Chun Doo HuanMr. President, Mrs. Chun, My Lords, ladies and gentlemen,
Let me first extend to you a very warm welcome to you, Mr. President, to Mrs. Chun and to all the members of your delegation to No.10 Downing Street, on this first visit to Britain by a Korean Head of State. You are honoured guests in our country and we hope that you will enjoy your stay. [end p1]
We recognise the Republic of Korea as a country with a great history.
Like Britain, some of the most glorious moments of that history were successful naval battles.
Admiral Yi Sun-Shin routed the Japanese fleet in a famous victory in 1592, just a few years after we enjoyed a similar success over the Spanish Armada.
More recently our two countries fought [end p2] side by side against Communist aggression in the Korean War, a conflict in which Britain took the third largest number of casualties after your own country and the United States.
As a result of that War, the name of the Glorious Glosters is as famous in our annals as in yours: and I shall be visiting the memorial to them when I come to Korea at the end of this month. [end p3]
It was President Truman who described Korea as the testing ground in the ideological conflict between communism and democracy.
The conflict of ideology has not been confined to Korea itself.
We remember the terrible bomb attack in Rangoon, the colleagues and friends whom you lost and the tragic blow dealt to your country. [end p4]
We know that since your election as President you have, in the face of such difficulties, made great efforts to move towards a fully functioning democratic system.
We wish you well in this for the future.
A long succession of British visitors have passed through Korea during the past four hundred years: merchant venturers, naval officers to chart your coasts, missionaries and [end p5] newspapermen.
Mr. Pritchard Morgan, one of the Welsh mining experts who helped you to mine gold and was once your Consul-General in London.
Ernest Bethell, the founder of the Korean Daily News.
Bishops Corfe and Trollope of the Protestant Church.
Lord Curzon, who paid a memorable visit. [end p6]
Our engineers have played a particular part in Korea's development.
It was a British engineer who first lit the Kyongbok Palace with electricity a hundred years ago.
More recently British engineers have helped again, in establishing Korea's shipbuilding and automobile industries. And it was a Briton, Mr. McLeavy Brown, who organised the Korean customs services [end p7] and the royal finances ninety years ago. Needless to say he was a Scotsman.
I am sure that many more of our people will plan to travel to your country for the Olympic Games in Seoul in 1988.
All this creates an excellent base for our relations.
We have admired the energy and skill which have gone into your economic growth— [end p8] indeed I think we could admit to a touch of envy.
We are pleased that you join us in supporting a new round of multilateral trade negotiations which should further reduce and indeed eliminate remaining barriers to trade, and deal also with restrictions on trade in services, which play such a rapidly increasing role in the world economy. [end p9]
We hope that Korea will play a full and constructive part in these negotiations—and that one result will be a very rapid increase in our exports to Korea.
Because Britain has a very great deal to offer.
Our economy is thriving.
Productivity is rising fast.
Thousands of new jobs are being created.
Round this table you will find the leaders [end p10] of some of the most advanced and successful British companies who have a great deal to offer Korea.
We welcome your interest in Britain's technological and scientific advances, and I am pleased that a Memorandum of Understanding is to be signed tomorrow which will take forward our co-operation in this important area. [end p11]
Mr. President, the Republic of Korea is in the front line of freedom.
We in Britain feel ourselves in the same position—the frontier of freedom runs right across Europe and our forces are on that frontier to defend freedom.
We have both known the challenge: and our countries have both responded. [end p12]
There is an old Korean saying: “the land where you now live is your native country” .
I hope you will regard Britain as your native country while you are here, on this visit which leads us into the second century of formal relations between Britain and Korea.
I ask everyone here to stand to drink a toast to the President of the Republic of Korea, to the [end p13] success of his visit, and to the second century of relations between Britain and Korea.