Now on bbc news its hardtalk. Welcome to hardtalk. Im stephen sackur. Last weekend in hong kong, metro stations were torched, the Chinese State news agency was attacked, police fired water cannon and tear gas and 200 people were arrested. That is hong kongs new normal. How long can it go on without a major intervention from beijing . Is there any way out of the impasse between hong kongs government and pro democracy protesters . Well, my guest is a former senior official in the territorys administration, anthony cheung. Are the territorys prospects bleak . Anthony cheung in hong kong, welcome to hardtalk. Youre welcome. From the outside, it looks as though hong kong is sliding ever deeper into chaos, is that the way it feels to you, inside hong kong . Well, its really distressing to see whats happening. Protests and violence seem to be continuing and the whole community is getting very anxious. Some young people feel they dont see a breakthrough. They dont see light at the end of the tunnel. And indeed, for the whole city, we have yet to find a political solution to the crisis. And this is really very worrying. And we can see that the Central Government in beijing is also getting very anxious and is worrying that hong kong might get out of control. And therefore, it has been emphasising the need for National Security for stability. But unless a political solution is found, i dont think that prospect will come about very soon. Do you admire the tenacity, and one could say the courage of the mostly young people who still take to the streets, despite knowing they may well face water cannon, tear gas, baton charges and rubber bullets . My feelings are rather mixed. On the one hand, i can see that many young people taking part in the current protests, they have their objectives, they want to see hong kong becoming better. But at the moment the methods they are using, in my view, are not really achieving too much. Because as you can see, anger, violence, can also breed more anger and violence. And we see the whole society becoming more polarised and it appears to me that among many protesters, they dont really have an endgame. They know what they are not happy about, but i dont think they have a clear approach as to how to bring about a better outcome. If i may say so, mr cheung, what really interests me is that while it is true its mostly young people on the streets confronting the police, what is also evident is that there is a vast swathe of hong kong opinion, including we could say middle class people, parents, professionals, from doctors to teachers, all sorts of people who are with the students in terms of sympathy for their demands for a change in hong kong. And recently we spoke to somebody im sure you know, anson chan who was chief secretary and a transition period, and for the first few years of post 1997 governance in hong kong. And she says the disaffection with the Current Administration in hong kong spans a very broad section spectrum of the community, prompting unprecedented protests from professionals and legal, educational, medical, social services. From the elderly to mothers of young children. So this is notjust about radical young people. You are right. I think its a valid observation that the majority of the community is not happy about how the government is performing, particularly in the way that the Current Crisis is being handled. But having said that, still, i mean, among those who are not happy with the government, they have to really find a way out, and that outcome can only be worked together with the government, and probably there is a need to create more room for trust between the protesters and government, and also between hong kong and the mainland. But maybe this Hong Kong Government isnt up to the job . Im mindful that a couple of months ago you went to a so called brainstorm session with senior officials, including chief executive carrie lam. Did you tell carrie lam that frankly its time for her to go . Shes part of the problem, not the solution . At that time i did not really comment on whether she should leave the scene or not, but at that time i emphasised the need for an independent enquiry. Because that must be a very important step towards reconciliation. And indeed, the vast majority of the companion in hong kong is in favour of an independent enquiry. But of course the independent enquiry is not the solution itself. The consolation is the process to bring people together. Let me stop you, mr cheung, because some people wont understand what you mean by an independent enquiry. Of course the protesters want a full, independent enquiry into what they called the brutality of the policing of the demonstrations going back now several months. It seems to me youre saying something slightly different. You want an enquiry which looks at violence, notjust in terms of the policing, but also in terms of the demonstrators. In some ways, youre drawing an equivalence between the two, which the demonstrators regarded as completely unacceptable. Well, i think for those who are in favour of an independent enquiry, they want to have an enquiry that is impartial, fair, and the enquiry should look at the whole saga. Of Course Police actions unavoidably will be a part of what is to be investigated. But all those factors, circumstances, that have led to the escalation of the crisis, in my view, should be looked at. Because this is the most serious crisis of governance in hong kong ever since 1997. And indeed, since 