaudible) at the same time integrated into a security matrix.

Nowhere is the unprecedented set of challenges, but also opportunities more clear than here in Asia and throughout the Asia Pacific. And it is important for people to focus on the fact that even as there are the challenges that I listed, we are staring at a world with absolutely unprecedented opportunity. I think that’s part of the attraction in putting so many of the businesses here, not just to APEC, but to the region, and has brought so many more over the last years. We are literally building prosperity and stability in the long term, and that’s why, unabashedly, economic policy is at the center of President Obama’s rebalance to Asia.

This is my fourth trip right here just to Beijing, my multiple trips to the region over the course of the last year and a half that I have been Secretary. And it will be one of many trips of the President when he arrives here on Monday and spends not one day or two days, but I think about eight days going to the ASEAN meeting and to the G20 meeting, ultimately, in Brisbane. There is no doubt that how this region grows and how we engage the 2.7 billion customers who live here is going to shape the future of the global economy, and it will do much to define the 21st century.

The numbers themselves of the last years of development actually define this story. The fact is that more than half the world’s GDP is represented in this region. Fully half of America’s top 10 trading partners are APEC economies. And we send the majority of our exports here to the Asia Pacific. And outside of America over the next five years, this region is expected to grow as much as all other countries combined. Just think about that. So if we put it all together, it’s pretty obvious why we all have a huge stake in the choices that are made here.

But getting these choices right is not automatic. That means to have to develop even closer cooperation between the public and the private sectors. And what you sell, how you invest, how you operate – these are all major parts of the equation. Our ambassadors throughout the region, including our outstanding Ambassador to China, Max Baucus, are completely at the disposal of all businesses. And I have said since day one, when I became Secretary of State, that foreign policy is economic policy, and economic policy is foreign policy. We’re living in that much of a different world in many ways.

And I have directed all of our embassies, under the good stewardship of our Assistant Secretary of State Charlie Rivkin, who’s sitting over here, Assistant Secretary of State for Business Affairs, and our Assistant Secretary of State Danny Russel, who’s over here, for East Asia and Pacific, that I want all embassies and every official within our embassies to be economic officers. That’s how important it is for us today to be able to promote and help to marry businesses with opportunities.

President Obama has set the tone by saying again and again that the way to grow our economies is to grow our exports. And that’s exactly what’s happening. Since the President took office, U.S. exports have increased more than 50 percent, and the two-way trade between the United States and other APEC countries, economies has grown by nearly the same amount during that period of time. That’s five, six years now (inaudible) growth nearly 50 percent. Every single one of you here, almost all of you, have been involved here for decades, frankly. I know this. So you’ve seen with your own eyes how dramatic the transformation is. Many of you are the transformation. You understand it. And it’s been a remarkable transformation in the 25 years since APEC was founded.

Back when it was founded, real GDP was 15 trillion in the region. Now it’s doubled to 30 trillion. Back then, when it was founded, trade was around $3 trillion. Now it’s grown to nearly seven-fold more than 20 trillion and growing. Back then, the average tariffs were 17 percent. Now, they’re under 6 percent. And that is a fundamental of the kind of growth that has taken place. And today, the 1.1 trillion in U.S. foreign direct investment in other APEC economies is a tremendous vote of American confidence in the region. Investment coming the other way – from APEC economies into the United States – now tops some $660 billion and it has created tens of thousands of jobs throughout the region and in the United States. The mutual benefits are absolutely undeniable.

So we have made extraordinary progress. The question now is: What do we do with the next 25 years? How do we guarantee that what we can do together, the steps that we take together, are going to build an even more prosperous future for all of the APEC countries? Well, today, I’d argue that we have to organize ourselves fundamentally around four principles of growth: We need to grow openly and accountably. We need to grow green. We need to grow just. And we need to grow smart. Now let me tell you what I mean about each of those.

First, openly and accountably. As any business leader would agree, freer markets create more opportunity, more competition, more growth, and more innovation. And that means that we need to do everything we can to open up trade and investment in every single corner of the globe, particularly here in the Asia Pacific. And that’s why President Obama and I are laser-focused on the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement.

The TPP represents a state-of-the-art, 21st century trade agreement that will connect more than 40 percent of the global GDP and one-third of global trade. But more than that, it doesn’t just connect it; it raises standards. It creates a race to the top, not a race to the bottom. And any of you who are wondering today about the security challenge of increased level with extremism, just look to those places where it is most taking hold, and you’ll find places that aren’t just racing to the bottom; they’ve been stuck at the bottom. And if you stay stuck at the bottom, your people are going to find something to latch on to that they will organize themselves around.

Governance is a critical component of being able to grow effectively and have this race to the top, where all people do better, and any one of you in business here in this part of the world understands the difference that moving to the top has made to the sense of quality of life and the opportunities that citizens have in the countries that are affected. And that’s true whether we’re talking about agriculture, manufacturing, or intellectual property, or the challenge of ensuring that state-owned enterprises compete fairly with privately owned companies. TPP will build prosperity and ensure prosperity and stability throughout the region, and it will do so based on shared principles and shared values. It is not just a technical trade agreement. It is a strategic opportunity for all of us, and we need to make sure we seize it. That’s why we need every single one of you here to make the case – with all of the leaders and all of the population that you come in contact with, particularly all the opinion leaders – make your case for TPP in every country and in every capital. This is a battle that we need to be prepared to make, and make no mistake, it is a battle that we absolutely must win, because if you don’t, the levels of unfairness and the shut doors will create inequities that will encourage corruption and begin to insidiously invade populations of countries that are affected.

Secondly, we need to grow green. That means stepping up our engagement on clean energy and oceans conservation. Cleaner energy means more sustainable sources of energy. It means reduced air pollution. Reduced air pollution means healthier populations. In America in the summertime, the greatest single cause of young kids being hospitalized is environmentally induced asthma. You want to reduce the cost of hospitalization, the cost of healthcare? Breathe cleaner air. Reduce the level of long-term illness that comes from carcinogens in the air that give people cancer.

There’s a long list of benefits – your healthier populations, your reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. The latest UN panel report of just a week or so or two weeks ago is chilling, and I urge everybody here to read it. It’s not a political document. It’s a scientific document. And most of us learned at the elementary stages in school science has value. It’s not everything in life, but facts are facts. The latest report tells us that those who deny climate change are playing with fire. And all of the evidence that has been predicted for the last 20 or 30 years is not just coming back the way it was predicted; it’s coming back faster and it’s coming back with bigger consequences than were predicted.

For anybody in public life, the warning is clear. It means the precautionary principle has to be applied, and you need to take steps to deal with them. Scientists now predict that by the end of the century, the sea could rise by a full meter. Now a meter, 39 inches, may not seem like a lot to everybody here, but I got news for you: It is enough to displace hundreds of millions of people, and it is enough to throw a multi-billion dollar monkey wrench into the global economy.

