Lyndon Johnson: 'We will stand in Vietnam', press conference escalating war - 1965

28 July 1965, Washington DC, USA

My fellow Americans:

Not long ago I received a letter from a woman in the Midwest. She wrote:

Dear Mr. President:

In my humble way I am writing to you about the crisis in Viet-Nam. I have a son who is now in Viet-Nam. My husband served in World War II. Our country was at war, but now, this time, it is just something that I don't understand. Why?"

Well, I have tried to answer that question dozens of times and more in practically every State in this Union. I have discussed it fully in Baltimore in April, in Washington in May, in San Francisco in June. Let me again, now, discuss it here in the East Room of the White House.

Why must young Americans, born into a land exultant with hope and with golden promise, toil and suffer and sometimes die in such a remote and distant place?

The answer, like the war itself, is not an easy one, but it echoes clearly from the painful lessons of half a century. Three times in my lifetime, in two World Wars and in Korea, Americans have gone to far lands to fight for freedom. We have learned at a terrible and a brutal cost that retreat does not bring safety and weakness does not bring peace.

It is this lesson that has brought us to Viet-Nam. This is a different kind of war. There are no marching armies or solemn declarations. Some citizens of South Viet-Nam at times, with understandable grievances, have joined in the attack on their own government.

But we must not let this mask the central fact that this is really war. It is guided by North Viet-Nam and it is spurred by Communist China. Its goal is to conquer the South, to defeat American power, and to extend the Asiatic dominion of communism. There are great stakes in the balance. Most of the non-Communist nations of Asia cannot, by themselves and alone, resist the growing might and the grasping ambition of Asian communism.

Our power, therefore, is a very vital shield. If we are driven from the field in Viet-Nam, then no nation can ever again have the same confidence in American promise, or in American protection.

In each land the forces of independence would be considerably weakened, and an Asia so threatened by Communist domination would certainly imperil the security of the United States itself.

We did not choose to be the guardians at the gate, but there is no one else.

Nor would surrender in Viet-Nam bring peace, because we learned from Hitler at Munich that success only feeds the appetite of aggression. The battle would be renewed in one country and then another country, bringing with it perhaps even larger and crueler conflict, as we have learned from the lessons of history.

Moreover, we are in Viet-Nam to fulfill one of the most solemn pledges of the American Nation. Three Presidents--President Eisenhower, President Kennedy, and your present President--over 11 years have committed themselves and have promised to help defend this small and valiant nation.

Strengthened by that promise, the people of South Viet-Nam have fought for many long years. Thousands of them have died. Thousands more have been crippled and scarred by war. We just cannot now dishonor our word, or abandon our commitment, or leave those who believed us and who trusted us to the terror and repression and murder that would follow.

This, then, my fellow Americans, is why we are in Viet-Nam.

My fellow Americans:

Once again in man's age-old struggle for a better life and a world of peace, the wisdom, courage, and compassion of the American people are being put to the test. This is the meaning of the tragic conflict in Vietnam.

In meeting the present challenge, it is essential that our people seek understanding, and that our leaders speak with candor.

I have therefore directed that this report to the American people be compiled and widely distributed. In its pages you will find statements on Vietnam by three leaders of your Government--by your President, your Secretary of State, and your Secretary of Defense.

These statements were prepared for different audiences, and they reflect the differing responsibilities of each speaker. The congressional testimony has been edited to avoid undue repetition and to incorporate the sense of the discussions that ensued.

Together, they construct a clear definition of America's role in the Vietnam conflict:

the dangers and hopes that Vietnam holds for all free men
the fullness and limits of our national objectives in a war we did not seek
the constant effort on our part to bring this war we do not desire to a quick and honorable end.

What are our goals in that war-strained land?

First, we intend to convince the Communists that we cannot be defeated by force of arms or by superior power. They are not easily convinced. In recent months they have greatly increased their fighting forces and their attacks and the number of incidents.

I have asked the Commanding General, General Westmoreland, what more he needs to meet this mounting aggression. He has told me. We will meet his needs.

I have today ordered to Viet-Nam the Air Mobile Division and certain other forces which will raise our fighting strength from 75,000 to 125,000 men almost immediately. Additional forces will be needed later, and they will be sent as requested.

This will make it necessary to increase our active fighting forces by raising the monthly draft call from 17,000 over a period of time to 35,000 per month, and for us to step up our campaign for voluntary enlistments.

After this past week of deliberations, I have concluded that it is not essential to order Reserve units into service now. If that necessity should later be indicated, I will give the matter most careful consideration and I will give the country--you--an adequate notice before taking such action, but only after full preparations.

We have also discussed with the Government of South Viet-Nam lately, the steps that we will take to substantially increase their own effort, both on the battlefield and toward reform and progress in the villages. Ambassador Lodge is now formulating a new program to be tested upon his return to that area.

These steps, like our actions in the past, are carefully measured to do what must be done to bring an end to aggression and a peaceful settlement.

We do not want an expanding struggle with consequences that no one can perceive, nor will we bluster or bully or flaunt our power, but we will not surrender and we will not retreat.

For behind our American pledge lies the determination and resources, I believe, of all of the American Nation.

Second, once the Communists know, as we know, that a violent solution is impossible, then a peaceful solution is inevitable.

We are ready now, as we have always been, to move from the battlefield to the conference table. I have stated publicly and many times, again and again, America's willingness to begin unconditional discussions with any government, at any place, at any time. Fifteen efforts have been made to start these discussions with the help of 40 nations throughout the world, but there has been no answer.

But we are going to continue to persist, if persist we must, until death and desolation have led to the same conference table where others could now join us at a much smaller cost.

Let me also add now a personal note. I do not find it easy to send the flower of our youth, our finest young men, into battle. I have spoken to you today of the divisions and the forces and the battalions and the units, but I know them all, every one. I have seen them in a thousand streets, of a hundred towns, in every State in this Union--working and laughing and building, and filled with hope and life. I think I know, too, how their mothers weep and how their families sorrow.

This is the most agonizing and the most painful duty of your President.

There is something else, too. When I was young, poverty was so common that we didn't know it had a name. An education was something that you had to fight for, and water was really life itself. I have now been in public life 35 years, more than three decades, and in each of those 35 years I have seen good men, and wise leaders, struggle to bring the blessings of this land to all of our people.

And now I am the President. It is now my opportunity to help every child get an education, to help every Negro and every American citizen have an equal opportunity, to have every family get a decent home, and to help bring healing to the sick and dignity to the old.

As I have said before, that is what I have lived for, that is what I have wanted all my life since I was a little boy, and I do not want to see all those hopes and all those dreams of so many people for so many years now drowned in the wasteful ravages of cruel wars. I am going to do all I can do to see that that never happens.

But I also know, as a realistic public servant, that as long as there are men who hate and destroy, we must have the courage to resist, or we will see it all, all that we have built, all that we hope to build, all of our dreams for freedom--all, all will be swept away on the flood of conquest.

So, too, this shall not happen. We will stand in Vietnam.

Arthur Calwell: 'We oppose the Government’s decision to send 800 men to fight in Vietnam', Drum Beat speech - 1964

4 May 1965, Canberra, Australia

The great speechwriter, Graham Freudenberg, who wrote for Whitlam and Hawke, nominated this speech with Calwell as the best speech of his career.

The Government’s decision to send the First Battalion of the Australian Regular Army to Vietnam is, without question, one of the most significant events in the history of this Commonwealth. Why I believe this will be explained in the course of my speech. Therefore, it is a matter for regret that the Prime Minister’s announcement was made in the atmosphere that prevailed around the precincts of this Parliament last Thursday. When one recalls that even two hours before the Prime Minister rose to make his statement it was being said on his behalf that there was no certainty that any statement would be made at all, it can hardly be said that the Government’s handling of the matter was designed to inspire confidence or trust.

However, I do not wish to dwell on that unhappy episode. The matter before us is far too important to allow anything to obscure or confuse the basic issue before us. The over-riding issue which this Parliament has to deal with at all times is the nation’s security. All our words, all our policies, all our actions, must be judged ultimately by this one crucial test: What best promotes our national security, what best guarantees our national survival? It is this test which the Labor Party has applied to the Government’s decision. We have, of course, asked ourselves other related questions, but basically the issue remains one of Australia’s security. Therefore, on behalf of all my colleagues of Her Majesty’s Opposition, I say that we oppose the Government’s decision to send 800 men to fight in Vietnam. We oppose it firmly and completely.

We regret the necessity that has come about. We regret that as a result of the Government’s action it has come about. It is not our desire, when servicemen are about to be sent to distant battlefields, and when war, cruel, costly and interminable, stares us in the face, that the nation should be divided. But it is the Government which has brought this tragic situation about and we will not shirk our responsibilities in stating the views we think serve Australia best. Our responsibility, like that of the Government, is great but, come what may, we will do our duty as we see it and know it to be towards the people of Australia and our children’s children. Therefore, I say, we oppose this decision firmly and completely.

We do not think it is a wise decision. We do not think it is a timely decision. We do not think it is a right decision. We do not think it will help the fight against Communism. On the contrary, we believe it will harm that fight in the long term. We do not believe it will promote the welfare of the people of Vietnam. On the contrary, we believe it will prolong and deepen the suffering of that unhappy people so that Australia’s very name may become a term of reproach among them. We do not believe that it represents a wise or even intelligent response to the challenge of Chinese power. On the contrary, we believe it mistakes entirely the nature of that power, and that it materially assists China in her subversive aims. Indeed, we cannot conceive a decision by this Government more likely to promote the long term interests of China in Asia and the Pacific. We of the Labor Party do not believe that this decision serves, or is consistent with, the immediate strategic interests of Australia. On the contrary, we believe that, by sending one quarter of our pitifully small effective military strength to distant Vietnam, this Government dangerously denudes Australia and its immediate strategic environs of effective defence power. Thus, for all these and other reasons, we believe we have no choice but to oppose this decision in the name of Australia and of Australia’s security.

