美国总统克林顿在北大的英文演讲稿

第一篇：美国总统克林顿在北大的英文演讲稿

克林顿在北大英文演讲

PRESIDENT CLINTON:

Thank you.Thank you, President Chen, Chairmen Ren, Vice President Chi, Vice Minister Wei.We are delighted to be here today with a very large American delegation, including the First Lady and our daughter, who is a student at Stanford, one of the schools with which Beijing University has a relationship.We have six members of the United States Congress;the Secretary of State;Secretary of Commerce;the Secretary of Agriculture;the Chairman of our Council of Economic Advisors;Senator Sasser, our Ambassador;the National Security Advisor and my Chief of Staff, among others.I say that to illustrate the importance that the United States places on our relationship with China.I would like to begin by congratulating all of you, the students, the faculty, the administrators, on celebrating the centennial year of your university.Gongxi, Beida.(Applause.)

As I'm sure all of you know, this campus was once home to Yenching University which was founded by American missionaries.Many of its wonderful buildings were designed by an American architect.Thousands of Americans students and professors have come here to study and teach.We feel a special kinship with you.I am, however, grateful that this day is different in one important respect from another important occasion 79 years ago.In June of 1919, the first president of Yenching University, John Leighton Stuart, was set to deliver the very first commencement address on these very grounds.At the appointed hour, he appeared, but no students appeared.They were all out leading the May 4th Movement for China's political and cultural renewal.When I read this, I hoped that when I walked into the auditorium today, someone would be sitting here.And I thank you for being here, very much.(Applause.)

Over the last 100 years, this university has grown to more than 20,000 students.Your graduates are spread throughout China and around the world.You have built the largest university library in all of Asia.Last year, 20 percent of your graduates went abroad to study, including half of your math and science majors.And in this anniversary year, more than a million people in China, Asia, and beyond have logged on to your web site.At the dawn of a new century, this university is leading China into the future.I come here today to talk to you, the next generation of China's leaders, about the critical importance to your future of building a strong partnership between China and the United States.The American people deeply admire China for its thousands of years of contributions to culture and religion, to philosophy and the arts, to science and technology.We remember well our strong partnership in World War II.Now we see China at a moment in history when your glorious past is matched by your present sweeping transformation and the even greater promise of your future.Just three decades ago, China was virtually shut off from the world.Now, China is a member of more than 1,000 international organizations--enterprises that affect everything from air travel to agricultural development.You have opened your nation to trade and investment on a large scale.Today, 40,000 young Chinese study in the United States, with hundreds of thousands more learning in Asia, Africa, Europe, and Latin America.Your social and economic transformation has been even more remarkable, moving from a closed command economic system to a driving, increasingly market-based and driven economy, generating two decades of unprecedented growth, giving people greater freedom to travel within and outside China, to vote in village elections, to own a home, choose a job, attend a better school.As a result you have lifted literally hundreds of millions of people from poverty.Per capita income has more than doubled in the last decade.Most Chinese people are leading lives they could not have imagined just 20 years ago.Of course, these changes have also brought disruptions in settled patterns of life and work, and have imposed enormous strains on your environment.Once every urban Chinese was guaranteed employment in a state enterprise.Now you must compete in a job market.Once a Chinese worker had only to meet the demands of a central planner in Beijing.Now the global economy means all must match the quality and creativity of the rest of the world.For those who lack the right training and skills and support, this new world can be daunting.In the short-term, good, hardworking people--some, at least will find themselves unemployed.And, as all of you can see, there have been enormous environmental and economic and health care costs to the development pattern and the energy use pattern of the last 20 years--from air pollution to deforestation to acid rain and water shortage.In the face of these challenges new systems of training and social security will have to be devised, and new environmental policies and technologies will have to be introduced with the goal of growing your economy while improving the environment.Everything I know about the intelligence, the ingenuity, the enterprise of the Chinese people and everything I have heard these last few days in my discussions with President Jiang, Prime Minister Zhu and others give me confidence that you will succeed.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 is a good thing.But everything all of us know about the way the world is changing and the challenges your generation will face tell 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.Where 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 nations 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.In the 21st century--your century--China and the United States will face the challenge of security in Asia.On the Korean Peninsula, where once we were adversaries, today we are working together for a permanent peace and a future freer of nuclear weapons.On the Indian subcontinent, just as most of the rest of the world is moving away from nuclear danger, India and Pakistan risk sparking a new arms race.We are now pursuing a common strategy to move India and Pakistan away from further testing and toward a dialogue to resolve their differences.In the 21st century, your generation must face the challenge of stopping the spread of deadlier nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons.In the wrong hands or the wrong places, these weapons can threaten the peace of nations large and small.Increasingly, China and the United States agree on the importance of stopping proliferation.That is why we are beginning to act in concert to control the worlds most dangerous weapons.In the 21st century, your generation will have to reverse the international tide of crime and drugs.Around the world, organized crime robs people of billions of dollars every year and undermines trust in government.America knows all about the devastation and despair that drugs can bring to schools and neighborhoods.With borders on more than a dozen countries, China has become a crossroad for smugglers of all kinds.Last year, President Jiang and I asked senior Chinese and American law enforcement officials to step up our cooperation against these predators, to stop money from being laundered, to stop aliens from being cruelly smuggled, to stop currencies from being undermined by counterfeiting.Just this month, our drug enforcement agency opened an office in Beijing, and soon Chinese counternarcotics experts will be working out of Washington.In the 21st century, your generation must make it your mission to ensure that today's progress does not come at tomorrow's expense.China's remarkable growth in the last two decades has come with a toxic cost, pollutants that foul the water you drink and the air you breathe--the cost is not only environmental, it is also serious in terms of the health consequences of your people and in terms of the drag on economic growth.Environmental problems are also increasingly global as well as national.For example, in the near future, if present energy use patterns persist, China will overtake the United States as the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases, the gases which are the principal cause of global warming.If the nations of the world do not reduce the gases which are causing global warming, sometime in the next century there is a serious risk of dramatic changes in climate which will change the way we live and the way we work, which could literally bury some island nations under mountains of water and undermine the economic and social fabric of nations.We must work together.We Americans know from our own experience that it is possible to grow an economy while improving the environment.We must do that together for ourselves and for the world.Building on the work that our Vice President, Al Gore, has done previously with the Chinese government, President Jiang and I are working together on ways to bring American clean energy technology to help improve air quality and grow the Chinese economy at the same time.But I will say this again--this is not on my remarks--your generation must do more about this.This is a huge challenge for you, for the American people and for the future of the world.And it must be addressed at the university level, because political leaders will never be willing to adopt environmental measures if they believe it will lead to large-scale unemployment or more poverty.The evidence is clear that does not have to happen.You will actually have more rapid economic growth and better paying jobs, leading to higher levels of education and technology if we do this in the proper way.But you and the university, communities in China, the United States and throughout the world will have to lead the way.(Applause.)