That’s why we are promoting the use of electric cars throughout the APEC region, and that’s why more countries are reconsidering the wisdom of fossil fuel subsidies. And this week, I am proud to say that we are set – that we set the ambitious goal of doubling the share of renewables in the region’s energy by mid-2030. We’re also strengthening our partnership on oceans. Now oceans are affected by climate change. The amount of acidity in the ocean, which is affected fish populations, food, coral reefs, plankton, comes from greenhouse gases that dump into the ocean. And we are seeing significant increases in various parts of the planet. Scientists have even noticed that in the Antarctic, the ocean has regurgitated carbon mass out that it once upon a time could contain and now isn’t – another warning signal.

This fall, President Obama declared the world’s largest marine sanctuary in the Pacific, and that is critical. APEC Ocean Ministers have pledged to conserve at least 10 percent of coastal and marine areas by the end of this decade, and we’re improving the transparency of the reporting of subsidies that contribute to overfishing. I’ll tell you something: I’ve been chairman of the fisheries subcommittee for years in the United States Senate. I have major fisheries in New England. We no longer have the same cod fishing we used to have. Our fisherman are now in port most of the days of the year because of what’s happened to the stocks. And most of the fisheries of the world are overfished. There’s too much money chasing too few fish, and unless you fish in sustainable ways, unless you engage in sustainable agriculture on land, we are all going to be challenged by this onslaught coming at us.

I’ve got good news for you, though. The solution to climate change is really very simple and it’s staring us in the face, and it’s not something that’s somewhere down the road. It’s here now. The solution is energy policy. Make the right choices in your energy policy; you solve the problem of climate change. And guess what? It happens to be the biggest marketplace the world has ever seen. The market that drove America’s great wealth production of the 1990s – I don't know how many of you know know this – America got richer in the 1990s than we did in the 1920s when we had no income tax. Greater wealth was created in the 1990s for every single income-earner in America, every single quintile of American taxpayer went up in their income when we had a $1 trillion market with 1 billion users. It was the high-tech telecommunications computer revolution. Well, guess what? The energy market is a $6 trillion market with 4-5 billion users, and it’s going to grow to something like 9 billion in the next 30, 40 years. So there’s an enormous opportunity staring us in the face. We need to grab it.

The third thing we need to do is grow just, and that means avoiding bribery and corruption. Obviously, that has a terrible impact on the ability of businesses to do business. We’re all hurt by it, and we can’t level the playing field if there’s corruption. And I know that a number of countries around the world are increasingly focused on trying to eliminate corruption, and we have made that partnership very key in APEC.

And finally, we need to grow smart, and that means empowering women and promoting educational opportunities all across APEC economies. I’m very proud that the United States is contributing to the APEC Scholarships and Internships Initiative. We have commitments from Caterpillar, Eli Lilly, Microsoft, General Electric, EMD Merck Serono, as well as three universities: Colorado State University, the University of Colorado, and the University of Washington Evans School, and they’re making contributions that can help us bring more students back and forth.

Finally, let me just say that it is clear that APEC really has the ability to define the future here. There’s no business sector over here and government over there; it is really all one and the same now. We’re all connected. And it is absolutely vital that we create greater opportunities for this generation and the next. Twenty-five years of APEC, 20 years of the National Center have done an extraordinary job of really defining the possibilities for the future. That’s what’s happening here. And I’m excited by the notion that we’re going to recommit ourselves to making certain that we live up to our responsibilities but seize the opportunities at the same time, and that’s how APEC is actually going to help define the 21st century.

Thank you all very much. (Applause.)

SECRETARY KERRY'S REMARKS AT U.S.-ASEAN BUSINESS COUNCIL GALA RECEPTION

FROM:  U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT 

Remarks at the U.S-ASEAN Business Council 30th Anniversary Gala Reception

Remarks

John Kerry

Secretary of State

Four Seasons Hotel

Washington, DC

October 2, 2014

SECRETARY KERRY: Thank you so much, Evan. Thank you. Wow, thank you. I didn’t know I was going to be interrupting cocktails. (Laughter.) I feel entirely guilty. It’s okay if you don’t eat, but not drinking is really serious. (Laughter.)
Thank you very, very much. It’s sort of complicated to parachute in like this and then race off. And I think I’m hearing music accompanying my speech, which is interesting. (Laughter.) Beg your pardon?

PARTICIPANT: The heavenly choir.

SECRETARY KERRY: Beg your pardon?

PARTICIPANT: The heavenly choir.

SECRETARY KERRY: That’s fine by me, so long as it’s not calling me somewhere. (Laughter.)

But I’m really grateful. Evan, thank you so much for a very generous introduction. And I know I’m all that stands between all of you and dinner, so I will be – try to be respectful of that. On the other hand, this is an important gathering for an important effort, and I want to be very clear to everybody about why that is. Let me start by thanking the U.S.-ASEAN Business Council. I want to congratulate you on an extraordinary 30 years. To get an understanding of why this organization has been so successful, you only have to look to your right, look to your left, look at the leadership of the businesses of that are represented here. I just came from a small reception of a number of the folks who’re sponsoring it. But Evan, Alex Feldman, the president, CEO, others – US-ABC has some of the best and brightest businesses that are participating in – not just this evening, but in the ongoing enterprise of ASEAN efforts. And I thank all of you for your partnership over the years.

It’s also a pleasure to be among a lot of familiar faces. I was walking around, and from where I’m standing there’s – a whole bunch of the State Department is here. (Laughter.) Fair warning, I don’t care how much champagne you drink tonight, you’ve just got to be at work tomorrow morning. (Laughter.) Let me just quickly take this opportunity, if I can, to embarrass somebody who’s in the audience tonight, and he’s one of the most important people on my team. And I’m talking about Assistant Secretary for East Asia and Pacific Danny Russel, who’s standing right over here. (Applause.) When I first became Secretary, President Obama and I sat down to talk about his priorities, among them the Asia rebalance. And we realized that we really needed somebody who had the respect of people in the region and knew the region intimately and had the relationships which are a critical part of any kind of effort in East Asia, as all of you know. And there was never a doubt in President Obama’s mind or my mind who that person had to be. He had worked very closely with Danny in the White House – the President had – and Danny was actually one of the architects of the rebalance.

So before too long, I got to know Danny a lot better. I’d only known him parenthetically. But I’ll tell you, there are few people who understand the region better than he does. He lives it and he breathes it. It’s a mantle that he wears on his shoulders and carries with him all the time, and he loves it. And a year or two ago, just to prove this, I was walking through the White House one day and I passed the Situation Room and I saw Danny sitting across from Henry Kissinger. So I pop my head in and I say, “Henry, you’re giving Danny a briefing on Asia. That’s great.” And he turned to me and said, “No, John. Danny’s the one briefing me.” (Laughter.) Very, very – and it’s true, actually. That’s Danny, and there’s nobody better to drive our policy forward.

