Original YT playout date: 31 December 2009
Duration: 1:53

Thank you for being yourselves, not getting pushed about like every other country.

Thank you for managing to feed and clothe one quarter of the human race in relative comfort, increasing greatly the standard of living of the average citizen of China, and, as such, the average human being on this planet.

Thank you for regarding with skepticism the directions western politicians seem to think we should go.

Thank you for being an alternative.

Thank you for being the host nation of the world’s largest ever Christian revival, and those of you that do not share the Christian faith, thank you for the relaxation of distrust towards Christian people. It is not necessarily a western faith – it is said some of the apostles reached China before the message ever set foot in Europe.

Please don’t judge ordinary British people on the statements of its government – if there were an election tomorrow, they would lose. If we were free to have a referendum on capital punishment for drug pushers, we’d probably vote for it.

Of the oil and other carbon resources that are left, you and other countries that had been less developed before (partly thanks to the British pushing of drugs there in previous centuries), have the same right as anyone else to buy and use them. You know as well as we do what will happen when they run out, and don’t need a lecture or bullying from the West on that score. Success in business for China has meant less success for us – let’s keep a sporting and a fair outlook on that. If we all do business in an ethical way then we can afford to be philosophical – win some, lose some, as the various inequities of wealth around this planet get sorted out by the free market economics you have come to gain mastery of.

Your ancient and complex culture is too hard for many of us to understand, whereas so many of you have learned our languages and understand us well. Help us to learn your language and civilisation, so that we can overcome our fear of each other and go forward as one human race into the future.”
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