now on bbc news, it's time for dateline london. hello and welcome to dateline london. i'm carrie gracie. this week: desperate measures in hong kong, will they work? and brexit‘s man with a plan embarks on a brussels endgame. my guests today: isabel hilton of china dialogue, iain martin of the london times, greg katz of the associated press, thomas kielinger, author and veteran correspondent of die welt. thank you all forjoining me. a tale of two chinas. controlled choreography in beijing, chaos in hong kong. far from celebrating the 70th anniversary of the communist revolution, democracy protesters called it a day of mourning. vandalisation escalated, and two protestors were hit with live ammunition. the government then closed the rail network and banned face masks. events in hong kong simply do not fit beijing?s birthday narrative of a nation united and on the march. you have been watching china and hong kong for half a century. tell us what is going on now. is carrie lam is going to sort this out? i don't think this is going to be sorted. you know, the face—mask ban which precipitated last night's riots, which were by far the most serious that we have seen, and i think, you know, they were definitely riots. there were fires set on the underground, banks were attacked, individuals were attacked with petrol bombs. this is a hong kong that is really on the edge of something very, very serious. but if you look back at how we got here, at each step there has been a reaction to severe measures by the authorities, and it really is time at this point, unless something quite unpleasant is going to happen, to dial down on both sides and try to rebuild trust. there has been a complete breakdown of trust in hong kong with the hong kong government and the hong kong police. and this was a place where, essentially, people trusted their institutions. it has been the basis of what was a very peaceful and prosperous place. at every point, carrie lam has shown herself, you know, she has got cloth ears. she does too little, too late. she has finally initiated a kind of dialogue process that is long past its credibility sell—by date. so i think if she thinks that enacting emergency legislation and tough measures is going to do it, i fear we will simply see an even stronger reaction again. she does seem to be between a rock and a hard place, because there are the protesters demanding more democratic accountability, and then in the other place, xi xinping, impatient with the limited degree of democratic accountability there already is. you could play the fiction both ways. if hong kong is one country and two systems, then carrie lam could leverage her autonomy as the chief executive of hong kong to apply a hong kong solution. the more she hesitates and the more she reaches for the hard—line and the more the people's armed police mass across the border, the more she looks like beijing's puppet, and the less she is equipped to have a proper conversation with the people of hong kong. i mean, it really is time to stop and to rebuild at this point. how do you read this? i think there is an irresistible move towards escalation at this point, and it is fine and intelligent to call for a dialling down, but it is obviously getting — in the last 24 hours and seven days — it seems to be getting worst, and the switch to live ammunition is a tactic we have seen in other countries, and is always a sign that people are desperate to re—establish control. and i am just watching it day by day, and hoping not to see people dead on the street. i don't have a clue what happens next. we have seen carrie lam looking sternly in front of the cameras on saturday, talking about the suppression of violence, how this is now intolerable. i don't think she is leveraging the authority she has sufficiently. it is one country and two systems. she could insist on the evidence that two systems do exist. she could stand more on the side of the rule of law, and i don't think beijing is going suffer or would suffer tremendously by allowing hong kong its own different semi or real democratic ways, so i wonder myself why the central authority in beijing are pushing it to this point where it is going to be of huge detriment to beijing's position in the world. she may have the rule behind herand the power to determine the fate, but is it in beijing's interest to really go this far? i think the violence has to be called off, or rather carrie lam has to step back and talk to the authorities in beijing and say that this is not in their interests, in their common interest. they should yield. yes, that would be sensible, but it is difficult to see how you do get the dialling down. what is the mechanism for there to actually be talks? the whole thing has a sort of slow—motion car crash feel about it, but i think the bigger picture is the weakness of the west looking on at this unfolding disaster, but doesn't really have any locus, doesn't really have any means of trying to persuade the chinese government. and this is, i think from the chinese perspective, a crunch point where essentially, in terms of the growth of china and the development of china as a global power, it cannot be defeated. and that puts the students, on whose side anyone who believes in democracy or some form of liberalism would be on their side, that puts them in an almost impossible situation in which there seems to be no help coming from the global community, and the chinese government which, i think, elsewhere, longer term is potentially weaker than it suggests. but it has to win this struggle. but the chinese government's international image and which they try very hard to project is the one of mature magnanimity, peace, and win—win solutions. this is not helping it and, you know, the chinese government could... it hasn't sent in any people's armed police yet, and i think that it understands that the cost of doing that in the long term is very, very high for china and hong kong. so i think there is a certain amount of, you know, wondering what to do next, and the smart move would be to be extremely reasonable and magnanimous, in my view. and there are mechanisms by which this could be dialled down — there are five demands that the protesters have put forward. some of them they are not going to get, like full democracy. on the other hand, an independent enquiry into police behaviour is really quite easy to set up, and you could set it up with respected international figures if necessary. it could be really independent. which now exists, but certainly with the broader population which continues to sympathise with the protesters and that's what you need to reach out to at this point. i hope you are right, and i hope that is the direction in which it will head. i'm not saying it is likely, i am saying it is possible. it seems to run counter to all the iconography and imagery we saw. the military parade. the 70th anniversary. this is a surveillance state which is becoming even more of a