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大学开学典礼演讲稿:中国梦美国梦
过去的二十年,中国一直在跟美国的三任总统打交道,但是今天到了耶鲁我才知道,其实他只跟一所学校打交道。但是透过这三位总统我也明白了,耶鲁大学的毕业生的水准也并不很平均。
接下来就进入我们这个主题,或许要起个题目的话应该叫《我的故事以及背后的中国梦》。我要讲五个年份,第一要讲的年份是1968年。那一年我出生了。但是那一年世界非常乱,在法国有它的这个,巨大的街头的_,在美国也有,然后美国的总统肯尼迪遇刺了,但是的确这一切的原因都与我无关。但是那一年我们更应该记住的是马丁路德金先生遇刺,虽然那一年他倒下了,但是"我有一个梦想"的这句话却真正地站了起来,不仅在美国站起来,在全世界站起来。
但是当时很遗憾,不仅仅是我,几乎很多的中国人并不知道这个梦想,因为当时中国人,每一个个人很难说拥有自己的梦想。中国与美国的距离非常遥远,不亚于月亮与地球之间的距离。但是我并不关心这一切,我只关系我是否可以吃饱。很显然,我的出生非常不是时候,不仅对于当时的中国来说,对于世界来说,似乎都有些问题。
1978年,十年之后。我十岁,我依然生活在我出生的时候,那个只有二十万人的非常非常小的城市里。它离北京的距离有两千公里,它要想了解北京出的报纸的话,要在三天之后才能看见,所以对于我们来说,是不存在新闻这个说法。那一年我的爷爷去世了,而在两年前的时候我的父亲去世了,所以只剩下我母亲一个人要抚养我们哥俩,她一个月的工资不到十美元。因此即使十岁了,梦想这个词对我来说,依然是一个非常陌生的词汇,我从来不会去想它。我看不到这个家庭的希望,只是会感觉,那个时候的每一个冬天都很寒冷,因为我所生活的那个城市离苏联更近。但是就在我看不到希望的1978年的时候,不管是中国这个国家,还有中国与美国这两个国家之间,发生了非常巨大的变化,那是一个我们在座的所有人,今天都该记住的年份。
1978年的12月16号,中国与美国正式建交,那是一个大事件。而在中美建交两天之后,12月18号,中国的十一届三中全会召开了,那是中国改革开放三十一年的开始。历史,两个伟大的国家,一个非常可怜的家庭,就如此戏剧性地交织在一起,不管是小的家庭,还是大的国家,其实当时谁都没有把握知道未来是什么样的。"
1988年,那一年我二十岁。这个时候我已经从边疆的小城市来到了北京,成为一个大学生。虽然我们今天在中国依然有很多的人在抨击中国的高考的制度,认为它有很多很多的缺陷,但是必须承认正是高考的存在,让我们这样一个又一个非常普通的孩子,拥有了改变命运的机会。当然,这个时候美国已经不再是一个很遥远的国家,它变得很具体,它也不再是那个过去口号当中的"美帝国主义",而是变成了生活中很多的细节。这个时候我已经第一次地尝试过可口可乐,而且喝完可口可乐之后会觉得中美两个国家真的是如此接近,因为它几乎就跟中国的中药是一样的。
那个时候我已经开始非常狂热地去喜欢摇滚乐。那个时候正是迈克尔杰克逊还长得比较漂亮的时候。更重要的是,这个时候的中国,已经开始发生了非常大的变化,因为改革已经进行了十年。那一年中国开始尝试放开很多商品的价格。这在你们觉得是非常不可思议的事情,但是在中国当时是一个很大的迈进,因为过去的价格都是由政府来决定的。但是,就在那一年,因为放开了价格,引起了全国疯狂地抢购,大家都觉得这个时候会有多久,于是要把一辈子都用的食品和用品,买回到家里头。这一年也就标志之着中国离市场经济越来越近了。
当然那个时候没有人知道市场经济,也会有次贷危机。当然我知道那一年1988年对于耶鲁大学来说格外的重要,因为你们耶鲁的校友又一次成为美国的总统。
1998年,那一年我三十岁。我已经成为中央电视台的一个新闻节目主持人。更重要的是,我已经成为一个一岁孩子的父亲。那一年在中美之间发生了一个非常重要的事件,主角就是克林顿。也许在美国你记住的是性丑闻。但是在中国记住的是他那一年访问了中国。在六月份的时候,他访问中国的时候,在人民大会堂和___主席进行了一个开放的记者招待会,然后又在北京大学进行了一个开放的演讲,这两场活动的直播主持人都是我。
在北大的克林顿的演讲当中,由于整个克林顿总统的演讲,用的全是美方所提供的翻译,我猜想有很多的中国观众,是一直知道克林顿的确在说话,但是说的是什么不太清楚。所以我在直播结束的时候,说了这样的一番话,我说看样子美国需要对中国有更多的了解,有的时候要从语言开始,而对于中美这两个国家来说,面对面永远要好过背对背。当然也是在这一年初,我开上了我人生的第一辆车。这是我在我过去从来不会想到的,中国人有一天也可以开自己的车。个人的喜悦,也会让你印象很久,因为往往第一次才是最难忘的。
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thank you. thank you very, verymuch. thank you. good morning. thank you for ane_traordinarily warm welcome,charlottesville. i am really honored to be here.
senator tim kaine, thank youvery, very much for your generous words of introduction.tim, as he mentioned,has only been on the foreign relations committee, i guess now for atotal of afew weeks, but i can, based on his testimony a moment ago, positively commendhimon his voting record. (laughter and applause.) he’s really – he’s foundhimself new jobsecurity too, because here in virginia you have a single-termgovernor for four years, so he hastraded one single four-year term for asi_-year term with potential e_tension. (laughter.) sogiven the fact that itraded the several e_tensions for a four-year term and then i’m finished,maybehe knows something and i ought to be listening to him. (laughter.) i could learna thingor two from him.
we didn’t overlap for long, but iwant to tell everybody here that we know each other prettywell from service asa lieutenant governor and when he was governor of the state. i waslieutenantgovernor of my state, so we have that in common before being senators.
i’ll tell you a quick story. andi don’t know what you do in virginia as lieutenant governor,but inmassachusetts, once upon a time calvin coolidge was lieutenant governor. and hewas ata dinner party, and his dinner partner turned to him and said, “what doyou do?” and he said, “well, i’m calvin coolidge. i’m lieutenant governor ofmassachusetts.” and she said, “oh wow,that must be really interesting. tell meall about the job.” and he said, “i just did.” (laughter.)so i trust, becausethey embraced you and me, we made something more out of it.
but i have huge admiration forthe path that tim kaine has followed. i know his sense ofwhat america means tothe world was forged in the early days that congressman hurt referredto abouthis missionary work, the catholic missionary working in honduras, just helpingotherpeople to live healthier lives. and i know, because two weeks after theelection, tim called meand he asked if he could serve on the foreign relationscommittee. well, in the senate, i willtell you, you don’t always get thosecalls. people who step forward and volunteer in that way ona committee thatdoesn’t have the opportunity to bring bacon back home and perhaps deliverit aseasy a reelection. so i know that in tim kaine, virginia has a senator who’sgoing to makehis mark on that committee, and he’s going to make the mark foryour commonwealth and ourcountry, and we’re grateful for your service, tim.thank you very, very much. (applause.)
i also am particularly gratefulfor congressman robert hurt being here today. i have leftpartisan politics andit’s wonderful for me to be able to welcome people in the complete spiritofnonpartisanship, not just bipartisan, but nonpartisanship. and i’m particularlygrateful to himfor his service in the state legislature, in both houses, nowin the house, and i’m confidentfrom the words you e_pressed and theconversation we had, you’re going to make yourcontribution too. and i thankyou for your presence here today. (applause.)
president sullivan, thank you somuch for welcoming me here to this historic, remarkablecampus. i just feastedon the view as i walked across the lawn with president sullivan, and ihave tosay you all are very lucky to go to school here. (laughter.) it is an honor tojoin you hereon grounds – (laughter and applause) – this very, very beautifulmonument to the potential ofthe human mind. and i have to tell you, to standhere beneath the gaze of the sages of athens,those thinkers who gave us theidea of democracy, which we obviously still continue to perfect,not only inour own nation but around the world, we are grateful for that.
i will tell you also, i was herea long time ago as an undergraduate. i played lacrosse downon that field overthere against you guys, and my first act of diplomacy is literally to forgetwhowon. i have no idea. i don’t know. (laughter.)
i want to thank the folks inuniform. i want to thank the rotc and all those of you who haveserved and willcontinue to serve in some way for our nation. there is no greater declarationofcitizenship than that, and i happen to believe the word “citizen” is one ofthe most important inthe american le_icon.
some might ask why i’m standinghere at the university of virginia, why am i starting here?a secretary ofstate making his first speech in the united states? you might ask, “doesn’tdiplomacy happen over there, overseas, far beyond the boundaries of ourownbackyards?”
so why is it that i am at thefoot of the blue ridge instead of on the shores of the blacksea? why am i inold cabell hall and not kabul, afghanistan? (laughter.)
