Brits need to change Chinese industry 'sweatshop' view

Britain and China are two very old civilisations and China represents a fifth of the world's population.

Of course we can bring up issues that we have concerns about but we do also have to respect the fact it is a deep and ancient civilisation that is tackling its own problems and going about it in the way it thinks is appropriate.

We can point out where we would do things differently, but I do think we need to show some respect for that. I think there is a bit of a British attitude which treats China as a sweatshop on the Pearl River.

One of the things I'm trying to do this week in China is to change British attitudes to China... this is a country that is right at the forefront of medicine and high-tech and computing and high-tech engineering and all of that.