In the 21st century your generation must also lead the challenge of an international financial system that has no respect for national borders.When stock markets fall in Hong Kong or Jakarta, the effects are no longer local;they are global.The vibrant growth of your own economy is tied closely, therefore, to the restoration of stability and growth in the Asia Pacific region.China has steadfastly shouldered its responsibilities to the region and the world in this latest financial crisis--helping to prevent another cycle of dangerous devaluations.We must continue to work together to counter this threat to the global financial system and to the growth and prosperity which should be embracing all of this region.In the 21st century, your generation will have a remarkable opportunity to bring together the talents of our scientists, doctors, engineers into a shared quest for progress.Already the breakthroughs we have achieved in our areas of joint cooperation--in challenges from dealing with spina bifida to dealing with extreme weather conditions and earthquakes--have proved what we can do together to change the lives of millions of people in China and the United States and around the world.Expanding our cooperation in science and technology can be one of our greatest gifts to the future.In each of these vital areas that I have mentioned, we can clearly accomplish so much more by walking together rather than standing apart.That is why we should work to see that the productive relationship we now enjoy blossoms into a fuller partnership in the new century.If that is to happen, it is very important that we understand each other better, that we understand both our common interest and our shared aspirations and our honest differences.I believe the kind of open, direct exchange that President Jiang and I had on Saturday at our press conference--which I know many of you watched on television--can both clarify and narrow our differences, and, more important, by allowing people to understand and debate and discuss these things can give a greater sense of confidence to our people that we can make a better future.From the windows of the White House, where I live in Washington, D.C., the monument to our first President, George Washington, dominates the skyline.It is a very tall obelisk.But very near this large monument there is a small stone which contains these words: The United States neither established titles of nobility and royalty, nor created a hereditary system.State affairs are put to the vote of public opinion.This created a new political situation, unprecedented from ancient times to the present.How wonderful it is.Those words were not written by an American.They were written by Xu Jiyu, governor of Fujian Province, inscribed as a gift from the government of China to our nation in 1853.I am very grateful for that gift from China.It goes to the heart of who we are as a people--the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, the freedom to debate, to dissent, to associate, to worship without interference from the state.These are the ideals that were at the core of our founding over 220 years ago.These are the ideas that led us across our continent and onto the world stage.These are the ideals that Americans cherish today.As I said in my press conference with President Jiang, we have an ongoing quest ourselves to live up to those ideals.The people who framed our Constitution understood that we would never achieve perfection.They said that the mission of America would always be “to form a more perfect union”--in other words, that we would never be perfect, but we had to keep trying to do better.The darkest moments in our history have come when we abandoned the effort to do better, when we denied freedom to our people because of their race or their religion, because there were new immigrants or because they held unpopular opinions.The best moments in our history have come when we protected the freedom of people who held unpopular opinion, or extended rights enjoyed by the many to the few who had previously been denied them, making, therefore, the promises of our Declaration of Independence and Constitution more than faded words on old parchment.Today we do not seek to impose our vision on others, but we are convinced that certain rights are universal--not American rights or European rights or rights for developed nations, but the birthrights of people everywhere, now enshrined in the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights--the right to be treated with dignity;the right to express one's opinions, to choose one's own leaders, to associate freely with others, and to worship, or not, freely, however one chooses.In the last letter of his life, the author of our Declaration of Independence and our third President, Thomas Jefferson, said then that “all eyes are opening to the rights of man.” I believe that in this time, at long last, 172 years after Jefferson wrote those words, all eyes are opening to the rights of men and women everywhere.Over the past two decades, a rising tide of freedom has lifted the lives of millions around the world, sweeping away failed dictatorial systems in the Former Soviet Union, throughout Central Europe;ending a vicious cycle of military coups and civil wars in Latin America;giving more people in Africa the chance to make the most of their hard-won independence.And from the Philippines to South Korea, from Thailand to Mongolia, freedom has reached Asia's shores, powering a surge of growth and productivity.Economic security also can be an essential element of freedom.It is recognized in the United Nations Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights.In China, you have made extraordinary strides in nurturing that liberty, and spreading freedom from want, to be a source of strength to your people.Incomes are up, poverty is down;people do have more choices of jobs, and the ability to travel--the ability to make a better life.But true freedom includes more than economic freedom.In America, we believe it is a concept which is indivisible.Over the past four days, I have seen freedom in many manifestations in China.I have seen the fresh shoots of democracy growing in the villages of your heartland.I have visited a village that chose its own leaders in free elections.I have also seen the cell phones, the video players, the fax machines carrying ideas, information and images from all over the world.I've heard people speak their minds and I have joined people in prayer in the faith of my own choosing.In all these ways I felt a steady breeze of freedom.The question is, where do we go from here? How do we work together to be on the right side of history together? More than 50 years ago, Hu Shi, one of your great political thinkers and a teacher at this university, said these words: “Now some people say to me you must sacrifice your individual freedom so that the nation may be free.But I reply, the struggle for individual freedom is the struggle for the nation's freedom.The struggle for your own character is the struggle for the nation's character.”

It is, therefore, profoundly in your interest, and the world's, that young Chinese minds be free to reach the fullness of their potential.That is the message of our time and the mandate of the new century and the new millennium.I hope China will more fully embrace this mandate.For all the grandeur of your history, I believe your greatest days are still ahead.Against great odds in the 20th century China has not only survived, it is moving forward dramatically.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.(Applause.)

第二篇：克林顿在北京大学的英文演讲稿

pRESIDENT CLINTON:

