All right. I have made my point. Enough of this raking over the ashes of historical grievance.

Let us rather take on board the words of the Irish Prime Minister, and “confront the past honestly… in a way that heals for the future”. And while we are at it, let us take on board the words of Mr Blair, modified to suit the circumstances. Let us take them in our mouths and see how they taste:

“The Opium Wars were a defining event in the history of China and Britain. They have left deep scars… It is hard to believe that what would now be a crime against humanity was legal at the time.”

The more I think about it, the more obvious it seems. If we want the Chinese to listen to our homilies on their shortcomings, surely the most obvious place to start is by acknowledging and apologising for our own misdeeds. And it's not as if we don't have a clear precedent.

The reason that the dates of the Irish famine, 1845 to 1852, are of such significance, is because that ignominious event was sandwiched very precisely between these two other passages of Great British inglory, the First and Second Opium Wars. The first took place from 1839 to 1842, and the second took place from 1856 to 1860.

We have apologised to Ireland. Let us now apologise to China. I am struggling to think of a single valid reason why we should not, and it’s not as if there is any shortage of things to apologise for. With the possible exception of India, it is hard to imagine another country on the planet that has done no harm at all to Britain in its entire history, and suffered so much in return.

I understand why Britain’s great leaders might balk at the prospect. Apologising to Ireland was easy. Ireland may be a proud country of proud people, which played a critical role in preserving the classical learning of Greece and Rome during the European Dark Ages. Without that contribution, it is quite possible that the European Renaissance and the Enlightenment that followed it might never have happened. But in modern geopolitical terms Ireland is a small country of little consequence. It can easily be condescended to. Outside of Britain, and Ireland itself, and some parts of America, Britain’s apology to Ireland will have caused barely a stir.

China is a very different matter. In modern geopolitical terms, China is anything but a small country of little consequence. Britain’s apology to China will ring out loud and long around the world. It will be a humiliating climb-down indeed, for politicians accustomed to awarding themselves the mantle of world arbiters of moral right and wrong. It will require a good deal of teeth-gritting and buttock-clenching. But the apology is long overdue. And sooner or later we are going to have to bite the bullet.

Over to you, Mr Cameron. 

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