STINKING SHIP | Day 170 | Abe Lincoln mutiny | Trump denies | Drone wars | Indonesia earthquake

**George Galloway** (0:01)
Welcome to The Mother of All Talk Shows, coming to you from the Russian Cultural Center in Beijing, capital of the People's Republic of China.
How's that for a birthday show?
Well, the USS Abraham Stinken is floating away out of Asia, like all other American aircraft carriers, in a sea of excrement, humiliation and defeat. The Islamic Republic of Iran has seen them off, but they may very well be back. What fiendish plan does Donald Trump have next for rescuing himself from what is surely penury in the polls in November in the midterm elections? And the Russian advance speeds up. Kupyansk. It's finally decided which side of the line it's going to be on. And the Russian jewel of Odessa is coming very firmly into view as one of the war aims. And in Lebanon, the slaughter continues. More than 4,500 people have been killed. Tens of thousands have been maimed or rendered completely homeless. And well over half a million have been tossed into refugee status on the streets of the capital Beirut. It's all coming up here tonight on the Mother of All Talk Show. Stay tuned.

**SPEAKER_2** (1:49)
You are listening to the Mother of All Talk Show's podcast with George Galloway.

**George Galloway** (1:57)
It is a remarkable thing. I spent the afternoon at the Summer Palace of the Emperor in the capital city of Beijing. And I want to spend a couple of minutes talking about it. Not because it was the worst colonial atrocity, alas, very far from it. Not because it was the worst crime committed by colonialism against China. Again, alas, very far from it. But it was something to see in concrete reality. The total destruction of the palace of the head of state of the ancient China. That China of ancient treasure, which was the center of the world when my people were painting their faces blue and living in the forest. Where China, when the Russian diplomats first arrived in China, and they were the first to arrive in China. In the late 1600s, China had stone bridges, stone buildings, stone roads. It was the richest place in the entire world, and it cared nothing for the world outside, and certainly did not kowtow to foreigners. This was completely intolerable for the rising European colonial powers, principally, in this case, France and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. They simply could not accept that China was better than them, richer than them, more advanced than them, more civilized than them, and so they did everything they could to destroy it. And somehow, emblematically, the destruction of the Summer Palace in 1860, not ancient history now, we're not talking about the dim and distant, barely visible through the mists of time, no, in 1860, in the reign of Queen Victoria. The British and French armies invaded China and set alight the Summer Palace of the Emperor, and then completely destroyed it. Scarcely one stone stands upon the other. Now, I'm no big fan of emperors or kings, nor palaces, and there's every reason why China has no king and no emperor today. But this was not a blow aimed at the emperor. This was a blow aimed at China as an independent and sovereign country. They did it because they could. They did it to teach China a lesson as a precursor to stealing China's land and looting as much of its treasure as they possibly could. And just in case there was to be any resistance, they pumped Indian Empire, opium, heroin, into the veins, into the streets, into the opium dens of China. And that's what it was all about. China had refused to allow its people to become addicted to British Empire opium, and so they were forced to, by bombardment and as compensation for stopping our assaults upon China. Well, we helped ourselves to places like Hong Kong.
I mention it because it's always worth reminding ourselves that Empire is merely robbery with violence, extreme robbery and extreme violence. But also, because I want you to understand how the Chinese people feel about being lectured by Britain and France on correct behavior, on the proper way for countries, civilizations to conduct themselves. And when the Chinese hear themselves being lectured, ordered, brow beaten by Western countries that raped them, murdered them, drug addicted them, stole their territory, burned their cultural treasures. What do you think they feel about it? Now, I'm not often in Beijing. I'm more a Shanghai man myself. But when I am in Beijing, I stay in the same place that Keir Starmer, who followed me around China last year, you will remember, where Keir Starmer stayed. If I was the leaders of China, I would have dragged them to see the ruins of the Summer Palace, but the Chinese are far too polite and far too diplomatic to do anything like that. But just in case, the British elite, imagine that the Chinese people have forgotten these crimes. I've got to tell you, there must have been 500,000 people today going around the ruins of the Summer Palace. It's part of the national patriotic education curriculum. Every person in China has to study it. And if they can, has to go and see it. This informs China's view of the world as it would if China had invaded London, laid waste to the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, and our cultural artifacts and treasures. If the Chinese had invaded us and stole our things, if the Chinese had invaded us and forced us to inject their opium into our veins and then seized significant parts of Chinese territory and occupied it for a century afterwards, how do you think we'd feel about being lectured by China on human rights and on international affairs? Enough of that, it's just boiling my blood. I hate colonialism, you see. I believe that imperialism is invading other people's countries and stealing their things, or in the case of China, even stealing a part of the country itself. And it's my birthday.