解放军文职招聘考试Bill Clinton's Remark at Beijing University (II)

 Bill Clinton's Remark at Beijing University (II)

As you build a new China, America wants to build a new relationship with you. We want China to be successful, secure and open, working with us for a more peaceful and prosperous world. I know there are those in China and the United States who question whether closer relations between our countries are a good thing. But everything all of us know about the way the world is changing and the challenges your gen­eration will face tells us that our two nations will be far better off working together than apart.

The late Deng Xiaoping counseled us to seek truth from facts. At the dawn of the new century, the facts are clear. The distance between our two nations, in­deed, between any nations, is shrinking. Once an American clipper ship took months to cross from China to the United States. Today, technology has made us all virtual neighbors. From laptops to lasers, from micro­chips to megabytes, an information revolution is light­ing the landscape of human knowledge, bringing us all closer together. Ideas, information, and money cross the planet at the stroke of a computer key, bringing with them extraordinary opportunities to create wealth, to prevent and conquer disease, to foster greater under­standing among peoples of different histories and different cultures.

But we also know that this greater openness and faster change mean that problems which start beyond one nation's borders can quickly move inside them — the spread of weapons of mass destruction, the threats of organized crime and drug trafficking, of environmen­tal degradation, and severe economic dislocation. No nation can isolate itself from these problems, and no nation can solve them alone. We, especially the youn­ger generations of China and the United States, must make common cause of our common challenges, so that we can, together, shape a new century of brilliant pos­sibilities.

Other ancient cultures failed because they failed to change. China has constantly proven the capacity to change and grow. Now, you must re-imagine China again for a new century, and your generation must be at the heart of China's regeneration.

The new century is upon us. All our sights are turned toward the future. Now your country has known more millennia than the United States has known cen­turies. Today, however, China is as young as any na­tion on Earth. This new century can be the dawn of a new China, proud of your ancient greatness, proud of what you are doing, prouder still of the tomorrows to come. It can be a time when the world again looks to China for the vigor of its culture, the freshness of its thinking, the elevation of human dignity that is appar­ent in its works. It can be a time when the oldest of nations helps to make a new world.

The United States wants to work with you to make that time a reality.

Thank you very much.