Bush sells the American dream to the Chinese, live on TV

George Bush used a televised speech yesterday to promote the American dream to the Chinese people, urging Beijing to allow freer religious worship and promote democratic reform.

Standing at a lectern in front of the university motto "constant self-improvement, strong social virtue", the American President spoke of US moral superiority and values.

Some Chinese textbooks still gave "misleading and harmful" ideas about the United States, Mr Bush said in his speech, translated and televised live on three state channels.

"My friend, the ambassador to China, tells me some Chinese textbooks talk of Americans 'bullying the weak and repressing the poor'," he told more than 200 invited students at Beijing's élite Qinghua university. "Another Chinese textbook, published just last year, teaches that special agents of the FBI are used to 'repress the working people'. Now, neither of these is true."

He said: "Recognising the desires of the individual in the marketplace is part of a free society. With that freedom comes other freedoms. We are a free nation, where men and women have the opportunity to achieve their dreams.

"Life in America shows that liberty, paired with law, is not to be feared. In a free society, diversity is not disorder, debate is not strife, and dissent is not revolution."

Mr Bush said that 95 per cent of Americans believed in God. "My prayer is that all persecution will end, so that all in China are free to gather and worship as they wish," he said.

Answering sometimes tough questions from his student audience, on such issues as Taiwan and missile defence, Mr Bush singled out a woman in a red pullover to emphasise a point about a demand-led market economy.

"You made the decision to wear a beautiful red sweater," he told her. "And when you made the decision, somebody made it [the sweater]."

He brushed aside one student's attempt to corner him on US crime, poverty and juvenile delinquency, by saying: "The long-term solution is to make sure the education system works for everybody." At the end of his speech, in which he also urged the Chinese Communist Party to speed up democratic reform, Mr Bush won warm applause.

Meanwhile, the Chinese government arrested 47 Christians in Beijing on the first day of President Bush's visit. Fifteen of those arrested were still retained last night while the rest were released after police questioning, the Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy said yesterday.