I propose to show that the Government’s decision rests on three false assumptions: An erroneous view of the nature of the war in Vietnam; a failure to understand the nature of the Communist challenge; and a false notion as to the interests of America and her allies. No debate on the Government’s decision can proceed, or even begin, unless we make an attempt to understand the nature of the war in Vietnam. Indeed, this is the crux of the matter; for unless we understand the nature of the war, we cannot understand what Australia’s correct role in it should be.

The Government takes the grotesquely over-simplified position that this is a straightforward case of aggression from North Vietnam against an independent South Vietnam. In the Government’s view, such internal subversion as there may be in South Vietnam is directed and operated from the North; that is to say, the Communist insurgents – the Vietcong – are merely the agents of the North, recruited in the North, trained in the North, instructed by the North, supplied from the North and infiltrated from the North.

The Government then takes this theory a little further by cleverly pointing to the undoubted fact that just as Communist North Vietnam lies north of South Vietnam, so Communist China lies north of North Vietnam. Thus, according to this simplified, not to say simple, theory, everything falls into place and the whole operation becomes, in the Prime Minister’s words ”part of a thrust by Communist China between the Indian and Pacific Oceans”. And by this reasoning, the very map of Asia itself becomes a kind of conspiracy of geography against Australia.

But is this picture of Chinese military aggression thrusting down inexorably through Indo China, Malaysia and Indonesia to Australia a true or realistic one? Does it state the true nature of the Chinese threat? Does it speak the truth of the actual situation in Vietnam? Does it tell the truth about the relation between China and North Vietnam? I believe it does not. I propose to show that it does not. If it is not true, then the Government is basing its entire policy on false premises, and I can imagine no greater threat to the security of this nation than that.

Let us first examine the case of South Vietnam itself. It is a gross and misleading over-simplification to depict this war in simple terms of military aggression from the North. That there has long been, and still is, aggression from the North and subversion inspired from the North, I do not for one moment deny. But the war in South Vietnam, the war to which we are sending this one battalion as a beginning in our commitment, is also a civil war and it is a guerrilla war. The great majority of the Vietcong are South Vietnamese. The object of the Vietcong in the war – this guerrilla war – is to avoid as far as possible direct entanglement with massed troops in order that by infiltration, subversion and terrorism, they may control villages, hamlets, outposts and small communities wherever these are most vulnerable. This, like all civil wars and all guerilla wars, has been accompanied by unusual savagery. This war has a savagery and a record of atrocities, with savage inhumanity daily perpetrated by both sides, all of its own. We cannot condemn the atrocities of the one without condemning those of the other. We of the Labor Party abhor and condemn both, as we condemn all atrocities. I repeat: The war in South Vietnam is a civil war, aided and abetted by the North Vietnamese Government, but neither created nor principally maintained by it. To call it simply “foreign aggression” as the Prime Minister does, and as his colleagues do, is to misrepresent the facts and, thereby, confuse the issue with which we must ultimately come to terms.

The people of Vietnam may, therefore, be divided into three kinds: Those who support the present Government and are actively anti-Communist; those who are Communist and of whom the Vietcong are actively and openly engaged in subversion; and those who are indifferent. I have not the slightest doubt that the overwhelming majority of the ordinary people of Vietnam fall into the last category. They watch uncomprehendingly the ebb and flow of this frightful war around them, and as each day threatens some new horror, they become even more uncomprehending. And because this is so, our policy of creating a democatic anti-Communist South Vietnam has failed. That failure can possibly be reversed, but it cannot be reversed by military means alone. Ten years ago, anti-Communism was fairly strong in Vietnam. For some years, the late President Ngo Dinh Diem did represent and organise resistance against Communism. When he had support, he was brought here, feted, and seated in honour on the very floor of this chamber. When his regime, becoming increasingly corrupt and irrelevant to the needs of the people, lost that support, he was murdered. Not a word of regret, of sorrow or sympathy was said by members of the Australian Government in memory of him whom they once hailed as the saviour of his country, though, indeed some of the Government extremist supporters outside this Parliament charged President Kennedy with having approved his murder, and Mr. Henry Cabot Lodge, among others, with actually planning it.

What support has the present Government, the eighth or ninth regime since the murder of Diem 18 months ago? It has no basis of popular support, It presumably has the support of the Army, or the ruling junta of the Army. It will fall and be replaced when it loses the support of the ruling junta, or when that junta itself is replaced by another. That has happened eight or nine times in the past year and a half. The Americans have supported four of the governments of South Vietnam and have opposed the other four. There is not one jot or tittle of evidence to support the belief that is being sedulously fostered in this country that the local population cares one iota whether it happens again eight or nine times in the coming 18 months. The Government of South Vietnam does not base itself on popular support. Yet this is the Government at whose request, and in whose support, we are to commit a battalion of Australian fighting men. And we are told we are doing this in the name of the free and independent Government and people of South Vietnam. I do not believe it, and neither does anybody else who considers the matter with any degree of intelligence.

The Prime Minister points to increasing support from North Vietnam as being a totally new factor in the situation. I agree that the pace of North Vietnamese aggression – and that is the only term for it – has increased, though estimates as to its extent vary considerably. The Prime Minister speaks of 10,000 infiltrators last year. The American White Paper on the subject put the figure at 4,000-odd certain, and 3,000 more estimated – at the outside 7,300. And yet I am bound to say that the evidence of that White Paper does not seem to bear out its own assertions. The thesis of the White Paper was that the war in Vietnam could be fully explained in terms of Northern aggression. Yet the report of the International Control Commission, quoted in the White Paper, listed, as having been captured from the Vietcong between 1962 and 1964, three rifles of Chinese origin, 46 of Russian origin, 40 sub-machine guns and 26 rifles of Czech origin, and 26 weapons of all kinds of North Vietnamese origin. Other weapons are in proportion. All this for a force of some estimated 100,000 men who have waged war successfully for years against 500,000 troops.

Now this does not seem to me to support the theory that in past years the efforts of the Vietcong were mainly dependent on supplies from the North. And even if we accept the view that Northern support has substantially increased in recent months, it cannot lend any credence to the belief that the Vietcong effort will collapse if this new, increased support is cut off. The more the Government relies on the theory of increased Northern support, as a basis for its actions, the more difficulty it must have in explaining away the successes of the Vietcong in the past when, as it maintains, Northern support was comparatively small. If it believes that it is simply a question of aggression from the North, and that all will be solved when that aggression is stopped, then it is deluding itself, and is trying to delude the Australian people as well.

Against the background of these facts, we can judge the true significance of the Australian commitment. The Government will try, indeed it has already tried, to project a picture in which once the aggressive invaders from the North are halted, our men will be engaged in the exercise of picking off the Vietcong, themselves invaders from the North and stranded from their bases and isolated from their supplies. But it will not be like that at all. Our men will be fighting the largely indigenous Vietcong in their own home territory. They will be fighting in the midst of a largely indifferent, if not resentful, and frightened population. They will be fighting at the request of, and in support, and presumably, under the direction of an unstable, inefficient, partially corrupt military regime which lacks even the semblance of being, or becoming, democratically based. But, it will be said, even if this is true, that there are far larger considerations. China must be stopped, the United States must not be humiliated in Asia. I agree wholeheartedly with both those propositions.

But this also I must say: Our present course is playing right into China’s hands, and our present policy will, if not changed, surely and inexorably lead to American humiliation in Asia. Communist China will use every means at her disposal to increase her power and influence. But her existing military machine is not well adapted to that objective. It is not so at this moment and it may not be so for the next ten years. Therefore, she chooses other means. Yet we have preferred to look at China mainly in terms of a military threat and thus have neglected to use other, far more effective weapons at our disposal, or, because of our preoccupation with the military threat, we have used those weapons badly and clumsily. We talk about the lesson of Munich as if we had never learnt a single lesson since 1938.

Preoccupied with the fear of a military Munich, we have suffered a score of moral Dunkirks. Preoccupied with the military threat of Chinese Communism, we have channelled the great bulk of our aid to Asia towards military expenditure. Preoccupied with the idea of monolithic, imperialistic Communism, we have channelled our support to those military regimes which were loudest in their professions of anti-Communism, no matter how reactionary, unpopular or corrupt they may have been. Preoccupied with fear of Communist revolution, we have supported and sought to support those who would prevent any sort of revolution, even when inevitable; and even when most needful. Preoccupied with so-called Western interests, we have never successfully supported nationalism as the mighty force it is against Communism. We have supported nationalism only when it supported the West, and we have thereby pushed nationalism towards Communism. Preoccupied with the universality of our own Christian beliefs, we have never tried to understand the power of the other great world religions against Communism.

Each of those preoccupations has worked for our defeat in Vietnam, and is working for our defeat in Asia, Africa and South America. And herein lies one of the greatest dangers of the Government’s decision on large-scale military commitments. It blinds and obscures the real nature of the problem of Communist expansion. It lends support and encouragement to those who see the problem in purely military terms, and whose policies would, if ever adopted, lead to disaster. Here is the real risk of the world nuclear war feared by the Minister for External Affairs (Mr. Hasluck). In his speech to the South East Asia Treaty Organisation yesterday he said the third world war could break out tomorrow in South Vietnam. If the idea of military containment is unsuccessful, as I believe it will surely prove in the long term, as it has already in the short term, it will contribute to that spirit of defeatism and impotence in the face of Communism. That is the greatest enemy we have to fear.