I’m also very, very delighted that tonight there are so many members of the diplomatic corps who are here. Thank you all for coming. I met with a number of the ambassadors just as I walked in and others – our ASEAN partner nations – are here in the audience. And I had an opportunity just the other day in New York at this massive speed dating exercise we get involved in in New York called UNGA, the UN General Assembly. So I met with all of the foreign ministers from the region there. We had a session in the evening, several hours. And I also met with our terrific U.S. Ambassador to ASEAN Nina Hachigian, and I think she’s here somewhere. Nina, why don’t you raise your hand? There she is. Our new ambassador right here, folks. (Applause.) She’s got a brother she’s marrying off, and the minute she got rid of him she’s heading out there, right? All right.

As I told everybody on Friday, ASEAN really is front and center in the region’s multilateral architecture, and we want it to remain there. ASEAN is central to upholding the rules-based system throughout the Asia Pacific and is the best way to ensure that countries big and small are going to have a voice as we work together to address the challenges that maritime security present, climate change presents, food security presents, not to mention just working our way through the complicated differentials between countries and barriers, non-tariff barriers, the different impediments to doing business. And it’s critical, because this group actually is creating significant economic opportunities, and the members who are here are helping to foster a very different playing field, which is critical. And I thank all of you for your partnership in that effort.

Lastly, I’m particularly excited to be among a lot of America’s elite business leaders heading up some of the most innovative and exciting businesses in the world. And that includes our own Assistant Secretary for Economic and Business Affairs Charlie Rivkin, who I saw somewhere. There he is right there. We actually had to call Charlie back from Paris where he had been serving as ambassador for a number of years so he could focus fulltime with me on advancing our economic agenda. And the reason we picked Charlie to lead our efforts and to promote American business abroad is very simple: Not a lot of assistant secretaries have been CEO of a billion-dollar company and a U.S. ambassador at the same time overseeing a bilateral relationship that clears one billion in business transactions every day. I might add that diplomacy is also in his blood, because his father, William Rivkin, was one of our finest ambassadors. He served in Luxembourg and Senegal. And Charlie has proven himself more than worthy of his father’s legacy, and we couldn’t be happier than to have him part of our team. So Charlie, thank you for taking on this job. (Applause.)

And the team includes Under Secretary Cathy Novelli, who also came from the private sector, from Apple; and Ambassador David Thorne, who became an ambassador from the private sector; and Scott Nathan, who has been a finance – who’s been engaged in finance, in funds – very, very successful in Boston, and who has joined our team. So we have a team that understands your challenges. They understand what it means to try to start a business, grow a business, open more opportunities, and get your decisions rapidly and get government out of the way as you try to do that, except to the degree that government can help you move forward.

So with so much focus on the challenges that are confronting us today, from ISIL to Ebola to Ukraine to Iran to Syria, and you can run the list, Afghanistan, it can be easy to miss the fact that there are also unprecedented opportunities staring us in the face at this moment, particularly when it comes to business and economic growth. And each and every business leader in this room would tell you that few regions in the world are as ripe for those opportunities as Southeast Asia.

Many of you have been involved initiative his region for decades. US-ABC includes some of the very first American businesses to open up shop in the ASEAN states. So you know better than anybody how dramatic the region’s transformation has been. I will personally never forget my first visit back to Vietnam as a civilian and as a senator in 1991. And I watched with great excitement because I was down in the south of Vietnam in prior years, never in the north. The north we looked at with great sort of trepidation, except for the pilots who obviously flew over it.

And as I flew into Hanoi, I looked down and I could see all kinds of craters from bombs that had been dropped. This is in 1991. And I noticed the streets as I drove in along the river, it was a very narrow road. The main highway had not yet been built. There was some construction going on. The streets were filled, chock-a-block full of bicycles, bicycles, and bicycles. No cars. Very few cars. There were few motorcycles, very few tall buildings. Not a stoplight worked in the entire city when I set foot there, not one stoplight. And it was just a massive constant mesh of bikes that somehow made it across and made it through.

And it was a place that had literally been frozen in time. I was back in Vietnam last year for maybe my 20-something trip over the last 30 years. And I’m sure many of you have experienced this as well. It just stuns you how far things have moved in this span of time.

The energy in Vietnam today is absolutely remarkable, and the transformation is nothing short of amazing. In the years since we lifted the embargo and normalized relations, Vietnam has become a modern nation and an important partner of the United States. And when you talk to the young people in Vietnam, you can feel the enthusiasm for the potential of the future: 65 percent under the age of 35.

This isn’t just Vietnam’s story. This dynamism, energy, transformation – similar stories can be told throughout Southeast Asia. I was at the Malaysian entrepreneurial fair that they had last year, summit, and it was just stunning: 15,000 kids cheering like at a rock concert, excited about entrepreneurial activity and possibilities. And the year – in 1984 – that was the year that the US-ABC was founded – the annual GDP of the 10 countries that are now ASEAN was about $220 billion in today’s dollars. Today, that GDP has grown more than 10 times over to more than $2.4 trillion.

Now, it’s not a coincidence that President Obama and the Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker and U.S. Trade Represent Mike Froman and I have all individually made a trip to one or more of the ASEAN states just within the past six months. Roughly $100 billion of exports to Southeast Asia every year, and every year that supports millions of jobs both there in the region as well as right here on our own shores.

Now, I don’t need to convince you probably – most of the leaders here – of these enormous opportunities. But for the folks who are tuning in tonight to understand what this is about, I want them to understand that enormous business opportunities exist throughout ASEAN, and all of you here are already the choir, so I don’t need to preach further.

I don’t need to remind you also that our embassies are there to help you, and I want you to understand that, from the ambassadors on down. We have a number of the ambassadors here tonight representing the countries of ASEAN. I know many of your businesses work with our ambassadors every single day. We’ve worked to bring about a billion dollars in business deals throughout the ASEAN region, including the largest – in billions, multiple billions – which we have been working towards, including the largest single commercial aircraft sale in Boeing’s history to Indonesia’s Lion Air. And our then-ambassador Scot Marciel played a critical role in helping Boeing to secure that deal which ultimately is worth almost $23 billion.

So what we need to focus on today is how do we make sure this growth continues. As you sit around your tables tonight, as you enjoy this dinner, as you think about the next years, think about that, because it’s not a given. There are still many places in the region where steep tariffs and unclear rules of the road breed uncertainty and stifle the flow of goods and ideas. And that will tampen down the capacity to keep on keeping on what we’re doing.

There are places where businesses don’t have access to the financing that they need to get off the ground, where infrastructure challenges like crumbling roads and inadequate internet and inconsistent power grids prevent businesses from reaching markets. Now, we can’t – I certainly can’t and I don’t know anybody here who can – just wave a magic wand and address all of these challenges tomorrow. But there are steps that we can take together in order to help bring about a more prosperous future for both the United States and our ASEAN partners, and I’ll be very, very quick.

