Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen.

I am very grateful to the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies and to its Director, Professor Sandhu, for the kind invitation to deliver the Singapore Lecture 1986. I thank the Senior Minister, Mr Rajaratnam, for introducing me with such witty and gracious words. Mr Minister, I am not Godot because I am here; I am an economist—but I do not know whether I am an optimist or a pessimist. I am an economist who has to face facts, and the facts are strong and problematic. I have had to face facts in the European Community, I have had to face facts as Prime Minister of my country. And based on my experiences, I feel that the main quality of an economist should be humility. He tries to solve problems but he is not sure to succeed. What is important is neither optimism nor pessimism, but lucidity. And I will try tonight to be lucid about the problems which I have chosen to discuss.

Firstly, let me say that I am honoured and pleased to address such a distinguished audience, in a country which, despite its small size, plays a very important role in this region under the leadership of its Prime Minister, Mr Lee Kuan Yew. It is an example of hard work, innovation, and adaptability. It has reaped the fruits of its continuous effort. May I express today, to Singapore, one of the dragons of Southeast Asia, all my wishes for the same success in the future.

Let me begin by congratulating the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies on its golden anniversary and by thanking the Director of the Institute for inviting me to deliver the Singapore Lecture.

I particularly appreciate the opportunity to speak here today on the challenges and objectives of our democratic transition as Singapore is the Chair of ASEAN this year. Our ASEAN friends have been generous with necessary help and support as we negotiate the passage of an intricate transition. They have demonstrated the value of regional solidarity based on shared experiences and aspirations. The premise that what helps one part helps the whole underpins the consensual, cooperative approach that has played a vital part in making ASEAN one of the most successful regional organizations in the world, despite development gaps between its member states.

A transition, to put it simply, is the process of going across from one point to another. The distance that must be covered, and the nature of the terrain that must be travelled define the scope and complexity of the challenges that have to be faced and overcome. Myanmar is crossing over from a long-established, authoritarian system to one that we label “democracy”. Our people's perception, or rather, perceptions of democracy, varied, incoherent and inconsistent as they may be, impact on the transition that our country is undergoing today.

During the last three quarters of a century, Myanmar has undergone three major transitions: from colonial rule to independence in 1948, from parliamentary democracy to military dictatorship in 1962, and still in progress today since 1988, still incomplete, is the transition from dictatorship to democracy.

Your Excellency Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong, Ladies and Gentlemen, Friends,

Thank you, Your Excellency Deputy Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.

The Singapore Lecture is a highly acclaimed international forum. State leaders, eminent politicians, specialists and scholars from many countries have made weighty and inspiring remarks on regional and international issues at this forum. Today, I feel greatly honoured and delighted to have the opportunity of meeting you, people from different circles in Singapore, briefing you on developments in China and discussing with you the development prospects for China and Asia. Many of you here are old friends and long-term partners of the Chinese people. I would like to take this opportunity to express my sincere thanks to you and all other Singapore friends who have contributed to enhanced friendship between our two peoples.

Mankind is at the threshold of the 21st century. In the evolution of world civilization, the 20th century is one of hardships and sufferings as well as one of unprecedented material and spiritual wealth. The rise of Asia and the enormous changes in China represent one of the greatest miracles of this century.

From the mid-19th century to the mid-20th century, the Chinese people fought courageously and finally won national independence and liberation and founded New China. Not long ago, the Chinese people held a grand celebration of the 50th anniversary of the People's Republic of China. Over the past fifty years, China has witnessed earth-shaking changes. For the past twenty years in particular since China started its reform and opened up to the outside world, it has scored even more remarkable achievements in its socialist modernization drive.

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong,

Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean,

NUS President Mr Tan Chorh Chuan,

Professor Wang Gungwu,

Faculty Members and Students,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Good morning! I am delighted to come to the National University of Singapore and talk to you as a guest speaker of Singapore Lecture. This year marks the 25th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Singapore, and it gives me great pleasure to pay a state visit to the garden state of Singapore at the invitation of President Tan Keng Yam.