We are not impotent in the fight against Communism. We are not powerless against China, if we realise that the true nature of the threat from China is not military invasion but political subversion. And that threat, if we believe for one moment in our own professions, and in our own principles, we can fight and beat. But to exhaust our resources in the bottomless pit of jungle warfare, in a war in which we have not even defined our purpose honestly, or explained what we would accept as victory, is the very height of folly and the very depths of despair.

Humiliation for America could come in one of two ways – either by outright defeat, which is unlikely, or by her becoming interminably bogged down in the awful morass of this war, as France was for ten years. That situation would in turn lead to one of two things – withdrawal through despair, or all out war, through despair. Both these would be equally disastrous. What would be the objective of an all out war? It could only be the destruction of the North Vietnamese regime. And what would that create? It would create a vacuum. America can destroy the regime, but it cannot conquer and hold North Vietnam, and into that vacuum China would undoubtedly move. Thus, if that happened, we would have replaced a nationalistic communist regime – in a country with a thousand years history of hostility towards China – with actual Chinese occupation, and either we would have to accept this disaster or face the even greater disaster of all out war with China.

This is the terrible prospect which people like the Prime Minister of Britain, the Secretary General of the United Nations, the Prime Minister of Canada and Pope Paul have seen, and which they are trying to avert. They all are true friends of the United States of America, and they do not want to see America humiliated. That is why they have called for negotiations – negotiations while the United States remains in a position of comparative strength, negotiations while she is in a position to influence terms. Yet at the very time when the great weight of Western opinion calls for a pause, Australia says there must be no pause for reflection, no pause for reconsideration. The role of Australia should have been to support the call for negotiations and help those who were working towards them. Nobody underestimates the difficulties and dangers of negotiation. That is why we understood and sympathised with American efforts to secure a stronger base for negotiations.

By its decision, the Australian Government has withdrawn unilaterally from the ranks of the negotiators, if indeed it was ever concerned about them. Our contribution will be negligible, militarily. But we have reduced ourselves to impotence in the field of diplomacy. We should have been active in the field of diplomacy for a long time. But we have done nothing in that field of affairs. It is true that President Johnson’s cautious call for ” unconditional negotiations ” at Baltimore has been rejected by Hanoi and Peking. But if we accept the Prime Minister’s assurance that the decision to send a battalion to Vietnam was taken “several weeks ago “, then that rejection had nothing to do with the Government’s decision. For on the Prime Minister’s own claim, the decision was made before both the President’s offer and its rejection by the Communists.

This goes far to explain the Prime Minister’s abrupt and brutal denunciation of the principle of negotiations three weeks ago. It explains his elaborate attempts to refute the bishops. Australia’s aim should have been to help end the war, not to extend it. We have now lost all power to help end it. Instead, we have declared our intention to extend it, insofar as lies in our power. We have committed ourselves to the propositions that Communism can be defeated by military means alone and that it is the function of European troops to impose the will of the West upon Asia. These are dangerous, delusive and disastrous propositions. The Prime Minister pays lip service to President Johnson’s call for a massive aid programme, financed by all the industrialised nations, including the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. But it is clear that the right honorable gentleman’s real thinking, and that of his Government, run only along the narrow groove of a military response.

The dispatch of a battalion of Australian troops to South Vietnam is the outcome of that thinking. By this decision, we set our face towards war as the correct means of opposing Communism, and declare against the social, economic and political revolution that alone can effectively combat Communism. The key to the future of IndoChina is the Mekong River delta and valley. The Communists understand this well. But imagine the thundering reply we could give to Communism if, under the auspices of the United Nations, we were to join in a vastly increased programme for the reclamation and development of the Mekong. The work has started, and it goes on, despite the war. But how much more could be done if we were really determined to turn our resources from war to peace. This surely is the key to the door of hope which President Johnson spoke of in his Baltimore speech. But this Government has closed the door and thrown away the key.

I cannot refrain from making an observation about Australia’s trade with China. It is obvious that the Government’s decision, and particularly the grounds upon which the Government justifies its decision, raise in a particularly acute form the moral issue connected with this trade. The Government justifies its action on the ground of Chinese expansionist aggression. And yet this same Government is willing to continue and expand trade in strategic materials with China. We are selling wheat, wool and steel to China. The wheat is used to feed the armies of China. The wool is used to clothe the armies of China. The steel is used to equip the armies of China. Yet the Government which is willing to encourage this trade is the same Government which now sends Australian troops, in the words of the Prime Minister, to prevent ” the downward thrust of China “. The Government may be able to square its conscience on this matter, but this is logically and morally impossible.

Finally, there is the question of Australia’s immediate strategic concern. It is only a few weeks since both the Prime Minister and the Minister for External Affairs spoke of the need for priorities, and they both made it plain that our first priority was the defence of Malaysia. A short time ago, the Government informed the United Kingdom and the Malaysian Governments that it was not possible to spare another battalion from our already strained resources. Now they have found a battalion for service in Vietnam. Thus, our troops are involved on several fronts. We are the only country in the world fighting on two fronts in South East Asia. America is committed to Vietnam. Britain is committed to Malaysia. Australia, with its limited resources, with its meagre defences, has obligations in Vietnam, Malaya, Borneo and New Guinea. The commitments are apparently without end, in size and in number.

How long will it be before we are drawing upon our conscript youth to service these growing and endless requirements? Does the Government now say that conscripts will not be sent? If so, has it completely forgotten what it said about conscription last year? The basis of that decision was that the new conscripts would be completely integrated in the Regular Army. The voluntary system was brought abruptly to an end. If the Government now says that conscripts will not be sent, this means that the 1st Battalion is never to be reinforced, replaced or replenished. If this is not so, then the Government must have a new policy on the use of conscripts – a policy not yet announced. Or, if it has not changed its policy, the Government means that the 1st Battalion is not to be reinforced, replaced or replenished from the resources of the existing Regular Army. Which is it to be? There is now a commitment of 800. As the war drags on, who is to say that this will not rise to 8,000, and that these will not be drawn from our voteless, conscripted 20 year olds? And where are the troops from America’s other allies? It is plain that Britain, Canada, France, Germany and Japan, for example, do not see things with the clear-cut precision of the Australian Government.

I cannot close without addressing a word directly to our fighting men who are now by this decision, committed to the chances of war: Our hearts and prayers are with you. Our minds and reason cannot support those who have made the decision to send you to this war, and we shall do our best to have that decision reversed. But we shall do our duty to the utmost in supporting you to do your duty. In terms of everything that an army in the field requires, we shall never deny you the aid and support that it is your right to expect in the service of your country. To the members of the Government, I say only this: If, by the process of misrepresentation of our motives, in which you are so expert, you try to further divide this nation for political purposes, yours will be a dreadful responsibility, and you will have taken a course which you will live to regret.

And may I, through you, Mr. Speaker, address this message to the members of my own Party – my colleagues here in this Parliament, and that vast band of Labor men and women outside: The course we have agreed to take today is fraught with difficulty. I cannot promise you that easy popularity can be bought in times like these; nor are we looking for it. We are doing our duty as we see it. When the drums beat and the trumpets sound, the voice of reason and right can be heard in the land only with difficulty. But if we are to have the courage of our convictions, then we must do our best to make that voice heard. I offer you the probability that you will be traduced, that your motives will be misrepresented, that your patriotism will be impugned, that your courage will be called into question. But I also offer you the sure and certain knowledge that we will be vindicated; that generations to come will record with gratitude that when a reckless Government willfully endangered the security of this nation, the voice of the Australian Labor Party was heard, strong and clear, on the side of sanity and in the cause of humanity, and in the interests of Australia’s security.

Let me sum up. We believe that America must not be humiliated and must not be forced to withdraw. But we are convinced that sooner or later the dispute in Vietnam must be settled through the councils of the United Nations. If it is necessary to back with a peace force the authority of the United Nations, we would support Australian participation to the hilt. But we believe that the military involvement in the present form decided on by the Australian Government represents a threat to Australia’s standing in Asia, to our power for good in Asia and above all to the security of this nation.

Christopher Wray: 'China is engaged in a whole-of-state effort to become the world’s only superpower', Hudson Institute address - 2020

7 July 2020, video presentation, Washington DC, USA

Good morning. I realize it’s challenging, particularly under the current circumstances, to put on an event like this, so I’m grateful to the Hudson Institute for hosting us today.

The greatest long-term threat to our nation’s information and intellectual property, and to our economic vitality, is the counterintelligence and economic espionage threat from China. It’s a threat to our economic security—and by extension, to our national security.

As National Security Advisor O’Brien said in his recent remarks, we cannot close our eyes and ears to what China is doing—and today, in light of the importance of this threat, I will provide more detail on the Chinese threat than the FBI has ever presented in an open forum. This threat is so significant that the attorney general and secretary of state will also be addressing a lot of these issues in the next few weeks. But if you think these issues are just an intelligence issue, or a government problem, or a nuisance largely just for big corporations who can take care of themselves—you could not be more wrong.

It’s the people of the United States who are the victims of what amounts to Chinese theft on a scale so massive that it represents one of the largest transfers of wealth in human history.

If you are an American adult, it is more likely than not that China has stolen your personal data.

In 2017, the Chinese military conspired to hack Equifax and made off with the sensitive personal information of 150 million Americans—we’re talking nearly half of the American population and most American adults—and as I’ll discuss in a few moments, this was hardly a standalone incident.