Thank you Chairmen Ren, Vice president Chi, Vice Minister Wei.We are delighted to be here today with a very large American delegation, including the First Lady and our daughter, who is a student at Stanford, one of the schools with which Beijing University has a relationship.We have six members of the United States Congress;the Secretary of State;Secretary of Commerce;the Secretary of Agriculture;the Chairman of our Council of Economic Advisors;Senator Sasser, our Ambassador;the National Security Advisor and my Chief of Staff, among others.I say that to illustrate the importance that the United States places on our relationship with China.I would like to begin by congratulating all of you, the students, the faculty, the administrators, on celebrating the centennial year of your university.Gongxi, Beida.As I'm sure all of you know, this campus was once home to Yenching University which was founded by American missionaries.Many of its wonderful buildings were designed by an American architect.Thousands of Americans students and professors have come here to study and teach.We feel a special kinship with you.I am, however, grateful that this day is different in one important respect from another important occasion 79 years ago.In June of 1919, the first president of Yenching University, John Leighton Stuart, was set to deliver the very first commencement address on these very grounds.At the appointed hour, he appeared, but no students appeared.They were all out leading the May 4th Movement for China's political and cultural renewal.When I read this, I hoped that when I walked into the auditorium today, someone would be sitting here.And I thank you for being here, very much.Over the last 100 years, this university has grown to more than 20,000 students.Your graduates are spread throughout China and around the world.You have built the largest university library in all of Asia.Last year, 20 percent of your graduates went abroad to study, including half of your math and science majors.And in this anniversary year, more than a million people in China, Asia, and beyond have logged on to your web site.At the dawn of a new century, this university is leading China into the future.I come here today to talk to you, the next generation of China's leaders, about the critical importance to your future of building a strong partnership between China and the United States.The American people deeply admire China for its thousands of years of contributions to culture and religion, to philosophy and the arts, to science and technology.We remember well our strong partnership in World War II.Now we see China at a moment in history when your glorious past is matched by your present sweeping transformation and the even greater promise of your future.Just three decades ago, China was virtually shut off from the world.Now, China is a member of more than 1,000 international organizations--enterprises that affect everything from air travel to agricultural development.You have opened your nation to trade and investment on a large scale.Today, 40,000 young Chinese study in the United States, with hundreds of thousands more learning in Asia, Africa, Europe, and Latin America.Your social and economic transformation has been even more remarkable, moving from a closed command economic system to a driving, increasingly market-based and driven economy, generating two decades of unprecedented growth, giving people greater freedom to travel within and outside China, to vote in village elections, to own a home, choose a job, attend a better school.As a result you have lifted literally hundreds of millions of people from poverty.per capita income has more than doubled in the last decade.Most Chinese people are leading lives they could not have imagined just 20 years ago.Of course, these changes have also brought disruptions in settled patterns of life and work, and have imposed enormous strains on your environment.Once every urban Chinese was guaranteed employment in a state enterprise.Now you must compete in a job market.Once a Chinese worker had only to meet the demands of a central planner in Beijing.Now the global economy means all must match the quality and creativity of the rest of the world.For those who lack the right training and skills and support, this new world can be daunting.In the short-term, good, hardworking people--some, at least will find themselves unemployed.And, as all of you can see, there have been enormous environmental and economic and health care costs to the development pattern and the energy use pattern of the last 20 years--from air pollution to deforestation to acid rain and water shortage.In the face of these challenges new systems of training and social security will have to be devised, and new environmental policies and technologies will have to be introduced with the goal of growing your economy while improving the environment.Everything I know about the intelligence, the ingenuity, the enterprise of the Chinese people and everything I have heard these last few days in my discussions with president Jiang, prime Minister Zhu and others give me confidence that you will succeed.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 is a good thing.But everything all of us know about the way the world is changing and the challenges your generation will face tell 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.Where 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 nations 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.In the 21st century--your century--China and the United States will face the challenge of security in Asia.On the Korean peninsula, where once we were adversaries, today we are working together for a permanent peace and a future freer of nuclear weapons.On the Indian subcontinent, just as most of the rest of the world is moving away from nuclear danger, India and pakistan risk sparking a new arms race.We are now pursuing a common strategy to move India and pakistan away from further testing and toward a dialogue to resolve their differences.In the 21st century, your generation must face the challenge of stopping the spread of deadlier nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons.In the wrong hands or the wrong places, these weapons can threaten the peace of nations large and small.Increasingly, China and the United States agree on the importance of stopping proliferation.That is why we are beginning to act in concert to control the worlds most dangerous weapons.In the 21st century, your generation will have to reverse the international tide of crime and drugs.Around the world, organized crime robs people of billions of dollars every year and undermines trust in government.America knows all about the devastation and despair that drugs can bring to schools and neighborhoods.With borders on more than a dozen countries, China has become a crossroad for smugglers of all kinds.Last year, president Jiang and I asked senior Chinese and American law enforcement officials to step up our cooperation against these predators, to stop money from being laundered, to stop aliens from being cruelly smuggled, to stop currencies from being undermined by counterfeiting.Just this month, our drug enforcement agency opened an office in Beijing, and soon Chinese counternarcotics experts will be working out of Washington.In the 21st century, your generation must make it your mission to ensure that today's progress does not come at tomorrow's expense.China's remarkable growth in the last two decades has come with a toxic cost, pollutants that foul the water you drink and the air you breathe--the cost is not only environmental, it is also serious in terms of the health consequences of your people and in terms of the drag on economic growth.Environmental problems are also increasingly global as well as national.For example, in the near future, if present energy use patterns persist, China will overtake the United States as the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases, the gases which are the principal cause of global warming.If the nations of the world do not reduce the gases which are causing global warming, sometime in the next century there is a serious risk of dramatic changes in climate which will change the way we live and the way we work, which could literally bury some island nations under mountains of water and undermine the economic and social fabric of nations.We must work together.We Americans know from our own experience that it is possible to grow an economy while improving the environment.We must do that together for ourselves and for the world.Building on the work that our Vice president, Al Gore, has done previously with the Chinese government, president Jiang and I are working together on ways to bring American clean energy technology to help improve air quality and grow the Chinese economy at the same time.Today we do not seek to impose our vision on others, but we are convinced that certain rights are universal--not American rights or European rights or rights for developed nations, but the birthrights of people everywhere, now enshrined in the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights--the right to be treated with dignity;the right to express one's opinions, to choose one's own leaders, to associate freely with others, and to worship, or not, freely, however one chooses.In the last letter of his life, the author of our Declaration of Independence and our third president, Thomas Jefferson, said then that “all eyes are opening to the rights of man.” I believe that in this time, at long last, 172 years after Jefferson wrote those words, all eyes are opening to the rights of men and women everywhere.Over the past two decades, a rising tide of freedom has lifted the lives of millions around the world, sweeping away failed dictatorial systems in the Former Soviet Union, throughout Central Europe;ending a vicious cycle of military coups and civil wars in Latin America;giving more people in Africa the chance to make the most of their hard-won independence.And from the philippines to South Korea, from Thailand to Mongolia, freedom has reached Asia's shores, powering a surge of growth and productivity.Economic security also can be an essential element of freedom.It is recognized in the United Nations Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights.In China, you have made extraordinary strides in nurturing that liberty, and spreading freedom from want, to be a source of strength to your people.Incomes are up, poverty is down;people do have more choices of jobs, and the ability to travel--the ability to make a better life.But true freedom includes more than economic freedom.In America, we believe it is a concept which is indivisible.Over the past four days, I have seen freedom in many manifestations in China.I have seen the fresh shoots of democracy growing in the villages of your heartland.I have visited a village that chose its own leaders in free elections.I have also seen the cell phones, the video players, the fax machines carrying ideas, information and images from all over the world.I've heard people speak their minds and I have joined people in prayer in the faith of my own choosing.In all these ways I felt a steady breeze of freedom.The question is, where do we go from here? How do we work together to be on the right side of history together? More than 50 years ago, Hu Shi, one of your great political thinkers and a teacher at this university, said these words: “Now some people say to me you must sacrifice your individual freedom so that the nation may be free.But I reply, the struggle for individual freedom is the struggle for the nation's freedom.The struggle for your own character is the struggle for the nation's character.”

We Americans believe Hu Shi was right.We believe and our experience demonstrates that freedom strengthens stability and helps nations to change.One of our founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin, once said, “Our critics are our friends, for they show us our faults.” Now, if that is true, there are many days in the United States when the president has more friends than anyone else in America.（Laughter.）But it is so.In the world we live in, this global information age, constant improvement and change is necessary to economic opportunity and to national strength.Therefore, the freest possible flow of information, ideas, and opinions, and a greater respect for divergent political and religious convictions will actually breed strength and stability going forward.It is, therefore, profoundly in your interest, and the world's, that young Chinese minds be free to reach the fullness of their potential.That is the message of our time and the mandate of the new century and the new millennium.I hope China will more fully embrace this mandate.For all the grandeur of your history, I believe your greatest days are still ahead.Against great odds in the 20th century China has not only survived, it is moving forward dramatically.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.（Applause.）

第三篇：克林顿在北京大学的英文演讲稿

克林顿在北京大学的英文演讲稿

PRESIDENT CLINTON:

Thank you.Thank you, President Chen, Chairmen Ren, Vice President Chi, Vice Minister Wei.We are delighted to be here today with a very large American delegation, including the First Lady and our daughter, who is a student at Stanford, one of the schools with which Beijing University has a relationship.We have six members of the United States Congress;the Secretary of State;Secretary of Commerce;the Secretary of Agriculture;the Chairman of our Council of Economic Advisors;Senator Sasser, our Ambassador;the National Security Advisor and my Chief of Staff, among others.I say that to illustrate the importance that the United States places on our relationship with China.I would like to begin by congratulating all of you, the students, the faculty, the administrators, on celebrating the centennial year of your university.Gongxi, Beida.(Applause.)

