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Notes for BOAO Forum for Asia

English Pages, 24. 4. 2004

1) Let me express my gratitude for the invitation which I have gladly accepted to participate in this important gathering.

2) It gives the President of a small Central European country a very good opportunity to present the Czech Republic to the political and business leaders of China, of South East Asia and of the whole Asian continent. I would like to assure you that we consider our political, economic, social and cultural presence in your region to be a very significant aspect of our activities. After the collapse of communism, already almost fifteen years ago, our ambition was to go “back to Europe”, by which we had in mind to become a “normal” European country after half a century of living in a different world. I was, however, always in a hurry to add that in reality it did mean to go “back to the rest of the world”. We wanted to be a free and open country and I believe that we have succeeded in this uneasy endevour.

3) As some of you may know, the Czech Republic will become in 6 days, on the 1^st of May, the full member of the European Union, which will be a totally new stage in the thousand years old history of the country. We will loose a non-negligible part of our sovereignty, but we will have a chance to participate in this very innovative experiment – to organize society without using the standard mechanisms of the nation state. We are aware of the costs and benefits as well as of risks of such an experiment and I have to say that we are not extremely optimistic in this respect. We are, however, determined to use this new opportunity for the acceleration of the economic and social developments of the Czech society. We hope as well that our membership in the EU will be interpreted in your region as a proof of our maturity, of our stability, of the success in our radical transition from communism to a free, pluralistic society and market economy.

4) The overwhelming and far-reaching transition of the Czech Republic, which started immediately after the collapse of communism, is over. All inevitable reform measures had been taken during the first decade of the post-communist era and the current stage of our development can be already described as an almost uneventful evolution of the quality of important political, economic and social institutions as well as of the strengths, depths and of the robustness of political and economic markets. Many changes and improvements are needed but the need for such reforms is no greater than in “old” EU member states.

5) After several decades of life in a more or less closed and semi-autarchic society we are strong believers in the importance of openness, of free markets and of the free flow of ideas, news, human beings, skills and technologies, goods and services, money and capital as well as culture all over the world. We are convinced that such elements of globalization increase prosperity and benefit all who participate.

6) We want to be visible in your region and – reciprocally – we invite all of you to make business with us and to invest in the Czech Republic. I took with me on my ten days trip to China a group of successful Czech businessmen and I do hope they have used this opportunity to strengthen the already established contexts, to make new ones and to find new partners. I hope the stay here on the BOAO Forum for Asia will be useful in this respect as well.

7) The fast economic reconstruction and modernization of China and of South East Asia as a whole is in our part of the world relatively well-known.I myself was prepared for this trip by my past visits in the region as well as by my extensive reading about it. I, therefore, expected that no expectations-reality gap will arise during my trip. I was wrong. In most of human activities, the expectations usually exceed reality and the people become disappointed. This is not the case in this region. The reality exceeds the expectations. I am really glad to be here with you.

Václav Klaus, Hainan, 24.4.2004