Our data isn’t the only thing at stake here—so are our health, our livelihoods, and our security.

We’ve now reached the point where the FBI is opening a new China-related counterintelligence case about every 10 hours. Of the nearly 5,000 active FBI counterintelligence cases currently underway across the country, almost half are related to China. And at this very moment, China is working to compromise American health care organizations, pharmaceutical companies, and academic institutions conducting essential COVID-19 research.

But before I go on, let me be clear: This is not about the Chinese people, and it’s certainly not about Chinese Americans. Every year, the United States welcomes more than 100,000 Chinese students and researchers into this country. For generations, people have journeyed from China to the United States to secure the blessings of liberty for themselves and their families—and our society is better for their contributions. So, when I speak of the threat from China, I mean the government of China and the Chinese Communist Party.

The Chinese Regime and the Scope of Its Ambitions

To understand this threat and how we must act to respond to it, the American people should remember three things.

First: We need to be clear-eyed about the scope of the Chinese government’s ambition. China—the Chinese Communist Party—believes it is in a generational fight to surpass our country in economic and technological leadership.

That is sobering enough. But it’s waging this fight not through legitimate innovation, not through fair and lawful competition, and not by giving their citizens the freedom of thought and speech and creativity that we treasure here in the United States. Instead, China is engaged in a whole-of-state effort to become the world’s only superpower by any means necessary.

A Diverse and Multi-Layered Approach

The second thing the American people need to understand is that China uses a diverse range of sophisticated techniques—everything from cyber intrusions to corrupting trusted insiders. They’ve even engaged in outright physical theft. And they’ve pioneered an expansive approach to stealing innovation through a wide range of actors—including not just Chinese intelligence services but state-owned enterprises, ostensibly private companies, certain kinds of graduate students and researchers, and a whole variety of other actors working on their behalf.

Economic Espionage

To achieve its goals and surpass America, China recognizes it needs to make leaps in cutting-edge technologies. But the sad fact is that instead of engaging in the hard slog of innovation, China often steals American intellectual property and then uses it to compete against the very American companies it victimized—in effect, cheating twice over. They’re targeting research on everything from military equipment to wind turbines to rice and corn seeds.

Through its talent recruitment programs, like the so-called Thousand Talents Program, the Chinese government tries to entice scientists to secretly bring our knowledge and innovation back to China—even if that means stealing proprietary information or violating our export controls and conflict-of-interest rules.

Take the case of scientist Hongjin Tan, for example, a Chinese national and American lawful permanent resident. He applied to China’s Thousand Talents Program and stole more than $1 billion—that’s with a “b”—worth of trade secrets from his former employer, an Oklahoma-based petroleum company, and got caught. A few months ago, he was convicted and sent to prison.

Or there’s the case of Shan Shi, a Texas-based scientist, also sentenced to prison earlier this year. Shi stole trade secrets regarding syntactic foam, an important naval technology used in submarines. Shi, too, had applied to China’s Thousand Talents Program, and specifically pledged to “digest” and “absorb” the relevant technology in the United States. He did this on behalf of Chinese state-owned enterprises, which ultimately planned to put the American company out of business and take over the market.

In one of the more galling and egregious aspects of the scheme, the conspirators actually patented in China the very manufacturing process they’d stolen, and then offered their victim American company a joint venture using its own stolen technology. We’re talking about an American company that spent years and millions of dollars developing that technology, and China couldn’t replicate it—so, instead, it paid to have it stolen.

And just two weeks ago, Hao Zhang was convicted of economic espionage, theft of trade secrets, and conspiracy for stealing proprietary information about wireless devices from two U.S. companies. One of those companies had spent over 20 years developing the technology Zhang stole.

These cases were among more than a thousand investigations the FBI has into China’s actual and attempted theft of American technology—which is to say nothing of over a thousand more ongoing counterintelligence investigations of other kinds related to China. We’re conducting these kinds of investigations in all 56 of our field offices. And over the past decade, we’ve seen economic espionage cases with a link to China increase by approximately 1,300 percent.

The stakes could not be higher, and the potential economic harm to American businesses and the economy as a whole almost defies calculation.

Clandestine Efforts

As National Security Advisor O’Brien discussed in his June remarks, the Chinese government is also making liberal use of hacking to steal our corporate and personal data—and they’re using both military and non-state hackers to do it. The Equifax intrusion I mentioned just a few moments ago, which led to the indictment of Chinese military personnel, was hardly the only time China stole the sensitive personal information of huge numbers of the American public.

For example, did any of you have health insurance through Anthem or one of its associated insurers? In 2015, China’s hackers stole the personal data of 80 million of that company’s current and former customers.

Or maybe you’re a federal employee—or you used to be one, or you applied for a government job once, or a family member or roommate did. Well, in 2014, China’s hackers stole more than 21 million records from OPM, the federal government’s Office of Personnel Management.

Why are they doing this? First, China has made becoming an artificial intelligence world leader a priority, and these kinds of thefts feed right into China’s development of artificial intelligence tools.

Compounding the threat, the data China stole is of obvious value as they attempt to identify people for secret intelligence gathering. On that front, China is using social media platforms—the same ones Americans use to stay connected or find jobs—to identify people with access to our government’s sensitive information and then target those people to try to steal it.

Just to pick one example, a Chinese intelligence officer posing as a headhunter on a popular social media platform recently offered an American citizen a sizeable sum of money in exchange for so-called “consulting” services. That sounds benign enough until you realize those “consulting” services were related to sensitive information the American target had access to as a U.S. military intelligence specialist.

Now that particular tale has a happy ending: The American citizen did the right thing and reported the suspicious contact, and the FBI, working together with our armed forces, took it from there. I wish I could say that all such incidents ended that way.

Threats to Academia

It’s a troublingly similar story in academia.

Through talent recruitment programs like the Thousand Talents Program I mentioned just a few moments ago, China pays scientists at American universities to secretly bring our knowledge and innovation back to China—including valuable, federally funded research. To put it bluntly, this means American taxpayers are effectively footing the bill for China’s own technological development. China then leverages its ill-gotten gains to undercut U.S. research institutions and companies, blunting our nation’s advancement and costing American jobs. And we are seeing more and more of these cases.

In May alone, we arrested both Qing Wang, a former researcher with the Cleveland Clinic who worked on molecular medicine and the genetics of cardiovascular disease, and Simon Saw-Teong Ang, a University of Arkansas scientist doing research for NASA. Both of these guys were allegedly committing fraud by concealing their participation in Chinese talent recruitment programs while accepting millions of dollars in American federal grant funding.

That same month, former Emory University professor Xiao-Jiang Li pled guilty to filing a false tax return for failing to report the income he’d received through China’s Thousand Talents Program. Our investigation found that while Li was researching Huntington’s disease at Emory, he was also pocketing half a million unreported dollars from China.

In a similar vein, Charles Lieber, chair of Harvard’s Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, was indicted just last month for making false statements to federal authorities about his Thousand Talents participation. The United States has alleged that Lieber concealed from both Harvard and the NIH his position as a strategic scientist at a Chinese university—and the fact that the Chinese government was paying him, through the Wuhan Institute of Technology, a $50,000 monthly stipend, more than $150,000 in living expenses, and more than $1.5 million to establish a laboratory back in China.

Malign Foreign Influence

There’s more. Another tool China and the Chinese Communist Party use to manipulate Americans is what we call malign foreign influence.

Now, traditional foreign influence is a normal, legal diplomatic activity typically conducted through diplomatic channels. But malign foreign influence efforts are subversive, undeclared, criminal, or coercive attempts to sway our government’s policies, distort our country’s public discourse, and undermine confidence in our democratic processes and values.

China is engaged in a highly sophisticated malign foreign influence campaign, and its methods include bribery, blackmail, and covert deals. Chinese diplomats also use both open, naked economic pressure and seemingly independent middlemen to push China’s preferences on American officials.

Just take one all-too-common illustration: Let’s say China gets wind that some American official is planning to travel to Taiwan—think a governor, a state senator, a member of Congress. China does not want that to happen, because that travel might appear to legitimize Taiwanese independence from China—and legitimizing Taiwan would, of course, be contrary to China’s “One China” policy.

So what does China do? Well, China has leverage over the American official’s constituents—American companies, academics, and members of the media all have legitimate and understandable reasons to want access to Chinese partners and markets. And because of the authoritarian nature of the Chinese Communist Party, China has immense power over those same partners and markets. So, China will sometimes start by trying to influence the American official overtly and directly. China might openly warn that if the American official goes ahead and takes that trip to Taiwan, China will take it out on a company from that official’s home state by withholding the company’s license to manufacture in China. That could be economically ruinous for the company, would directly pressure the American official to alter his travel plans, and the official would know that China was trying to influence him.

That would be bad enough. But the Chinese Communist Party often doesn’t stop there; it can’t stop there if it wants to stay in power—so it uses its leverage even more perniciously. If China’s more direct, overt influence campaign doesn’t do the trick, they sometimes turn to indirect, covert, deceptive influence efforts.

To continue with the illustration of the American official with travel plans that the Chinese Communist Party doesn’t like, China will work relentlessly to identify the people closest to that official—the people that official trusts most. China will then work to influence those people to act on China’s behalf as middlemen to influence the official. The co-opted middlemen may then whisper in the official’s ear and try to sway the official’s travel plans or public positions on Chinese policy. These intermediaries, of course, aren’t telling the American official that they’re Chinese Communist Party pawns—and worse still, some of these intermediaries may not even realize they’re being used as pawns, because they, too, have been deceived.

