Remarks on Principles for Prosperity in the Asia Pacific

US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton

July 25, 2011

亚洲和太平洋地区繁荣的原则

——美国国务卿希拉里在香港的演讲

2011年7月25日

Thank you very much, Mr. Chipman, and thanks to all of you for being here today. I also wish to acknowledge and thank Mr. Ronnie Chan, chairman of the Asia Society, and Mr. Norman Chan, chief executive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority.

十分感谢你，奇普曼先生，谢谢诸位今天光临。我还要感谢亚洲协会主席陈启宗先生和香港金融管理局总裁陈德霖先生。

And I am so pleased to be here and to have this opportunity to speak with you today, and it was made possible by the US, Hong Kong, and Macau chambers of commerce and the Asia Society. And I thank the chamber very much on a personal level for its support of the US Pavilion at the Shanghai Expo. I have been called the mother of the pavilion, which is actually one of the nicer things I've been called during my very long public career.

今天，我十分高兴来到这里并有此机会向诸位发表讲话。这项活动是由美国、香港和澳门商会成员和亚洲协会安排的。我个人向美国商会支持上海世博会美国馆表示十分感谢。我被称为美国馆之母，在我漫长的公共生涯中，这的确是一个比较令人喜欢的称呼之一。

And I am delighted to be back in Hong Kong, a city I have admired ever since I first visited about 30 years ago when my husband, who was then governor of Arkansas, led the first ever trade mission to East Asia from our small state. Hong Kong stood out then, as it does today, as a symbol of the open exchange of goods and ideas. People were drawn to this place from every part of the world, even far away Arkansas, as evidenced by a good friend of ours from Arkansas, Nancy Hernreich Bowen, who is here with us today.

很高兴再次来到香港。约30年前,我丈夫任阿肯色州州长时曾率领这个小州的第一个贸易代表团前往东亚访问，当时我首次访问了香港。自那时以来,我一直十分钦佩这个城市。当时,香港作为开放商品和思想交流的象征，具有十分重要的地位。今天,香港依然如此。人们从世界各地被吸引到这里来，甚至从遥远的阿肯色州，我们来自阿肯色的一位好朋友南希·赫恩赖奇·鲍恩今天也在座就证明了这一点。

Now, since that time, Hong Kong has changed a great deal. Certainly, the skyline attests to that. And after all, few things have stood still in East Asia. But one thing about Hong Kong has not changed - the principles that find a home here. Under the "one country, two systems" policy, this remains a city that bridges East and West and looks outward in all directions, a place where ideas become businesses, where companies compete on the merits, and where economic opportunity is palpable and real for millions of people, a place that defines the fierce and productive economic competition of our time.

从那时以来，香港发生了很大的变化。毫无疑问，香港的城市风景线就是明证。毕竟在东亚极少有固定不变的事物。但香港有一点没有变——这里深入人心的一些理念。在“一国两制”政策下,香港仍然是连接东西方的桥梁，依然是一座向四面八方开放的城市。在这里，各种构想转化为商业活动；公司凭自身的实力相互竞争；数百万人民切身受惠于实际的经济机会；通过激烈的经济竞争提高效益的时代特征得到充分体现。

That is why businessmen and women continue to flock to Hong Kong, and an opportunity to meet some of the Americans who have called Hong Kong home for 20, 25, even 30 years. And it is why I have come here today to talk about how the nations of this region and the United States can intensify our economic partnership on behalf of ourselves, each other, and the world, and how together we can work toward a future of prosperity and opportunity for people everywhere.

正因为如此，男女工商业者继续涌入香港，一些美国人也因此有机会在香港安居乐业长达20年、25年乃至30年。正因为如此，我今天来这里谈谈本地区的国家和美国可如何为自己、为彼此、也为全世界加强我们的经济伙伴合作关系，谈谈我们如何共同为一个繁荣的未来和全世界人民获得机会而努力。

But before I talk about where we need to go together, let's consider how far we've come. The economic rise of the Asia Pacific region is an astonishing historic achievement that is reshaping our world today and into the future. In Hanoi, bicycles and water buffalo have given way to motorcycles and internet cafes. Small Chinese fishing villages like Shenzhen have become megacities with their own stock exchanges. And while much work remains to improve labor practices and expand access to the formal economies, the numbers tell a powerful story.

但在我讨论我们需要如何共同努力之前，让我们首先回顾一下我们已经取得的进展。亚太地区的经济崛起是惊人的历史性成就，对当今世界和未来都产生了深刻的影响。在河内，自行车和水牛已被摩托车和网吧取代。深圳等中国小渔村已变成拥有证券交易所的大城市。尽管在改善劳工待遇和扩大进入正规经济的途径等方面还有大量工作要做，但有关的数字令人震撼。

Thirty years ago when I first came to Hong Kong, 80 percent of the people of this region lived on less than $1.25 a day. By 2005, that number had dropped to 20 percent. In the Lower Mekong Region countries, per capita GAP has more than tripled in the last 20 years. And in Thailand alone, the poverty rate fell from 42 percent in 1988 to 8 percent today. Never in history have so many people climbed so far, so fast.

30年前我首次前来香港之时，本地区80%的人口依靠每天不到1.25美元的收入生活。到2005年，这个比例已下降到20%。在湄公河下游地区的国家，人均国内生产总值在过去20年中提高了两倍多。仅在泰国，贫困率就从1988年的 42%下降到今天的8%。历史上，从未有如此众多的人口如此快速地获得这么显著的改善。

And though this progress is largely due to the hard work and ingenuity of the people of Asia themselves, we in the United States are proud of the role we have played in promoting prosperity. Of course, we helped Japan and South Korea rebuild, patrolled Asia's sea lanes to preserve freedom of navigation, promoted global shipping, and supported China's membership in the WTO. Along with our treaty allies — Japan, South Korea, Australia, Thailand and Philippines, and other key partners like New Zealand and Singapore — we have underwritten regional security for decades, and that in turn has helped create the conditions for growth.

虽然这一进步主要归功于亚洲人民自己的辛勤劳动和聪明才智，美国也为我们在促进繁荣方面发挥的作用感到自豪。我们帮助日本和韩国重建、在亚洲的海上航道巡逻以维护航行自由、促进了全球商品运输、并支持中国加入世界贸易组织。我们与条约盟友——日本、韩国、澳大利亚、泰国和菲律宾，以及新西兰和新加坡等其他主要合作伙伴一道，在几十年里保证了地区安全，并因此帮助为经济增长创造了条件。