First and foremost, as any business leader would agree, freer markets create more opportunity, more competition, more growth, more dynamism, and more innovation. And we need to do more to open up trade and investment in every corner of the globe, and particularly in that region. Every one of you knows the enormous difference that the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement – one that includes a number of ASEAN countries – could make. Just this afternoon, I hosted a lunch with Vietnam’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh, and we spoke at length about the potential of this agreement and how urgently we need to get it off the ground, and he agreed. The TPP is a state-of-the-art, 21st century trade agreement that will connect more than 40 percent of the global GDP and one-third of global trade, and it raises the standards. It brings everybody up, not a race to the bottom. It’s consistent with our shared economic interests and our shared strategic interests, and it’s rooted in our shared values.

And it’s about promoting stability in this dynamic region and also establishing a fair and transparent framework that enables countries throughout the region to deepen their economic integration and grow in harmony. We need to make it happen, folks, and we can’t do it without you. We need you to help make the case for TPP with the Congress and with the American people, and we need you to make the phone calls and set up the meetings and do all you can to get Capitol Hill on board. And this is a battle we need to prepare for and it’s a battle we absolutely need to win.

Second, we need to make sure that the leaders of the future are getting the training and the education that they need in order to thrive in a growing economy. About 65 percent, as I said, of the population of ASEAN region is under the age of 35, and these young people are innovative, creative, and they’re eager to contribute their ideas, energy, to improve not only their own lives but the lives of others in their communities and their country. I’ve seen this firsthand in Malaysia and the Philippines and Indonesia on every trip I’ve taken to Southeast Asia. And that’s why we are investing in programs like President Obama’s Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative, the YSEALI, as it’s known. Through YSEALI, every year we bring young men and women from Southeast Asia to universities in the United States where they can receive training, deepen their knowledge about regional issues and experience and perspectives. This year’s YSEALI class includes women like Sovan Srun from Cambodia. She’s an aspiring social entrepreneur who coauthored a handbook for high school graduates to plan for their career paths, in hopes that she will help her community become more self-sufficient and less dependent on foreign aid. She’s a remarkable young woman, and we need to make sure that others like Sovan have the opportunities they need to make the mark on their communities and that their energy is harnessed in a completely positive way.

Third – and this is especially important – we need to do more at the State Department to make sure that the U.S. Government and the U.S. business community are working with one another, not against one another. I tell every Foreign Service officer that they are, each and every one of them, an economic officer, no kidding. That’s how we have to think. And we need to show the world that the State Department means business, literally. We’re planning to do this by expanding what we call detail opportunities with the private sector. Department employees spend a year working with our private sector partners so they can get a better understanding of the business world and what’s needed from government for when they return. And we’re developing similar programs that will bring folks from the private sector to the State Department on detail as well so the bureaucracy can benefit from their entrepreneurial world view.

But all of us in government and business alike have to keep in mind that the true measure of our success is going to be whether our economies continue – is not whether they continue to grow, but it’s how they grow. If we make the correct choices in the months and years to come, U.S. trade and investment has the potential to create shared prosperity up and down the food chain: growth that’s sustainable and environmentally friendly, wealth that lifts up communities and creates opportunity, and enormous amounts of jobs for the United States and for all of our partner nations. And on top of that, if we commit high standards when it comes to business practices, we absolutely encourage this race to the top, which I think every one of you understands with globalization is at risk. So we need a race to the top from companies all around the world, and I think that’s a race that we can win.

So all of us at the State Department know well that in the 21st century a nation’s interests and the well-being of its people are advanced not just by troops and diplomats but also by entrepreneurs and executives in ways that are really quite significantly different from prior centuries. It is happening by virtue of the businesses that they build and the workers that they employ and the students that they train, and ultimately, the shared prosperity that they create. I say it all the time. I said it in the first days of my nomination to be Secretary. I said it in my opening statement to the committee: Economic policy is foreign policy, and foreign policy is economic policy. And the fact is that American businesses are some of the best ambassadors our country has. Just think about it. US-ABC businesses collectively represent more than 6 trillion in annual revenue. Your businesses support more than 13 million employees worldwide, and you do it all the time while wearing America’s jersey, so to speak.

And I underscore this: The reason we are so grateful to have such a capable and influential group of ambassadors throughout America’s business community is not simply because you do well, but also because you do good. And that’s particularly true in the ASEAN states. I’ve seen it firsthand in the factories I’ve been into, in the people I’ve talked to and the businesses they work for. American businesses have been the number one investor in ASEAN economies for decades. In fact, U.S. investments are larger than Chinese investments, Japanese investments, and Korean investments combined.

And it’s not just about the quantity of our investments; it’s about the quality. When we invest in countries, we actually do it differently. When businesses from some countries enter new markets, they bring in their own workers, their own tradesmen. We, on the other hand, hire local employees. And guess what – we train them as well. Some businesses in the world recklessly pollute the environment, knowing full well that it’ll be difficult to hold them accountable. But so many of our businesses make a point of investing in clean energy and environmental solutions in order to accompany their facilities abroad. And businesses that come in from other nations have been known to promote corruption instead of working to stop it, not held to account by our Foreign Corrupt Businesses Act. But we take every step we can to end corrupt practices abroad or elsewhere, because we know that when we eliminate corruption we’re able to build the long-term relationships that will withstand the test of time and make the environment safer for new businesses to be able to invest in.

So we do all of this because business doing right is part of the American brand. It’s part of our what our companies stand for and it’s part of the proposition of how we attract more investment to follow. What I’m talking about is more than agreeing to abide by a set of principles or guidelines. It’s really rolling up your sleeves and taking action to integrate responsible investment and objective corporate management decision making.

Now, there are a lot of other things that we could go on to say. I’m going to – I said I wouldn’t – I’ve gone on longer than I meant to. But I want to just emphasize to everybody here that the real excitement that comes with this is watching these countries go through these amazing transformations. I am nothing less than stunned by what has happened, the transformation taking place. I have absolute confidence, and as we go forward in these next years the differences between our nations, even as we respect cultures and history, but differences will evaporate in the way that people have fears and that they suspect people from abroad. There’ll be a unity because everything in the world is different today. Today’s kids all have smartphones; they all talk to each other. They’re talking to everybody in the world all the time about everything. And it changes everything in life. Politics is different. Building consensus is different. Getting your market share is different. Holding onto it is different. We’re living in a very, very different time, and nowhere are the possibilities more evident than in the transformations taking place throughout Southeast Asia.

So I think you all are onto something, and I profoundly say congratulations to ABC. We’re going to be in Burma. The President and I are going to be there a month from now. We’re looking forward to being in China, likewise, in November for the APEC conference. We’ll be there for the East Asia Summit. We are front and center and present because we’ve been a Pacific nation all of our history and we will never turn away from that.

So I thank those of you who have been the pioneers. I thank those of you who are on the front lines today. I say congratulations to all of you. Celebrate well tonight and tomorrow we all get back to work and continue on the road. Thank you all very, very much. (Applause.)

