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, toda
y 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 gener