With a history of 110 years, the National University of Singapore is renowned both in Asia and internationally. Many Singaporean leaders such as Mr Lee Kuan Yew, President Tan Keng Yam, Mr S.R. Nathan and Mr Goh Chok Tong, graduated from NUS. Indeed, NUS has produced a galaxy of talents and outstanding public leaders for Singapore. NUS champions the vision that there should be no walls around minds, no walls to ideas, no walls to talent and no walls between discovery. Such a no-walls culture embodies the creative, enterprising, open and inclusive spirit of Singapore, an important factor contributing to the success of NUS and Singapore.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the independence of Singapore. In the last 50 years, the hard-working and visionary people of Singapore have endured hardships and succeeded in building Singapore into one of the most advanced countries in Asia and a leading international economic, financial, shipping, and refining and petrochemicals center. Its achievements in national development are widely recognized.

Master of Ceremonies, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen.

Long years ago, trade and other relations existed between Asia and Southern Africa—relations that we are only now starting to fully appreciate. In our own country, recent excavations have attested to the existence of kingdoms with advanced mining, smelting and other skills, along part of the highway from the coast to Southern Africa's great settlements in the hinterland. Some of the pottery and other artefacts discovered here had their origins in the dynasties of Asia, as evidence to the trade and exchange of skills that existed at the turn of the last millennium.

Our people are proud to uncover a history all along concealed. They are proud to establish that, contrary to conventional wisdom, they were a full and active part of Africa's relations with the world, long before European settlers set their foot on the continent. Then came the interregnum of colonial plunder which not only brought untold suffering to the African peoples, but also destroyed the international relations across the wide frontiers of seas and oceans.

During this interregnum, Africa found itself tied to Europe's colonial apronstrings: its trade, diplomatic relations, education and culture were systematically remade in the image of the colonial victors. But it was an interregnum, too, when colonizers who, as unwitting tools of history, brought new technological and communication skills that have redefined the world. Now as we stand at the threshold of a new millennium, we are fortunate witnesses to the rebirth of natural relations between Africa and Asia, relations which colonialism sought to mediate in its own interest.

Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen. It is both a pleasure and an honour to be with you today to deliver this Singapore Lecture.

The list of speakers invited to give this series of lectures includes many prestigious names and world leaders. I am happy to join their company and I thank the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies for inviting me.

This is my second visit to Asia this year, but my first to Southeast Asia as President of the European Commission. I welcome this opportunity to discuss issues of mutual concern with the distinguished company present today and in meetings with members of the Singapore Government.

Co-operation between Europe and Asia is going from strength to strength: we have ASEM, the co-operation framework with ASEAN, and a wide range of bilateral and informal contacts.

We have close economic ties and share many concerns. Our relationship now embraces far more than just “trade and aid”.

So why have I chosen diversity as my theme today?

Diversity defines the relations between two entities that are not identical. Diversity in nations and cultures, in interests and objectives, creates the need for an effort towards convergence so that we can work together. It characterizes the regional structures we are building in Europe and Asia, and indeed our interregional partnership.

Integration processes are taking place at the two ends of the Eurasian continent. Indeed, there is a clear trend towards regional co-operation throughout the world.

In fact, regional co-operation, subject to certain principles and conditions, is one of the most effective answers to the challenge of globalization. I will come back to this issue later.

Ladies and gentlemen, we in Europe have been pioneers in regional integration for close on fifty years. Here in Asia it is a more recent process.

In the European Union it has given us tangible returns: peace, stability, and growing prosperity. The greatest reward of all is that we have stopped settling disagreements by armed conflict. But this has taken many years of hard work.

We are now gearing up for the entry in 2004 of 76 million people to our existing Union of 380 million people. The enlarged Union will then account for more than a quarter of world GDP and one fifth of world trade.

On 14 October 1980, the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS) hosted the inaugural Singapore Lecture given by Professor Milton Friedman to a packed audience at the Singapore Conference Hall. The First Deputy Prime Minister and Chairman of the Monetary Authority of Singapore Dr Goh Keng Swee chaired the lecture. The Monetary Authority of Singapore provided an endowment to ISEAS for the Singapore Lecture Series that year that was augmented three years later by a donation from Mobil Oil Singapore. Since then, the lectures have been co-funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and ISEAS. The lectures usually are chaired by the Prime Minister or a Senior Cabinet member to reflect their purpose and status.

