Different systems

As a strong supporter of Britain leaving the European Union, Dobbs said for him, the sooner the two part company, the better. Dobbs said he fears EU leaders have set their sights on creating a United States of Europe.

Regarding different political systems, Dobbs said there is never a time in any political system when it suddenly stops having achieved a state of perfect balance.

He explained: "One of the great benefits of the system we've had in this country over several hundred years is its flexibility. Because we've made terrible mistakes, but that flexibility has enabled us to get over those mistakes."

Each country, he says, has its own political systems and its own cultures, each with a different value put on the relationship between the individual and the state."

Dobbs, who turns 70 in mid-November, added: "What I find difficult is people in the West who go around the world proclaiming that there is only one system, and it's 'our' system."

People only have to look back over the history of the West, he says, to realize that many times "when we've gone around the world saying this is our system and you must follow it, we have made terrible mistakes".

Dobbs, looking back at British history, added: "We've been imperialists with pretty unnecessary and unpleasant things. I think a degree of humility and tolerance is required in these areas, and conversations about differences are often better conducted quietly and privately, rather than in front of television cameras."

Describing himself as an optimist looking for the positive science of things, Dobbs said: "There's so much of the positive side. Think of how many people have been lifted out of abject poverty over the last 20 years."

There are lot of things, he added, we've got right in the world, commenting: "I think we need to take a pause at times and say we've done some really good things.

"Maybe we should be concentrating more on the good things rather than simply obsessing about everything that is going wrong," he said.

Looking ahead Dobbs describes the past year as the busiest of his life.

"I'm hoping things will calm down a little bit which will enable me to go to China more, to understand and to see more of it. I'm thinking of those extraordinary dishes, the food I had in China that was sublime. I thought it was wonderful."

Dobbs said he believes that as people travel more across the world to visit or study, it will make the world a better place.

He added: "It will be different and China will be different as a result of that, and I think that's a fairly good thing."

The fact he spends a great deal of his time abroad doesn't make him less British. Dobbs said he would hope that would happen to young Chinese who go abroad. They would come back to China and become more appreciative of their homeland.

It will, he believes, be like a part of a grain of sand on a beautiful beach that will grow into a beach of understanding, benefiting his children and grandchildren.

"That's why I'm an optimist. I hope that during dinner in 50 years' time people will be able to look back and say that was a good job done on all sides. But they will add, there is still more to do."