1967. Right. Well, that brainstorm session where you talked about the independent enquiry the need for one was back in august. Were now here in november, and there still isnt an independent enquiry. Carrie lam in fact has hardened her position, she says its quite simple, the situation we face now is Anti Government violence, the most effective solution is to tackle the violence head on, appeasing the violent rioters is not a solution. So, she is toughening her stance. So i ask you again, is it time for her to go . I think if any Government Faces the kind of crisis, challenge, that is now happening in hong kong, there is a need to consider how to reshuffle the government in order to open a new page in terms of post crisis remedial work. Reconciliation reform. Of course the timing itself is a tricky one because it is not just for carrie lam herself to decide what to do because beijing obviously has a view. And the Current Crisis has already escalated to a level where beijing feels its obliged to intervene and indeed, beijing has been much more vocal over the last few months. Indeed it has. In previous months it made a point of showing people in hong kong that military forces were gathering just beyond hong kongs borders in Mainland China, and there was a clear message there. And in the last couple of days, weve had statements coming out of the communist Party CentralCommittee Meeting in beijing in which they have talked about, and im going to quote them here, systemic changes to strengthen the communist partys overall right to govern hong kong in order to firmly safeguard National Sovereignty and security. The signals coming from beijing now are quite clear, theyve had enough and they are contemplating a major intervention in hong kong. How worried are you . Beijing is taking the responsibility for governance in hong kong, its not an entirely new message. Because last time there was about 2003, after the National Security legislation bill itself, and article 23 of the basic law led to major protests of 500,000 people in hong kong. In the aftermath of that incident, actually the Central Government of the communist party did say that the communist party is responsible, ultimately, for the governance of hong kong. And i think it is fair enough for the Central Government to do so. Hang on, if i may say so, in your effort to be emollient toward beijing you seem to be forgetting the fundamentals of the one country, two systems principle. There are supposed to be two systems. Hong kong is governed differently. The whole point is that hong kong has autonomy, and now beijing seems to be threatening to undermine that very principal of the two systems. Well, im not saying that beijing should be running hong kong on a day to day basis, but what im trying to do is to understand why beijing has to say what it was saying. Beijing is obviously very worried about the situation in hong kong. And i think the ultimate political solution has to allow the people in hong kong to have a strong sense of Self Administration under one country, two systems. And many of the problems we are now facing in a way indicate tensions, mistrust within this framework. And both sides, i think hong kong and the mainland, need to really reflect on what has gone wrong. Well. Because ultimately, hong kongs solution for the future cannot get out of the overall china context. Mr cheung, isnt the problem for if i may say so establishment figures in hong kong such as yourself, who have a long history of serving the Hong Kong Government, of course, ultimately the paymaster of which is the government in beijing. The problem with people like you and the language you use is you try to find a middle ground, you try to be extremely delicate and diplomatic, when, as you say, if you accept that this is fundamentally a political legitimacy issue, you are either for democracy or youre not. So let me ask you, are you for universal suffrage and a meaningful democracy that gives every hong konger a legitimate choice as to who should be chief minister and who should be in the Legislative Council . Yes, ive always been in favour of electing both the chief executive and the whole of the Legislative Council by universal suffrage. Right. Well, thank you for being so clear. In that case, youre on the side of the protesters, youre not on the side of beijing, because there is no way that under the current governance of carrie lam, who of course has her hands tied by china, theres no way that the Hong Kong Government is going to grant a meaningful universal suffrage with a truly representative range of candidates for chief executive and full, universal suffrage for the Legislative Council. Its just not happening. As far as the chief executive is concerned, under the law, even for electing the chief executive by universal suffrage, there has to be a nomination mechanism. There has to be a nominating committee so in order to achieve that ultimate goal, i think we need to talk to beijing because ultimately beijing has a vested interest in hong kong. We need to elect beijing, have sufficient confidence in electoral democracy in hong kong. Of course, we know that. With respect, you know as well as i do, and it would be nice to hear it from you, you know beijing isnt interested in giving hong kong genuine meaningful democracy. You know it, dont you . Well, from day one, the Central Government leadership, im talking about Deng Xiaoping back in the 1980s, they didnt really believe in western style democracy