As I'm sure all of you know, this campus was once home to Yenching University which was founded by American missionaries.Many of its wonderful buildings were designed by an American architect.Thousands of Americans students and professors have come here to study and teach.We feel a special kinship with you.I am, however, grateful that this day is different in one important respect from another important occasion 79 years ago.In June of 1919, the first president of Yenching University, John Leighton Stuart, was set to deliver the very first commencement address on these very grounds.At the appointed hour, he appeared, but no students appeared.They were all out leading the May 4th Movement for China's political and cultural renewal.When I read this, I hoped that when I walked into the auditorium today, someone would be sitting here.And I thank you for being here, very much.(Applause.)

Over the last 100 years, this university has grown to more than 20,000 students.Your graduates are spread throughout China and around the world.You have built the largest university library in all of Asia.Last year, 20 percent of your graduates went abroad to study, including half of your math and science majors.And in this anniversary year, more than a million people in China, Asia, and beyond have logged on to your web site.At the dawn of a new century, this university is leading China into the future.I come here today to talk to you, the next generation of China's leaders, about the critical importance to your future of building a strong partnership between China and the United States.The American people deeply admire China for its thousands of years of contributions to culture and religion, to philosophy and the arts, to science and technology.We remember well our strong partnership in World War II.Now we see China at a moment in history when your glorious past is matched by your present sweeping transformation and the even greater promise of your future.Just three decades ago, China was virtually shut off from the world.Now, China is a member of more than 1,000 international organizations--enterprises that affect everything from air travel to agricultural development.You have opened your nation to trade and investment on a large scale.Today, 40,000 young Chinese study in the United States, with hundreds of thousands more learning in Asia, Africa, Europe, and Latin America.Your social and economic transformation has been even more remarkable, moving from a closed command economic system to a driving, increasingly market-based and driven economy, generating two decades of unprecedented growth, giving people greater freedom to travel within and outside China, to vote in village elections, to own a home, choose a job, attend a better school.As a result you have lifted literally hundreds of millions of people from poverty.Per capita income has more than doubled in the last decade.Most Chinese people are leading lives they could not have imagined just 20 years ago.Of course, these changes have also brought disruptions in settled patterns of life and work, and have imposed enormous strains on your environment.Once every urban Chinese was guaranteed employment in a state enterprise.Now you must compete in a job market.Once a Chinese worker had only to meet the demands of a central planner in Beijing.Now the global economy means all must match the quality and creativity of the rest of the world.For those who lack the right training and skills and support, this new world can be daunting.In the short-term, good, hardworking people--some, at least will find themselves unemployed.And, as all of you can see, there have been enormous environmental and economic and health care costs to the development pattern and the energy use pattern of the last 20 years--from air pollution to deforestation to acid rain and water shortage.In the face of these challenges new systems of training and social security will have to be devised, and new environmental policies and technologies will have to be introduced with the goal of growing your economy while improving the environment.Everything I know about the intelligence, the ingenuity, the enterprise of the Chinese people and everything I have heard these last few days in my discussions with President Jiang, Prime Minister Zhu and others give me confidence that you will succeed.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 is a good thing.But everything all of us know about the way the world is changing and the challenges your generation will face tell 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.Where 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 nations 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.In the 21st century--your century--China and the United States will face the challenge of security in Asia.On the Korean Peninsula, where once we were adversaries, today we are working together for a permanent peace and a future freer of nuclear weapons.On the Indian subcontinent, just as most of the rest of the world is moving away from nuclear danger, India and Pakistan risk sparking a new arms race.We are now pursuing a common strategy to move India and Pakistan away from further testing and toward a dialogue to resolve their differences.In the 21st century, your generation must face the challenge of stopping the spread of deadlier nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons.In the wrong hands or the wrong places, these weapons can threaten the peace of nations large and small.Increasingly, China and the United States agree on the importance of stopping proliferation.That is why we are beginning to act in concert to control the worlds most dangerous weapons.In the 21st century, your generation will have to reverse the international tide of crime and drugs.Around the world, organized crime robs people of billions of dollars every year and undermines trust in government.America knows all about the devastation and despair that drugs can bring to schools and neighborhoods.With borders on more than a dozen countries, China has become a crossroad for smugglers of all kinds.Last year, President Jiang and I asked senior Chinese and American law enforcement officials to step up our cooperation against these predators, to stop money from being laundered, to stop aliens from being cruelly smuggled, to stop currencies from being undermined by counterfeiting.Just this month, our drug enforcement agency opened an office in Beijing, and soon Chinese counternarcotics experts will be working out of Washington.In the 21st century, your generation must make it your mission to ensure that today's progress does not come at tomorrow's expense.China's remarkable growth in the last two decades has come with a toxic cost, pollutants that foul the water you drink and the air you breathe--the cost is not only environmental, it is also serious in terms of the health consequences of your people and in terms of the drag on economic growth.Environmental problems are also increasingly global as well as national.For example, in the near future, if present energy use patterns persist, China will overtake the United States as the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases, the gases which are the principal cause of global warming.If the nations of the world do not reduce the gases which are causing global warming, sometime in the next century there is a serious risk of dramatic changes in climate which will change the way we live and the way we work, which could literally bury some island nations under mountains of water and undermine the economic and social fabric of nations.We must work together.We Americans know from our own experience that it is possible to grow an economy while improving the environment.We must do that together for ourselves and for the world.Building on the work that our Vice President, Al Gore, has done previously with the Chinese government, President Jiang and I are working together on ways to bring American clean energy technology to help improve air quality and grow the Chinese economy at the same time.But I will say this again--this is not on my remarks--your generation must do more about this.This is a huge challenge for you, for the American people and for the future of the world.And it must be addressed at the university level, because political leaders will never be willing to adopt environmental measures if they believe it will lead to large-scale unemployment or more poverty.The evidence is clear that does not have to happen.You will actually have more rapid economic growth and better paying jobs, leading to higher levels of education and technology if we do this in the proper way.But you and the university, communities in China, the United States and throughout the world will have to lead the way.(Applause.)