the reason is very simple. i camehere purposefully to underscore that in today’s globalworld, there is nolonger anything foreign about foreign policy. more than ever before,thedecisions that we make from the safety of our shores don’t just ripple outward;they alsocreate a current right here in america. how we conduct our foreignpolicy matters more thanever before to our everyday lives, to theopportunities of all those students i met standingoutside, whatever year theyare here, thinking about the future. it’s important not just in termsof thethreats that we face, but the products that we buy, the goods that we sell, andtheopportunity that we provide for economic growth and vitality. it’s not justabout whether we’llbe compelled to send our troops to another battle, butwhether we’ll be able to send ourgraduates into a thriving workforce. that’swhy i’m here today.
i’m here because our lives asamericans are more intertwined than ever before with the livesof people inparts of the world that we may have never visited. in the global challengesofdiplomacy, development, economic security, environmental security, you willfeel our successor failure just as strongly as those people in those othercountries that you’ll never meet. for allthat we have gained in the 21stcentury, we have lost the lu_ury of just looking inward.instead, we look outand we see a new field of competitors. i think it gives us much reason tohope.but it also gives us many more rivals determined to create jobs andopportunities fortheir own people, a voracious marketplace that sometimesforgets morality and values.
i know that some of you and manyacross the country wish that globalization would just goaway, or you wistfullyremember easier times. but, my friends, no politician, no matter howpowerful,can put this genie back in the bottle. so our challenge is to tame the worstimpulsesof globalization even as we harness its ability to spread informationand possibility, to offereven the most remote place on earth the same choicesthat have made us strong and free.
so before i leave this weekend tolisten to our allies and partners ne_t week throughouteurope and the middleeast, and in the coming months across asia, africa, and the americas, iwantedto first talk with you about the challenge that we face here at home, becauseourengagement with the rest of the world begins by making some important choicestogether, andparticularly about our nation’s budget. our sense of sharedresponsibility, that we care aboutsomething bigger than ourselves, isabsolutely central to the spirit of this school. it’s also centralto thespirit of our nation.
as you well know, and dr.sullivan reminded you a moment ago, our first secretary of statefounded thisgreat university. students of his day, when he did, could basically only studylaw ormedicine or religion. that was about it. but thomas jefferson had avision, and he believed thatthe american people needed a public place to learna diversity of disciplines – studies of scienceand space, of flora, fauna, andphilosophy. he built this university in the image of what he called“theillimitable freedom of the human mind.”
today, those of you who studyhere and who teach here, along with the ta_payers,contributors, and parentswho believe in your potential, you are all investing in mr. jefferson’svision.now think for a moment about what that means. why do you spend the many daysandthe borrowed dollars it takes to earn an education here, or anywhere? whydid jefferson wantthis institution to remain public and accessible, not justto virginians but as a destinationfrom everywhere? i know that he wasn’t thinkingjust about your getting a degree and a job. itwas about something more.jefferson believed we couldn’t be a strong country without investingin thekind of education that empowers us to be good citizens. that’s why foundingthisuniversity is among the few accomplishments that jefferson listed on hisepitaph that he wrotefor himself. to him, this place and its goal was a biggerpart of his legacy than serving assecretary of state or even as president,neither of which made the cut.
just as jefferson understood thatwe need to invest in education in order to produce goodcitizens, i joinpresident obama today in asserting with urgency that our citizenry deservesastrong foreign policy to protect our interests in the world. a wise investmentin foreign policycan yield for a nation the same return that education doesfor a student. and no investmentthat we make that is as small as thisinvestment puts forward such a sizeable benefit forourselves and for ourfellow citizens of the world. that’s why i wanted to have thisconversationwith you today, which i hope is a conversation that e_tends well beyondtheborders of charlottesville, well beyond this university, to all americans.
when i talk about a smallinvestment in foreign policy in the united states, i mean it. notso long ago,someone polled the american people and asked, “how big is our internationalaffairsbudget?” most pegged it at 25 percent of our national budget, and theythought it ought to bepared way back to ten percent of our national budget.let me tell you, would that that weretrue. i’d take ten percent in aheartbeat, folks – (laughter) – because ten percent is e_actly tentimesgreater than what we do invest in our efforts to protect america around theworld.
in fact, our whole foreign policybudget is just over one percent of our national budget.think about it a littlebit. over one percent, a little bit more, funds all of our civilian andforeignaffairs efforts – every embassy, every program that saves a child from dirtydrinkingwater, or from aids, or reaches out to build a village, and bringamerica’s values, every person.we’re not talking about pennies on the dollar;we’re talking about one penny plus a bit, on asingle dollar.
so where you think this ideacomes from, that we spend 25 percent of our budget? well, i’lltell you. it’spretty simple. as a recovering politician – (laughter) – i can tell you thatnothinggets a crowd clapping faster in a lot of places than saying, “i’m goingto washington to get themto stop spending all that money over there.” andsometimes they get a lot more specific.
if you’re looking for an applauseline, that’s about as guaranteed an applause line as youcan get. but guesswhat? it does nothing to guarantee our security. it doesn’t guaranteeastronger country. it doesn’t guarantee a sounder economy or a more stable jobmarket. itdoesn’t guarantee that the best interests of our nation are beingserved. it doesn’t guaranteethat another young american man or woman won’t goand lose their life because we weren’twilling to make the right investmentshere in the first place.
we need to say no to the politicsof the lowest common denominator and of simplisticslogans, and start makingreal choices that protect the interests of our country. that’simperative.(applause.)
unfrtunately, the statedepartment doesn’t have our own grover norquist pushing a pledgeto protect it.we don’t have millions of aarp seniors who send in their dues and rally toprotectamerica’s investments overseas. the kids whose lives we’re helping savefrom aids, the womenwe’re helping to free from the horrors of se_ trafficking,the students who, for the first time, canchoose to walk into a school insteadof into a short life of terrorism – their strongest lobbyists arethe rare,committed americans who stand up for them and for the resources that we needtohelp them. and i hope that includes all of you here and many listening.
you understand why. every timethat a tough fiscal choice looms, the easiest place topoint fingers – foreignaid. as ronald reagan said, foreign aid suffers from a lack ofdomesticconstituency, and that’s part of the reason that everyone thinks it costs a lotmore thanit really does. so we need to change that. i reject the e_cuse thatamericans just aren’tinterested in what’s happening outside of their immediatefield of vision. i don’t believe thatabout any one of you sitting here, and idon’t believe that about americans.
in fact, the real domesticconstituency for what we do, if people can see the dots connectedandunderstand what we’re doing in its full measure, is really large. it’s the 314millionamericans whose lives are better every day because of what we do, andwho, deep down, whenthey have time to stop and think about it, know that ourinvestment abroad actually makesthem and our nation safer.
now, my friends, in this age,when a shrinking world clashes with calls for shrinking budgets– and we’re notalone – it’s our job to connect those dots, to connect them for theamericanpeople between what we do over there and the size of the difference that itmakes overhere at home, why the price of abandoning our global efforts wouldbe e_orbitant, and whythe vacuum we would leave by retreating within ourselveswill quickly be filled by those whoseinterests differ dramatically from ours.
we learned that lesson in thedeserts of mali recently, in the mountains of afghanistan in2024, and in thetribal areas of pakistan even today. just think: today’s first-years here atuvawere starting the second grade when a small cabal of terrorists halfwayaround the worldshattered our sense of security and our stability, ourskylines. so i know that you certainlyhave always understood that bad thingshappening over there threaten us right here.
knowing that, the question isthis: how do we, together, make clear that the opposite is justas true; thatif we do the right things, the good things, the smart things over there, itwillstrengthen us here at home?
let me tell you my answer: ibelieve we do this in two ways. first, it’s about telling the storyof how westand up for american jobs and businesses – pretty practical, prettystraightforward,and pretty real on a day-to-day basis. and second, it’s abouthow we stand up for our americanvalues, something that has alwaysdistinguished america.
i agree with president obama thatthere is nothing in this current budget fight thatrequires us to make baddecisions, that forces us to retrench or to retreat. this is a time tocontinueto engage for the sake of the safety and the economic health of our country.this is notoptional. it is a necessity. the american people understand this, ibelieve. our businessesunderstand this. it’s simple. the more they sellabroad, the more they’re going to hire here athome. and since 95 percent ofthe world’s customers live outside of our country, we can’thamstring our ownability to compete in those increasingly growing markets.
virginia understands this as wellas any state in the union. senator kaine, i know, when agovernor, took thosetrips to try to make this happen. international trade supports more thanamillion jobs right here in virginia – more than one in five jobs in virginia,which actually todayis the story of america.
you have a company up near dullescalled orbital sciences corporation. with the help of thepersistent advocatesof our embassy in bangkok, it beat out french and russian competitors tobuildthailand’s newest broadcast satellite. virginia’s orbital is now teaming upwith a californiacompany called space e_ploration technologies that makessatellite equipment. the deal thatour embassy helped secure, valued at $160million, goes right back into american communitiesfrom coast to coast. that’sthe difference that our embassies abroad actually can make back hereat home.
and these success stories happenin partnership with countries all over the world because ofthe resources thatwe’ve deployed to bring business and jobs back to america. theseinvestments,my friends, are paying for themselves. we create more than 5,000 jobs foreverybillion dollars of goods and services that we e_port. so the last thing that weshould do issurrender this kind of leverage.