SECRETARY KERRY'S REMARKS WITH CHINESE FOREIGN MINISTER WANG YI

FROM:  U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT 

Remarks With Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi Before Their Meeting

Remarks

John Kerry

Secretary of State

Ben Franklin Room

Washington, DC

October 1, 2014

 SECRETARY KERRY:  Good afternoon, everybody.  It’s my distinct pleasure to welcome His Excellency, the foreign minister of China, Foreign Minister Wang Yi.  I met with the foreign minister in July in Beijing for a very productive Strategic & Economic Dialogue.  We spent two days together and President Xi opened up that meeting and closed the meeting.  And we are very grateful for China’s significant commitment to that dialogue.  And in addition, we had useful conversations in August during my trip to Burma for the ASEAN Regional Forum, and we had a chance to briefly talk in New York.  Knowing that we were going to be meeting here, we held back on the length and breadth of that conversation.

But I’m very pleased that he has taken time to visit us here in Washington on the occasion of China’s National Day, and we congratulate you on that and welcome you here.  And I’m pleased he’s taken time to come here and strengthen our relationship as part of the ongoing dialogue between us.

I want to emphasize that the United States welcomes the rise of a peaceful, prosperous, and stable China, and one that plays a responsible role in Asia and the world, and contributes to upholding the existing rules and the norms on economic and security issues.  I take note that China is stepping up and contributing to this challenge of Ebola, and we are appreciative for China’s willingness to put both equipment and personnel on the line in order to help deal with this.  We view that in very positive terms with respect to China’s important role in global leadership.

And that is why we are committed – that role and our interests together – in trying to find ways to cooperate on those issues of greatest consequence on a global basis while we manage some of the differences between us effectively.  We want to show a new model of relations in which we broaden our cooperation on the common interests and constructively manage those differences so that we can be as effective as possible.

The foreign minister and I are both coming off of a very busy and very productive week in New York for the climate summit and the UN General Assembly.  There I took pleasure in participating in President Obama’s meeting with Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli and I left those meetings encouraged, significantly encouraged, by his commitment on behalf of China to the dialogue with respect to climate change.  And particularly, we talked about dealing with the mitigating of threats from global climate change and also to trying to work together as we develop the targets for next year’s conference in Paris.  We also talked about containing Ebola as well as countering the challenge of radical extremism and terrorism, and particularly ISIL.

One of the issues that we’re going to discuss today, no doubt, is the situation in Hong Kong.  And as China knows, we support universal suffrage in Hong Kong accordant with the Basic Law, and we believe in open society with the highest possible degree of autonomy and governed by rule of law is essential for Hong Kong’s stability and prosperity.  And we have high hopes that the Hong Kong authorities will exercise restraint and respect for the protestors’ right to express their views peacefully.

China, importantly, is hosting APEC this year, and their hosting of that meeting could not be more timely or more important to all of us.  I know President Obama is personally looking forward to attending the APEC summit in November.  We’re grateful to the Chinese for helping to arrange the dates in a way that worked for everybody’s schedule.  And I think that the foreign minister and I in a few moments will discuss how we can make certain that that visit is a success, that it is as productive as possible, but also so that the APEC summit is the success that we all want it to be.

So Mr. Foreign Minister, I’m delighted you’re here, and I very much look forward to our conversation.  Thank you.

FOREIGN MINISTER WANG:  (Via interpreter) Secretary Kerry, friends from the press, today marks the 65th anniversary of the founding of new China.  It’s our National Day.  I want to share the joy of the Chinese people with you.  I also want to thank Secretary Kerry for his best wishes.  This is a regular visit to the United States by me; it is also a return visit for Secretary Kerry’s visit to China earlier this year.

More importantly, I’ve come to the United States to hold discussion with the U.S. side, to have strategic communication with the U.S. colleagues for President Obama’s trip to China for the APEC meeting and visit to China, particularly for the important consultations, talks between the two presidents.  I want to say that the common interests between us are far greater than our differences.  I agree with what Secretary Kerry said about the areas of cooperation.  Indeed, we need cooperation.  We can cooperate with each other.  And there is an increasing list of areas of cooperation between us, and I believe the list can go on.

There is a very important common mission for the two countries; that is, as the largest developing country and largest developed country in the world, China and the United States need to work together to build a new model of major country relations featuring non-conflict, non-confrontation, mutual respect, and win-win cooperation.  This meets our common interests, meets the expectation of the international community.  It is also in keeping with the trend of human progress.

We don’t think the process will be all smooth sailing.  There will be various risks and challenges on the way.  The China-U.S. relationship is just like a giant ship sailing on the sea.  It requires that both sides work jointly to keep the ship on the right course, keep injecting the impetus for it to forge ahead; and at the same time, we also work jointly to properly handle hidden rocks and shoals.  I believe we need to enhance mutual trust, strategic trust; reduce mutual strategic misgivings; and reduce our misjudgment.  As long as we work jointly in that direction, we will be able to meet our goal.  This is our common mission.  It is also the responsibility that we need to jointly fulfill for the international community.

The endeavor for building this new model of major country relationship is an ongoing process that we are undertaking right at this moment.  We are ready to work with the United States to enhance cooperation, properly manage our differences, and make unremitting efforts towards our common goal.

Secretary Kerry mentioned Hong Kong.  The Chinese Government has very firmly and clearly stated its position.  Hong Kong affairs are China’s internal affairs.  All countries should respect China’s sovereignty.  And this is also a basic principle governing international relations.  I believe for any country, for any society, no one will allow those illegal acts that violate public order.  That’s the situation in the United States, and that’s the same situation in Hong Kong.  We believe that the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region’s government has the capability to properly handle the current situation in accordance with the law.

And I am ready to have a full discussion with Secretary Kerry about those regional and international issues of mutual interest and also our strategic bilateral cooperation.  I hope that more consensus can be reached through such dialogue.  Thank you all.

AT BROOKINGS INSTITUTION: NSA ADVISOR RICE MAKES REMARKS AT REGARDING SOUTHEAST ASIA

FROM:  THE WHITE HOUSE

September 22, 2014

Remarks by National Security Advisor Susan E. Rice on Southeast Asia at the Brookings Institution

Good afternoon everyone.  It’s great to be back at Brookings.  This was my place for six years, and since my mother and I both worked here for so long, it really has the feel of home.  This is where I met so many gracious and insightful colleagues, whom I still turn to for guidance and support.  And of course, working here was the last time I got a full 7 hours of sleep.  So I’m especially nostalgic.  Strobe and Martin, thank you for inviting me to participate today.

I’m honored to be here with Foreign Minister Shanmugam. President Obama and I met with Prime Minister Lee at the White House a few months ago to affirm the excellent partnership between Singapore and the United States.  And, I think it’s fitting that Brookings’ new Chair in Southeast Asian Studies is named for Singapore’s founding father, a man who has played such a key role in shaping the region’s growth, Lee Kuan Yew.