At that time, it was unlikely that ISEAS or the Singapore government realized how important a platform this lecture series would become for senior foreign experts and leaders to share their views on regional and global developments with a particular focus on their country or institution and Singapore. The lectures, spanning over almost four decades, have addressed the most important economic and strategic changes Singapore and Southeast Asia have had to respond to. These include the East-West confrontation of the Cold War, the end of the Cold War, the re-emergence of China as Asia's leading power, India's resurgence, ASEAN centrality, global financial turmoil, globalization and its drawbacks and the threat of global terrorism.

By the end of August 2018, ISEAS, by then renamed ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute, has had the honour of hosting forty-four Singapore Lectures. A complete list is available at the end of this volume. Prime Minister of Australia Bob Hawke was the first serving political leader to deliver a Singapore Lecture, the 8th lecture delivered in November 1987. A year later Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad of Malaysia became the first leader from Asia to give a Singapore Lecture.

The roster of eminent persons who have accepted the invitation to give a Singapore Lecture is truly global in scope. Speakers have come from all parts of Asia, from Africa, South America, Oceania, Europe, North America and NATO and the United Nations. Befitting Singapore's location, seventeen Singapore Lectures have been delivered by serving political leaders from Asia, including the 44th Singapore Lecture by Li Keqiang, the premier of the People's Republic of China.

Thank you, Professor Jayakumar, for that most generous introduction. You have raised expectations which I shall have difficulty living up to. Indeed, your dual credentials as scholar and policy-maker make you a hard act for any lecturer to follow.

But one thing about those credentials does give me great encouragement for the topic I have chosen to speak about in front of this very distinguished audience. And that is the fact that you are both Minister for Foreign Affairs and Minister for Law.

Offhand, I cannot think of any member state of the United Nations in which those two positions are combined. And I imagine that in some member states the combination might even be thought eccentric. People still tend to see law as an almost exclusively domestic matter, while foreign policy is seen as the realm of pragmatism and even Realpolitik—a domain where there is no law but the law of the jungle.

I am very glad to see that in Singapore you think differently. Not that you have a starry-eyed confidence in the eternally benign and law-abiding instincts of your neighbours. I know that you also set great store by being able to defend yourselves if need be, and that is certainly not something I would reproach you for. Every state enjoys the right of self-defence, under Article 51 of the United Nations Charter. And, so long as its intentions are purely and unmistakably defensive—as yours are—the fact that a state is able and willing to defend itself reduces the risk that others will attack it.

In addition, a state with strong defence forces is better able to contribute to collective security operations when the need arises.

Thank you, Deputy Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, for that very warm introduction.

Your Excellency, Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong, Deputy Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, Chairman Chia Cheong Fook, and Director Chia Siow Yue of ISEAS, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen.

I am infinitely honoured to be given this opportunity to speak at the prestigious Singapore Lecture organized by the world-renowned Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. Under the outstanding leaderships of Prime Ministers Lee Kuan Yew and Goh Chok Tong, Singapore has attained the highest levels in international competitiveness, as well as social stability and welfare. I am quite aware that behind this national feat has been the input of such an outstanding think-tank as the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.

Ladies and gentlemen, history tells us that peace on the Korean Peninsula has far-reaching implications for the fate of East Asia as a whole. At the end of the 19th century, imperial Japan was victorious in war against China and Russia in the early 20th century, and thus colonized the Korean Peninsula. Building upon this strength, Japan went on to invade mainland China, and further—Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia.

More recently, the Korean War of the early 1950s, which is still a vivid memory for many of us here, affected most countries of East Asia, directly or indirectly. Because of the unique geopolitical location, peace on the Peninsula is closely linked to that of East Asia.

It has been fifty years since the Korean War broke out. During the half century since, South and North Korea have lived as hostile enemies in extreme distrust of each other.