these successes are happening incanada, where state department officers there got a localautomotive firm toinvest tens of millions of dollars in michigan, where the americanautoindustry is now making a remarkable comeback.
in indonesia where, thanks toembassy jakarta, that nation’s largest privately run airlinejust placed anorder for commercial aircraft, the largest order boeing has ever been askedtofill. meanwhile, the indonesian state railroad is buying its locomotives fromgeneral electric.
in south africa, where more than600 u.s. companies are doing business, and where opic,the overseas privateinvestment corporation, and the e_port-import bank, and the tradeanddevelopment agency just opened an office to help close more investment dealsbetweenamerican companies and africa’s booming energy and transportationsectors, it’s also a two-waystreet. a major south african energy company isplanning to build a multibillion-dollar plant inlouisiana that will put moreamericans to work.
let me tell you, this ishappening, in cameroon and bosnia and other surprising places. inthe shadowsof world war ii, if you told someone that japan and germany would today beourfourth- and fifth-largest trading partners, someone would have thought you werecrazy.before ni_on’s bold opening with china, no one could have imagined thattoday it would be oursecond-largest trading partner, but that’s e_actly what’shappened.
eleven of our top 15 tradingpartners used to be the beneficiaries of u.s. foreignassistance. that’sbecause our goal isn’t to keep a nation dependent on us forever. it’spreciselyto create these markets, to open these opportunities, to establish rule of law.our goalis to use assistance and development to help nations realize their ownpotential, develop theirown ability to govern and become our economic partners.
one of america’s most incrediblerealities continues to be that we are a country without anypermanent enemies.now, take vietnam. i will never forget standing ne_t to john mccain in theeastroom of the white house, each of us on either side of president clinton as heannounced theonce unthinkable normalization of our relations with vietnam, aneffort that john mccain andi worked on for about ten years, try to bringabout.
in the last decade, thanks inlarge part to the work of usaid, our e_ports to vietnamincreased by more than700 percent. every one of those percentage points are jobs here inamerica. andin the last two decades, a thousand vietnamese students and scholars havestudiedand taught in america through the fulbright program, including theforeign minister ofvietnam, who i just talked to the other day and who,believe me, has feelings about americabecause of that engagement.
the list goes on. as the emergingmiddle class in india, the world’s largest democracy,buys our products, thatmeans jobs and income for our own middle class. as our traditionalassistanceto brazil decreases, trade there is increasing. brazil is one of the new tigersgrowing ata double-digit pace, and it supports additional jobs here at home,many in the u.s. travel andtourism industry.
when jefferson e_panded ourconsular posts precisely to promote trade, he never couldhave imagined theimportance today. nor could he have predicted the number of americansabroadthat we help with their passports, with visas, with other problems that arise.or that wehelp offer, to those who want to grow their families throughadoption, or who find themselves inlegal trouble or distress far from home. orthe role our diplomats play, screening potentialsecurity threats and takingthem off the radar screen before they ever reach yourconsciousness,potentially in the worst ways. or that we create a new american job forevery65 visitors that we help to bring to our shores.
so, my friends, we have to keepgoing. we can’t afford the kind of delay and disruption thatstands on thehorizon in washington. the e_citing new trade negotiation that presidentobamaannounced last week between the united states and the european union willcreate theworld’s biggest bilateral deal when it comes to fruition, atransatlantic partnership that willmatch the scope and ambition of ourtrans-pacific partnership talks.
but our work is far from over.seven of the ten fastest growing countries are on the africancontinent. andchina, understanding that, is already investing more than we do there. fourofthe five biggest oil and natural gas discoveries happened off the coast ofmozambique last yearalone. developing economies are the epicenters of growth,and they are open for business, andthe united states needs to be at thattable.
if we want a new list ofassistance graduates, countries that used to take our aid but nowbuy oure_ports, we can’t afford to pull back. and if we’re going to seize this budgetcrisis as thegreat opportunity that it can be, we can’t shy away from tellingthis story to the americanpeople, to your members of congress, and to theworld.
but let me emphasize: jobs andtrade are not the whole story, and nor should they be. thegood work of thestate department, of usaid, is measured not only in the value of thedollar,but it’s also measured in our deepest values. we value security and stabilityin otherparts of the world, knowing that failed states are among our greatestsecurity threats, and newpartners are our greatest assets.
the investments that we makesupport our efforts to counter terrorism and violente_tremism wherever itflourishes. and we will continue to help countries provide their ownsecurity,use diplomacy where possible, and support those allies who take the fighttoterrorists.
and remember – boy, i can’temphasize this enough; i’m looking at a soldier here in front ofme with aribbon on his chest – deploying diplomats today is much cheaper thandeployingtroops tomorrow. we need to remember that. (applause.) as senator lindseygrahamsaid, “it’s national security insurance that we’re buying.”
now,it sounds e_pensive, myfriends, but simple bottom line, it’s not. the statedepartment’s conflictstabilization budget is about $60 million a year now. that’s how much themovie“the avengers” took in on a single sunday last may. (laughter.) the differenceis the folksthat we have on the ground doing this job are actually realsuperheroes.
we value human rights, and weneed to tell the story of america’s good work there, too. weknow that the mosteffective way to promote the universal rights of all people, rightsandreligious freedom, is not from the podium, not from either end of pennsylvaniaavenue. it’sfrom the front lines – wherever freedom and basic human dignityare denied. and that’s whattim kaine understood when he went to honduras.
the brave employees of state andusaid – and the diplomatic security personnel whoprotect the civilians servingus overseas – work in some of the most dangerous places on earth,and they doit fully cognizant that we share stronger partnerships with countries thatshare ourcommitment to democratic values and human rights. they fightcorruption in nigeria. theysupport the rule of law in burma. they support democraticinstitutions in kyrgyzstan andgeorgia, mindful from our own e_perience that ittakes a long time to get democracy right, andthat it rarely happens rightaway.
in the end, all of those efforts,all of that danger and risk that they take, makes us moresecure. and we dovalue democracy, just as you’ve demonstrated here at uva throughthepresidential precinct program that’s training leaders in emerging democracies.
thanks to a decade of intensivediplomatic efforts alongside our partners, a conflict thattook more than 2million lives – and people think about the holocaust, 6 million over thecourseof world war ii, we lost 2 million people in the longest war in africa in ourtime in the lastyears. and of that south sudan was born a free nation. securingits future and peace for all ofits citizens is going to take continueddiplomatic efforts alongside partners like the african union.and the more wecan develop the capacity of the african union, the less the united stateswillhave to worry.
i’ve stood in south sudan. i’veseen those challenges firsthand, and they still face theworld’s newest countryand its government. those challenges threaten to reverse hard-wonprogress andstability. and that’s why we’re working closely with that nation to help itprovide itsown citizens with essential services like water, health, andeducation and agriculture practices.
we value health and nutrition,and the principle of helping people gain strength to helpthemselves. throughcornerstone initiatives like feed the future, we help countries not onlyplantand harvest better food, but we also help them break the cycle of poverty, ofpoornutrition, and of hunger.
we seek to reduce maternalmortality, eradicate polio, and protect people from malaria,tuberculosis, andpandemic influenza. and i will tell you proudly that through the globalhealthinitiative and programs that i was proud to have a hand in helping to create,like pepfar,we have saved the lives of 5 million people in africa through theefforts of americans. today… (applause.) and today – today astonishingly – weare standing on the edge of the potential ofan aids-free generation, becausewe know these diseases don’t discriminate by nationality,and we believe thatrelieving preventable suffering doesn’t need a justification. and ithinkthat’s part of our values.
we value gender equality, knowingthat countries are, in fact, more peaceful andprosperous when women and girlsare afforded full rights and equal opportunity. (applause.) inthe last decade,the proportion of african_ women enrolled in higher education went fromnearlyzero to 20 percent. in 2024, there were fewer than a million boys in afghanschools andbarely any girls. now, with america’s help, more than a third ofthe almost 8 million studentsgoing to school in afghanistan are girls. andmore than a quarter of their representatives inparliament are women. we shouldbe proud of that, and that helps to make a difference for thelong haul.
we value education, promotingprograms like the fulbright e_changes managed by thedepartment of state. theyenable the most talented citizens to share their devotion todiplomacy andpeace, their hopes, their friendships, and the belief that all of the earth’ssonsand daughters ought to have the opportunity to lift themselves up. todaythese e_changesbring hundreds of thousands of students to america from othercountries, and vice versa. in thelast year alone, more than 10,000 citizens offoreign countries participated in the statedepartment’s academic, youth,professional and cultural e_change programs right here invirginia. virginiansalso studied abroad through state department programs. senator fulbright,atwhose hearings i had the privilege of testifying as a young veteran returning fromvietnam,he knew that the value of sharing our proudest values bore fruit inthe long run, in the future.he said, “having people who understand yourthought,” he said, “is much greater securitythan another submarine.”
let me be very clear. foreign assistanceis not a giveaway. it’s not charity. it is aninvestment in a strong americaand in a free world. foreign assistance lifts other people up andthenreinforces their willingness to link arms with us in common endeavors. and whenwe helpothers crack down on corruption, that makes it easier for our owncompliance againstcorruption, and it makes it easier for our companies to dobusiness as well.
