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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, FEBRUARY 3, 1984
Europeans challenged U.S. domination of the Atlantic alliance.
But the fact is that ordinary Americans themselves are drifting
out of the Atfan�orbit. That's a shorthand way of describing
what�ay't)e the most significant economic and cultural shift in
this nation's experience--� shift away from Europe and toward the
Pacif 1c Basin.
"The overwhelming European influence on our
culture is on the wane and giving way to the Orient," Morgan
Guaranty Trust Co. vice president Frederick Allen said in an
interview published early in 1983...•
Once the word "immigration" was synonymous with the arrival of
Europeans and later with Latin Americans. Today two of every
five newcomers to the United States are Asian, and many of them
play key roles In the small-business revitalization of our urban
centers •••• Consider the fact that in 1982-83, for the first time
in history, overall U.S. trade with-'pacific nations�ceeded that
with Atlantic nat1ons;--registerTng � record $121.2 billion••
-=-:--
These statistics reflect a development that would have seemed
unimaginable a generation ago. While the Atlantic has struggled
through prolonged economic decline, the Pacific--including the
u .s.
West--has emerged as the focal point of a futuristic new
economy. From Tokyo and the Silicon Valley to Hong Kong, Taipei,
and Singapore it has become a kind of transnational "high-tech
lake" bounded by the energetic capitals of 21st-Century industry.
China's visiting Premier Zhao Ziyang also commented on America's "Pacific
shift" in his address before the World Affairs Council of Northern Califor
nia in San Francisco on January 2, 1984. I was present in the audience when
he told 1,000 guests that:
China, with its one billion people, has now embarked on a long
march and is concentrating its efforts on socialist moderniza
tion. Thanks to its endeavour of more than a century, Japan has
become a world economic power. The Soviet Union is gradually
shifting its focus of investment and economic development from
west of the Urals to the Far East.
On the other hand, the
economic center of gravit � in the United . States is moving from
the east to the west, that is, to the Pacific coast. In fact, the
tradevolumeofthe--rrri'"ited States with Asian countries has
already outstripped that with European countries•••. Particular
ly noteworthy is the fact that a number of countries in the
Pacific region have stayed in the lead in economic development,
while many industrially advanced countries, being plagued by what
is known as stagflation, have been slow in economic advance for
the past decade or so. This has led to the prediction by many
people in the world that the twenty-first century will be a
Pacific century. We, peoples in the Pacific region, have every
reason to chart our bright future with optimism.
Just how serious the stagflation in the "Old World"--Europe--really is was
revealed in a recent poll conducted by THE WALL STREET JOURNAL and pub
lished in its February 1, 1984 edition. More than 200 chief executives
representing the top 1,000 companies in Europe (ranked by revenue) were
surveyed by the JOURNAL'S European-edition staff. Overall they presented a
picture of virtual resignation to "third place" behind the U.S. and Japan