well as those watching on screens of various sorts, to this meeting of the Council on Foreign

Relations. At its core, the Council on Foreign Relations is an independent, nonpartisan organization.

We're a think-tank, and we're a publisher dedicated to helping its members and others

better understand the world and the foreign policy choices facing the United States.

And it's difficult to imagine a person better to do just that, to help us understand the

foreign policy choices facing the United States and the world, than the 67th secretary of

state, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

CLINTON: Thank you, Richard.

(APPLAUSE)

HAASS: The timing of today's meeting could hardly be better, given all that's going on

in the world. Turbulence in the Middle East continues to mount. Iraq's central government

is steadily losing control of territory, including Mosul, its second-most-important city. Syria's

civil war, now in its fourth year, shows no signs of abating. Egypt's new president faces

a divided public and a struggling economy. The Israeli-Palestinian talks have hit a wall.

And it's far from certain that negotiations with Iran will produce agreement on a nuclear

program that is enough for that country and not too much for others.

Elsewhere, the peace that we've all grown accustomed to in Europe has been shaken by

the heavy-handed Russian interference in Ukraine. Asia, for three decades characterized by economic

dynamism and political stability, now is defined more by economic slowdown and political tension.

There's a new government in India with broad popular support, but next door, there's a

weak government in Pakistan with a growing nuclear arsenal and a growing terrorist threat.

Another Afghan government will soon emerge, but how it will fare is anyone's guess.

Meanwhile, here at home in the United States, recent polls show a large number of Americans

have little interest in this world and an even larger number who think this country's

ability to lead the world is in decline. I would imagine at times like this, our speaker

is pleased to be the former secretary of state.

(LAUGHTER)

This is Secretary Clinton's ninth visit to the Council on Foreign Relations, and we're

honored to have her. And I expect I speak for everyone in this room inand watching and

thanking her for her decades of public service as first lady, as senator here from the great

state of New York, and as secretary of state.

(APPLAUSE)

Now, unless you've been in the witness protection program, you will know that she has just published

a memoir of her time at Foggy Bottom, "Hard Choices." It comes in at 656 pages. For the

record, this is longer than the memoirs of James Byrnes, Warren Christopher, Alexander

Haig, and Madeleine Albright, but it is shorter -- in some cases, much shorter -- than those

of Dean Acheson, George Schulz, Condoleezza Rice, James Baker, Henry Kissinger, and Cordell

Hull.

(LAUGHTER)

It is also to the page the same length as Colin Powell's. Make of all this what you

will.

(LAUGHTER)

This meeting today is part of the Council's History Maker Series that focus on the contributions

made by prominent individuals at a critical juncture in U.S. foreign policy, and I would

like to thank HBO and Richard Plepler for making this possible.

The way we're going to do it is the secretary and I will speak for a time, and then I will

turn it open to CFR members for their questions.

Madam Secretary, welcome.

CLINTON: Thank you.

HAASS: Your first visit as secretary of state was to Asia. And for many observers -- and

I'll count myself among them -- the biggest foreign policy idea of your tenure as secretary

of state was what some call the pivot, others call the rebalance to Asia.

So to begin, do you actually agree that -- do you see your own legacy that way? And why

and how did you choose Asia for such a focus?

CLINTON: Well, Richard, first thank you, and I'm delighted to be back here at the Council

and have an opportunity to talk with you and then with the audience about these issues.

I do see it as one of the most significant strategic moves that we made during those

first four years. And if you just step back from the immediacy of all of the crises that

you were listing, you do have to keep your eye on the trend lines, not just the headlines.

And there is certainly no doubt that much of the history of the 21st century is going

to be shaped in Asia, and the United States has always been a Pacific power, but when

I became secretary, there was a widespread feeling among our friends and our competitors

in Asia that the United States had basically vacated the field and there was a great pent-up

desire that we begin once again to demonstrate our concern for and involvement in the Asia

Pacific. And that's why I decided to go first to Asia.

And also to do what is one of the most important jobs of American foreign policy right now,

and that is to defend and renew the rules-based order. That's true globally, but it was especially

true in Asia, to demonstrate that there had to be a consensus about the way forward economically

and politically. It's why I went to Indonesia and signed something called the Treaty of

Amity and Cooperation, hardly a headline-grabber back here at home, but it committed the United

States to be an active participant in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and

eventually become a member of the East Asia Summit, because our goal was to support and

embed the United States in the multilateral architecture of Asia.

It was also important to reassure our friends and our treaty allies, such as Japan, that

the United States was still committed to their security, as well as to economic prosperity.

And I also brought with me the idea that we would try to have a broader dialogue with

China. Most of our dialogue up until that point, as you know, had to be about economics.

And the Treasury Department led that. Secretary Paulson had done a heroic job, you know, really

working and involving China in conversations about currency, trade and the like.

