11(Revised Sept 85)
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SUBJECT: LORD GLENARTHUR'S SPEECH TO ROYAL SOCIETY FOR ASIAN AFFAIRS, 2 FEBRUARY
In Confidence
CAVEAT
Delighted to have opportunity to address so
distinguished a gathering of those from or interested
in Asia.
Enclosures flag(s)
Since my appointment in 1987 as Minister of State
with responsibilities including Asia, I have visited
countries and territories in Asia, some
of them more than once. I am still coming to terms
with the almost infinite ethnic, cultural,
linguistic, religious, social, economic and political
diversities of that immense continent. Its two
giants, China and India, each by itself dwarfs
western Europe. Four more Asian countries each have
populations more than double the UK's. The Maldives,
which I visited last November, has fewer inhabitants
than Aberdeen. Asia's dynamic Pacific rim is the
fastest-growing part of the world economy. Japan is
already an economic super power yet hundreds of millions live in abject poverty, especially in the