Vice President Lu Meets with Mr. Dan Quayle. Full text of her speech follows:
It is a great pleasure for me to join you to welcome our honorable guest, Former Vice President Dan Quayle. Though this is my first meeting with Mr. Quayle, I feel quite familiar with him because we share quite a few similarities. As you all know, Mr. Quayle is a former vice president and I am an incumbent vice president. We both served in the congress of our respective country before becoming vice president. We both began to get involved in public affairs in the year 1971. In that year Mr. Quayle was appointed as investigator for the Consumer Protection Division of the Indiana Attorney General's Office, and I started to advocate for women's rights and launched women’s movement in Taiwan. I still remember that, while Mr. Quayle was running for vice presidency at the age of 41, I was at Harvard as a research fellow at its International Human Rights Program. I closely watched you campaign but did not think that I would run for vice presidency myself at all. It was shortly after I was released from my 6-year imprisonment and one year of home detention before I was finally allowed to leave the country. I was sentenced to 12 years for a 20 minute speech delivered at 1979 Human Rights Day rally. As a student of law, I strongly support the spirit of the 1st Amendment of the US Constitution, so I criticized the authorities and then was charged on sedition. However, I was lucky enough to meet with Mr. Chen Shui-bian in the martial-law court, the youngest of the 15 lawyers who bravely stood up to defend me and my co-defendants. No body have predicted that 20 years later, the lawyer and the defendant would fight shoulder to shoulder to win the presidential election of Taiwan and took the power from the authorities that suppressed us decades ago.
I come here today to listen to Mr. Quayle's speech which will assuredly be very informative and enlightening, given his rich experiences in international affairs. His topic today--"Terrorism: Its Impact on Foreign Policy"--is no doubt a timely choice as the world in general and the United States in particular experienced the horrifying terrorist attacks on September 11 last year. The aim of terrorism is to utilize all means to harm and intimidate civilians for political purposes. Terrorists attempt to destroy our confidence, to spread hatred, and to undermine the foundations of our civilization. Terrorism, no matter what their motives are, can never be justified nor forgiven. Taiwan as a strong and trustable ally of the US, has and will fully support the US in the campaign against terrorism.
Peace and prosperity have always been prominent for most countries in the world. But why it is so difficult to retain peace? I think it is because we emphasize too much on the hard power. Hard power is based on exploitative materialism and aggressive militarism. With its heartless and mechanical nature, it ignores humane values and misleads nations toward over-centralization of state power and even military hegemony. It is aggressive and destructive!
In my view, the key to prosperity and peace is not hard power, but soft power. In my view, soft power consists of five key elements: human rights, democracy, peace, love, and technological progress, which are intimately intertwined. Soft power makes use of mercy and wisdom to fight against corruption, poverty and injustice. It is constructive and generous. In short, soft power is soft but powerful.
Take Taiwan as an example. This island is small in size, but it has vigor and vitality as you can see. For the past fifty years, the world has witnessed this poor and isolated island to develop into a prosperous and energetic economic power. Today's Taiwan is the 14th largest trading nation in the world and is taking a leading position in the high-tech industry. For instance, Taiwan is ranked 3rd largest nation in IC industry and 15 items of IC products made in Taiwan occupy over a half of the world's market. The average income, calculated in terms of purchasing power parity, also reaches US$20,000 while it was just US$150 fifty yeas ago.
Taiwan's miracle just meets the spirit of Soft Power. We Taiwanese people have shown to the world that we can create a prosperous and wealthy society in which democracy and human rights are also preserved. Taiwan's story shows that we will make significant contributions to peace and prosperity in this region and around the globe.
Taking this opportunity I would also like to express our gratitude to President George W. Bush and the U.S. Congress for their strong support for Taiwan to join the World Health Organization. It is very encouraging to us that, just several weeks ago, both the United States government and the European Union already explicitly endorsed our first-stage efforts to become an observer at the World Health Assembly scheduled for this May in Geneva. Their support is a giant step forward to our goal of gaining full membership in the WHO. It is my earnest hope that Mr. Quayle can also exert his international influence to help Taiwan join the WHO. I can assure you that Taiwan can play an active and constructive role in WHO and any other international organizations.
I am really glad to have this opportunity to exchange views with Mr. Quayle and learn from this outstanding statesman today. While serving as Vice President, Mr. Quayle made official visits to 47 countries, was Chairman of the President's Council on Competitiveness and the National Space Council, and served as President Bush's point man on Capitol Hill. As a leader in causes from legal system reform to deregulation to the renewal of basic American values, Mr. Quayle developed a large national following and became one of the most admired Americans of his time. In sum, Mr. Quayle brings a unique perspective to bear on the issues of today, and the challenges of tomorrow. Knowing that Mr. Quayle is widely considered to be one of the most active vice presidents in history, I am anxious to learn from him to play my role of Vice President as successful as his. It is my sincere wish that Mr. Quayle will have a first-hand knowledge of Taiwan's most recent development and enjoy his stay here. And I certainly hope our paths will cross again in the near future.
In closing, ladies and gentlemen, I wish all of you good health and happiness. And, just as each of you, I very much look forward to Mr. Quayle's illuminative speech. Thank you.