In many ways, Singapore embodies the arc of development that nations across Southeast Asia are achieving.  The people of Southeast Asia are increasingly connected—to each other and to the global economy.  Entrenched dictatorships have given way to new democracies, and throughout the region, citizens are playing a greater role in their government and civil life.  As President Obama said in Malaysia earlier this year, “perhaps no region on earth has changed so dramatically” during the past several decades.

With this change comes growing influence and greater opportunities to engage on the world stage.  Asia’s rise in global affairs is due in no small part to Southeast Asia’s contributions.  That’s why the nations of Southeast Asia are and will remain a central focus of America’s rebalance to Asia.  We see the nations of Southeast Asia as equal partners in our mission to advance a vision that promotes growth and development, bolsters the security of nations, strengthens democratic governance, and advances human rights for all people. President Obama will continue this work when he visits the region again in November, including stops in China to participate in APEC, Burma for the East Asia Summit, and Australia for the G-20 meeting.

Southeast Asia and its markets are critical to America’s prosperity.  Together, ASEAN comprises the seventh largest economy in the world and the fourth largest trading partner for the United States.  ASEAN nations draw more U.S. investment than any single country in Asia.  And, with some of the fastest-growing economies in the world, ASEAN will only become more important to our economic future.  That’s why we’re committed to completing the Trans-Pacific Partnership.  One-third of TPP participants are from ASEAN, including members like Singapore, Vietnam, and Malaysia, for whom the high-standard agreement means making serious new commitments.  But, this agreement will deliver tremendous benefits to all our economies, and we are committed to helping our partners meet TPP’s requirements and realizing the opportunities for greater trade and investment that come with it.

We’re working to deepen our trade and investment ties with the region.  In June, Secretary Pritzker led a delegation of American business leaders to the Philippines, Vietnam, and Burma to explore new commercial opportunities.  Ambassador Froman met with all his ASEAN counterparts in Burma last month.  Together, we’re promoting growth that is broad-based and sustainable, so that economies can compete on an equal footing and prosperity is shared among citizens at every level of society.  Equally, Southeast Asia plays a vital role in maintaining peace and stability throughout Asia.  We have long-standing alliances with Thailand and the Philippines, as well as an important security partnership with Singapore.  In April, President Obama and President Aquino announced a new Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement that will strengthen cooperation between our militaries.  We’re also enhancing our security cooperation with nations like Malaysia and Vietnam, including by improving their capacity to contribute to maritime security.

We continue to work with nations in the region on challenges that none of us can meet alone.  This includes addressing borderless threats like climate change, responding to humanitarian crises like last year’s super typhoon, countering violent extremism, and peacefully resolving maritime disputes among neighbors.  To support cooperative solutions to these challenges, the United States has made historic investments to strengthen the region’s institutions, including ASEAN.  President Obama hosted the first U.S.-ASEAN leaders meeting in 2009, and it’s now an annual event.  The President sent our first resident ambassador to ASEAN, and the Senate just confirmed Nina Hachigian to fill the post in the coming years.  This increased engagement with ASEAN has already delivered substantial benefits, including improved coordination in responding to natural disasters, growing investment in developing the region’s infrastructure and green energy sources, and rapidly expanding cooperation on maritime safety and security.

We’re also working with governments, institutions and people to strengthen the democratic foundations of the region and fortify protections for human rights.  We’ve seen significant successes, as in Indonesia, which demonstrated the strength of its democracy through successful elections and peaceful arbitration.  President Obama is looking forward to meeting with President-elect Widodo in November.  We’ve seen hopeful steps in Burma, but significant challenges remain as we continue to work with the government and people as they pursue their democratic transition.  Unfortunately, we’ve also seen troubling setbacks, as in Thailand.  We remain committed to our alliance with the Thai people, but we want to see the country return soonest to an inclusive and democratic government.

We’re also building partnerships directly with the people of the region.  We’re doing this through programs like the Lower Mekong Initiative, which helps strengthen communities’ ability to provide for their own healthcare, educate their children, and protect their environment.  In Cambodia, USAID is working with local authorities to improve school enrollment among young children.  In Indonesia, the Millennium Challenge Cooperation is helping villages raise incomes while reducing their dependence on fossil fuels.  And, through President Obama’s Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative, we are helping young people across the region build their skills and connect them to the resources they need to serve their communities, create new businesses, and become the next generation of leaders.

President Obama hosted a remarkable town hall with many of these young people in April in Malaysia.  There were entrepreneurs and activists and advocates, all of them impressive and thoughtful young people, and each determined to forge a brighter future.  They wanted to know not just how they could become stronger leaders, but how to bridge gaps of culture and language and belief in order to unite a region as diverse as Southeast Asia so that it can to achieve its full potential.

That’s a goal we share—because Southeast Asia is brimming with enormous potential.  It’s also facing serious questions about how to adapt as several major powers become more active in the region.  China’s rise, Japan’s reemergence, India’s revival, and, of course, America’s rebalance—these dynamics are real, and they converge squarely in Southeast Asia.  But, these trends ought to be an opportunity for greater cooperation, not just competition.  Southeast Asian nations should not have to choose sides among major powers, particularly when it comes to the United States and China.  Preserving the independence and sovereignty of all our partners in the region is at the heart of our policy toward Southeast Asia.

To be sure, America’s relationship with China is important to the future of both our nations, to the region, and to the world.  I just traveled to China a couple weeks ago and met with their senior leaders.  In November, President Obama will meet again with President Xi to continue deepening our cooperation on major regional and global challenges—building a relationship that allows us to work together on shared interests, and to talk frankly about areas where we disagree, including human rights.

At the same time, we continue to build stronger bilateral relationships with the nations of Southeast Asia and to work together as equals in multilateral fora so that individual nations can preserve their independence while fostering a group dynamic that reinforces collective norms and prevents large states from pressuring smaller ones.  That’s another reason we’ve focused on strengthening Asia’s regional institutions, like the East Asia Summit.  We want to build and reinforce habits that encourage collaboration—to establish a common set of rights as well as responsibilities that ultimately ensures a level playing field for all.

All of the challenges I’ve discussed today require sustained attention, and even in the press of world events—ongoing conflicts in the Middle East, heightened tensions with Russia over Ukraine, an Ebola epidemic ravaging West Africa—the U.S. commitment to Asia, and to Southeast Asia in particular, remains a priority.  

The United States is a Pacific nation.  Our shared future is as certain as our shared past.  And, the people of the United States and the people of Southeast Asia share a common vision for that future—a future where daughters and sons can go to school and reach confidently for their dreams; where anyone can start a business and have a fair shot to succeed; where fundamental rights can never be restricted or denied.  That’s what we’ve been building toward for the past five years.  That’s why we’ve worked so closely together in pursuit of shared goals—whether we’re securing the sea lanes of the Pacific or delivering relief in the wake of natural disasters.