Ultimately, China doesn’t hesitate to use smoke, mirrors, and misdirection to influence Americans.

Similarly, China often pushes academics and journalists to self-censor if they want to travel into China. And we’ve seen the Chinese Communist Party pressure American media and sporting giants to ignore or suppress criticism of China’s ambitions regarding Hong Kong or Taiwan. This kind of thing is happening over and over, across the United States.

And I will note that the pandemic has unfortunately not stopped any of this—in fact, we have heard from federal, state, and even local officials that Chinese diplomats are aggressively urging support for China’s handling of the COVID-19 crisis. Yes, this is happening at both the federal and state levels. Not that long ago, we had a state senator who was recently even asked to introduce a resolution supporting China’s response to the pandemic.

The punchline is this: All of these seemingly inconsequential pressures add up to a policymaking environment in which Americans find themselves held over a barrel by the Chinese Communist Party.

Threats to the Rule of Law

All the while, China’s government and Communist Party have brazenly violated well-settled norms and the rule of law.

Since 2014, Chinese General Secretary Xi Jinping has spearheaded a program known as “Fox Hunt.” Now, China describes Fox Hunt as some kind of international anti-corruption campaign—it is not. Instead, Fox Hunt is a sweeping bid by General Secretary Xi to target Chinese nationals whom he sees as threats and who live outside China, across the world. We’re talking about political rivals, dissidents, and critics seeking to expose China’s extensive human rights violations.

Hundreds of the Fox Hunt victims that they target live right here in the United States, and many are American citizens or green card holders. The Chinese government wants to force them to return to China, and China’s tactics to accomplish that are shocking. For example, when it couldn’t locate one Fox Hunt target, the Chinese government sent an emissary to visit the target’s family here in the United States. The message they said to pass on? The target had two options: return to China promptly, or commit suicide. And what happens when Fox Hunt targets refuse to return to China? In the past, their family members both here in the United States and in China have been threatened and coerced, and those back in China have even been arrested for leverage.

I’ll take this opportunity to note that if you believe the Chinese government is targeting you—that you’re a potential Fox Hunt victim—please reach out to your local FBI field office.

Exploiting Our Openness

Understanding how a nation could engage in these tactics brings me to the third thing the American people need to remember: that China has a fundamentally different system than ours—and it’s doing all it can to exploit the openness of ours while taking advantage of its own closed system.

Many of the distinctions that mean a lot here in the United States are blurry or almost nonexistent in China—I’m talking about distinctions between the government and the Chinese Communist Party, between the civilian and military sectors, and between the state and the “private” sector.

For one thing, an awful lot of large Chinese businesses are state-owned enterprises—literally owned by the government, and thus the Party. And even if they aren’t, China’s laws allow its government to compel any Chinese company to provide any information it requests—including American citizens’ data.

On top of that, Chinese companies of any real size are legally required to have Communist Party “cells” inside them to keep them in line. Even more alarmingly, Communist Party cells have reportedly been established in some American companies operating in China as a cost of doing business there.

These kinds of features should give U.S. companies pause when they consider working with Chinese corporations like Huawei—and should give all Americans pause, too, when relying on such a company’s devices and networks. As the world’s largest telecommunications equipment manufacturer, Huawei has broad access to much that American companies do in China. It’s also been charged in the United States with racketeering conspiracy and has, as alleged in the indictment, repeatedly stolen intellectual property from U.S. companies, obstructed justice, and lied to the U.S. government and its commercial partners, including banks.

The allegations are clear: Huawei is a serial intellectual property thief, with a pattern and practice of disregarding both the rule of law and the rights of its victims. I have to tell you, it certainly caught my attention to read a recent article describing the words of Huawei’s founder, Ren Zhengfei, about the company’s mindset. At a Huawei research and development center, he reportedly told employees that to ensure the company’s survival, they need to—and I quote—“surge forward, killing as you go, to blaze us a trail of blood.” He’s also reportedly told employees that Huawei has entered, to quote, “a state of war.” I certainly hope he couldn’t have meant that literally, but it’s hardly an encouraging tone, given the company’s repeated criminal behavior.

In our modern world, there is perhaps no more ominous prospect than a hostile foreign government’s ability to compromise our country’s infrastructure and devices. If Chinese companies like Huawei are given unfettered access to our telecommunications infrastructure, they could collect any of your information that traverses their devices or networks. Worse still: They’d have no choice but to hand it over to the Chinese government if asked—the privacy and due process protections that are sacrosanct in the United States are simply non-existent in China.

Responding Effectively to the Threat

The Chinese government is engaged in a broad, diverse campaign of theft and malign influence, and it can execute that campaign with authoritarian efficiency. They’re calculating. They’re persistent. They’re patient. And they’re not subject to the righteous constraints of an open, democratic society or the rule of law.

China, as led by the Chinese Communist Party, is going to continue to try to misappropriate our ideas, influence our policymakers, manipulate our public opinion, and steal our data. They will use an all-tools and all-sectors approach—and that demands our own all-tools and all-sectors approach in response.

Our folks at the FBI are working their tails off every day to protect our nation’s companies, our universities, our computer networks, and our ideas and innovation. To do that, we’re using a broad set of techniques—from our traditional law enforcement authorities to our intelligence capabilities.

And I will briefly note that we’re having real success. With the help of our many foreign partners, we’ve arrested targets all over the globe. Our investigations and the resulting prosecutions have exposed the tradecraft and techniques the Chinese use, raising awareness of the threat and our industries’ defenses. They also show our resolve and our ability to attribute these crimes to those responsible. It’s one thing to make assertions—but in our justice system, when a person, or a corporation, is investigated and then charged with a crime, we have to prove the truth of the allegation beyond a reasonable doubt. The truth matters—and so, these criminal indictments matter. And we’ve seen how our criminal indictments have rallied other nations to our cause—which is crucial to persuading the Chinese government to change its behavior.

We’re also working more closely than ever with partner agencies here in the U.S. and our partners abroad. We can’t do it on our own; we need a whole-of-society response. That’s why we in the intelligence and law enforcement communities are working harder than ever to give companies, universities, and the American people themselves the information they need to make their own informed decisions and protect their most valuable assets.

Confronting this threat effectively does not mean we shouldn’t do business with the Chinese. It does not mean we shouldn’t host Chinese visitors. It does not mean we shouldn’t welcome Chinese students or coexist with China on the world stage. But it does mean that when China violates our criminal laws and international norms, we are not going to tolerate it, much less enable it. The FBI and our partners throughout the U.S. government will hold China accountable and protect our nation’s innovation, ideas, and way of life—with the help and vigilance of the American people.

Thank you for having me here today.

John Major: 'The values of liberal society are stalled, if not in retreat' The State We're In', Middle Temple, Treasurer's Lecture - 2020

premiered 9 November 2020, London, United Kingdom

It is a privilege to be invited to deliver this lecture and my only regret is that it is remote – with no live audience ….. nor the delights of a Middle Temple dinner.

Given the date, my subject is appropriate. On this day in 1923, Hitler failed to seize power in Germany; in 1938, it marked Kristallnacht and the Nazi assault on Jews; and, in 1989, the Berlin Wall fell.

Each of these events impacted on the wider world – and that wider world will now impact on “The State We’re In”.

The future of that State requires plain speaking if we are to be honest with our nation.

And, of course, with ourselves. The great powers of our age are the United States, China, and the European Union.

The world they straddle is fractious. The values of liberal society are stalled, if not in retreat. America and China are in a Trade War and an embryonic Cold War. Europe and America are far apart on many issues, but both deplore China’s authoritarian direction under President Xi.

Lesser powers like Russia – the Great Disrupter – and Turkey continue to subvert and to meddle.

Free trade and globalisation are now widely questioned.

Migration and radical Islam are an ever present problem.

Populism continues to promote prejudice and racial intolerance.

And, in many nation states, autocracy has grown – and democracy has fallen back.

Our world seems ill at ease, at a moment when harmony and collective decision making seem more and more essential for our security and well-being.

The post-War settlement is out of date.

The United Nations is hamstrung by the rules of its own Security Council.

The World Trade Organisation is paralysed, with no functioning resolution dispute procedure.

The World Health Organisation is under-funded, under-powered and under attack.

Despite all this, no nation seems prepared to lead the case for reform.

The financial crash of 2007 weakened many countries and the lives of billions of people; and, in the year of Covid, trillions of dollars have been diverted from growth as the virus has increased hardship on every Continent.

This is the wider context in which the United Kingdom must prepare for our future, whilst facing the added challenges of Covid-19 – and Brexit.

Our country has many virtues but, if we are to be successful in this challenging environment, we need to be cruelly honest with ourselves about what needs to be done to ensure our political and economic wellbeing.

If we’re complacent, we betray our own interests. If we see ourselves through rose-tinted spectacles, then we will deceive ourselves.

Complacency and nostalgia are the route to national decline. So I favour reality and optimism – but with the warning that false optimism is deceit by another name.

We are no longer a great power. We will never be so again. In a world of nearly 8 billion people, well under 1% are British.

We are a top second-rank power but, over the next half century – however well we perform – our small size and population makes it likely we will be passed by the growth of other, far larger, countries.

In recent decades, we have consoled ourselves that we “punch above our weight” in international affairs. I think that was true: but that was then, and this is now.

Our hefty international influence rested on our history and reputation, buttressed by our membership of the European Union and our close alliance with the United States.

Suddenly, we are no longer an irreplaceable bridge between Europe and America. We are now less relevant to them both.

COVID

At home, we must face Covid.

