An investigation is underway into the cause of a fire at a block of student flats in bolton. Witnesses say the blaze spread quickly to the upper floors, prompting concerns about the cladding on the block. Two people were injured. From bolton, Olivia Richwald reports. These videos posted on social media show an intense fire which spread rapidly, sending chunks of burning cladding and sparks to the ground. At first, some of the students ignored the alarms. There was this girl who came running and she banged on the doors of the people on my floor, and she just started screaming, saying that theres a fire, get out of here right now. When we were running down the stairs, it was getting higher and higher and catching really quickly. The cladding on this building is not the same as that which has been blamed for exacerbating the fire at Grenfell Tower in 2017, which killed 72 people, and the students living here in the cube have been reassured it was safe. But the videos posted on social media have raised alarm bells. This isnt a grenfell cladding scenario. This is a different type of material, but, essentially, its a compressed wood or paper pulp, which is still combustible and, as we see from the footage, once it takes hold with a fire, it has potential to impinge on the evacuation or the safety of the occupants. This afternoon, Prime Minister borisjohnson visited a shelter to meet affected students, and then to the scene where he met firefighters. The university of bolton says its finding new accommodation for its students and offering them support. All my belongings, its all gone. I dont know what to say. How are you feeling about it all . Traumatised. Tonight, theres a warning from the Fire Brigades Union who describe the videos as alarming and say urgent action is needed. Olivia richwald, bbc news, bolton. Now on bbc news, there are hopes in washington and beijing that an agreement to help resolve the us china trade war could soon be in sight. But this is a rivalry about much more than just trade. Washington is designed to impress, to convey notjust prestige but permanence. Solid, enduring, American Power in architectural form. But behind the marble and granite, policy is always in flux. The Current Administration has shifted the position on china 180 degrees. A few years ago, the country was seen as a potential partner. Now, its a deadly rival. This is a play for global supremacy. It really is as stark as that . I believe it is, absolutely. I think its the most consequential existential threat since the nazi party in world war ii. Whats been allowed to go on for decades is disgraceful, its disgraceful. These two nations are locked in the worlds most important rivalry. But what does america want . What is the endgame . Announcer mr donald] trump donald trump talks about china more than any of his predecessors. We cant continue to allow china to rape our country, and thats what they are doing, its the greatest theft in the history of the world. But the shift in us china policy goes far deeper than a few stump speeches or late night tweets from the president s bedroom. Sometimes i think there is a mistaken view that the us china policy, the pronounced shift, is based on president trump. But thats actually incorrect. If you had seen a Hillary Clinton presidency or another democrat or another republican in 2016, you would have seen this sharp turn, that there were, i would say across both in the executive branch and in capitol hill, a sense that our approach to china in the us wasnt working and needed a significant change. And just as this isnt only about trump, it isnt only about trade either. The rest of his administration is very focused on the many ways in which china is seen as challenging american interests around the world, notjust trade. With the help of washington insiders, including some who helped forge this new china policy, im going to try to piece together how american now sees its relationship with china and what the us endgame is. How big a threat is china, do you think, to the western order . I think its the most consequential existential threat since the nazi party in world war ii. I think its a far greater threat than the soviet union ever was. As the number two economy in the world, its reach, particularly into the governments and all the institutions of the west far exceeds what the soviets could ever manage. Ever since Richard Nixon became the First American president to travel to the peoples republic of china in 1972, meetings between the us and china have had a formulaic feel. Nixon the companionship with the chinese and american people. Always looking forward to better relations. News archive the administration is giving him the kind of treatment over the next week not normally laid on even for a head of state or head of government. We expect that normalisation will help to move us together toward a world of diversity and of peace. We believe even greater progress can be made if our future efforts are based on hujing hu hui Mutual Respect and mutual benefit. The United States always had the hope that china would become more like the United States, that it would become more liberal, more democratic, not necessarily a democracy as we think it, but more open and potentially even contribute to the world once it became a bigger economy. But then in quick succession, two major events happened. The 1989 Tianenmen Square massacre told the United States that china wasnt going to reform on its own. A few months later, the berlin wall fell, setting the soviet union on its march into oblivion. This suggested to american strategists a new approach, to get china to change. The new policy under president clinton was Market Driven reform. Expose china to the winds of International Trade and reform and democracy would come. It was, promised mr clinton, a one way street. Getting into a rules based system and promoting economic competition will both enhance the march of liberty and law. And human rights. President clinton succeeded in getting china admitted to the World Trade Organisation, a sort of club of trading nations who agree a common rulebook. This agreement exchanges membership rights for china in the wto for Economic Opportunities for america in china. 