when we join with other nationsto reduce the nuclear threat, we build partnerships thatmean we don’t have tofight those battles alone. this includes working with our partners aroundtheworld in making sure that iran never obtains a weapon that would endanger ourallies andour interests. when we help others create the space that they needto build stability in theirown communities, we’re actually helping bravepeople build a better, more democratic future,and making sure that we don’tpay more later in american blood and treasure.
the stories that we need to tell,of standing up for american jobs and businesses andstanding up for ouramerican values, intersect powerfully in the opportunity that we have nowinthis moment of urgency to lead on the climate concerns that we share with ourglobalneighbors. we as a nation must have the foresight and the courage tomake the investmentsnecessary to safeguard the most sacred trust we keep forour children and our grandchildren,and that is an environment not ravaged byrising seas, deadly superstorms, devastatingdroughts, and the other hallmarksof a dramatically changing climate. president obama iscommitted to movingforward on that, and so am i, and so must you be ready to join us inthateffort. (applause.)
can we all say thank you to oursigners who are here? (applause.)
so think about all these things thati’ve listed. think about the world as you see it today.let’s face it: we areall in this one together. no nation can stand alone. we share nothingsocompletely as our planet. when we work with others, large and small, to developand deploythe clean technologies that will power a new world – and they’rethere waiting for us, $6 trillionmarket, huge amount of jobs – when we dothat, we know we’re helping create the new marketsand new opportunities foramerica’s second-to-none innovators and entrepreneurs so that wecan succeed inthe ne_t great revolution in our marketplace. we need to commit ourselvestodoing the smart thing and the right thing and to truly take on this challenge,because if wedon’t rise to meet it, then rising temperatures and rising sealevels will surely lead to rising costsdown the road. ask any insurancecompany in america. if we waste this opportunity, it may bethe only thing ourgeneration – generations – are remembered for. we need to find the couragetoleave a far different legacy.
we cannot talk about theunprecedented changes happening on our planet, moreover,without also talkingabout the unprecedented changes in its population, another greatopportunity atour fingertips. in countries across north africa and the middle east, themajorityof people are younger than 30 years old – 60 percent under 30, 50percent under 21, 40 percentunder 18, about half of the total under 20. andyou know what? they seek the sameopportunities and the same things that youdo: opportunity. we have an interest in helpingthese young people to developthe skills that they need to defeat the mass unemploymentthat is overwhelmingtheir societies so that they can in fact start contributing totheircommunities and rebuild their broken economies rather than engaging in someotherterrorist or other kind of e_tremist activity. for the first time inhuman history, young peoplearound the world act as a global cohort, includingmany of the people in this room. they’remore open-minded. they’re moreproficient with the technology that keeps them connected in away that nogeneration in history has ever been before. we need to help all of them, andus, touse this remarkable network in a positive way.
now, some may say not now, notwhile we have our budget; it’s too e_pensive. well, believeme, my friends,these challenges will not get easier with time. there is no pause button onthefuture. we cannot choose when we would like to stop and restart our globalresponsibility orsimply wait until the calendar says it’s more convenient.it’s not easy, but responding is theamerican thing to do. and i’ll tell you,it’s worth it.
our relatively small investmentin these programs – programs which advance peace,security, and stabilityaround the world, which help american companies compete abroad,which createjobs here at home by opening new markets to american goods, whichsupportamerican citizens abroad, help them when they need it the most, which fosterstablesocieties and save lives by fighting disease and hunger, which defendthe universal rights of allpeople and advance freedom and dignity anddevelopment around the world, which bringpeople together and nations together,and forge partnerships to address problems thattranscend the separation of oceansand borders on land, which protect our planet for ourchildren and theirchildren, and which give hope to a new generation of interconnectedworldcitizens – our investment in all of those things cost us, as i just mentioned,about onepenny of every dollar we invest. america, you will not find a betterdeal anywhere.
now, i’m particularly aware thatin many ways, the greatest challenge to america’s foreignpolicy today is inthe hands not of diplomats, but of policymakers in congress. it is oftensaidthat we cannot be strong at home if we’re not strong in the world, but in thesedays of alooming budget sequester that everyone actually wants to avoid – ormost – we can’t bestrong in the world unless we are strong at home. mycredibility as a diplomat working to helpother countries create order isstrongest when america, at last, puts its own fiscal house inorder, and thathas to be now. (applause.)
think about it. it’s hard to tellthe leadership of any number of countries that they have toresolve theireconomic issues if we don’t resolve our own. let’s reach a responsibleagreementthat prevents these senseless cuts. let’s not lose this opportunitybecause of politics.
as i’ve said many times before,america is not e_ceptional simply because we say we are.we are e_ceptionalbecause we do e_ceptional things, both where there are problems as wellaswhere there is promise, both where there is danger as well as where there isdemocracy. i amoptimistic that we will continue to do these e_ceptionalthings. i know we have the capacity. iknow that’s who we are, and it’s whowe’ve always been.
as we ask where our ne_t stepsshould fall on this path, we would do well to learn a lessonfrom our ownhistory. in the aftermath of world war ii and its great toll, america had thechoice,just like we do today, to turn inward. instead, secretary of stategeorge marshall saw in bothdefeated and allied nations the threat ofbankruptcy, homes and railways destroyed, people whowere starving, economiesdecimated.
he had the foresight to know thatthere could be no political stability and no peacewithout renewed economicstrength. he knew we had an obligation to partner with europe,help it rebuild,modernize it, and give it the push that it needed to become the powerfulandpeaceful trading partner it is today. after the war, my friends, we didn’tspike the football;we created a more level playing field, and we are strongerfor it today.
when i was 12 years old, i hadthe privilege of living in berlin, germany, where my father,a foreign serviceofficer, was called to duty. and one day, i visited the eastern side of berlin,thepart that hadn’t received any of the help from the united states and itscourageous marshallplan.
the difference was undeniable,even to my 12-year-old eyes. there were few people on thestreets, few smileson the faces of those who were there. i saw the difference between hopeanddespair, freedom and oppression, people who were given a chance to do somethingandpeople who weren’t. if the recovering western half of urope was regainingits vibrant color, theplace that i visited was still in black and white.
when i went back to west berlin,two things happened. first, i was summarily groundedfor having venturedwithout permission to the other side of the city. (laughter.) and second,istarted to pay special attention to the plaques on the buildings thatrecognized the unitedstates of america for lending a hand in the rebuilding.and i was proud.
the marshall plan, the imf, theworld bank, and other postwar organizations led by theunited states areevidence of our ability to make the right decisions at the right time,takingrisks today in the interest of tomorrow.
now we face a similar crossroads.we can be complacent, or we can be competitive. asnew markets bloom in everycorner of the globe – and they will, with or without us – we can bethere tohelp plant the seeds, or we can cede that power to others.
given the chance to lead a secondgreat american century, let’s not just look to the globallandscape around ustoday; let’s look to the one ahead of us, look over the horizon, look tothedays to come 15 and 50 years from now, and marshal the courage that defined themarshallplan so that we might secure a new future of freedom.
let’s remember that theprinciples of jefferson’s time, in a nation that was just getting usedto itsindependence, still echo in our own time, in a world that’s still getting usedto ourinterdependence. america’s national interest in leading strongly stillendures in this world.
so let me leave you with athought. when tragedy and terror visit our neighbors around theglobe, whetherby the hand of man or by the hand of god, many nations give of themselvestohelp. but only one is e_pected to.
with the leadership of presidentobama and the cooperation i will work hard to securefrom the congress, we willcontinue to lead as the indispensable nation, not because we seekthis role,but because the world needs us to fill it. not as a choice, but as a charge.not becausewe view it as a burden, but because we know it to be a privilege.
that is what is special about theunited states of america. that is what is special aboutbeing an american. thate_ceptional quality that we share is what i will bring with me on mytravels onyour behalf. but our sense of responsibility cannot be reserved for responsestoemergencies alone. it has to be e_ercised in the pursuit of preventingdisaster, of strengtheningalliances, of building markets, of promotinguniversal rights, and standing up for our values.
over the ne_t four years, i askyou to stand with our president and our country to continueto conductourselves with the understanding that what happens over there matters righthere,and it matters that we get this right.
thank you. (applause.)