Covid has already left many families bereaved and bereft. It has changed lives and work patterns, cost billions, increased national debt and annual deficits.

It has destroyed public tolerance of austerity, and made tax rises inevitable – although not, if we are sensible, until the economy is more healthy.

The virus also presents a formidable obstacle to one of the Government’s better instincts. Their intention is to level up the regions and help individuals “left behind”. The pernicious effect of Covid will be to level down.

The problem is not so much the gap between rich and poor, but that the poor may become so indebted and destitute they are unable to maintain themselves – or their families.

The classic response to tide people over – until the private sector returns to full capacity – is for social subsidy out of taxation.

But billions upon billions have already been spent, and friction between the extent of need and the capacity to help is inevitable.

And there are many in need of help – businesses forced to shut down, the unemployed, the self-employed, the care sector, health, the arts, sport: the demands on the Exchequer are beyond anything we have known in peacetime.

The Government deserves credit for what has been spent so far, to set against criticism for unmet needs.

But I do find it surprising that – in the midst of the Covid crisis – the Government appears to be fostering disputes with the Judiciary, where all Governments should tread carefully; the Civil Service, upon whose help the Government depends; and the BBC, still the most respected broadcaster on the planet.

These are unmerited distractions from the issues the country needs them to focus on.

BREXIT

The core change in the New Britain being forged is – Brexit. It has been hidden behind Covid for a few months. It has not gone away. You have to be wilfully in denial not to see the damage already done, and not to be concerned at what it might mean.

Brexit divided England and Wales from Scotland and Northern Ireland. It divided political parties and families; the young and their elders; business and trade unions; and friend from friend. As its full impact becomes apparent in the New Year, old wounds may re-open.

There is no consensus on Brexit, and never has been. It was a bitterly divisive policy, and uncorked a populism that may be difficult to quell.

The Referendum debate was unlike any I have known before. Emotion overcame reality. And, in the search for hearts and minds and votes, fiction defeated fact and fostered a belief in a past that never was – whilst boosting enthusiasm for a future that may never be.

If that mode of politics takes root, it will kill all respect in our system of government.

In the Referendum, Britons voted to leave the European Union. I have never hidden my view, nor have I changed it. To my mind – and I am no starry-eyed European – Brexit is the worst foreign policy decision in my lifetime.

I have seen the EU from the inside and know its frustrations. But have no doubt we were better off in than we will be out.

The decision to leave will damage our future in many ways, and the reassurances we are given are unconvincing.

Brexit was sold to our electors on false premises.

Promises made will not – indeed, cannot – be kept. To leave the EU – to separate ourselves from our neighbours – was sold as “regaining sovereignty”, but it is, and will prove to be, a long and painful ball and chain on our national wellbeing.

After the Referendum, Brexiteers did not even bother to argue the merits of their case – why should they? – it was “the will of the people”.

And once “the will of the people” was asserted as a repeated mantra – and the Brexit leaders claimed to speak for all “the people” – any opposition to Brexit became illegitimate, and any contrary view was howled down.

Free speech for those who supported remaining in the EU came at a price. They were pilloried as “Remoaners”: sticking to long-held principles and policies, and warning of clear dangers ahead was depicted as “sour grapes by sore losers”.

Even Judges were denounced as “Enemies of the People” for ruling on a Point of Law. Opponents of Brexit were cowed, and free speech was curtailed. It was shameful. No democracy should find itself in such a position.

Overseas, the outcome of the Referendum delighted our enemies and dismayed our friends. As our nation voted against its history and its self-interest, a bemused world looked on, wondering why we had chosen to become poorer and less influential.

Brexit was sold to the nation as a win-win situation. It is not. We were promised we would stay in the Single Market. We have not. We were told trade with the EU would be frictionless. It will not be.

We were promised we would save billions in payments to the European Union: a bus was driven around the country telling us so. Not so: Brexit is costing billions – not saving them.

We were told that our “liberated country” could cut back on bureaucracy and regulations. We now know they will increase – and dramatically.

We were promised we would strike lucrative trade deals with America, India, China and others in quick time. Japan apart – we have not.

More recently – and for the first time in our long history – Ministers have proposed legislation giving them powers to break the law. This is a slippery slope down which no democratic Government should ever travel.

And, it was claimed, Brexit wouldn’t increase support for Scottish independence or a united Ireland. It has.

It defies logic that intelligent men and women making such extravagant promises did not know they were undeliverable – and yet they continued to make them.

It was politics. It was campaigning. It was for a cause.

It was also unforgiveable.

If that is how we are going to conduct our public affairs, then not only will our politics truly fall into a bad place, but our word as a nation will no longer be trusted.

POST-BREXIT TRADE

Trade has always been the life-blood of our prosperity.

We were promised a comprehensive trade deal with the EU. We were told this would be “the easiest deal in history” because “we hold all the cards”. Apparently not.

As the politics changed, the promises were ditched.

We can now look forward to a flimsy, barebones deal – or no deal at all. This is a wretched betrayal of what our electors were led to believe.

It now seems that on 1 January next year, Brexit may be even more brutal than anyone expected.

Brexit is no friend of free trade with Europe. It may set up new tariff barriers. And it certainly will:

set up non-tariff barriers;
damage supply chains;
add to regulations;
demand new customs and security declarations;
require Rules of Origin to prove where spare parts came from; – require tens of thousands of customs agents to process new bureaucracy; – create huge stockpiling dilemmas; and
require new massive storehouses to hold supplies.

These costs and complexities are the certain legacy of Brexit. This is as a result of our negotiating failure – and it is a failure.

Because of our bombast, our blustering, our threats and our inflexibility – our trade will be less profitable, our Treasury poorer, our jobs fewer, and our future less prosperous.

This is not hindsight wisdom: this outcome was not only foreseeable, it was foreseen. Unfortunately, in a brilliant mis-direction, all warnings were scorned as “Project Fear” and ignored. And, to add tragedy to farce, it was the people who were misled who will now lose out.

The Government has not been frank about our negotiations with Europe.

They say we are merely asking for a Canada deal, but that’s not so. We are asking for a deal without tariffs or quotas and for more on haulage, on energy, on aviation – and we are a bigger trading rival than Canada and nearer to the EU.

The Canada comparison is – to put it kindly – disingenuous. And to refer to an Australian deal is absurd.

There is no Australia deal. It is a fantasy: a euphemism for no deal at all – and the Government should say so.

Its reputation will suffer if it is not honest with the British people about this.

It is time to stop putting Ministers on the media who speak to a pre-prepared script and parrot misleading or pointless slogans.

There are hopes of trade deals with America, China and India. They would be welcome but, once again, the promises are overdone.

One day, I am sure, we will get the much-heralded trade deal with America, originally promised for last Spring, then Summer – now, who knows?

When it does come, it will benefit America far more than us. It may be symbolically important, but it won’t be an economic game-changer.

The promised trade deal with China is highly unlikely in any near timescale. Our ice-cold diplomatic relations with Russia rule out a trade deal with her, too.

And, if we wish to have a trade deal with India, the Government must realise that we cannot seek it on a Monday, and restrict immigration from India on Tuesday – it is a poor optic and a worse negotiating strategy.

The macro arguments against Brexit: the economic and social damage, our weaker position in the world, and the loss of trade advantages, may seem remote. They won’t prove to be.

WIDER IMPACT OF BREXIT

And lesser issues will impact directly:

the loss of freedom of movement in Europe;
higher food prices;
more expensive holidays;
the withdrawal of EU driving licences;
the cost of health insurance without the free cover of the European Health Card;
the loss of the Pet Passport Scheme and the expensive – and time consuming – effort to get approval for pets to travel;
higher roaming charges for mobile phones;
slower entry and more delays at European airports; and
the loss of the automatic right to work, live or study in the EU.

Small irritations, some may say, but – collectively – a significant loss of freedom that will be an unwelcome surprise to many as Europe itself begins to “take back control”.

When the present phase of Brexit is over, it is important we negotiate a more comprehensive relationship with the EU than is likely to emerge from the present negotiations.

We should seek bilateral agreements in areas of trade and policy which have not been agreed in these rushed negotiations.

We should work with the EU to address global problems.

And we should recognise that the nations of the EU are bound with ourselves in ties of common interest, history and future destiny.

To ignore this would be a dereliction of our national interests.

SCOTTISH INDEPENDENCE

One deeply troubling effect of Brexit is the risk of breaking up the UK by increased support for Scotland to leave the Union, and Northern Ireland to unite with the South.

Neither will do so immediately, but the combination of Brexit – and the unpopularity of our present Westminster Government in Scotland – has increased the likelihood of a breach.

I remain a convinced Unionist. Every part of the UK is richer – and of more weight in the world – if they stay together.

The most likely to leave is Scotland. If she does, it will not only weaken Scotland, but also undermine the rump of the UK.

It will be a step into the unknown for us both.

The problem is politics.

The raison d’être of the SNP is an independent Scotland while – for many Conservatives – Unionism is at the heart of their philosophy. It is a challenge to see whether that chasm can be bridged.

To keep the Union together will require consensus, consideration and consultation. The Government must engage, coax, encourage, and examine every possible route to find an arrangement that will obtain a majority for union.

It will be difficult – and is made even more so by the posturing of English and Scottish nationalists.

In law, the Scots require the approval of the Westminster Government before they can legally hold a new independence referendum.

But refusing one might help the separatist case, by adding to the list of grievances the Scottish National Party exploit with such skill.

The choice for the UK Government is either to agree the referendum can take place – or to refuse to permit it. Both options come with great risk. But the lessons of Brexit may offer a way ahead.