With each year, the ties between our peoples grow stronger.  And, as we continue working together toward our shared future, the United States will remain a reliable partner and a true friend to all the people of the region.  Thank you.

SECRETARY KERRY'S BURMA PRESS AVAILABILITY AFTER MEETINGS

FROM:  U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT 

Press Availability on the Attended Ministerial Meetings

Press Availability

John Kerry

Secretary of State

Lake Garden Hotel

Naypyitaw, Burma

August 10, 2014

---

SECRETARY KERRY: Good afternoon, everybody. I want to thank President Thein Sein for his government’s warm welcome here during the course of this conference, for his leadership as chair of ASEAN, and for serving as the United States-ASEAN country coordinator.
Burma has made a significant amount of progress over the course of the last years, and when I was last here in 1999, I visited with Aung San Suu Kyi, who was then under house arrest. Today, she sits in parliament, and the people here are openly debating the future direction of this country. The Burmese people have made a very clear statement about their desire to build a democratic, peaceful, and economically vibrant country, and many have struggled and sacrificed in order to reach this stage.

But I do want to emphasize, despite the progress, there is still obviously a lot of work yet to be done, and the leaders that I met with acknowledged that and indicated a willingness and a readiness to continue to do that in order to ensure the full promise of human rights and of justice and of democracy in this country. So yes, there’s work to done – to be done, and we certainly are prepared to work hand in hand with the government in an effort to try to make sure we move continually in the direction that people want.

The government, among other things, still needs to complete the task – the difficult task – of ending the decades-long, multiple array of civil wars involving more than a dozen groups. And they need also to expand the space for civil society, protect the media, address land rights, prevent intercommunal violence, and enshrine into their laws basic freedoms. What is interesting is that some of the freedoms that people enjoy today, because the government has made a decision to permit it, are not exactly yet enshrined in the law themselves, and it is obviously vital that that occur.

The serious crisis in Rakhine State and elsewhere, profound development challenges to raise the country’s standard of living, ethnic and religious violence that still exists, fundamental questions regarding constitutional reform, and of course the role of the military – all of these remain significant challenges of the road ahead.

Next year’s election will absolutely be a benchmark moment for the whole world to be able to asses the direction that Burma is moving in. And it is important – in fact, beyond important – that that election be inclusive, accountable, open, free, fair, accessible to all, that it wind up being a credible election that leads to the peaceful transfer of power in 2016.

I discussed each of these issues directly with the president and the members of his cabinet and the chairmen of key committees and the speaker, and we had a long and – in fact, a long discussion that made us late for everything else the rest of the day. But it was – because it was important and because it was comprehensive that that occurred. Each of the leaders that I met with – the chairmen of committees, the speaker, the president, the members of his cabinet – they indicated that they recognized the job is not complete, they understand the difficulties, and they indicated a willingness to continue to move.

I invited the speaker and his key committee chairmen to come to Washington soon and to spend time with our legislators, with the members of the House and the Senate. And hopefully doing so, which is certainly the conviction that President Obama and I share, is that that kind of exchange can assist them and encourage them as they make decisions about their constitution and the reforms for the country.

One of the things that characterized by conversations with the president and his team was that we were both able to really talk very candidly and very directly about each of these issues. And we talked, I think and I hope, as friends about the full range of possibilities and the challenges facing Myanmar.

Myanmar’s potential is limitless, and it’s blessed by a rich diversity of people and by an abundant source of natural resources. But it’s ultimately up to the leaders to make the right choices in the days, months, and years ahead. If they do and if people in Myanmar can overcome the differences that exist between them, if they can join together in common purpose, then Myanmar can complete the transition to democracy. And the United States will absolutely remain a partner in the effort to help Myanmar be able to do that.

In the last two days, I participated also in five ministerial meetings – the ASEAN-U.S. ministerial, the East Asia Summit, the ASEAN Regional Forum, the Lower Mekong Initiative, and the Friends of the Lower Mekong. All of these meetings underscored the depth and the intensity of the United States engagement with Asia, and they reinforced and strengthened the role of the institutions, which are at the heart of the problem and the heart of the efforts to solve the problems that exist in the Asia Pacific.

In the effort to solve those problems, ASEAN is really a central player. ASEAN is central to regional peace, to stability, to prosperity. And during my meetings with ASEAN foreign ministers, we affirmed our commitment to sustainable economic growth and to regional development. And American companies are already investing responsibility in order to develop jobs and help to create the economic base that could be really transformative for the people of Myanmar.

Ultimately, it is our hope that those investments will produce initiatives, companies, exciting enterprises that can become models for good corporate behavior and improve the standard of living throughout the region. I’m very proud of what our businesses are doing and I look forward to their continued partnership in the effort to help Myanmar develop.

We’re also focused on our shared interest in protecting the environment. We took practical steps to deepen our cooperation with ASEAN on climate change, on – which is a challenge, obviously, that demands elevated urgency and attention from all of us. At the end of the day, some of you may have been there when they rolled out a logo for the meeting that will take place, which China and Malaysia will host, with respect for preparedness for disasters. And as the disasters were listed – the tsunami and the typhoon and one type of disaster after another that comes from the changes of the climate – it became apparent to all that there’s literally trillions of dollars of cost being spent now with greater prospect of that expenditure in the future, where all of it could be impacted by good decisions about energy policy and good decisions to deal with climate change ahead of time.

We also addressed key security issues. There was an extensive discussion on multiple occasions about the South China Sea. I expressed the concerns of many, which are shared, about the rise in tensions that have occurred. But we all underscored the importance of negotiations on a binding code of conduct. And I stressed the importance of everybody clarifying claims under international law and proceeding under the legal process through the law, through arbitration, and also through bilateral relationships in order to try to resolve these issues. And our hope is that the claimants ultimately can agree among themselves and proceed forward.

We did discuss the concept of freezing in place the actions that people choose to take on a purely voluntary basis. And these – this is a way of actually locking into place the very promises that people have already made under the Declarations of Conduct that were made in 2002. And I’m very pleased that there is positive language that came out in the communique issued by ASEAN foreign ministers yesterday as a result of that discussion that embraces this idea of resolving these issues in a thoughtful and peaceful way.

We also discussed North Korea and North Korea’s actions with respect to its nuclear program. These are actions which present a very serious threat to international peace and stability. I reaffirmed the commitment of the United States to the verifiable denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. China joined in that, others. I think there is a unanimity within this meeting here – with one exception, needless to say, present this afternoon at the regional forum – about the need to adhere to the United Nations Security Council resolutions and to live up to the international standards with respect to nonproliferation.

So on behalf of President Obama and certainly from myself, I want to thank ASEAN for its committed partnership and very much look forward to continuing what has already been a very productive trip here to the region. I will be meeting with Aung San Suu Kyi later today. And I appreciate enormously the efforts of our hosts to have provided for a very constructive and comprehensive discussion over the course of these two days. And we certainly look forward to President Obama’s visit here in November, when the heads of state will meet to pick up where we left off today.