In the 21st century your generation must also lead the challenge of an international financial system that has no respect for national borders.When stock markets fall in Hong Kong or Jakarta, the effects are no longer local;they are global.The vibrant growth of your own economy is tied closely, therefore, to the restoration of stability and growth in the Asia Pacific region.China has steadfastly shouldered its responsibilities to the region and the world in this latest financial crisis--helping to prevent another cycle of dangerous devaluations.We must continue to work together to counter this threat to the global financial system and to the growth and prosperity which should be embracing all of this region.In the 21st century, your generation will have a remarkable opportunity to bring together the talents of our scientists, doctors, engineers into a shared quest for progress.Already the breakthroughs we have achieved in our areas of joint cooperation--in challenges from dealing with spina bifida to dealing with extreme weather conditions and earthquakes--have proved what we can do together to change the lives of millions of people in China and the United States and around the world.Expanding our cooperation in science and technology can be one of our greatest gifts to the future.In each of these vital areas that I have mentioned, we can clearly accomplish so much more by walking together rather than standing apart.That is why we should work to see that the productive relationship we now enjoy blossoms into a fuller partnership in the new century.If that is to happen, it is very important that we understand each other better, that we understand both our common interest and our shared aspirations and our honest differences.I believe the kind of open, direct exchange that President Jiang and I had on Saturday at our press conference--which I know many of you watched on television--can both clarify and narrow our differences, and, more important, by allowing people to understand and debate and discuss these things can give a greater sense of confidence to our people that we can make a better future.From the windows of the White House, where I live in Washington, D.C., the monument to our first President, George Washington, dominates the skyline.It is a very tall obelisk.But very near this large monument there is a small stone which contains these words: The United States neither established titles of nobility and royalty, nor created a hereditary system.State affairs are put to the vote of public opinion.This created a new political situation, unprecedented from ancient times to the present.How wonderful it is.Those words were not written by an American.They were written by Xu Jiyu, governor of Fujian Province, inscribed as a gift from the government of China to our nation in 1853.I am very grateful for that gift from China.It goes to the heart of who we are as a people--the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, the freedom to debate, to dissent, to associate, to worship without interference from the state.These are the ideals that were at the core of our founding over 220 years ago.These are the ideas that led us across our continent and onto the world stage.These are the ideals that Americans cherish today.As I said in my press conference with President Jiang, we have an ongoing quest ourselves to live up to those ideals.The people who framed our Constitution understood that we would never achieve perfection.They said that the mission of America would always be “to form a more perfect union”--in other words, that we would never be perfect, but we had to keep trying to do better.The darkest moments in our history have come when we abandoned the effort to do better, when we denied freedom to our people because of their race or their religion, because there were new immigrants or because they held unpopular opinions.The best moments in our history have come when we protected the freedom of people who held unpopular opinion, or extended rights enjoyed by the many to the few who had previously been denied them, making, therefore, the promises of our Declaration of Independence and Constitution more than faded words on old parchment.Today we do not seek to impose our vision on others, but we are convinced that certain rights are universal--not American rights or European rights or rights for developed nations, but the birthrights of people everywhere, now enshrined in the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights--the right to be treated with dignity;the right to express one's opinions, to choose one's own leaders, to associate freely with others, and to worship, or not, freely, however one chooses.In the last letter of his life, the author of our Declaration of Independence and our third President, Thomas Jefferson, said then that “all eyes are opening to the rights of man.” I believe that in this time, at long last, 172 years after Jefferson wrote those words, all eyes are opening to the rights of men and women everywhere.Over the past two decades, a rising tide of freedom has lifted the lives of millions around the world, sweeping away failed dictatorial systems in the Former Soviet Union, throughout Central Europe;ending a vicious cycle of military coups and civil wars in Latin America;giving more people in Africa the chance to make the most of their hard-won independence.And from the Philippines to South Korea, from Thailand to Mongolia, freedom has reached Asia's shores, powering a surge of growth and productivity.Economic security also can be an essential element of freedom.It is recognized in the United Nations Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights.In China, you have made extraordinary strides in nurturing that liberty, and spreading freedom from want, to be a source of strength to your people.Incomes are up, poverty is down;people do have more choices of jobs, and the ability to travel--the ability to make a better life.But true freedom includes more than economic freedom.In America, we believe it is a concept which is indivisible.Over the past four days, I have seen freedom in many manifestations in China.I have seen the fresh shoots of democracy growing in the villages of your heartland.I have visited a village that chose its own leaders in free elections.I have also seen the cell phones, the video players, the fax machines carrying ideas, information and images from all over the world.I've heard people speak their minds and I have joined people in prayer in the faith of my own choosing.In all these ways I felt a steady breeze of freedom.The question is, where do we go from here? How do we work together to be on the right side of history together? More than 50 years ago, Hu Shi, one of your great political thinkers and a teacher at this university, said these words: “Now some people say to me you must sacrifice your individual freedom so that the nation may be free.But I reply, the struggle for individual freedom is the struggle for the nation's freedom.The struggle for your own character is the struggle for the nation's character.”

We Americans believe Hu Shi was right.We believe and our experience demonstrates that freedom strengthens stability and helps nations to change.One of our founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin, once said, “Our critics are our friends, for they show us our faults.” Now, if that is true, there are many days in the United States when the President has more friends than anyone else in America.(Laughter.)But it is so.In the world we live in, this global information age, constant improvement and change is necessary to economic opportunity and to national strength.Therefore, the freest possible flow of information, ideas, and opinions, and a greater respect for divergent political and religious convictions will actually breed strength and stability going forward.It is, therefore, profoundly in your interest, and the world's, that young Chinese minds be free to reach the fullness of their potential.That is the message of our time and the mandate of the new century and the new millennium.I hope China will more fully embrace this mandate.For all the grandeur of your history, I believe your greatest days are still ahead.Against great odds in the 20th century China has not only survived, it is moving forward dramatically.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.(Applause.)

第四篇：美国总统克林顿卸任演说

美国总统克林顿卸任演说 “My fellow citizens, tonight is my last opportunity to speak to you from the Oval Office as your president.I am profoundly grateful to you for twice giving me the honor to serve, to work for you and with you to prepare our nation for the 21st century.And I´m grateful to Vice President Gore, to my Cabinet secretaries, and to all those who have served with me for the last eight years.This has been a time of dramatic transformation, and you have risen to every new challenge.You have made our social fabric stronger, our families healthier and safer, our people more prosperous.You, the American people, have made our passage into the global information age an era of great American renewal.In all the work I have done as president, every decision I have made, every executive action I have taken, every bill I have proposed and signed, I´ve tried to give all Americans the tools and conditions to build the future of our dreams, in a good society, with a strong economy, a cleaner environment, and a freer, safer, more prosperous world.I have steered my course by our enduring valuess.Opportunity for all.Responsibility from all.A community of all Americans.I have sought to give America a new kind of government, smaller, more modern, more effective, full of ideas and policies appropriate to this new time, always putting people first, always focusing on the future.Working together, America has done well.Our economy is breaking records, with more than 22 million new jobs, the lowest unemployment in 30 years, the highest home ownership ever, the longest expansion in history.Our families and communities are stronger.Thirty-five million Americans have used the family leave law.Eight million have moved off welfare.Crime is at a 25-year low.Over 10 million Americans receive more college aid, and more people than ever are going to college.Our schools are better--higher standards, greater accountability and larger investments have brought higher test scores, and higher graduation rates.More than three million children have health insurance now, and more than 7 million Americans have been lifted out of poverty.Incomes are rising across the board.Our air and water are cleaner.Our food and drinking water are safer.And more of our precious land has been preserved, in the continental United States, than at any time in 100 years.America has been a force for peace and prosperity in every corner of the globe.I´m very grateful to be able to turn over the reins of leadership to a new president, with America in such a strong position to meet the challenges of the future.Tonight, I want to leave you with three thoughts about our future.First, America must maintain our record of fiscal responsibility.Through our last four budgets, we´ve turned record deficits to record surpluses, and we´ve been able to pay down $600 billion of our national debt, on track to be debt free by the end of the decade for the first time since 1835.Staying on that course will bring lower interest rates, greater prosperity and the opportunity to meet our big challenges.If we choose wisely, we can pay down the debt, deal with the retirement of the baby boomers, invest more in our future and provide tax relief.Second, because the world is more connected every day in every way, America´s security and prosperity require us to continue to lead in the world.At this remarkable moment in history, more people live in freedom that ever before.Our alliances are stronger than ever.People all around the world look to America to be a force for peace and prosperity, freedom and security.The global economy is giving more of our own people, and billions around the world, the chance to work and live and raise their families with dignity.But the forces of integration that have created these good opportunities also make us more subject to global forces of destruction, to terrorism, organized crime and narco-trafficking, the spread of deadly weapons and disease, the degradation of the global environment.The expansion of trade hasn´t fully closed the gap between those of us who live on the cutting edge of the global economy and the billions around the world who live on the knife´s edge of survival.This global gap requires more than compassion.It requires action.Global poverty is a powder keg that could be ignited by our indifference.In his first inaugural address, Thomas Jefferson warned of entangling alliances.But in our times, America cannot and must not disentangle itself from the world.If we want the world to embody our shared valuess, then we must assume a shared responsibility.If the wars of the 20th century, especially the recent ones in Kosovo and Bosnia, have taught us anything, it is that we achieve our aims by defending our valuess and leading the forces of freedom and peace.We must embrace boldly and resolutely that duty to lead, to stand with our allies in word and deed, and to put a human face on the global economy so that expanded trade benefits all people in all nations, lifting lives and hopes all across the world.Third, we must remember that America cannot lead in the world unless here at home we weave the threads of our coat of many colors into the fabric of one America.As we become ever more diverse, we must work harder to unite around our common valuess and our common humanity.We must work harder to overcome our differences.In our hearts and in our laws, we must treat all our people with fairness and dignity, regardless of their race, religion, gender or sexual orientation and regardless of when they arrived in our country, always moving toward the more perfect union of our founders´ dreams.Hillary, Chelsea and I join all Americans in wishing our very best to the next president, George W.Bush, to his family and his administration in meeting these challenges and in leading freedom´s march in this new century.As for me, I´ll leave the presidency more idealistic, more full of hope than the day I arrived and more confident than ever that America´s best days lie ahead.My days in this office are nearly through, but my days of service, I hope, are not.In the years ahead, I will never hold a position higher or a covenant more sacred than that of president of the United States.But there is no title I will wear more proudly than that of citizen.Thank you.God bless you, and God bless America.” 【译文】