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thank you. (applause.) thank you very much. thank you, thank you, thank you. i think winston churchill said the only reason people give a standing ovation is they desperately seek an e_cuse to shift their underwear. (laughter.) so certainly before i’ve opened my mouth, that’s true. (laughter.)
anyway, president salovey and faculty members, parents, siblings who came here under thefalse impression there would be free food (laughter); handsome dan, wherever you are,probably at some fire hydrant somewhere (laughter); members of the 2024 ncaa championmen’s ice hockey team (cheers and applause); distinguished guests and graduates,graduates of the class of 2024, i really am privileged to be able to be here and share thecelebration of this day with you, especially 48 years after standing up right here as a veryintimidated senior wondering what i was going to say.
you are graduating today as the most diverse class in yale’s long history. or as they call it inthe nba, donald sterling’s worst nightmare. (laughter and applause.)
nia and josh: thank you for such a generous introduction. what josh didn’t mention is that heinterned for me at the state department last summer. (cheers and applause.) well, hold on aminute now. (laughter.) i learned that he’s not afraid to talk truth to power, or semi-truth. (laughter.) on his last day he walked up to me at the state department and he was brutallyhonest. he said, "mr. secretary, je sucks." (laughter and cheers.)
no, actually, on the last day at the state department, he asked if i would come here today anddeliver a message his classmates really needed to hear. so here it goes: jarred phillips, you stillowe josh money from that road trip last fall. (laughter and applause.)
i have to tell you, it is really fun for me to be back here on the old campus. i’m accompaniedby a classmate of mine. we were on the soccer team together. we had a lot of fun. he served asambassador to italy recently, david thorne. and my daughter vanessa graduated in the classof 1999, so i know what a proud moment this is for your parents. but my friends, the test willbe if they still feel this way ne_t may if you live at home. (laughter.)
now, i’m really happy you made it back from myrtle beach. (cheers and applause.) as if youhadn’t already logged enough keg time at "woads". (cheers.) just remember, just remember: 4.0 is a really good gpa, but it’s a lousy blood-alcohol level. (laughter.)
i love the hats. we didn’t have the hats when i was here. i love the hats. they are outrageous.they’re spectacular. this may well be the only event that pharrell could crash and gounnoticed. (laughter and applause.)
i’ve been looking around. i’ve seen a couple of red so_, a few red so_ hats out there. (cheers.)i’ve also seen a few of those dreaded interlocking n’s and y’s. (cheers.) but that’s okay: i saiddiversity is important. (laughter.) it’s also an easy way for me to tell who roots for theyankees and who’s graduating with distinction. (laughter and cheers.)
so here’s the deal, here’s the deal: i went online and i learned in the yale daily comments thati wasn’t everyone’s first choice to be up here. (laughter.)
when yale announced that i’d be speaking, someone actually wrote, "i hope they give outfive-hour energy to help everyone stay awake." (laughter.) well don’t worry folks: i promisenot to be one minute over four hours. (laughter.)
someone else wrote i haven’t "screwed up badly as secretary of state ... yet." (laughter.)well, all i can say is, stay tuned. (laughter.)
but my favorite comment was this: "i’m really proud that a yalie is secretary of state." ishould have stopped reading right there because he or she went on to write, "but he is buttugly." (laughter.) so there go my dreams of being on "yale’s 50 most beautiful" list. (cheersand applause.)
it really is a privilege for me to share this celebration with you, though i’m forewarned that noone remembers who delivers their graduation speech. all i really remember about our speakerin 1966 is that he was eloquent, insightful, really good looking. (laughter.) anyway, onething i promise you, one thing i promise you: i will stay away from the tired cliches ofcommencement, things like "be yourself," "do what makes you happy," "don’t use the laundryroom in saybrook". (cheers and applause.) that’s about all i’ll say about that. (laughter.)
so right after we graduated, time magazine came out with its famous "man of the year" issue.but for 1966, timedidn’t pick one man or one woman. they picked our entire generation.
and time e_pressed a lot of high hopes for us. it not only predicted that we’d cure thecommon cold, but that we’d cure cancer, too. it predicted that we’d build smog-free cities andthat we’d end poverty and war once and for all. i know what you’re thinking – we reallycrushed it. (laughter.)
so fair question: did my generation get lost? well, that’s actually a conversation for anothertime. but let me put one theory to rest: it’s not true that everyone in my generatione_perimented with drugs. although between floma_, lipitor and viagra, now we do. (laughterand applause.)
now, i did have some pretty creative classmates back then. one of my good friends, very closefriends in je – (cheers) – i’m going to set it right for you guys right now. (laughter.) one of mygood friends in je had at least two hair-brained ideas. the first was a little start-up built on thenotion that if people had a choice, they’d pay a little more to mail a package and have it arrivethe very ne_t day. crazy, right? today that start-up is called fede_. and by the way, it wascreated in je, which therefore means je rules. (cheers and applause.)
now, his other nutty idea was to restart something called the yale flying club. and admittedly,this was more of a scheme to get us out of class and off the campus. so i basically spent mysenior year majoring in flying, practicing take-offs and landings out at tweed airport.responsible? no. but i wouldn’t have missed it.
and one of the best lessons i learned here is that mark twain was absolutely right: never letschool get in the way of an education.
now, i didn’t know it at the time, but yale also taught me to finish what you start. and that’sone thing that clearly separates us from harvard. (laughter.) after all, a lot of those guys don’teven graduate. bill gates, mark zuckerberg, matt damon – what the hell have they everamounted to? (laughter.)
for all i ever learned at yale, i have to tell you truthfully the best piece of advice i ever got wasactually one word from my 89-year-old mother. i’ll never forget sitting by her bedside andtelling her i had decided to run for president. and she squeezed my hand and she said: "integrity, john. integrity. just remember always, integrity." and maybe that tells you a lotabout what she thought about politics.
but you should know: in a complicated world full of complicated decisions and close calls thatcould go either way, what keeps you awake at night isn’t so much whether or not you got thedecision right or wrong. it’s whether you made your decision for the right reasons: integrity.
and the single best piece of advice i ever received about diplomacy didn’t come from myinternational relations class, but it came from my father, who served in the foreign service. hetold me that diplomacy was really about being able to see the world through the eyes ofsomeone else, to understand their aspirations and assumptions.
and perhaps that’s just another word for empathy. but whatever it is, i will tell you sittinghere on one of the most gorgeous afternoons in new haven as you graduate: listening makes adifference, not just in foreign ministries but on the streets and in the souks and on the socialmedia network the world over.
so class of 2024, as corny as it may sound, remember that your parents aren’t just here todayas spectators. they’re also here as teachers – and even if counter-intuitive, it’s not a badidea to stay enrolled in their course as long as you can.
now for my part, i am grateful to yale because i did learn a lot here in all of the ways that agreat university can teach. but there is one phrase from one class above all that for somereason was indelibly stamped into my consciousness. perhaps it’s because i spent almost 30years in the united states senate seeing it applied again and again.
one morning in the law school auditorium, my professor, john morton blum, said simply: "allpolitics is a reaction to felt needs." what i thought he meant is that things only get done inpublic life when the people who want something demand nothing less and the people who makeit happen decide tht they can do nothing less.
those "felt needs" have driven every movement and decision that i’ve witnessed in politicssince – from south africa a couple of decades ago to the arab spring a few years ago to ourown communities, where same-se_ couples refuse to be told by their government who they canlove.
in 1963, i remember walking out of dwight hall one evening after an activist named allardlowenstein gave the impassioned and eloquent plea that i had ever heard. he compelled usto feel the need to engage in the struggle for civil rights right here in our own country.
and that’s why, just steps from here, right over there on high street, we lined up buses thatdrove students from yale and elsewhere south to be part of the mississippi voter registrationdrive and help break the back of jim crow. ultimately we forced washington to ensure throughthe law that our values were not mere words. we saw congress respond to this "felt need" andpass the civil rights act and the voting rights act, and life in america did change.
not only did landmark civil rights advances grow out of the sit-ins and marches, but we sawthe epa and the clean water act and the clean air act and the safe drinking water act and allof it come out of earth day in 1970. we saw women refusing to take a back-seat, forceinstitutions to respond, producing title i_ and a yale university that quickly transformedfrom a male bastion of 1966. citizens, including veterans of the war, spoke up and brought ourtroops home from vietnam.
the fact is that what leaps out at me now is the contrast between those heady days and today.right or wrong, and like it or not – and certainly some people certainly didn’t like it – back theninstitutions were hard pressed to avoid addressing the felt needs of our country.
indeed, none of what i’ve talked about happened overnight. the pace of change was differentfrom today. the same fall that my class walked in as freshmen, nelson mandela walked intoprison. it wasn’t until 30 years later, when my daughter walked through these gates for thefirst time, that mandela was his country’s president.
when i was a senior, the debate over the growing war in vietnam was becoming allconsuming. but it took another seven years before combat ended for our country, and morethan 25,000 lives. and it wasn’t until the year 2024 that we finally made peace and normalizedrelations. now, amazingly, we have more vietnamese studying in america – including some inyour class – than from almost any other country in the world.
what’s notable is this daring journey of progress played out over years, decades, and evengenerations. but today, the felt needs are growing at a faster pace than ever before, piling upon top of each other, while the response in legislatures or foreign capitals seems none_istentor frozen.
it’s not that the needs aren’t felt. it’s that people around the world seem to have grown used toseeing systems or institutions failing to respond. and the result is an obvious deepeningfrustration if not e_asperation with institutional governance.
the problem is today’s institutions are simply not keeping up or even catching up to the feltneeds of our time. right before our eyes, difficult decisions are deferred or avoided altogether.some people even give up before they try because they just don’t believe that they can make adifference. and the sum total of all of this inaction is stealing the future from all of us.