With that, I’d be delighted to open up to any questions.

MS. PSAKI: The first question will be from Anne Gearan of The Washington Post.

QUESTION: Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Two things quickly. On Myanmar, you’ve taken quite a lot of criticism from Congress, including from Democrats, that the Administration has moved too quickly and been too willing to take at face value the assurances from the Burmese leaders that they really were doing all of the things you’ve asked them to do and the things that I gather they’ve tried to show you today that they are doing. In your remarks a moment ago, you invited some Burmese leaders to come to Washington and I take it face its Congressional critics directly. What would you like to see come out of that kind of conversation? And what is your response to the sort of underlying criticism from Congress that you guys have been too eager to get this done quickly?

And then on the South China Sea, you said you were pleased by the language that was enshrined in the ASEAN document, but it doesn’t go quite as far as you all had hoped. China appears to still flatly disagree with the idea that binding international arbitration or the Law of the Sea ought to rule the day here. So where does this all leave you and what’s your next step? Thank you.

SECRETARY KERRY: Well, let me begin with this issue of whether we’re moving too quickly or not. We are not basing anything that we are doing in Myanmar on the basis of blind trust or some naive sense of what the challenges are. I just listed a long list of challenges, and I went through every single one of those challenges with our hosts in a very, very direct way. We talked about the need to end the civil war and the efforts that could be made to do it; we talked about the treatment of minorities; we talked about Rakhine State; we talked about the challenges of putting into law those things that people are allowed to do today but which might disappear in the future if they’re not put into law; we talked about constitutional reform.

The speaker particularly was enthusiastic about what America has done and the way America has done it and the kinds of things that our Constitution has enshrined and was very anxious to be able to come and interact with members of Congress in order to make some of the choices that they will be making as they go forward.

We talked about ethnic and religious violence, about the need to deal with these 12 or 15 or so groups that have been engaged in civil war. This is hard work, but you just don’t achieve results by the consequence of looking at somebody and ordering them to do it or telling them they either do it or else. This is country; these are the people with a history and with their own culture and with their own beliefs and aspirations and feelings and thoughts. And it is an amazing journey that has already been traveled to get to where we are today.

And there is no question about those things that have to happen to get to where we want to go. But I believe the Administration has acted very thoughtfully. Some of the sanctions have been reduced, not all. Sanctions are now very much focused on members of the junta and on key individuals who may still be representing a challenge to achieving some of these goals. But this is fundamentally a new government, in a new moment, with a possibility for an election next year.

Now is everything hunky-dory? No, not yet, absolutely not. And I think Aung San Suu Kyi, who I will visit with shortly, will be the first to say that, and I’ll be the second right behind her, saying that there are still things that need to be done. But the key is to have an effective manner of trying to achieve those things and to recognize where there may be a legitimate effort if, in fact, it is being exhibited.

And we will continue to work very, very carefully, without jumping ahead of anybody’s rights and without turning a blind eye to anything that violates our notion of fairness and accountability and human rights and the standards by which America always stands. And those will be forefront in all of our discussions, as they were throughout the last two days.

The other piece was on the --

QUESTION: South China Sea and whether this language goes far enough.

SECRETARY KERRY: No, I think the language does go far enough. I think we made the points that we came to make. We weren’t seeking to pass something, per se. We were trying to put something on the table that people could embrace. A number of countries have decided that’s what they’re going to do. It’s a voluntary process. We absolutely laid it out as a voluntary series of potential steps. And I think it has helped to be able to achieve the language that we do have. But by the same token, I think there’s a way to achieve some progress, and I think we’ll see some progress with respect to the South China Sea, based on the conversations that we’ve had here.

MS. PSAKI: The next question is from Aye Thu San of 7Day Daily.

QUESTION: Good evening, sir. So I would like to ask --

SECRETARY KERRY: Can you pull it very close so I can hear you? Thank you.

QUESTION: Yes. Good evening, sir. I would like to ask about the relation in United States foreign policy between Myanmar and United States. So in yesterday meeting with the President Thein Sein said to you United States will be – United States will (inaudible) the democratization process in Myanmar rather than talking about the criticisms. So Myanmar have many --

SECRETARY KERRY: I couldn’t hear that. I’m sorry. Rather than talking about what?

QUESTION: Rather than talking about the criticisms.

SECRETARY KERRY: Criticisms.

QUESTION: Yes, yes. Myanmar have many support from United States in the last three year. But Myanmar have to face conflict, human rights (inaudible) issue according to the Congress letter to you. So I will like to ask, how do you see on the democratization process in Myanmar in the last three year? And what is your comments and views on the United States foreign policy about Myanmar? Thank you.

SECRETARY KERRY: Well, let me make it clear to everybody – again, I will reiterate, I think I said this in my opening comments – we had a very frank discussion with the president and with his team. And we raised every single issue that exists with respect to this relationship. It was very comprehensive. We talked about human rights; we talked about the law; we talked about democracy and how you move to it; we talked about the election and the need for it to be open and free and fair; we talked about people’s full participation without penalty; we talked about journalists who recently have been arrested. We talked about all of these things and made it very clear that these are important changes that need to take place in the course of the evolution of Myanmar into a full democracy.

Now it doesn’t happen overnight anywhere. It didn’t happen overnight in the United States of America. We started out with a constitution that had slavery written into it before 100 years later it was finally written out of it. It sometimes takes time to manage change. Now that doesn’t allow you to turn a blind eye to things that are critical, and we’re not. You have to call them to account. And I believe we’ve been very clear about that.

Burma is undertaking very important changes right now, and it clearly faces significant challenges that take time to address. There are some people in the public life of Burma who don’t want to see those changes, and there are some people who are very passionate about them and do want to see them. And so that’s why there’s an election. But this relationship right now is not a relationship about Burma meeting U.S. demands every day. It’s about Burma meeting the potential of the country. And that’s what has to happen over the course of these next months, and particularly this next year leading into the election.

So during this visit, I made it very clear that the country needs to do more. Myanmar needs to do more, and we made that very, very clear. And it will not be able to reach its full potential, whether that’s foreign investment coming in or whether it’s the full participation of people in a democracy here in the country – it just won’t do it unless they address the issues that exist right here at home. And I think we made that very, very clear.

So we want to work with the government. We want to work with the people. And we will be very clear, as I have been here today and was in my conversations, about those things where greater progress needs to be made. But we also need to be realistic about what’s achievable at what pace and at what particular moment. We will never stop fighting for the human rights and basic rights of the people of Myanmar, Burma, whatever somebody chooses to call. That’s what we’re fighting for.

MS. PSAKI: Thank you, everyone.

SECRETARY KERRY: That’s it?

MS. PSAKI: Yes.

SECRETARY KERRY: Thank you all very much. Appreciate it.