But there were a lot of strategic questions that needed to be addressed. So Tim Geithner

and I formed the Strategic and Economic Dialogue. And I think there's a tendency too often in

our country, in our Congress and in the public, the press, that these kinds of steps to build

strong foundations are not the real stuff of important diplomacy. They're not the headlines

that people are seeking. But I believe that we have to rebuild this rules-based order.

We have to come up with an architecture that can persuade countries that it is in their

interests then to be a part of it.

So we had all of this at work when I went in February 2009 and then followed through

over the next four years.

HAASS: An important part of the pivot and the rebalance was the -- was an economic dimension,

and was obviously trade, the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Is it your sense that, given

where this country is, in part also given where your own party is, the Democratic Party,

that it's possible right now for the United States to give the president the authority

he needs to complete the negotiations of such an agreement?

CLINTON: Well, he can complete the negotiations. That is ongoing. And in fact, I have been

briefed that there is progress being made on the so-called TPP negotiations. The challenge

-- and really, what your question was about -- is whether there will be what's called

fast-track authority granted to the president...

HAASS: Trade promotion authority.

CLINTON: Trade promotion authority. Right now, I think that's not likely, but that doesn't

mean that the treaty can't be presented and considered on its merits, and particularly

if it can be used to convince the American electorate, as well as the Congress, that

we have to address these internal at the border barriers to our products, we have to begin

to take on state capitalism, because it's one of our biggest competitive threats, we

have to be able to raise standards on goods that are going to end up in our markets one

way or the other, it may be possible -- and I certainly hope it will be -- to make that

case. But, of course, it depends upon what's in it. And we don't yet have the final document.

HAASS: One of the crises you had to manage with China was over -- with the human rights

activist Chen Guangcheng. And in the end, it all worked, and he was able to come here.

He actually spoke here at the Council on Foreign Relations. What did this experience teach

you about dealing with the Chinese and about how you see the right balance between promoting

political change in China, yet at the same time having a relationship that deals with

strategic issues?

CLINTON: Yeah. Well, you know, this book is named "Hard Choices" for a purpose, because

that is exactly the experience that I had. You're constantly trying to promote your values.

We think they're American values, but in my view, they're universal values and we need

to stand up for them. You're trying to pursue your interests -- strategic, economic, political

-- and you're also trying to protect the security of our country, our friends, and our allies.

And oftentimes, those are in conflict or at least appear to be.

This is a case, however, where I think the work we had done for the previous two-plus

years to create this more comprehensive relationship and to spend a lot of time building the personal

relationships that go into that with the Chinese leaders paid off, so that when I got that

phone call at my home telling me that this flyingblind dissident, this human rights activist,

had escaped from house arrest and he was seeking to be driven to Beijing and find refuge in

the American embassy, because there was nowhere else that he felt safe, that was the kind

of tribute to American values that you don't just turn your back on, or at least I don't.

And I said, "Go get him," and we did get him, a little, you know, James Bond-ish kind of

activity going on there. And we brought him into the embassy, where he was treated by

our medical team. And we then began working with him to try to figure out what he wanted

and how we could help facilitate it.

The negotiations with the Chinese, as I recount in this chapter, were contentious. They were

not happy, to put it mildly. I was on my way to China just a few days after I gave the

order to go out and get him. But we had a very candid, open, ongoing discussion. There

were a lot of false starts and detours, but we ended up in a good place. We didn't sacrifice

the relationship, and we stood up for our values at the same time.

So that's why this very slow, hard, boring -- to paraphrase Weber -- in the diplomatic

sphere, as in politics, is so important. And we can't get impatient. Building these relationships,

continuing to stand up for our values, pursue our interests, protect our security is a long-term

investment, and it takes the kind of strategic patience that, you know, we're just going

to have to demonstrate more effectively in the years to come.

HAASS: You mentioned the phrase in your answer there about personal relationships. You dealt

with some fairly strong personalities. Mr. Lavrov, the...

CLINTON: Well, I like to think that the same is true.

(LAUGHTER)

HAASS: ... touche -- Foreign Minister Yang of China, the prime minister of Israel. And

to what extent did you come away actually thinking that the personal relationship mattered?

Or at the end of the day, whether they liked you or you liked them, it didn't really matter

that it was just good, old-fashioned statecraft?

CLINTON: I do think the personal relationships matter, which is why I stressed building them,

expanding them, trying to understand the point of view of the other party. But at the end

of the day, leaders are going to do what they think is in the best interests of their states.

Part of building that relationship, though, is perhaps to open the window a little wider

about how to define those interests. Again, just to build on the Chen China example, both

the Chinese and we valued the relationships we had been building. They were not one-offs.

I mean, I did a lot of, you know, personal time and hospitality to demonstrate respect

and appreciation for the Chinese leaders. They reciprocated. So that when we kept running