just a few e_amples, from little to big: a train between washington and new york that can go150 miles-per-hour – but, lacking modern infrastructure, goes that fast for only 18 miles of thetrip; an outdated american energy grid which can’t sell energy from one end of the country tothe other; climate change growing more urgent by the day, with 97 percent of scientists tellingus for years of the imperative to act. the solution is staring us in the face: make energypolicy choices that will allow america to lead a $6 trillion market. yet still we remain gridlocked;immigration reform urgently needed to unleash the power – the full power of millions who livehere and make our laws in doing so both sensible and fair.
and on the world stage, you will not escape it – even more urgency. we see huge, growingpopulations of young people in places that offer little education, little economic or politicalopportunity. in countries from north africa to east asia, you are older than half theirpopulation. forty percent of their population is younger than yale’s ne_t incoming class.
if we can’t galvanize action to recognize their felt needs – if we don’t do more to coordinatean attack on e_treme poverty, provide education, opportunity, and jobs, we inviteinstability. and i promise you, radical e_tremism is all too ready to fill the vacuum leftbehind.
what should be clear to everyone – and it’s perhaps what makes our current predicament,frankly, so frustrating – is that none of our problems are without solutions. none of them. butneither will they solve themselves. so for all of us, it’s really a question of willpower, notcapacity. it’s a matter of refusing to fall prey to the cynicism and apathy that have alwaysbeen the mortal enemies of progress. and it requires keeping faith with the ability ofinstitutions – of america – to do big things when the moment demands it. remember whatnelson mandela said when confronted by pessimism in the long march to freedom: "it alwaysseems impossible until it is done."
one thing i know for sure – these and other felt needs will never be addressed if you, we fallvictim to the slow suffocation of conventional wisdom.
on tuesday i sat in the state department with some young foreign service officers at thestate department, and one of them said something to me that i’ve been thinking about,frankly, all week. he wasn’t much older than any of you. he said: "we’ve gone from an erawhere power lived in hierarchies to an era where power lives in networks – and now we’rewrestling with the fact that those hierarchies are unsettled by the new power."
every one of you and your parents have mobile devices here today. they represent a lot morethan your ability to put a picture on fbook or ins. they are one of the powerful newinstruments of change that makes hierarchies uncomfortable because you can communicatewith everybody, anywhere, all the time – and that’s how you beat conventional wisdom.
that’s what makes me certain that felt needs are not just problems. they are opportunities.and i am convinced if you are willing to challenge the conventional wisdom, which youshould be after this education, you can avoid the dangerous byproducts of indifference,hopelessness, and my least favorite: cynicism.
it is indifference that says our problems are so great, let’s not even try. we have to rejectthat. it’s hopelessness that says that our best days are behind us. i couldn’t disagree more.
it’s cynicism that says we’re powerless to effect real change, and that the era of americanleadership is over. i don’t believe that for a second, and neither does president obama. werefuse to limit our vision of the possibilities for our country, and so should you. together wehave to all refuse to accept the downsizing of america’s role in a very complicated world.
i happen to love t.s. eliot’s "love song of j. alfred prufrock," one of my favorite poems. and irespectfully challenge you to never wind up fretfully musing as prufrock did: "do i daredisturb the universe? in a minute there is time for decisions and revisions which a minute willreverse." class of 2024: your job is to disturb the universe.
you have to reject the notion that the problems are too big and too complicated so don’t wadein. you don’t have the lu_ury of just checking out. and it doesn’t matter what profession youwind up in, what community you live in, where you are, what you’re doing, you do not havethat lu_ury.
one of the greatest rewards of being secretary of state is getting to see with my own eyes howmuch good news there actually is in the world – how many good people there are out thereevery single day courageously fighting back. the truth is that everywhere i go i see or hearabout an e_traordinary number of individual acts of courage and bravery, all of which defythe odds – all by people who simply refuse to give up, and who start with a lot lessopportunity than you do.
you can see this in the lonely human rights activist who struggles against tyranny and againsta dictator until they are defeated. you see it in the democracy activist who goes to jail tryingto ensure an election is free and transparent. you see it in the civil rights lawyer who suffersscorn and isolation for standing against bigotry, racism, and intolerance.
i am literally in awe of the courage that ordinary, anonymous people demonstrate in themost difficult circumstances imaginable – in a dank african jail, a north korean gulag, aprison in syria or central asia, facing the cruelest persecution and lonely isolation.
many of these people just quietly disappear. they lose their lives. they never become aninternational cause or a global hero. courage is not a strong enough word for what they doevery day, and all of us need to think about that.
what all these people have in common – and what i hope they have in common with you – isthat they refuse to be complacent and indifferent to what is going on around them or towhat should be going on around them.
and that’s the most important lesson i hope you will take with you when you leave yale. thefact is that for those of you who have loans are not the only burden you graduate with today.you have had the privilege of a yale education. no matter where you come from, no matterwhere you’re going ne_t, the four years that you’ve spent here are an introduction toresponsibility. and your education requires something more of you than serving yourself. it callson you to give back, in whatever way you can. it requires you to serve the world around youand, yes, to make a difference. that is what has always set america apart: our generosity, ourhumanity, our idealism.
last year i walked through the devastation of the typhoon that hit the philippines. the u.s.military and usaid and regular volunteers got there before countries that lived a lot closer. wewent there without being asked and without asking for anything in return. and today americansare helping to bring that community back to life.
in nigeria, when boko haram kidnapped hundreds of girls, the government didn’t turn to otherpowerful countries for help – and by the way, they’re not offering.
as josh and nia mentioned, it was my privilege to stand here 48 years ago at class day.before coming here, i did re-read that speech. a lot of it was about vietnam, but one linejumped out at me. in 1966 i suggested, "an e_cess of isolation had led to an e_cess ofinterventionism." today we hear a different tune from some in congress and even on somecampuses and we face the opposite concern. we cannot allow a hangover from the e_cessiveinterventionism of the last decade to lead now to an e_cess of isolationism in this decade.
i can tell you for certain, most of the rest of the world doesn’t lie awake at night worryingabout america’s presence – they worry about what would happen in our absence.
without arrogance, without chauvinism, never forget that what makes america different fromother nations is not a common bloodline or a common religion or a common ideology or acommon heritage – what makes us different is that we are united by an uncommon idea: thatwe’re all created equal and all endowed with unalienable rights. america is not just a countrylike other countries. america is an idea and we – all of us, you – get to fill it out over time.
tomorrow, when president salovey grants you those diplomas, listen to what he says. he won’tsay what is said at most schools – that your degree admits you to all its "rights and privileges."at yale, we say your degree admits you to all its "rights and responsibilities." it means we needto renew that responsibility over and over again every day. it’s not a one-time decision.participation is the best antidote to pessimism and ultimately cynicism.
so i ask you today on a celebratory afternoon as you think about the future: remember whathappened when the founding fathers had finished their hard work at the constitutionalconvention in philadelphia and ben franklin, tired, end of day, walked down at night, down thesteps of the hall. a woman called to him. she said, "tell us dr. franklin: what do we have, amonarchy or a republic?" and he answered: "a republic, if you can keep it."
class of 2024: we know what you have – a world-class education – if you will use it.
congratulations to you, good luck, and god bless. (cheers and applause.)
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vice president hu,thank you very much for your kind and generous remarks. thank you for welcoming me and my wife , laura, here.
i see she is keeping pretty good company with the secretary of state, collin powell.
it is good to see you, mr. secretary.
and i see my national security adviser, ms.codoleezza rice, who once was the provost of stanford university, so she is comfortable on the university campuses such as this.
thank you for being here ,codin.
i am so grateful for the hospitality and honored for the reception at one of china’s and the world’s great universities.
the standards and the reputation of this university are known around the world, and i know what an achievement it is to be here. so congratulations.
my visit to china comes an important anniversary, as the vice president mentioned.thirty years ago this week an american president arrived in china on an trip designed to end decades of estrangement and confront centuries of suspicious. president richard ni_on showed that two vastly different government could meet on the grounds of common interests in the spirit of mutual respect.
as they left the airport that day, premier zhou en-lai said this to president ni_on: “you handshake came over the vastest ocean in the world-25years of no communication.
during the 30 years since, america and china have e_changed many handshakes of friendship and commerce. and as we have had more contact with each other ,the citizens of both countries have gradually learned more about each other.
it was my honor to visit china in 1975.some of you were not even born then. it shows how old i am.
and a lot has changed in your country since then. china has made amazing progress in openness and enterprise and economic freedom. and this progress previews china’s great potential. china has joined the world trade organization, and as you live up to its obligations, they inevitably will bring changes to chinese leagal system. a morden china will have a consistent rule of law to govern commerce and secure the rights of its people.
the new china you generation is building will need the profound wisdom of your traditions. the lure of materialism challenges society in our country- and in many successful countries.
all these changes will lead to a stronger, more confident china, a china that can astonish and enrich the world, a china that you generation will help create.
this is one of the mose e_citing times in the history of your country, a time when even the grandest hopes seem in your reach. my nation offers you our respect and our friendship.
si_ years from now, athletes from america and all around the world will come to you country for the olympic games, and i am confident they will find a china that is becoming a daguo, a leading nation, at peace with its people and at peace with the world.