Mr Lee Hsien Loong, Deputy Prime Minister of Singapore; Professor Wang Gungwu, Chairman of Institute of Southeast Asian Studies; Mr K. Kesavapany, Director of the Institute; Authorities, members of the diplomatic corps; members of the academic community; members of the business community; and students present here this afternoon.

Dear Friends

I am so sorry that I think that the friends in Singapore will keep referring to Miss Cecilia Bolocco than today's speaker. I am so sorry for that.

Let me tell you that it was not without hesitation that I accepted the task of sharing with you some views on Global Challenges in this 24th Singapore Lecture.

I say “some hesitation” because the list of my predecessors here is indeed impressive, and I am extremely honoured that you think I can follow in the steps of my predecessors.

I accepted this invitation primarily because of our interest in Singapore. We certainly share an ocean, but also much more than an ocean. I would say that we share a common value: a common approach to economic reform. Both countries, Chile and Singapore, look forward to integration into the world society and this integration is convenient for our own people. We also understand that in order to integrate in the society we need to share some common values to build the kind of society we are going to be.

To be competitive today, you need to have some kind of internal cohesion. You need to share some common values in the way that you have been able to, to succeed in that particular area here in the last forty years in Singapore.

Mr Deputy Prime Minister, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

I accepted the invitation to speak here with great eagerness. Although Singapore is a relatively small country in terms of population, I must say that in terms of its influence—when I was in office—under the distinguished leadership that you have, Singapore has always played a very significant role.

I want to take this opportunity to tell you how important for my own intellectual development and understanding of this area has been the constant friendship, and the occasional scolding, we have received from your Prime Minister. The first time I met your Prime Minister, he was telling my academic colleagues at Harvard that they didn't know what they were talking about. Later, he appeared from time to time in Washington, when I was in office, to recall us to our duty. So I am here as an admirer of what has been accomplished here, and as a friend of your leaders.

I believe that the Deputy Prime Minister has posed exactly the right question for our period and exactly the question that the United States must answer if free societies are to survive. The key question of our period is whether the United States can muster sufficient understanding and sufficient resolution to maintain and to prevail in the contest that is now taking place.

For the emotional balance of those members of the American Embassy who may be here, I would like to stress that I speak in my private capacity, and that you must receive the official formulations from our Ambassador and his outstanding staff.

Excellency, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong,

Excellency, Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam,

Honourable Ministers,

Professor Tan Tai Yong,

Distinguished guests,

Thank you for the honour and privilege of delivering the Singapore Lecture.

I am conscious that I walk in the footsteps of leaders who have shaped modern India and our relationship with this region—President Shri APJ Abdul Kalam, Prime Minister Shri P.V. Narsimha Rao, and former Prime Minister Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

Mr Prime Minister, I am deeply honoured that you have joined us here.

We have been on the road together in the past few weeks—for the G20 and the ASEAN and East Asia Summits.

This tells you how deeply linked the destinies of our two nations are.

To the people of Singapore, on 50 years of Independence, I extend the greetings and the good wishes of 1.25 billion friends and admirers.

In the life of humans and nations, milestones of time are natural.

But, few countries can celebrate the first 50 years of existence with a sense of pride and satisfaction that Singapore deserves to.

And, I can do no better than to begin with homage to one of the tallest leaders of our time and the architect of modern Singapore—Lee Kuan Yew.

To capture his mission in his own words, he gave his life to see a successful Singapore.

And, it was with his well-known steely determination that he saw Singapore through to its golden jubilee year.

His impact was global. And, in him, India had a well-wisher, who spoke with the honesty of true friendship.

My good friend Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong; Excellencies; Ladies and Gentlemen.

Dear friends:

Thank you, Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong, for your kind words and for graciously agreeing to chair our session today. We remember you as an able statesman and a good friend of Indonesia, who did exemplary work carrying the baton from Singapore's remarkable leader, Lee Kuan Yew.

I wish to begin by thanking ISEAS for inviting me to give the Singapore Lecture here today. Since having been elected President, I have given several keynote speeches at different forums, but this is the first time since I received my doctorate degree that anyone has asked me to give a “lecture”. As flattering as this is, I do not feel that I am in a position to lecture to an audience made up of Singapore's best brains. In fact, Singapore, being the world's most successful city-state, has a lot to tell the world about the lessons of governance.