but in the basic law, it was committed in the 19905 that ultimately hong kong should have direct election of a chief executive by universal suffrage as well as the direct election of the whole of the legislature. But of course, we need to really work on beijing. How . How do you work on beijing without actually doing what the protesters are doing, which is taking to the streets and saying, enough, we are not prepared to take this anymore. The basic law gives us the right to a meaningful democracy and china will not recognise that. It seems to me that despite your politeness and your desire for middle ground and avoiding confrontation, in essence, your message about democracy is the same as the students in the street. Well, i would not deny that the students protests is a way of expressing their preference or the aspiration for democracy but ultimately, after demonstration, after confrontation, you still need to sit down with beijing. I cant see continuing to demonstrate. Put it this way. There is nothing to talk about, and its obvious, that even the forthcoming local Council Elections in kong, there are systems in place which weed out genuinely radical voices who are demanding democratic change. Im thinking of course ofjoshua wong who wanted to put forward his name as a candidacy in the local elections. He has just been told he cannot stand. He has been barred from standing on the Council Elections and as he puts it, i have been barred from my role championing democratic rights in hong kong and engaging on the issue on an international level. This is nothing short of political screening and censorship. So i come back to the question, what really, honestly, is there even to talk about what now with beijing, or carrie lam . We need to. Im not happy with the Current Situation and i think its very unfortunate that candidates for elections have to be politically screened that way but having said that, lets put the so called disqualification in context. It only started after the 2014 0ccu py central protest. It started after the newly elected legislatures when they took the oath of allegiance to the basic law. They made fun of the prc, they made fun of National Identity and i think that was the beginning of worsening relations between hong kong and the mainland and the growing distrust between the two sides and therefore, i think we really need to regain trust on both sides. I can see the vicious cycle. It is a vicious cycle. Let me give you some statistics which probably give you more pause for thought. These are from surveys done in recent months of the mood in hong kong and they compare the figures from 2009 with figures in 2019 today. The number of people confident in the one country, two systems model has fallen from 68 to 33 and those numbers of hong kong people who feel themselves first and foremost to be hong kongers is up from 37 to 52 and those who feel themselves to be chinese is down from 24 to just 10 so what you have is a hong kong population which is increasingly feeling separate and different from the population on Mainland China and yet in economic terms, the chinese appear to believe that they can integrate hong kong ever more closely into the mainland economy. Youve got a fundamental dichotomy here. Im not surprised with the trend that youve just made reference to and indeed, there is a lot of hostility within hong kong towards the mainland. There is a lot of frustration from many people towards the Central Government but again, every day, we still need to make the best out of one country, two systems. Its the ultimate future of hong kong. We need to seek Mutual Understanding and obviously from the mainlands point of view, who would like to integrate hong kong more into the motherland, so to speak, but from the hong kong peoples point of view, they would like to be served their legacy, their rather unique institutions, their rather unique identity and that kind of mutual accommodation originally was intended to survive under one country, two systems. There were lots of instances which havent been met and i wonder if you would take some personal responsibility here for the growing feelings of alienation and disaffection in hong kong because after all, from 2012 until 2017, you were a de facto minister of transport and housing in the Hong Kong Government and housing in particular has been a totalfailure in hong kong. Many young people have no prospect of ever having their own home, such is the housing crisis and the unaffordability of housing. You said you would fix it, you didnt and you, if i may say so, are one of the reason why Young Hong Kongers feel like they have nothing left to lose. Housing is indeed the number one social problem in hong kong and in the last government, which i served, we realised that this problem has to be resolved but unfortunately we face a situation where there is a mismatch between supply and demand. Supply was very much in shortage because a lack of development and demand was very solid, both user demand and investment demand. Because you were so in hock to big investors from Mainland China and elsewhere, determined to sell off lands to private housing and other developments that you werent prepared to put money into social and affordable housing. Its always been hong kongs story in recent years and i come back to this point, that Young Hong Kongers have had enough and the only way to get a hong kong they would like to see is to have more democracy, more accountability and that