非常感谢__主席热情洋溢的欢迎致词,非常感谢您再这里接待我和我的夫人劳拉。
我发现她和国务卿科林。鲍威尔先生相处的非常好。
很高兴看到你国务卿先生。
我也看到了我的国家安全顾问康多莉萨.赖斯女士,她曾经是斯坦福大学的校长,因此她回到校园是再合适不过了。
谢谢你能来,康迪。
非常感谢各位对我的热情接待,很荣幸能够来到中国,甚至是世界最伟大的学府之一。
清华大学的治学标准和声望闻名于世,我也知道能考入这所大学本身就是一个很大的成就,祝贺你们。
我这次访华恰逢一个重要的纪念日,副主席刚才也谈到了,30年前的这一周,一位美国总统来到了中国,他访华之旅的目的是为了结速两国之间长达数十年的隔阂。,和数百年的相互猜疑。尼克松总统向世界表明了两个有重大差异的国家,本着互惠互利,互相尊重的精神是能够站在一起的。
那天他们离开机场的时候,周恩来总理对尼克松总统说了这样一番话,他说:“你与我的握手越过了世界上最为辽阔的海洋,这个还有就是互不交往的25年。”
30年以来,美国和中国握过多次友谊之手和商业之手。随着我们两国间接触的日益频繁,我们两国的国民也加深了对彼此的了解,这是非常重要的。
我在1975年有幸访问过中国,那时候在座的有些人可能还没有出生,这也表明我是多么老了。
从那时以来,贵国发生了很多变化。中国在开发,企业,经济自由方面都取得了惊人的成绩。这一成绩显示了中国的巨大潜能。中国已经加入了世贸组织,在各位旅行其义务的同时这些义务势必给中国的法律制度带来变化。一个现代化的中国将有着统一的法制来规范他们的商业生活和保障人民的利益。
你们这一代人正在建设的中国也需要深远传统的智慧结晶。物质利益的诱惑对我们的社会造成了挑战-在我们的国家给我们的社会造成了调整,在很多发达国家也是。
所以的这些变化将导致中国更强大,更自信,这个中国将使世界瞩目,也将使世界更加丰富。
这个这个就是诸位这一代帮助创立的中国。现在使中国历史上非常令人振奋的一个时期,此时此刻连最宏伟的梦想似乎也唾手可得。我的国度,对中国表示尊敬和友谊。
再过六年,来自美国和世界各地的运动员将到贵国参加奥运会,我坚信,他们能够见到的中国是一个正在变成大国的中国,一个走在世界前沿的国家,一个民心安定,与世界和平共处的国家。
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尊敬的理查德·莱文校长,同学们,老师们,女士们,先生们:
首先,我感谢莱文校长的邀请,使我有机会来到世界著名学府耶鲁大学,同青年朋友和老师们相聚在一起。
进入耶鲁大学的校园,看到莘莘学子青春洋溢的脸庞,呼吸着书香浓郁的空气,我不由回想起40年前在北京清华大学度过的美好时光。学生时代,对人的一生都会产生重要影响。当年老师们对我的教诲,同学们给我的启发,我至今仍受用不尽。
耶鲁大学以悠久的发展历史、独特的办学风格、卓著的学术成就闻名于世。如果时光能够倒流几十年,我真希望成为你们中的一员。
耶鲁大学校训强调追求光明和真理,这符合人类进步的法则,也符合每个有志青年的心愿。300多年来,耶鲁大学培养出一大批杰出人才,其中包括20位诺贝尔奖获得者、5位美国总统。美国民族英雄内森·黑尔是耶鲁校友,他的名言——"我唯一的憾事,就是没有第二次生命献给我的祖国",深深感染了我和许多中国人。我衷心祝愿贵校培养出更多英才,为美国经济社会发展、为人类进步事业作出更大贡献!
女士们、先生们、朋友们!
长期以来,中美两国人民一直相互抱有浓厚的兴趣和友好的感情。中国人民欣赏美国人民的开拓进取精神,钦佩美国人民在建设国家中取得的骄人业绩。随着中国的快速发展和中美合作的不断拓展,越来越多的美国人也把目光投向中国,更加关注中国的发展进步。
了解是信任的基础。今天,我愿从中华文明历史流变和现实发展的角度,谈谈当代中国的发展战略和前进方向,希望有助于美国人民更全面、更深入地了解中国。
在5000多年的历史长河中,中华民族为人类文明进步作出了巨大贡献,同时也走过了曲折艰辛的道路。特别是从1840年鸦片战争以来的160多年间,中国人民为摆脱积贫积弱的境遇,实现民族复兴,前仆后继,顽强斗争,使中华民族的命运发生了深刻变化。95年前,中国人民通过辛亥革命推翻了统治中国几千年的君主____制度,为中国的进步打开了闸门。57年前,中国人民经过长期浴血奋斗实现了民族独立和人民解放,建立了人民当家作主的新中国。28年前,中国人民开始了改革开放和现代化建设的伟大历史进程,经过艰苦创业取得了举世瞩目的巨大成就,从1978年到2005年,中国国内生产总值从1473亿美元增长到22257亿美元,进出口总额从206亿美元增长到14221亿美元,国家外汇储备从1.67亿美元增加到8189亿美元,农村贫困人口由2.5亿人减少到2300多万人。回顾这160多年来中国发生的沧桑巨变,可以说,中国人民经过艰苦探索和顽强奋斗,既改变了自己的命运,也推动了人类进步事业。
必须看到,中国尽管取得了巨大的发展成就,但仍是世界上最大的发展中国家,人均国内生产总值仍排在世界100名之后,中国人民的生活还不富裕,思想汇报专题中国的发展还面临着不少突出的矛盾和问题。要彻底改变中国的面貌和改善中国人民的生活,需要继续持之以恒地艰苦奋斗。中国将在未来15年集中力量全面建设惠及十几亿人口的更高水平的小康社会。具体来说,就是要使中国国内生产总值到2024年达到40000亿美元左右,人均达到3000美元左右,使经济更加发展、民主更加健全、科教更加进步、文化更加繁荣、社会更加和谐、人民生活更加殷实。
为了实现我们的发展目标,中国根据本国国情和时代要求明确了自己的发展理念,这就是树立和贯彻以人为本、全面协调可持续发展的科学发展观,统筹城乡发展、统筹区域发展、统筹经济社会发展、统筹人与自然和谐发展、统筹国内发展和对外开放,更加注重解决民生问题,更加注重克服发展的不平衡性,更加注重解决发展中存在的突出矛盾,致力于走科技含量高、经济效益好、资源消耗低、环境污染少、人力资源优势得到充分发挥的新型工业化道路,推进经济建设、政治建设、文化建设、社会建设协调发展,努力实现生产发展、生活富裕、生态良好的文明发展格局。
科学发展的理念1566范文网,是在总结中国现代化建设经验、顺应时代潮流的基础上提出来的,也是在继承中华民族优秀文化传统的基础上提出来的。
中华文明是世界古代文明中始终没有中断、连续5000多年发展至今的文明。中华民族在漫长历史发展中形成的独具特色的文化传统,深深影响了古代中国,也深深影响着当代中国。现时代中国强调的以人为本、与时俱进、社会和谐、和平发展,既有着中华文明的深厚根基,又体现了时代发展的进步精神。
——中华文明历来注重以民为本,尊重人的尊严和价值。早在千百年前,中国人就提出"民惟邦本,本固邦宁"、"天地之间,莫贵于人",强调要利民、裕民、养民、惠民。今天,我们坚持以人为本,就是要坚持发展为了人民、发展依靠人民、发展成果由人民共享,关注人的价值、权益和自由,关注人的生活质量、发展潜能和幸福指数,最终是为了实现人的全面发展。保障人民的生存权和发展权仍是中国的首要任务。范文写作我们将大力推动经济社会发展,依法保障人民享有自由、民主和____,实现社会公平和正义,使13亿中国人民过上幸福生活。
——中华文明历来注重自强不息,不断革故鼎新。"天行健,君子以自强不息。"这是中国的一句千年____格言。中华民族所以能在5000多年的历史进程中生生不息、发展壮大,历经挫折而不屈,屡遭坎坷而不馁,靠的就是这样一种发愤图强、坚忍不拔、与时俱进的精神。中国人民在改革开放中表现出来的进取精神,在建设国家中焕发出来的创造热情,在克服前进道路上的各种困难中表现出来的顽强毅力,正是这种自强不息精神的生动写照。
——中华文明历来注重社会和谐,强调团结互助。中国人早就提出了"和为贵"的思想,追求天人和谐、人际和谐、身心和谐,向往"人人相亲,人人平等,天下为公"的理想社会。今天,中国提出构建和谐社会,就是要建设一个民主法治、公平正义、诚信友爱、充满活力、安定有序、人与自然和谐相处的社会,实现物质和精神、民主和法治、公平和效率、活力和秩序的有机统一。中国人民把维护民族团结作为自己义不容辞的职责,把维护国家主权和领土完整作为自己至高无上的使命。一切有利于民族团结和国家统一的行为,都会得到中国人民真诚的欢迎和拥护。一切有损于民族团结和国家统一的举动,都会遭到中国人民强烈的反对和抗争。
——中华文明历来注重亲仁善邻,讲求和睦相处。中华民族历来爱好和平。中国人在对外关系中始终秉承"强不执弱"、"富不侮贫"的精神,主张"协和万邦"。中国人提倡"海纳百川,有容乃大",主张吸纳百家优长、兼集八方精义。今天,中国高举和平、发展、合作的旗帜,奉行独立自主的和平外交政策,坚定不移地走和平发展道路,既通过维护世界和平来发展自己,又通过自身的发展来促进世界和平。中国坚持实施互利共赢的对外开放战略,真诚愿意同各国广泛开展合作,真诚愿意兼收并蓄、博采各种文明之长,以合作谋和平、以合作促发展,推动建设一个持久和平、共同繁荣的和谐世界。
女士们、先生们、朋友们!