The Westminster Government could agree for an Independence Referendum to take place, on the basis of two referenda. The first to vote upon the principle of negotiations, and the second upon the outcome of them.

The purpose of the second referendum would be that Scottish electors would know what they were voting for, and be able to compare it to what they now have. This did not happen with Brexit: had it done so, there may have been no Brexit.

Many Scottish voices – and especially business – may support the logic of this: it may focus minds away from a short-term reflex opposition to a perceived English Government, and back to the mutual and long-term virtues of the Union.

NORTHERN IRELAND

Brexiteers affected not to notice that Northern Ireland’s support for the European Union pulled the Six Counties more into the orbit of the Republic of Ireland.

This was exacerbated when the Prime Minister’s renegotiation of Theresa May’s Withdrawal Deal left Northern Ireland more integrated with the Republic than the rest of the United Kingdom.

It was sold as a triumph, but it was a surrender.

These developments accompanied a third reality: the Nationalist population in Northern Ireland is growing faster than the Unionists, and is close to a majority.

The conjunction of these events is to increase the future possibility of a border poll – already sought by Sinn Fein – to vote upon a united Ireland.

I doubt that such a poll would be won at present. Not all Nationalists will vote for unity. The Republic would find it hard to absorb the weak economic structure of the North.

The time for a poll is not yet come. But it will. And if – when it does – the Northern Irish vote for unification, then those who ignored the warnings that Brexit posed will have to answer for the dismantling of a further part of the United Kingdom.

And, here in Middle Temple, one issue cannot be ignored. The Rule of Law.

Earlier I referred – in passing – to the provisions in the Internal Markets Bill that empower a Minister to disregard aspects of the Treaty the Prime Minister agreed earlier this year.

This action is unprecedented in all our history – and for good reason. It has damaged our reputation around the world.

Lawyers everywhere are incredulous that the UK – often seen as the very cradle of the Rule of Law – could give themselves the power to break the law.

Moreover, at a moment when we need to maximise our commercial activities, this Bill has had a corrosive impact on the reputation of English and Welsh jurisdiction.

This may have a practical cost.

International dispute resolution can be conducted anywhere overseas and the Bill could erode the present pre-eminent position of the UK and, perhaps, especially London.

Was this considered when the Bill was drafted? Was there consultation with the legal profession? If not, why not? And if there was consultation – why was it ignored?

Similar concerns apply to the clause that seeks to exclude Judicial Review in delegated legislation.

I cannot believe it is compatible with the Rule of Law to protect executive Acts from judicial scrutiny: put simply, Ministers must be subject to legal restraints. They cannot be above the law.

And all individuals must have access to the law. Our delivery of justice must be seen to be fair and impartial – access to the law must not depend upon the size of your bank account.

Magna Carta promised:

“To no one will we sell, to no one deny or delay right or justice”.

And yet, an individual – if denied legal aid – may not have the resources to right an injustice. That can deny justice: it cannot be right.

Nor can it be right to denigrate our Judiciary. They are not the “Enemies of the People”: they are the guarantors of our liberties under the law.

It is the responsibility of Parliament to uphold these liberties if they are threatened by any source: not to do so would be to curtail an essential freedom.

I have set out some concerns about the present state of our country. But I wouldn’t wish to be misunderstood.

SUMMATION

Throughout my life I have travelled widely and – in the last 20 years – almost incessantly.

In all my travels I have found nowhere I would wish to live, other than here in the UK.

That said, I believe we have a duty to make life better for this – and future generations – to whom we will be passing a difficult legacy.

In hard times, there is often an inflection point that changes minds, and compels policy that otherwise could not be easily implemented.

The combination of hazards before us may be such a moment.

To make it so, policy should be set to pave the way to a fairer, better, safer, and – in time – more prosperous future.

We will all have to bear burdens for such aspirations to become a reality, but that is both our privilege and our responsibility.

The very core of well-being is an expanding economy, efficient health provision and quality education.

The Government’s “levelling up” strategy is essential. So is – sooner rather than later – a credible system of social care for the elderly.

For future employment, we will have to focus increasingly on vocational education, and give such skills the respect they deserve.

It is essential we remain a United Kingdom – and reinforce the values that have built our reputation. If we cannot again be a great power, we can be a great example.

If we cannot compel, we can influence.

We can build up our soft power to sustain our profile.

We can use our diplomacy to raise issues that need multi-nation action.

We can be “Global Britain” in more ways than trade. But, to be so, we must reject the narrow nationalism that some have imported into our politics.

We must put aside the notion of “British exceptionalism”: it is a fantasy baked into the minds of those who do not know how the world has changed.

But – we can be exceptional.

All this – and more – can be achieved.

We like to think of ourselves as the land of hope and glory. “Hope” is essential – most especially during the darkest of times.

But I am ambivalent about the “glory”.

I will settle for a land that is united and prosperous; which rises above challenges – as it has done so often in the past; whose word is trusted both near and far; and whose people are seen to be decent, fair and compassionate to all.

In every corner of our United Kingdom that remains the instinctive heartbeat. And it is one which I hope will always prevail.

Bob Hawke: 'To crush the spirit and body of youth is to crush the very future of China itself', Ceremony for those killed at Tiananmen Square - 1989

A few seconds of Mr Hawke weeping through the speech, courtesy of ABC.. We have not sourced embeddable version of whole speech.

9 June 1989, Canberra, Australia

For more than a month now, the eyes of the world have been on China.

We witnessed a massive rallying of people in Beijing and Shanghai and heard the powerful expression of their will in the cause of democratic reform.

We were inspired by the idealism and courage of youth the peaceful determination of students to create a better future, and the support that rallied around their cause from throughout Chinese society.

Our spirits were buoyed by the optimism of their vision and, no matter how far we were from the events in Tian'anmen Square, our hearts were with them.

Then last weekend, our optimism was shattered as we watched in horror the unyielding forces of repression brutally killing the vision of youth.

Unarmed young men and women were sprayed with bullets and crushed by tanks. Innocent people were shot and beaten in the streets and in their homes.

Hawke paused in reading pre-prepared speech and opened classified diplomatic cable. He then read from that

Let me read an extract brought to us …

The troops who first arrived attempted to drive the people away, and to separate the students from the ordinary citizens.

A last warning was given and the students prepared to leave. They had expected to be given an hour. But within five minutes the anti-personnel carriers of the 27th entered the square, firing their machine guns as they came. When all those who had not managed to get away were either dead or wounded, foot soldiers went through the square, bayonetting or shooting anybody who was still alive.

They had orders that nobody in the square be spared, and children ... young girls were slaughtered as mercilessly as the many wounded soldiers from other units there.

Personnel carriers and tanks then ran backwards and forwards over the bodies of the slain, until they were reduced to pulp, after which bulldozers moved in to push the remains into piles, which were then incinerated by troops with flame throwers.

He returns to the pre prepared speech

Incredibly despite the horror and the risks, we have witnessed acts of indescribable bravery on our television screens: A lone man standing in front of a row of tanks, the strength of his will stalling the might of armour as it rolled down a Beijing street.

Young people confronting lines of armed troops, not in anger, but in disbelief that an army could unleash force on its own people with such cruelty.

Thousands have been killed and injured, victims of a leadership that seems determined to hang on to the reins of power at any cost -at awful human cost.

We meet here to mourn this tragedy and to share the grief of those who have lost members of their families, their loved ones and their friends, and to express our profound sympathy to the Chinese-Australian community that has expressed its outrage at the massacre in Beijing.

We meet here to show our support for the Chinese people and to reaffirm our commitment to the ideals of democracy and freedom of expression that they have so eloquently espoused.
And we meet here reflecting on the very future of China, which in recent years had built up so much goodwill in the international community of nations, which had already come to play such a welcome and constructive role in our region, and which promised to do so much more.

It is my sincere hope and, indeed, my resolute conviction, that the values and aspirations of those who have been so brutally repressed over the past week will eventually triumph, that the death and suffering will not have been in vain, that the path of reform and modernisation will be renewed.

We all pray that moderation will eventually prevail, so that a new and better China can rise from this carnage, a China that befits the courage and determination of its people.

I call on the Chinese Government to withdraw its troops from deployment against unarmed civilians, and to respect the will of its people. To crush the spirit and body of youth is to crush the very future of China itself.

Diplomatic cable text inserted from Sydney Morning Herald

Prime Minister Hawke offered more than 20,000 humanitarian visas to Chinese students studying in Australia. Their families were also invited to Australia. Cabinet papers reveal that Mr Hawke made this decision without consulting Cabinet.



The 7.30 Report Story from 2021 on Hawke’s decision to read the diplomatic cable

Mao Zedong: - 'The Chinese people have stood up', Proclamation of People's Republic of China - 1949

1 October 1949, Tienanmen Square, Beijing, 1949

The famous phrase 'the Chinese people have stood up' is believed to never have been uttered by Mao.