I stand here today to speak about “the challenge of change for Indonesia”.

All of you in Singapore know the meaning of “change” very well. I know of no other country in the world which has changed as rapidly and as frequently as Singapore. In the last few decades, you have transformed this island into a modern city-state, a world-class trading, manufacturing, financial centre, thus making Singapore relevant—relevant to the region, relevant to the world economy.

There are many ways to measure “greatness” in a nation, but history tells us that the measure of a country's greatness lies in its ability to adapt—adapt to changing times, adapt to new challenges, adapt to emerging trends, adapt to new terrains.

I am going to talk tonight about some very broad issues, but issues that I believe have a direct bearing on the prospects of much of the world over the coming decade. My comments will be divided into three parts. I want to talk, first, about the changing trends that have dominated developments in the world over the past several centuries, and that I think foreshadow the developments that we shall see in the coming decades. I want then to examine a bit more carefully the nature of the forces that produced those trends; finally, I want to conclude by looking at what developments are likely in coming decades in response to those forces.

In 1899, a famous British constitutional lawyer, A.V. Dicey, gave a series of lectures at Harvard University, which were later collected and published in a book under the title: Lectures on the Relation between Law and Public Opinion in the Nineteenth Century. That book contains a profound analysis of the forces that determine the government policies and of the role of public opinion in shaping those policies. Dicey's main thesis was that legislation affecting public policy follows public opinion but only after a long lag. If public opinion moves, then some ten or twenty years later, that movement in public opinion is reflected in policy. This idea was expressed later in a famous paragraph by John Maynard Keynes when he talked of “madmen in authority … distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back”.

Mr Rajaratnam, Honourable Prime Minister, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen.

Before I speak I would like to say thank you to Mr Rajaratnam for his kind words. I am afraid he has raised too many expectations from my talk. I am going to be very conservative tonight and I am not going to be nasty to anyone. So, it would be a different person from the person who was born on 20 December 1925 who will be speaking before you tonight. So I apologize for the disappointment I am about to cause.

I would like to thank the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies for inviting me to deliver this Singapore Lecture, the ninth in your series. It is indeed a great honour for someone who is not an economist and who is not a retired statesman to be invited to speak at one of the most celebrated events of the Institute.

The subject of this Singapore Lecture is related to the future. My fear is that economists and politicians, retired or otherwise, are about as good at foretelling the future as those who rely on the stars and the tea leaves. Practising economists have the aid of the most sophisticated models and the most sophisticated and complex theories. The members of this profession have the advantage of being able to rely on the staple of their trade: the two hands—on the one hand, this, on the other hand, that.

Mr Minister, Ladies and Gentlemen,

Thank you, in the first place for your kind invitation, and secondly, Mr Minister, for your kind words of introduction.

I have been told that in former years my friends, Valery Giscard d’Estaing and Henry Kissinger, have given talks at this occasion. And this reminds me of a little story which I related to Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew. It is a true story. Earlier on this autumn, some old friends met in the house of former President Gerald Ford in Colorado, USA: Valéry Giscard, Henry Kissinger, Jerry Ford himself, Jim Callaghan from Britain, Malcolm Fraser from Australia, and myself—all of us “elder statesmen”, so to speak.

And one evening, at the end of a private conversation, Jerry Ford summed it all up by saying, “Well, obviously, we ought to agree that the world was much better run in our time of office.” Mr Lee Kuan Yew said over lunch, “And this may even have been true.”

I think Jerry Ford would have said the same thing if one more gentleman had been present, who also was out of office in the mean time. I am talking of the former British Foreign Secretary, Lord Carrington, whom I admire very much. He, I think, was the world's outstanding Foreign Secretary in the late seventies and early eighties. Earlier on this year, he gave a marvellous speech, the Alistair Buchan Memorial Lecture, in London, where he not only criticized profoundly the present political, economic, military upheaval within the Western Alliance, but beyond that demanded what he called “a positive political strategy” in dealing with the Soviet Union.