20 years on from those rose tinted rose garden pronouncements, the world looks very, very different. Its clear now to many in washington that back then, the us simply got china wrong. The way the current us president talks about china and the wto couldnt be more different from his predecessor. The World Trade Organisation needs drastic change. The second largest economy in the world should not be permitted to declare itself a developing country in order to game the system at others expense. There are a few areas where, not just president clinton but i think the us Foreign Policy establishment generally got wrong. One was that these International Institutions had the power to truly reshape china, that at the end of the day, china was able to find loopholes or slow down punitive action. And this is notjust in the wto. The wto is perhaps the best example, where ultimately, these institutions didnt really have the power to compel china to make meaningful change at home. China never really intended to fulfil wto obligations. Its more the case that china intended to join multilateral fora and gain voice there. In order not to learn how its done but in order to begin to shift how Multi National fora regulate global trade. So theyjoined not to be changed but to change . Yes. Instead of the us transforming china, the change was the other way round. The result was what economists call the china shock. A huge wave of us jobs lost and us factories closed. It is devastating. Not only did we lose 13 millionjobs, not only did we lose all our manufacturing capacity to the point where, chinas manufacturing Circuit Boards for the f 35, but also the people losing those, losing health benefits, losing retirement benefits. All of that was levied on the state, local and federal governments to take care of and then behind that, to add insult to injury, not only did they lose theirjobs but the products that came in, that they were previously manufacturing, were of substandard, they poisoned you, they exploded, they caught on fire. Of course, Chinese Companies would dispute that characterisation of their products. However, the transfer ofjobs was vastly accelerated by decisions made by us companies in search of increased profits. It wasnt the chinese that stole the jobs but because the cost of doing business in china, producing in china was so much lower than in the United States, Many Companies had closed down factories in the United States and set up factories in china and that was also seen as part of this unfair playing field, even though the United States was able to buy products from china much more cheaply than if they had been produced in the United States. Not only did consumers love being able to buy those cheap products but governments appreciated the low cost china option because it helped them keep inflation under control. However, Many American companies that relocated to china rapidly found that low labour costs came at a very high price. It opened up the companies do leverage by china for their technology. Once the chinese realised that Market Access to china was a goal of us firms, then the Chinese Government policy began to subtly exercise leverage. For decades, beijing, as a kind of quid pro quo for western companies having Market Access to china, has forced them to hand over their technology, their intellectual property. And for a long time this was perhaps concerning but not an existential issue for Many Companies, they felt like they could stay multiple steps ahead but ultimately, chinas closing that gap and thats why you see today us policymakers so focused on this Technology Transfer issue. In the american political system, its companies that help bankroll the politicians and the parties. 20 years ago, they were begging congress to give them access to that lucrative chinese market. By 2015, though, it was quite the opposite, they were begging the politicians to protect them from china. When companies were finding out that their patents and things were being rifled through, when their products were being reverse engineered, when their r d processes are being hijacked, more and more companies came to the conclusion that being in china, partnering with china, ultimately was not turning out to be profitable and could actually be downright negative. American corporations found they were pushing at an open door. As well as appropriating American Technology through joint ventures, the us authorities accused the Chinese Government of stealing industrial and military secrets through hacking and espionage. The mood in washington changed almost overnight. What i noticed was that in the agencies and departments, consensus shifted from engagement means, be patient and let them learn, to, oh my goodness, theyre getting way ahead and theyre not really showing signs of wanting to learn but rather of taking advantage. Is it possible to put a number on the value of the technology that has been transferred to china over the course of the last 20 years or so . People have begun to look at that Bipartisan Commission called the intellectual Property Commission or the commission on theft of intellectual property. Estimates that the loss of ip is somewhere above between 225 and 600 billion. Also, a separate study estimates that the annual loss from Cyber Espionage is 400 billion so during the four years leading up to 2017, at one point, 2 trillion. Inside the pentagon, this transfer of technology was seen as a Huge National security risk. So much of us military