The people throughout China have been plunged into bitter suffering and tribulations since the Chiang Kai-shek Kuomintang reactionary government betrayed the fatherland, colluded with imperialists, and lunched the counter-revolutionary war. Fortunately our People's Liberation Army, backed by the whole nation, has been fighting heroically and selflessly to defend the territorial sovereignty of our homeland, to protect the people's lives and property, to relieve the people of their sufferings, and to struggle for their rights, and it eventually wiped out the reactionary troops and overthrew the reactionary rule of the Nationalist government. Now, the People's War of Liberation has been basically won, and the majority of the people in the country have been liberated. On this foundation, the first session of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference , composed of delegates of all the democratic parties and people's organization of China, the People's Liberation Army, the various regions and nationalities of the country, and the overseas Chinese and other patriotic elements, has been convened. Representing the will of the whole nation, [this session of the conference] has enacted the organic law of the Central People's Government of the People's Republic of China, elected Mao Zedong as chairman of the Central People's Government; and Zhu De, Lui Shaoqi, Song Qingling, Li Jishen, Zhang Lan, and Gao Gang as vice chairmen [of the Central People's Government]; and Chen Yi, He Long, Li Lisan, Lin Boqu, Ye Jianying, He Xiangning, Lin Biao, Peng Dehuai, Liu Bocheng, Wu Yuzhang, Xu Xiangqian, Peng Zhen, Bo Yibo, Nie Rongzhen, Zhou Enlai, Dong Biwu, Seypidin, Rao Shushi, Tan Kah-kee [Chen Jiageng], Luo Ronghuan, Deng Zihui, Ulanhu, Xu Deli, Cai Chang, Liu Geping, Ma Yinchu, Chen Yun, Kang Sheng, Lin Feng, Ma Xulun, Guo Moruo, Zhang Yunyi, Deng Xiaoping, Gao Chongmin, Shen Junru, Shen Yanbing, Chen Shutong, Szeto Mei-tong [Situ Meitang], Li Xijiu, Huang Yanpei, Cai Tingkai, Xi Zhongxun, Peng Zemin, Zhang Zhizhong, Fu Zuoyi, Li Zhuchen, Li Zhangda, Zhang Nanxian, Liu Yazi, Zhang Dongsun, and Long Yun as council members to form the Central People's Government Council, proclaimed the founding of the People's Republic of China and decided on Beijing as the capital of the People's Republic of China. The Central People's Government Council of the People's Republic of China took office today in the capital and unanimously made the following decisions: to proclaim the establishment of the Central People's Government of the People's Republic of China; to adopt the Common Program of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference as the policy of the government; to elect Lin Boqu from among the council members as secretary general of the Central People's Government Council; to appoint Zhou Enlai as premier of the Government Adminstration Council of the Central People's Government and concurrently minister of Foreign Affairs, Mao Zedong as chairman of the People's Revolutionary Military Commission of the Central People's Government, Zhu De as commander-in-chief of the People's Liberation Army, Shen Junru as president of the Supreme People's Court of the Central People's Government, and Luo Ronghuan as procurator general of the Supreme People's Procuratorate of the Central People's Government, and to charge them with the task of the speedy formation of the various organs of the government to carry out the work of the government. At the same time, the Central People's Government Council decided to declare to the governments of all other countries that this government is the sole legal government representing all the people of the People's Republic of China. This government is willing to establish diplomatic relations with any foreign government that is willing to observe the principles of equality, mutual benefit, and mutual respect of territorial integrity and sovereignty.

Xi Jinping: 'This great responsibility is the responsibility to the people', Speech unveiling new Chinese Leadership - 2012

15 November 2015, Politburo Standing Committee, Beijing, China

Ladies, gentelmen, and friends, greetings to you all! You have waited long. I am very glad to meet friends from the news media here today.

During the past several days, you have extensively covered the congress and let the world hear China's voice. On behalf of the secretariat of the congress, I wish to express our sincere thanks to you for your professionalism, dedication and hard work.

We have just held the first plenary session of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and elected a new central leadership.

I was elected general secretary of the Party Central Committee by the plenary session. I wish to introduce to you the other six newly elected members of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau.

They are: Comrade Li Keqiang, Comrade Zhang Dejiang, Comrade Yu Zhengsheng, Comrade Liu Yunshan, Comrade Wang Qishan, and Comrade Zhang Gaoli. Comrade Li Keqiang was a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the 17th Party Central Committee, and all the others were members of the Political Bureau of the 17th Party Central Committee. I believe their names are familiar to you.

On behalf of the members of the newly elected central leadership, I wish to express our heartfelt thanks to all other members of the Party for the great trust they have placed in us. We will strive to be worthy of their trust and fulfill our mission.

We are greatly encouraged by both the trust all the comrades of the Party have placed in us and the great expectation the people of all ethnic groups in China have of us, and we are keenly aware that this is also an important responsibility for us.

We have taken on this important responsibility for our nation. Ours is a great nation. Throughout more than five thousand years of evolution as a civilization, the Chinese nation has made indelible contribution to the progress of human civilization.

In modern times, China endured untold hardships and sufferings, and its very survival hung in the balance. Countless Chinese patriots rose up one after another and fought for the renewal of the Chinese nation, but all ended in failure.

Since its founding, the Communist Party of China has made great sacrifices and forged ahead against all odds. It has rallied and led the Chinese people in transforming the poor and backward old China into an increasingly prosperous and powerful new China, thus opening a completely new horizon for the great renewal of the Chinese nation.

Our responsibility now is to rally and lead the entire Party and the people of all ethnic groups in China in taking over the relay baton passed on to us by history, and in making continued efforts to achieve the great renewal of the Chinese nation, make the Chinese nation stand rock-firm in the family of nations, and make even greater contribution to mankind.

We have taken on this important responsibility for the people. Our people are a great people. During the long course of history, the Chinese people have, working with diligence, bravery and wisdom, created a beautiful homeland where all ethnic groups live in harmony, and developed a great and dynamic culture.

Our people have an ardent love for life. They wish to have better education, more stable jobs, more income, greater social security, better medical and health care, improved housing conditions, and a better environment.

They want their children to have sound growth, have good jobs and lead a more enjoyable life. To meet their desire for a happy life is our mission. It is only hard work that creates all happiness in the world.

All happiness in the world comes by hard work. To fulfill our responsibility, we will rally and lead the whole Party and the people of all ethnic groups in China in making continued efforts to free up our minds, carry out reform and opening up, further release and develop the productive forces, work hard to resolve the difficulties the people face in both work and life, and unwaveringly pursue common prosperity.

We have taken on this important responsibility for the Party. Our Party is dedicated to serving the people. It has led the people in making world-renowned achievements, and we have every reason to take pride in these achievements.

But we are not complacent, and we will never rest on our laurels. Under the new conditions, our Party faces many severe challenges, and there are also many pressing problems within the Party that need to be resolved, particularly corruption, being divorced from the people, going through formalities and bureaucratism caused by some Party officials.

We must make every effort to solve these problems. The whole Party must stay on full alert. To address these problems, we must first of all conduct ourselves honorably. Our responsibility is to work with all the comrades in the Party to uphold the principle that the Party should supervise its own conduct and run itself with strict discipline, effectively solve major problems in the Party, improve our conduct, and maintain close ties with the people.

By doing so, we will ensure that our Party will remain at the core of leadership in advancing the cause of socialism with Chinese characteristics. It is the people who have created history, and it is the people who are true heroes. The people are the source of our strength.

We are well aware that the capability of one individual is limited. But when we are united as one, we will create an awesome power and we can certainly overcome all difficulties.

One can only work for a limited period of time, but there is no limit to serving the people with dedication. Our responsibility is weightier than Mount Tai, and our road ahead is a long one.

We must always be of the same mind with the people and share the same destiny with them, and we must work together with them and diligently for the public good so as to live up to the expectations of both history and the people.

Just as China needs to learn more about the world, so does the world need to learn more about China. I hope that you will continue your efforts to deepen mutual understanding between China and the world.

Thanks to you all!"

Kaiser Wilhelm II: 'Just as a thousand years ago the Huns under their King Attila made a name for themselves', 'Hunnerede', speech to troops departing to Boxer Rebellion - 1900

The official version released by palace did not have specific reference to Atila and the Huns.

27 July 1900, Bremerhaven, Germany

Great overseas tasks have fallen to the new German Empire, tasks far greater than many of my countrymen expected. The German Empire has, by its very character, the obligation to assist its citizens if they are being set upon in foreign lands. The tasks that the old Roman Empire of the German nation was unable to accomplish, the new German Empire is in a position to fulfill. The means that make this possible is our army.

It has been built up during thirty years of faithful, peaceful labor, following the principles of my blessed grandfather. You, too, have received your training in accordance with these principles, and by putting them to the test before the enemy, you should see whether they have proved their worth in you. Your comrades in the navy have already passed this test; they have shown that the principles of your training are sound, and I am also proud of the praise that your comrades have earned over there from foreign leaders. It is up to you to emulate them.

A great task awaits you: you are to revenge the grievous injustice that has been done. The Chinese have overturned the law of nations; they have mocked the sacredness of the envoy, the duties of hospitality in a way unheard of in world history. It is all the more outrageous that this crime has been committed by a nation that takes pride in its ancient culture. Show the old Prussian virtue. Present yourselves as Christians in the cheerful endurance of suffering. May honor and glory follow your banners and arms. Give the whole world an example of manliness and discipline.

You know full well that you are to fight against a cunning, brave, well-armed, and cruel enemy. When you encounter him, know this: no quarter will be given. Prisoners will not be taken. Exercise your arms such that for a thousand years no Chinese will dare to look cross-eyed at a German. Maintain discipline. May God’s blessing be with you, the prayers of an entire nation and my good wishes go with you, each and every one. Open the way to civilization once and for all! Now you may depart! Farewell, comrades!”

The unofficial but correct version of the crucial passage reads as follows:

“Should you encounter the enemy, he will be defeated! No quarter will be given! Prisoners will not be taken! Whoever falls into your hands is forfeited. Just as a thousand years ago the Huns under their King Attila made a name for themselves, one that even today makes them seem mighty in history and legend, may the name German be affirmed by you in such a way in China that no Chinese will ever again dare to look cross-eyed at a German.”