同胞们，今晚是我最后一次作为你们的总统，在白宫椭圆形办公室向你们做最后一次演讲。

我从心底深处感谢你们给了我两次机会和荣誉，为你们服务，为你们工作，和你们一起为我们的国家进入21世纪做准备。这里，我要感谢戈尔副总统，我的内阁部长们以及所有伴我度过过去8年的同事们。现在是一个极具变革的年代，你们为迎接新的挑战已经做好了准备。是你们使我们的社会更加强大，我们的家庭更加健康和安全，我们的人民更加富裕。

同胞们，我们已经进入了全球信息化时代，这是美国复兴的伟大时代。

作为总统，我所做的一切---每一个决定，每一个行政命令，提议和签署的每一项法令，都是在努力为美国人民提供工具和创造条件，来实现美国的梦想，建设美国的未来---一个美好的社会，繁荣的经济，清洁的环境，进而实现一个更自由、更安全、更繁荣的世界。

借助我们永恒的价值，我驾驭了我的航程。机会属于每一个美国公民；(我的)责任来自全体美国人民；所有美国人民组成了一个大家庭。我一直在努力为美国创造一个新型的政府：更小、更现代化、更有效率、面对新时代的挑战充满创意和思想、永远把人民的利益放在第一位、永远面向未来。

我们在一起使美国变得更加美好。我们的经济正在破着一个又一个的记录，向前发展。我们已创造了2200万个新的工作岗位，我们的失业率是30年来最低的，老百姓的购房率达到一个空前的高度，我们经济繁荣的持续时间是历史上最长的。

我们的家庭、我们的社会变得更加强大。3500万美国人曾经享受联邦休假，800万人重新获得社会保障，犯罪率是25年来最低的，1000多万美国人享受更多的入学贷款，更多的人接受大学教育。我们的学校也在改善。更高的办学水平、更大的责任感和更多的投资使得我们的学生取得更高的考试分数和毕业成绩。

目前，已有300多万美国儿童在享受着医疗保险，700多万美国人已经脱离了贫困线。全国人民的收入在大幅度提高。我们的空气和水资源更加洁净，食品和饮用水更加安全。我们珍贵的土地资源也得到了近百年来前所未有的保护。

美国已经成为地球上每个角落促进和平和繁荣的积极力量。

我非常高兴能于此时将领导权交给新任总统，强大的美国正面临未来的挑战。

今晚，我希望大家能从以下3点审视我们的未来：第一，美国必须保持它的良好财政状况。通过过去4个财政的努力，我们已经把破纪录的财政赤字变为破纪录的盈余。并且，我们已经偿还了6000亿美元的国债，我们正向10年内彻底偿还国家债务的目标迈进，这将是1835年以来的第一次。

只要这样做，就会带来更低的利率、更大的经济繁荣，从而能够迎接将来更大的挑战。如果我们做出明智的选择，我们就能偿还债务，解决(二战后出生的)一大批人们的退休问题，对未来进行更多的投资，并减轻税收。

第二，世界各国的联系日益紧密。为了美国的安全与繁荣，我们应继续融入世界。在这个特别的历史时刻，更多的美国人民享有前所未有的自由。我们的盟国更加强大。全世界人民期望美国成为和平与繁荣、自由与安全的力量。全球经济给予美国民众以及全世界人民更多的机会去工作、生活，更体面地养活家庭。

但是，这种世界融合的趋势一方面为我们创造了良好的机会，但同时使得我们在全球范围内更容易遭致破坏性力量、恐怖主义、有组织的犯罪、贩毒活动，致命性武器和疾病传播的威胁。

尽管世界贸易不断扩大，但它没能缩小处于全球经济繁荣中的我们同数十亿处于死亡边缘的人们之间的距离。

要解决世界贫富两极分化需要的不是同情和怜悯，而是实际行动。贫穷有可能被我们的漠不关心激化而成为火药桶。

托马斯-杰斐逊在他的就职演说中告诫我们结盟的危害。但是，在我们这个时代，美国不能，也不可能使自己脱离这个世界。如果我们想把我们共有的价值观赋予这个世界，我们必须共同承担起这个责任。

如果20世纪的历次战争，尤其是新近在科索沃地区和波斯尼亚爆发的战争，能够让我们得到某种教训的话，我们从中得到的启示应是：由于捍卫了我们的价值观并领导了自由和和平的力量，我们才达到了目标。我们必须坚定勇敢地拥抱这个信念和责任，在语言和行动上与我们的同盟者们站在一起，领导他们按这条道路前进；循着在全球经济中以人为本的观念，让不断发展的贸易能够使所有国家的所有人受益，在全世界范围内提高他们的生活水平和实现他们的梦想。

第三，我们必须牢记如果我们不团结一致，美国就不能领先世界。随着我们变得越来越多样化，我们必须更加努力地团结在共同价值观和共同人性的旗帜下。

我们要加倍努力地工作，克服生活中存在的种种分歧。于情于法，我们都要让我们的人民受到公正的待遇，不论他是哪一个民族、信仰何种宗教、什么性别或性倾向，或者何时来到这个国家。我们时时刻刻都要为了实现先辈们建立高度团结的美利坚合众国的梦想而奋斗。

希拉里、切尔西和我同美国人民一起，向即将就任的布什总统、他的家人及美国新政府致以衷心的祝福，希望新政府能够勇敢面对挑战，并高扛自由大旗在新世纪阔步前进。

对我来说，当我离开总统宝座时，我充满更多的理想，比初进白宫时更加充满希望，并且坚信美国的好日子还在后面。

我的总统任期就要结束了，但是我希望我为美国人民服务的日子永远不会结束。在我未来的岁月里，我再也不会担任一个能比美利坚合众国总统更高的职位、签订一个比美利坚合众国总统所能签署的更为神圣的契约了。当然，没有任何一个头衔能让我比作为一个美国公民更为自豪的了。

