Normalization of U.S. relations with China has facilitated China’s full entry into the international community and encouraged a constructive Chinese role in the Asia-Pacific region.  Our relations with China have been rapidly consolidated over the past year through the conclusion of a series of bilateral agreements.  We have established a pattern of frequent and frank consultations between our two governments, exemplified by a series of high-level visits and by regular exchanges at the working level, through which we have been able to identify increasingly broad areas of common interest on which we can cooperate.

United States relations with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have also expanded dramatically in the past four years.  ASEAN is now the focus for U.S. policy in Southeast Asia, and its cohesion and strength are essential to stability in this critical area and beyond.

Soviet-supported Vietnamese aggression in Indo-china has posed a major challenge to regional stability.  In response, we have reiterated our security commitment to Thailand and have provided emergency security assistance for Thai forces facing a Vietnamese military threat along the Thai-Cambodian border.  We have worked closely with ASEAN and the U.N. to press for withdrawal of Vietnamese forces from Cambodia and to encourage a political settlement in Cambodia which permits that nation to be governed by leaders of its own choice.  We still look forward to the day when Cambodia peacefully can begin the process of rebuilding its social, economic and political institutions, after years of devastation and occupation.  And, on humanitarian grounds and in support of our friends in the region, we have worked vigorously with international organizations to arrange relief and resettlement for the exodus of Indo-chinese refugees which threatened to overwhelm these nations.

We have maintained our alliance with Korea and helped assure Korea’s security during a difficult period of political transition.

We have amended our military base agreement with the Philippines, ensuring stable access to these bases through 1991.  The importance of our Philippine bases to the strategic flexibility of U.S. forces and our access to the Indian Ocean is self-evident.

Finally, we are in the process of concluding a long negotiation establishing Micronesia’s status as a freely associated state.

We enter the 1980’s with a firm strategic footing in East Asia and the Pacific, based on stable and productive U.S. relations with the majority of countries of the region.  We have established a stable level of U.S. involvement in the region, appropriate to our own interests and to the interests of our friends and allies there.

THE MIDDLE EAST AND SOUTHWEST ASIA