superiority depends on having exclusive access to us innovation. I had a team working at the pentagon from 2014 to 2016 that really looked at, what would a notional National Security strategy look like, that looked at National Security in a globalised, 21st century construct, where data is a strategic resource, where business and finance really drive geopolitical outcomes, and how do you, how do you begin to think about that in terms of implementing a National Security that is fundamentally different from that of the cold war, even the post cold war . So three crucial constituencies of opinion had shifted. The business community, Government Departments and agencies, and the military well before donald trump was even confirmed as the nominee for president. He most definitely didnt create this wave of change on china, but he certainly sought to harness it. President trump absolutely rode part of this backlash, because if youre going to have manufacturing moved to china, and out of the United States, if youre going to have hollowing out, wheres the benefit . Presumably there is supposed to be some benefit for some part of the american economy, but in fact what has happened is that the companies that reduce their labour costs were nonetheless finding out that the intellectual property is being lost as well. So you pretty much have an across the board reaction that found china to be less and less desirable as a partner. China and others are making our products. We dont make it anymore. A Trump Administration will stop the jobs from leaving america. A lot of the things that he was saying on the campaign trail resonated with what we were trying to come to, as we tried to put the pieces in place of what a counter strategy might be, and so it was interesting to note, for me as a strategist, that not only what i was seeing in a National Security sense, but the american electorate was seeing in a social sense, and they were seeing it collectively. The ultimate result of general spaldings work at the pentagon was arguably the most important policy document of president trumps first year in office, the National Security strategy, published in december 2017. With this strategy i am announcing today, we are declaring that america is in the game and america is going to win. Ultimately the National Security strategy is kind of the leading document for the Us Government and the various departments and agencies take that as their marching orders. And so to have a document of that kind of high level nature, very fairly calling out china as a strategic competitor, making an argument that there was a competition of systems between a kind of liberal rules based order and the kind of repressive autocratic order that china was trying to enforce, that was highly significant, especially in how it guides how the Us Government as a whole is executing china policy. So it was a major shift from the past. The first Government Department to incorporate the new china policy was defence. The us and china are locked in an increasingly hostile competition in the south china sea, where china has built and militarised a string of artificial islands in defiance of international law. The us responded very slowly. It took a long time before they fully appreciated what china was building. By the time china had really started militarising these islands, it was too late for the United States to respond, and nobody wanted to go to war with china over what they called reefs and rocks in the south china sea. 5. 3 trillion of trade transits through the south china sea, very near the spratlys. Chinas actions were, in a sense, an attempt to be able to cut the carotid artery of global trade. So many of the conversations i have had in this city boil down to one concern that chinas rise is nowjust too rapid for the United States to manage. Like those islands that appeared almost out of nowhere, there is a sense that unless the us gets a grip on the china challenge, and soon, it might well become unmanageable. The stated Chinese Government policy is to dominate emerging technologies like robotics and ai. This truly was a wake up call for washington, that china had said so explicitly that it wants to dominate these technologies. This is very core to the competition now between the United States and china, because if china were to succeed in these areas, then it probably would supplant the us as the leading power in the world. Information technology and other emerging technologies are going to be keys to Global Economic power, and so either working out a better global system of agreement and cooperation, or establishing supremacy, or a combination of both, is absolutely critical to survival of any major country, and the United States in particular. Which is one of the reasons the Us Government is so concerned about having Chinese Companies like huawei involved in crucial technologies like 5g. How secure do you really think you can be when the physical hardware of your Information Networks is manufactured by china . The american conclusion is, we cannot be sure. And policymakers in washington are increasingly worried about the pressure exerted on us Companies Trading with china. The nba faces a major backlash this morning. In recent weeks, the Us Basketball League the nba has apologised to china after the manager of one club tweeted support for the protesters in hong kong. The us Vice President , mike pence, is a long standing critic of china, and is now critical of us companies he says are kowtowing to china. In siding with the Chinese Communist party and silencing free speech, the nba is acting like a wholly owned subsidiary of the authoritarian regime. For some, though, the main problem isnt so much chinas influence over the us, but other parts of the world. What you see today is not only china perfecting technologies for surveillance and censorship at home, but