谢谢你们！愿上帝保佑你们！愿上帝保佑美国！

第五篇：1993年美国总统克林顿就职演说

January 20, 1993

My fellow citizens :

Today we celebrate the mystery of American renewal.This ceremony is held in the depth of winter.But, by the words we speak and the faces we show the world, we force the spring.A spring reborn in the world's oldest democracy, that brings forth the vision and courage to reinvent America.When our founders boldly declared America's independence to the world and our purposes to the Almighty, they knew that America, to endure, would have to change.Not change for change's sake, but change to preserve America's ideals;life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness.Though we march to the music of our time, our mission is timeless.Each generation of Americans must define what it means to be an American.On behalf of our nation, I salute my predecessor, President Bush, for his half-century of service to America.And I thank the millions of men and women whose steadfastness and sacrifice triumphed over Depression, fascism and Communism.Today, a generation raised in the shadows of the Cold War assumes new responsibilities in a world warmed by the sunshine of freedom but threatened still by ancient hatreds and new plagues.Raised in unrivaled prosperity, we inherit an economy that is still the world's strongest, but is weakened by business failures, stagnant wages, increasing inequality, and deep divisions among our people.When George Washington first took the oath I have just sworn to uphold, news traveled slowly across the land by horseback and across the ocean by boat.Now, the sights and sounds of this ceremony are broadcast instantaneously to billions around the world.Communications and commerce are global;investment is mobile;technology is almost magical;and ambition for a better life is now universal.We earn our livelihood in peaceful competition with people all across the earth.Profound and powerful forces are shaking and remaking our world, and the urgent question of our time is whether we can make change our friend and not our enemy.This new world has already enriched the lives of millions of Americans who are able to compete and win in it.But when most people are working harder for less;when others cannot work at all;when the cost of health care devastates families and threatens to bankrupt many of our enterprises, great and small;when fear of crime robs law-abiding citizens of their freedom;and when millions of poor children cannot even imagine the lives we are calling them to lead, we have not made change our friend.We know we have to face hard truths and take strong steps.But we have not done so.Instead, we have drifted, and that drifting has eroded our resources, fractured our economy, and shaken our confidence.Though our challenges are fearsome, so are our strengths.And Americans have ever been a restless, questing, hopeful people.We must bring to our task today the vision and will of those who came before us.From our revolution, the Civil War, to the Great Depression to the civil rights movement, our people have always mustered the determination to construct from these crises the pillars of our history.Thomas Jefferson believed that to preserve the very foundations of our nation, we would need dramatic change from time to time.Well, my fellow citizens, this is our time.Let us embrace it.Our democracy must be not only the envy of the world but the engine of our own renewal.There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America.And so today, we pledge an end to the era of deadlock and drift;a new season of American renewal has begun.To renew America, we must be bold.We must do what no generation has had to do before.We must invest more in our own people, in their jobs, in their future, and at the same time cut our massive debt.And we must do so in a world in which we must compete for every opportunity.It will not be easy;it will require sacrifice.But it can be done, and done fairly, not choosing sacrifice for its own sake, but for our own sake.We must provide for our nation the way a family provides for its children.Our Founders saw themselves in the light of posterity.We can do no less.Anyone who has ever watched a child's eyes wander into sleep knows what posterity is.Posterity is the world to come;the world for whom we hold our ideals, from whom we have borrowed our planet, and to whom we bear sacred responsibility.We must do what America does best: offer more opportunity to all and demand responsibility from all.It is time to break the bad habit of expecting something for nothing, from our government or from each other.Let us all take more responsibility, not only for ourselves and our families but for our communities and our country.To renew America, we must revitalize our democracy.This beautiful capital, like every capital since the dawn of civilization, is often a place of intrigue and calculation.Powerful people maneuver for position and worry endlessly about who is in and who is out, who is up and who is down, forgetting those people whose toil and sweat sends us here and pays our way.Americans deserve better, and in this city today, there are people who want to do better.And so I say to all of us here, let us resolve to reform our politics, so that power and privilege no longer shout down the voice of the people.Let us put aside personal advantage so that we can feel the pain and see the promise of America.Let us resolve to make our government a place for what Franklin Roosevelt called “bold, persistent

experimentation,” a government for our tomorrows, not our yesterdays.Let us give this capital back to the people to whom it belongs.To renew America, we must meet challenges abroad as well at home.There is no longer division between what is foreign and what is domestic;the world economy, the world environment, the world AIDS crisis, the world arms race;they affect us all.Today, as an old order passes, the new world is more free but less stable.Communism's collapse has called forth old animosities and new dangers.Clearly America must continue to lead the world we did so much to make.While America rebuilds at home, we will not shrink from the challenges, nor fail to seize the opportunities, of this new world.Together with our friends and allies, we will work to shape change, lest it engulf us.When our vital interests are challenged, or the will and conscience of the international community is defied, we will act;with peaceful diplomacy when ever possible, with force when necessary.The brave Americans serving our nation today in the Persian Gulf, in Somalia, and wherever else they stand are testament to our resolve.But our greatest strength is the power of our ideas, which are still new in many lands.Across the world, we see them embraced, and we rejoice.Our hopes, our hearts, our hands, are with those on every continent who are building democracy and freedom.Their cause is America's cause.The American people have summoned the change we celebrate today.You have raised your voices in an unmistakable chorus.You have cast your votes in historic numbers.And you have changed the face of Congress, the presidency and the political process itself.Yes, you, my fellow Americans have forced the spring.Now, we must do the work the season demands.To that work I now turn, with all the authority of my office.I ask the Congress to join with me.But no president, no Congress, no government, can undertake this mission alone.My fellow Americans, you, too, must play your part in our renewal.I challenge a new generation of young Americans to a season of service;to act on your idealism by helping troubled children, keeping company with those in need, reconnecting our torn communities.There is so much to be done;enough indeed for millions of others who are still young in spirit to give of themselves in service, too.In serving, we recognize a simple but powerful truth, we need each other.And we must care for one another.Today, we do more than celebrate America;we rededicate ourselves to the very idea of America.An idea born in revolution and renewed through two centuries of challenge.An idea tempered by the knowledge that, but for fate we, the fortunate and the unfortunate, might have been each other.An idea ennobled by the faith that our nation can summon from its myriad diversity the deepest measure of unity.An idea infused with the conviction that America's long heroic journey must go forever upward.And so, my fellow Americans, at the edge of the 21st century, let us begin with energy and hope, with faith and discipline, and let us work until our work is done.The scripture says, “And let us not be weary in well-doing, for in due season, we shall reap, if we faint not.”

