Transcript
RICHARD BUSH: Good morning, everyone, I hope everyone is doing well today. Thank you all for coming. We're holding this conference, as Paul Hsu suggested, at a really special time. In the United States, the election of Barack Obama has created a magical moment that allows us to set aside the legacies of the recent past and to recapture what it means to be American. That's the sentiment that you get.
I think there's also a real understanding and even anxiety about the big challenges that President Obama is going to face. Around the world, including East Asia, there's a U.S.-made economic crisis that is slowing growth and raising questions about how bad the crisis will be and what countries of the world can do to cope, either on their own or together. Here, between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait tensions have declined, the barriers are being removed. But on each side, some are asking if the benefits of moderation will be balanced and reciprocal. And recent events in Mumbai remind us that no place on the planet is absolutely safe from individuals who want to inflict terror and death. Now these are some of the issues we're going to be discussing today. When Paul Hsu and I put the program together a few months ago, we didn't know exactly what the world and the region would look like today, but I think we've succeeded in constructing an outstanding program with the helps of some really talented participants.
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