Thank you, Mr Minister. Prime Minister Goh and Senior Minister Lee, I am delighted to be here and thank you for that very kind introduction. Let me take this opportunity to say a few words about these two gentlemen.

Minister Lee, a quarter century ago, you led this small island of cultural and ethnic diversity, of limited physical resources, to independence. Then, through your vision and your force of intellect and will, you forged Singapore's nationhood. You stood courageously in a life and death struggle against the communists, and you prevailed. You led your nation and your region in the quest for peace and prosperity. It is my convinced opinion that future generations will honour the name of Lee Kuan Yew. And as you know well from your visits to my home in Kennebunkport, I am pleased to know you as a friend.

Prime Minister Goh, I salute you for your wisdom and your vigour in carrying Singapore forward on its path to the future. I pledge America's steadfast friendship as you lead Singapore in facing the challenges of the coming generation. I am also pleased that you, like many of your countrymen, came to the United States of America for part of your education. These, too, are ties that bind us together.

It is an honour to deliver this lecture, following such leaders as Brian Mulroney, Helmut Schmidt, Rudd Lubbers, Bob Hawke, Mahathir bin Mohamad, and Valery Giscard D’Estaing and such distinguished thinkers as Henry Kissinger and Milton Friedman. And, let me acknowledge: Professor K.S. Sandhu, Director of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies; A.V. Liventals, Chairman, Mobil Oil Singapore; Lee Hee Seng, Deputy Chairman, ISEAS Board of Trustees; and Dr Richard Hu, Chairman, Monetary Authority of Singapore, and Finance Minister.

Your Excellency Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Professor Wang Gungwu, Your Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, students.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak to you here today. I’d also like to thank my host, Prime Minister Lee, for inviting me to visit your country.

2015 was a notable year for Singapore. You celebrated fifty years of independence with a parade of 11,000 people, fireworks and 600,000 roses made from recycled plastic bags. For me, those roses are typical of Singapore. Both creative and responsible. Even on a public holiday, you uphold the principles of the circular economy.

On 23 March of the same year your country was plunged into mourning by the death of Lee Kuan Yew. He is greatly missed. In the words of his son and your prime minister Lee Hsien Loong, “To many Singaporeans, and indeed others too, Lee Kuan Yew was Singapore.”

Lee Kuan Yew's life ran parallel with Singapore's transformation from a colony to one of the best-performing countries in the world. He was the architect of the republic. In his memoirs he noted, “We had to create a new kind of economy. Try new methods and schemes never tried before anywhere else in the world, because there was no other country like Singapore.”

His vision and dedication helped turn Singapore into an economic superpower. With its low unemployment rate, high GDP, low levels of corruption, and wellmaintained public spaces, Singapore has rightly been described as “the little city that could” and “the envy of the world”.

So what is your secret? What makes us so jealous when we look at Singapore? I expect you know better than I do. But if I were to hazard a guess, I would say it's all down to education. Singaporeans make Singapore what it is, and this country invests in its people. You value your human capital. Thanks to ISEAS and other research and education institutions, Singapore is a world-class knowledge hub. Its universities are among the best in Asia and even the world. But it all starts with primary schools and teachers. And they too are among the world's best.

It is a great honour to have been asked to give this lecture and I thank Professor Chan Heng Chee and the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies for the invitation. Australia has had a long and productive association with the Institute over many years.

I also want to thank the Government of Singapore for its support for the lecture and, especially, Deputy Prime Minister Tony Tan for his courtesy to me in chairing it today.

This is my third visit to Singapore as Prime Minister and it is always a pleasure to come here. There is an energy about Singapore which flows from people who are conscious of the inevitability of change and who are trying to shape that change for the better.

I admire that Singapore, perhaps more than any other place in the world, teaches the vital lesson that we cannot prepare for the future until we know what we want it to be.

This has been the distinctive principle guiding Singapore's modern history: the same principle that some time ago began to guide Australia through the present era. When you face things and begin to do what must be done, you liberate ideas about what can be done. This great era of change has meant that as we approach the centenary of Australia's nationhood a new, stronger and clearer vision of our future has begun to emerge. And it now goes without saying that much of the future we see—we see in the Asia-Pacific.