From this joyful mountaintop of celebration, we hear a call to service in the valley.We have heard the trumpets.We have changed the guard.And now, each in our way, and with God's help, we must answer the call.Thank you, and God bless you all.美国复兴的新时代 比尔•克林顿 第一次就职演讲

星期三,1993年1月20日

同胞们：

今天，我们庆祝美国复兴的奇迹。这个仪式虽在隆冬举行，然而，我们通过自己的言语和向世界展示的面容、却促使春回大地--回到了世界上这个最古老的民主国家，并带来了重新创造美国的远见和勇气。

当我国的缔造者勇敢地向世界宣布美国独立，并向上帝表明自 己的目的时，他们知道，美国若要永存，就必须变革。不是为变革而变革，而是为了维护美国的理想--为了生命、自由和追求幸福而变革。尽管我们随着当今时代 的节拍前进，但我们的使命永恒不变。每一代美国人，部必须为作为一个美国人意味着什么下定义。今天，在冷战阴影下成长起来的一代人，在世界上负起了新的责 任。这个世界虽然沐浴着自由的阳光，但仍受到旧仇宿怨和新的祸患的威胁。

我们在无与伦比的繁荣中长大，继承了仍然是世界上最强大的经济。但由于企业倒闭，工资增长停滞、不平等状况加剧，人民的分歧加深，我们的经济已经削弱。

当乔治•华盛顿第一次宣读我刚才宜读的誓言时，人们骑马把 那个信息缓慢地传遍大地，继而又来船把它传过海洋。而现在，这个仪式的情景和声音即刻向全球几十亿人播放。通信和商务具有全球性，投资具有流动性；技术几 乎具有魔力；改善生活的理想现在具有普遍性。今天，我们美国人通过同世界各地人民进行和平竞争来谋求生存。各种深远而强大的力量正在震撼和改造我们的世 界，当今时代的当务之急是我们能否使变革成为我们的朋友，而不是成为我们的敌人。

这个新世界已经使几百万能够参与竞争并且取胜的美国人过上 了富裕的生活。但是，当多数人干得越多反而挣得越少的时候，当有些人根本不可能工作的时候，当保健费用的重负使众多家庭不堪承受、使大大小小的企业濒临破 产的时候，当犯罪活动的恐惧使守法公民不能自由行动的时候，当千百万贫穷儿童甚至不能想象我们呼唤他们过的那种生活的时候，我们就没有使变革成为我们的朋 友。我们知道，我们必须面对严酷的事实真相，并采取强有力的步骤。但我们没有这样做，而是听之任之，以致损耗了我们的资源，破坏了我们的经济，动摇了我们 的信心。

我们面临惊人的挑战，但我们同样具有惊人的力量，美国人历来是不安现状、不断追求和充满希望的民族，今天，我们必须把前人的远见卓识和坚强意志带到我们的任务中去。从革命，内战，大萧条，直到民权运动，我国人民总是下定决心，从历次危机中构筑我国历史的支柱。

托马斯•杰斐逊认为，为了维护我国的根基，我们需要时常进行激动人心的变革。美国同胞们，我们的时代就是变革的时代，让我们拥抱这个时代吧！

我们的民主制度不仅要成为举世称羡的目标，而且要成为举国复兴的动力。美国没有任何错误的东西不能被正确的东西所纠正。因此，我们今天立下誓言，要结束这个僵持停顿、放任自流的时代，一个复兴美国的新时代已经开始。

我们要复兴美国，就必须鼓足勇气。我们必须做前人无需做的 事情。我们必须更多地投资于人民，投资于他们的工作和未来，与此同时，我们必须减少巨额债务。而且，我们必须在一个需要为每个机会而竞争的世界上做到这一 切。这样做并不容易：这样做要求作出牺牲。但是，这是做得到的，而且能做得公平合理。我们不是为牺牲而牺牲，我们必须像家庭供养子女那样供养自己的国家。

我国的缔造者是用子孙后代的眼光来审视自己的。我们也必须 这样做。凡是注意过孩子蒙?o人睡的人，都知道后代意味着什么，后代就是将要到来的世界--我们为之坚持自己的理想，我们向之借用这个星球，我们对之负有 神圣的责任。我们必须做美国最拿手的事情：为所有的人提供更多的机会，要所有的人负起更多的责任。

现在是破除只求向政府和别人免费索取的恶习的时候了。让我们大家不仅为自己和家庭，而且为社区和国家担负起更多的责任吧。

我们要复兴美国，就必须恢复我们民主制度的活力。这个美丽的首都，就像文明的曙光出现以来的每一个首都一样，常常是尔虞我诈、明争暗斗之地。大腕人物争权夺势，没完没了地为官员的更替升降而烦神，却忘记了那些用辛勤和汗水把我们送到这里来，并养活了我们的人。

美国人理应得到更好的回报。在这个城市里，今天有人想把事 情办得更好一些。因此，我要时所有在场的人说：让我们下定决心改革政治，使权力和特权的喧嚣不再压倒人民的呼声。让我们撇开个人利益。这样我们就能觉察美 国的病痛，并看到官的希望。让我们下定决心，使政府成为富兰克林•罗斯福所说的进行“大胆而持久试验”的地方，成为一个面向未来而不是留恋过去的政府。让 我们把这个首都归还给它所属于的人民。

我们要复兴美国，就必须迎接国内外的种种挑战。国外和国内事务之间已不再有明确的界限--世界经济，世界环境，世界艾滋病危机，世界军备竞赛，这一切都在影响着我们大家。

我们在国内进行重建的同时，面对这个新世界的挑战不会退缩不前，也下会坐失良机。我们将同盟友一起努力进行变革，以免被变革所吞没。当我们的重要利益受到挑战，或者，当国际社会的意志和良知受到蔑视，我们将采取行动--可能时就采用和平外交手段，必要时就使用武力。

今天，在波斯湾、索马里和任何其他地方为国效力的勇敢的美国人，都证明了我们的决心。

但是，我们最伟大的力量是我们思想的威力。这些思想在许多国家仍然处于萌芽阶段。看到这些思想在世界各地被接受，我们感到欢欣鼓舞。我们的希望，我们的心，与每一个大陆正在建立民主和自由的人们是连在一起的。他们的事业也是美国的事业。

美国人民唤来了我们今天所庆祝的变革。你们毫不含糊地齐声疾呼。你们以前所未有的人数参加了投票。你们使国会、总统职务和政治进程本身全都面目一新。是的，是你们，我的美国同胞们，促使春回大地。

现在，我们必须做这个季节需要做的工作。现在，我就运用我的全部职权转向这项工作。我请求国会同我一道做这项工作。任何总统、任何国会、任何政府都不能单独完成这一使命。同胞们，在我国复兴的过程中，你们也必须发挥作用。

我向新一代美国年轻人挑战，要求你们投入这一奉献的季节--按照你们的理想主义行动起来，使不幸的儿童得到帮助，使贫困的人们得到关怀，使四分五裂的社区恢复联系。要做的事情很多--确实够多的，以至几百万在精神上仍然年轻的人也可作出奉献。

在奉献过程中，我们认识到相互需要这一简单而又强大的真 理。我们必须相互关心.今天，我们不仅是在赞颂美国，我们再一次把自己奉献给美国的理想：这个理想在革命中诞生，在两个世纪的挑战中更新；这个理想经受了 认识的考验，大家认识到，若不是命运的安排，幸运者或不幸者有可能互换位置；这个理想由于一种信念而变得崇高，即我国能够从纷繁的多佯性中实现最深刻的统 一性，这个理想洋溢着一种信：美国漫长而英勇的旅程必将永远继续。同胞们，在我恻即将跨入21世纪之际，让我们以旺盛的精力和满腔的希望，以坚定的信心和 严明的纪律开始工作，直到把工作完成。《圣经》说：“我们行善，不可丧志，若不灰心，到了时候，就要收成。”

在这个欢乐的山巅，我们听见山谷里传来了要我们作出奉献的召唤。我们听到了号角声。我们已经换岗。现在，我们必须以各自的方式，在上帝的帮助下响应这一召唤。

谢谢大家。上帝保佑大家。