increasingly exporting these technologies as well as finance and know how abroad. So, example, you see china working in east africa with governments, or the indo pacific as well. So this kind of issue of what might be called high tech liberalism or high tech authoritarianism is one, that i think will become more and more central as we talk about china in the future. For some, the right approach the only approach to these difficult questions is decoupling, severing economic ties with china. How do we get Companies Like apple to actually not censor speech because they are incentivised by the Chinese Communist party to do so . We have to limit their ability to have access to the chinese market, if thats the key influencer. You have to limit their ability to have access to chinese investment, if thats a key factor. Theres a lot of things that go into why the apple board would essentially allow an American Company to slowly adopt the principles of totalitarianism, and once you begin to unwind those from a policy perspective, then the incentives start to go away, and when the incentives go away, behaviour begins to change. In response to general spaldings comments, apple referred to this statement. President trump is clearly delighted to have the beginnings of an outlined trade to deal with china, posing with the chinese vice premier in the Oval Office Last month. But nobody i have spoken to in washington thinks that this will make much difference to the direction of travel in relations. For example, while the president is making positive noises, in another part of washington, the fbi director is telling congress that the cyber war with china rages on. The fbi has over 1000 investigations involving attempted theft of us based technology that lead back to china. When you look at what the Us Trade Representatives Office has focused on, and the issues that have stymied progress in the actual negotiations, its always come down to ip. So if the chinese do not make a serious effort and demonstrate a serious effort to reduce their non compliance with intellectual property, i dont see any change in the state of trade relations, and that will lead to a further deterioration of us china relations. The us relationship with china has gone through many transitions over the past 50 years. But it is now fundamentally about global power. Who will control the emerging technologies of the coming century . As viewed from washington, this is a fight from the future that america cant afford to lose. In the news last week you might remember that venice was hit with severe flooding, and we have got similar weather conditions on the way for today. Later on, around midday we will see the high water coming in around 1. 6 metres above normal, that makes it one of the highest of the last 90 odd years, perhaps not quite as high as it was on tuesday but it will still be widespread, big flooding the city. Those flooding conditions are caused by an area of low pressure in the mediterranean, drawing up these strong winds, pushing a bulge of water from the adriatic, there will be some thunderstorms as well fairly widely in italy. That low pressure will get close to us as we will see injust a moment. For the time being over the next few hours, where we have clear spells, we are seeing things turn pretty frosty, particularly in scotland, the odd patch across parts of southern england as well. So for some, a chilly start of the day on sunday. For others, a cloudy start, with fairly persistent but mainly light outbreaks of rain affecting north east england, becoming quite patchy in nature as it works across Northern England into the midlands and wales. Probably no huge rainfall totals building up, just some dull and damp weather. Brighter on the south, we should see some sunny weather moving into scotland and Northern Ireland during the day, although there will be some showers across northern scotland driven in by a north west wind, it will feel quite chilly here. Through sunday night the skies will clear further across the northern half of the uk really, so as that happens we will see temperatures plummet, there will be a widespread frost, temperatures down to around 11 in edinburgh, colder in the countryside, some mist and fog patches to take us into monday. Then that area of low pressure bringing flooding to venice later today, here is the low coming around europe and coming quite close to the uk on monday. This area of High Pressure though, it looks like it will stop its progress, but it is something we are monitoring carefully given the saturated ground conditions and the flooding problems we have in places, any rain would not be helpful. At the moment it looks like it will be mostly kept at bay, so for monday it will be a cold start to the day, widespread frost and mist and fog patches, a lot of dry weather with sunshine, highs of around three degrees in edinburgh, you could just about see some of that rain getting into parts of eastern england. After that as we get into tuesday and wednesday, low pressures from the atlantic are going to take over. As that happens the wind will back around more to a south easterly direction, which means we will see rain spreading into eastern wales across the midlands, which of course is not great news. Good morning. Welcome to breakfast with rogerjohnson and nina warhurst. Our headlines today Prince Andrew categorically denies having sexual relations with an American Woman who says she was forced to have sex with him when she was 17. I can absolutely, categorically tell you it never happened. The duke of york said he didnt regret his friendship with the late american billionaire paedophilejeffrey epstein. Well have reaction from here and the us from last nights extraordinary interview. In sport, wales move a step closer to euro 2020. They beat azerbaijan to keep automatic qualification in their own hands