So this week I loaded up a plane with the biggest and most high-powered British business delegation ever to visit the region and we set off to put things right.  As a result of our efforts, we secured deals for Britain worth almost £750 million. In Japan, Nissan announced that they will produce their new hatchback in Sunderland, creating more than 1,000 jobs. In Indonesia, Garuda airline announced that the wings of its new A330 would be designed in Bristol and manufactured in north Wales. In Malaysia, Aecom and Weston Williamson are providing new rail infrastructure. Lifesaver are supplying world-beating water purification technology for 42,000 people in remote Malaysian villages. And Malaysia’s InfoValley are investing up to £10 million in the UK, bringing new jobs to London and Bradford.  This is just the beginning. This trip wasn’t just about securing deals today. It was also about laying the foundations for greater trade tomorrow. We agreed stretching new targets to double our trade with both Indonesia and Malaysia over the next few years, with a detailed action plan to get us there. Many new links were forged as I joined leading British businesses in setting out the many reasons why Britain is such a great place to invest.  I’ve not been afraid to put myself on the front line of the sales pitch for British business and encouraging investment into the UK. I think that’s a vital part of my job. I am passionate about what Britain can offer. We have the English language, the global language of business. We have a timezone where you can trade with Asia in the morning and America in the afternoon. We offer unique access to Europe through the single market, but without the problems of belonging to the eurozone. We have universities that are envied the world over. And we have a manufacturing industry that is the pride of this country – making everything from Formula One cars to Rolls-Royce engines. Even with the rise of China, we’re still the sixth largest manufacturer in the world.  So I am absolutely convinced that Britain has the products and skills needed to compete in any market in the world. Unlike some countries, we welcome others coming in, investing in our country and pumping money into rebooting some of our best brands and biggest companies. Look what the Indian business Tata is doing as the owner of Jaguar Land Rover – building new plants in the West Midlands and launching new models that are conquering markets across the world. Our openness is one of our strengths, but it makes it even more important that we get out there and win new business and new investment. After this week, I know there is absolutely no reason why we can’t persuade the Indonesians and Malaysians to want to do the same.  I didn’t just travel to south-east Asia because of our economic self-interest. I also went because our security depends on what happens there too. Ten years ago Bali suffered one of the most horrific terrorist attacks in history. Two hundred and two people died including 28 Britons. It was an attack on the world and it showed just how the security of our countries is now so inevitably intertwined.  Just like 9/11 in America and 7/7 in London, we were attacked by a group of people who wanted to set Islam at odds with democracy and use a warped version of their religion to justify a campaign of hatred and violence.  So how do we beat them? Yes, we have to clear out their safe havens such as Afghanistan, Yemen and Somalia. Yes, we’ve got to back our police and intelligence services so we arrest the terrorists, convict them in our courts and send them to prison. And yes, it should be easier to extradite or deport them when they threaten our country and have no right to be here. But we won’t win by military and policing means alone.  We need to defeat the ideology that poisons the minds of the terrorists. They say being a Muslim and believing in democracy cannot go together – and that the only path to dignity is killing innocent people until they can be allowed to establish some sort of extremist, Islamist empire. So we will defeat them when we show that the real path to dignity is young Muslims across the world having what we all want – a job and a voice and the chance to live in a free country where we get to choose our government in a system with fair laws and fair play. That is exactly what is happening in countries such as Indonesia and Malaysia, both of which I visited this week. These are Muslim-majority countries which are showing it’s possible for democracy, Islam and successful economies to flourish alongside each other. This vision of citizenship and dignity has inspired people through history – and it is the same struggle for freedoms, rights and responsibilities that we see today in places such as North Africa and Burma.  On Friday afternoon, on the last day of my visit, I stood alongside Aung San Suu Kyi in the house where she had been held captive for 15 years. It was a humbling experience and a tremendous honour to meet a woman whose courage and quiet dignity has inspired the beginnings of renewed democracy in her country.  When a country such as Burma shows the courage to reform, we must show the courage to respond. That is why we are now proposing to suspend sanctions. We should give that country the chance of democracy and economic progress so it can succeed like its neighbours.  I ended my trip at a cemetery in Rangoon, the old capital of Burma, where the graves of young men and women who gave their lives in the Second World War are carefully tended by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Seeing row upon row of those – many of them half my age – who paid the ultimate price to stand up for freedom and defeat dictatorship is truly humbling.  Yet the fight for the freedoms they were defending never ends – and I am proud of the fact that far from shrinking into our shell, Britain still stands up for important values in the world. Whether democrats are fighting Islamist extremism or corrupt dictators, we are on their side.
With sluggish growth in the eurozone, Asia&rsquo;s dynamic economies are the perfect   partners for our great businesses.