means they have to take to the streets. Well, that kind of sentiment is astute but let me put it on record, the last government, we were not short of money for public housing. We had a housing fund of over hk 75 billion for housing but unfortunately we did not get enough land and that is a more complicated issue but i can really understand that young people, they want more democracy, like young people elsewhere and this is something that must be dealt with and therefore in my opening remarks in hong kong, i said we cannot get away from constitutional reform. Yes, well, you at least are clear about that but let me ask you before we close about the future and about how bleak it may be for hong kongers Going Forward because you are now in recession, i think the last quarter saw hong kongs economy contract by 3 and more and the outlook economically in terms of tourism and other things is grim. You have a major problem with beijing. The surveys i point to suggest that hong kong is one of the gloomiest populations in the world today. Do you share that gloominess . Are you fearful for your territory . If the Current Situation does not stop, if it continues for another half year, then indeed hong kongs economic prospect is really in trouble. At the moment, we are in technical recession and we have negative growth over the two quarters but if we are able to find the way out to ease tensions, so that people can begin to have more trust in working together, i think the fundamentals of hong kong, whether in terms of the economy or the community spirit, i think we are able to do it quite easily but the important thing is, we need to have some trust, some confidence in each other in the future. Anthony cheung, we have to end there but i thank you very much forjoining me on hardtalk from hong kong. Thank you. Hello there. The rest of this week is going to remain on the chilly side, certainly temperatures a few degrees down on where they should be for the time of year. Weve been seeing this colder air move southwards in the last 2a hours across the country, and its going to stick around for the rest of the week, and there will be some pretty wet weather around, especially on thursday. The early part of wednesday looks mainly dry. A few showers peppering northern and eastern coasts, and some showers around irish sea coasts. But further inland, under clear skies, its going to be a chilly one. Temperatures close to freezing in the south and below freezing in the north, so there will be some frost. A little bit of mist and fog around to greet us for wednesday morning. That said, there should be plenty of sunshine across central, northern and eastern areas. But this area of showers around the irish sea will push slowly eastwards, merge together to produce longer spells of rain. Could be a little bit of wintriness over the Higher Ground in the north. A dry slot in between this next band of rain, pushing into northern ireland, wales and the south west of england later in the day, and a chilly day to come wherever you are 6 10 degrees. Through wednesday night, that first band of rain pushes northwards. Therell be further wintriness over the Higher Ground, and this next band of rain continues to move in, and almost merges with it, so it could be quite wet in places by the end of the night. A few blustery showers following on behind, but maybe not quite as cold to start thursday as what weve seen the last few nights. For thursday, though, its not looking very pleasant. We do have this area of low pressure pretty much parked on top of the uk, a stationary low with its associated weather front. And this weather front could bring quite a lot of rainfall in places, perhaps even the risk of some localised flooding. At the moment, it looks like its going to be affecting more eastern, central parts of the uk. Across into northern ireland, there could be some travel disruption from flooding caused by this. It could be a little bit further northwards, it could be a little bit further southwards. To the north of it, a few showers, wintry on the hills, and further south, some blustery showers, some of them heavy, a little bit of sunshine around, and again its going to be another chilly day. Improvement as we head through thursday night into friday. That weather front eventually slips away, takes the rain and the breeze with it, from the south east. But much of the country will start chilly, perhaps seeing a little bit of frost, and then it looks like it will be a bright day, with pretty widespread sunshine. It could be the best day of the week, but a chilly one 6 10 degrees. Its a short lived fine spell, because into the weekend, here comes the next area of low pressure, to bring some wet weather with some wintriness on the hills for saturday. A slow improvement on sunday, but like i mentioned, it could be pretty wet in places on saturday, with some wet snow or sleet over the high ground on the north. A gradual improvement as we head into sunday. Im rico hizon in singapore. You are watching newsday on the bbc. The headlines a six point plan to save the planet thousands of scientists demand deep and lasting changes to curb catastrophic climate change. The smog crisis engulfing indias capital. How the youngest and poorest residents are most at risk. Its killing our children. Its making their Iq Development lower. Its causing cancers. Breathing kills. Im kasia madera in london. Also in the programme pressure builds on President Trump as a key witness in the impeachment