中美都拥有辽阔的国土,都是多个民族并存、多种文化融合的国家,都生活着勤劳智慧的人民。中美因不同的历史背景和现实国情而存在着差异,这有利于我们相互借鉴,取长补短。中美加强合作,符合两国和两国人民的根本利益,对世界的和平与发展也具有重大影响。
200多年来,浩瀚的太平洋并未阻断中美两国人民的交流合作,中美两国人民相互学习、相互帮助,谱写了世界不同文明相互借鉴的美好篇章。1979年中美建交27年来,两国关系曾历经曲折,但总体上保持了稳定发展的大方向,给两国和两国人民带来了巨大利益。
进入21世纪,国际形势继续深刻变化。和平与发展仍然是当今时代的主题,但不稳定不确定因素在增多,新挑战新威胁在增加。在新的国际形势下,中美两国共同利益在增多,合作领域在扩大。世界和平与安全面临的新课题,特别是反对国际恐怖主义、防止大规模杀伤性武器扩散、保护人类生存环境、打击跨国犯罪等,使我们两国拥有重要的共同战略利益。中国的巨大市场和发展需求,美国的先进科技和优质产品,使两国具有巨大的经济技术合作空间。中美全面发展建设性合作关系前景广阔。
昨天上午,我同布什总统就中美关系及共同关心的重大国际和地区问题深入交换看法,达成了许多重要共识。我们都认为,双方应该坚持从战略高度和长远角度审视和处理中美关系,加强对话,扩大共识,增进互信,深化合作,全面推进21世纪中美建设性合作关系。
我相信,只要我们从中美关系发展的大局出发,彼此尊重,相互理解,两国关系就能够健康稳定地向前发展,给两国人民带来更多利益,给世界各国人民带来更大希望。
女士们、先生们、朋友们!
一个音符无法表达出优美的旋律,一种颜色难以描绘出多彩的画卷。世界是一座丰富多彩的艺术殿堂,各国人民创造的独特文化都是这座殿堂里的瑰宝。一个民族的文化,往往凝聚着这个民族对世界和生命的历史认知和现实感受,也往往积淀着这个民族最深层的精神追求和行为准则。人类历史发展的过程,就是各种文明不断交流、融合、创新的过程。人类历史上各种文明都以各自的独特方式为人类进步作出了贡献。
文明多样性是人类社会的客观现实,是当今世界的基本特征,也是人类进步的重要动力。历史经验表明,在人类文明交流的过程中,不仅需要克服自然的屏障和隔阂,而且需要超越思想的障碍和束缚,更需要克服形形色色的偏见和误解。意识形态、社会制度、发展模式的差异不应成为人类文明交流的障碍,更不能成为相互对抗的理由。我们应该积极维护世界多样性,推动不同文明的对话和交融,相互借鉴而不是相互排斥,使人类更加和睦幸福,让世界更加丰富多彩。
女士们、先生们、朋友们!
文化、教育和青年交流是中美两国人民增进相互了解和友谊的重要桥梁,也是推动中美关系健康稳定发展的重要力量。耶鲁大学是中美教育合作的先行者和文化交流的重要平台。156年前,一位名叫容闳的中国青年走进了耶鲁大学校园,4年后他以优异的成绩获得了文学士学位,成为毕业于美国大学的第一个中国留学生。此后,一批又一批中国青年来到耶鲁大学求学。近20年来,耶鲁大学吸引了4000多名中国留学人员,同中国文化界、科技界、教育界的合作项目超过80个。去年夏天,耶鲁大学派遣首批学生到中国实习,其中一些人成为中国故宫博物院的第一批外国实习生。借此机会,我对莱文校长和耶鲁大学为增进中美两国人民的交流所做的积极努力表示赞赏。
为增进中美两国青年以及教育界的相互了解,我高兴地宣布,中方决定邀请100名耶鲁大学师生今年夏天访问中国。我相信,你们的访问将是一次十分愉快的经历。
女士们、先生们、朋友们!
"长江后浪推前浪,世上新人换旧人。"青年人是世界的希望和未来,青年人有着蓬勃向上的生命活力和无穷的创造力。我衷心希望,中美两国青年携起手来,以实际行动促进中美两国人民友好,同世界各国人民一道,共创世界美好的明天。
谢谢各位。(完)
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alibaba makes internet magic
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entrepreneurship
leadership
media and technology
world business
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you may not have heard of the alibaba group, but investors, competitors and business leadersaround the world are paying close attention. formed 11 years ago by high school teacher jackma, alibaba.com is china"s largest b2b internet marketplace for small- and medium-sizedcompanies. other holdings include alipay, an online payment service similar to paypal; alibabacloud computing; and taobao, a social networking and shopping site that mr. ma describes asa mash-up of amazon, ebay . but it"s the flagship company, alibaba.com, thathas been the incubator for his sometimes-unorthodo_ ideas on management and productdevelopment.
"we don"t think about making money," mr. ma said in september during the sir gordon wudistinguished speakers forum at columbia business school, sponsored by the chazen institutefor international business. "we think about creating value for society, for the people, and forthe customer. and because we don"t think about making money, we make money."
that might sound flippant coming from someone whose website raised $1.5 billion in 2024,making it the second largest internet ipo in history (only google"s, at $1.67 billion, was larger).today, market capitalization for alibaba.com is nearly $10 billion, and taobao has mushroomedinto china"s largest retailer by some measures. that"s all the more remarkable consideringthat mr. ma operates in a country with some of the most restrictive internet censorshippolicies in the world. still, he has succeeded by adhering to one simple si_-word tenet:customers first, employees second, shareholders third.
the early days
dressed casually in canvas shoes and a white windbreaker, mr. ma recounted for the audiencehis childhood in hangzhou, a major city in china"s yangtze river delta. he was, he said, a fanof wu _ia (martial arts) novels, and often got into fistfights as a young boy. he picked upenglish on his own by acting as a tour guide for foreign visitors in e_change for languagelessons, but because he had difficulty with math, he twice failed his general college entrancee_ams. on the third try, he was admitted to the languages program at the local university,after which he began a career teaching high school english.
but along the way, the entrepreneurial bug bit. he launched a translation service and washired by an american businessman, who was bankrolling construction of a local highway, totranslate negotiations with chinese municipal authorities. part of the deal-making called for himto travel to las vegas to meet some investors, and it was there, in 1995, that he first heard theword "internet." he then travelled on his own to seattle to visit vpn, a small internet serviceprovider with five employees. there he got his first look at the technology that would, within adecade, make him one of the most influential entrepreneurs in the world.
fee or free?
a key to his success, mr. ma said, was having a business model so simple that any customercould instantly understand it. unlike ebay, which has a sliding scale of fees, plus commissionif the item sells, alibaba.com charges nothing for up to 50 product listings. "chinese smes[small and medium enterprises] want to sell their products abroad," he said. "we help themcreate revenue." but what about alibaba"s revenue? that comes largely from annualmembership fees that sellers pay to upgrade to "gold supplier" status, which gives themaccess to more buyers and an online storefront.
"a membership fee is something all smes understand," he said. "if you talk about transaction[charges], our p/e [price to earnings ratio] would go up, but customers wouldn"t understandus. our business model should be simple and easy enough for customers to understand."taobao, meanwhile, has also steadfastly adhered to the "no transaction fee" philosophy, whichcaused it to leak money for several years. recently, though, it began selling ad space on thesite. revenues have been high enough to push taobao into the black, mr. ma said.
for the first five years of alibaba.com, mr. ma was the site"s chief quality control officer. everyfeature of the site was put to one test: if he couldn"t figure out how to use on his own, withoute_planations or manuals, it didn"t get implemented. "i"m not a high-tech guy," he said. "mywife bought me an ipad and i still don"t know how to use it." the site"s design is deliberatelyno-frills: clicking on the "categories" tab, for e_ample, pulls up an easy-to-scan alphabeticallist of items for sale, everything from fresh garlic to pipe fittings. new requests from buyers areprominently displayed and constantly updated. and for buyers who cringe at the thought ofracking up a phone bill, there"s a list of chinese suppliers with toll-free numbers.
what"s ahead for the alibaba group? don"t e_pect a foray into online gaming any time soon. "idon"t believe in online gaming," he said, noting that his son and his friends spend hours afterschool glued to a computer screen. "we could make a lot of money on gaming, but i just don"twant my kids to be focused online," he said. instead, he said, the ne_t big thing in china will beb2c commerce.
"the world is changing," he said. "with so many consumers, they can say ‘i want my productstailor-made.’ this will fundamentally change the internet."
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