surveillance state and more interested in projecting its military power. it does not feel to me, i hope i am wrong, does not feel like a moment in which china will take a step back. it does not want to do it in hong kong. hong kong is still too important. there is one other route which beijing and the hong kong government have been to a certain extent using, certainly beijing, in terms of pressure on business. we have seen the difficulties, with cathay pacific flight crews barred from mainland airspace, if they have, in any way, supported the protests. is that some carrot and stick operation that can be conducted in the background more effectively? absolutely, and i think all of the above are being used and there is a debate about whether china should flood hong kong with mainland migrants and, you know, create a different demographic. that is a longer—term thing. the same as finance, should chinese finance move into hong kong and prop it up, or should it withdraw from hong kong and let hong kong languish? should china be persuading anyone who wants a future to move into the delta which is being, as you know, hugely built up as a financial and technical centre, and let hong kong wither if hong kong won't comply? but again, these don't solve the immediate situation. we need something at this point to resolve it. isabel said at the beginning, that both sides need to dial down, and we have talked a lot about what beijing can do and the hong kong government can do, what about the actual protesters? because some people look on and say, "are they going too far?" they complain about live ammunition against protesters — a natural complaint — but are they showing the same concern about police officers who get hit by iron bars and petrol bombs? the protesters are not a monolith, and it is hard to control, and it is hard for them to dial it down if there are people within their ranks who feel good about attacking police officers or take pleasure in that. it isjust too large a group and too out of control at this point, really. i'm sorry to interrupt. protesters can hope the west is on their side, witness the recent visit of one of the leaders in berlin where the german foreign secretary actually was there to talk to them, which may be a way of, you know, angering beijing and may not be a very useful diplomatic tool, but it is still a sign that they can enjoy a great amount of support from the west. but if iain is looking to the west to have a greater role and impact, i don't really see how it does that, in particular with the us. the student protest is not the way, you mean? it is an important signal, but it is just a signal. but the days when the west had true influence and a lot of moral persuasion really have faded. and yet, coming back to your point about the west not having a place in hong kong any more, some would say in hong kong, the uk does still have a special place. there is an international treaty which says one country, two systems. and the uk has a duty to uphold and remind beijing of its duty to uphold. that is absolutely right. however, the brits tend to be quite hypocritical about this in that the british government, when it did have control, didn't exactly move swiftly to introduce democratic measures in hong kong. it dragged its feet for decades, so the chinese government is within its rights to say the british speak with forked tongue. however, it has been really disappointing. there are voices across the parliamentary spectrum in the uk, it has been disappointing to see that the uk government has not said more. now, you're absolutely right. does that add up to anything meaningful? but it might if you get the european union, you get the uk, and if the us could concentrate on something other than donald trump, a range of voices applying pressure might, might, just might tip the difference. it would at least be worth trying, and it is better than the current situation in the west where we just seem to be looking away. the british role, the british influence is at a low ebb throughout the world just because of the domestic situation. there's no government with a majority, the influence of the foreign secretary who has been there seven weeks or so; nobody knows how long he will be there. you can't expect britain to sort of stride back with a big impact. saying something would at least be something. and there we have to move on to the uk position, because that is our second big topic today. "get brexit done" urged the slogans at the conservative party?s annual conference last week. and the british prime minister finally published his proposalfor a deal. but there's less than a fortnight till the european summit which would have to agree it. many brexiteers have always insisted a deal with brussels would only happen at the 11th hour. it is now the 11th hour. iain, is he going to get his deal? it does not look like it, and you're absolutely right, there has always been this fantasy that, at the last minute, because that is the way the eu always conducts itself in difficult negotiations. you get a frantic meeting which goes on until six o'clock in the morning, and people emerge with a communique and say, "a deal is done." there is a tiny, tiny chance of that but it looks as though, because of the way in which borisjohnson is now boxed in by parliament. and parliament has legislated to force him or whoever runs the government to ask for a further extension, no one can explain what that is for other than a general election. because he is boxed in, he has put forward these proposals. the european union does not really have much interest, it seems, in talking to him. there are some talks going on, but not the intensive talks the british hoped would happen. the british hope was that, by now, you would've gone into what's called the tunnel, the diplomatic channel where both sides, for ten days, would negotiate intensively and that johnson's proposals, some of it might be traded away, you'd get a compromise deal, it is signed at the european council and then there is just time to get out by october 31. that now seems highly, highly unlikely. so the main debate is really about who extends, whether it isjohnson or someone else as prime minister, what that extension is for. there is some suggestion the hungarians might block an extension, but it seems unlikely. you end up with an extension, and in that extension, you get a general election which is bought on the question of effectively brexit or no brexit. in those circumstances, all of tory conference, where i was this week as a journalist, watching them trying to work out what happens next, then it really is a wide—open question about who wins that general election. does borisjohnson win as the champion of brexit, the person who tried to get it done, or does some other sort of remain coalition government emerge? we will come back to all of that in a moment. but, thomas, give us your take on the european view at this point. do they, the people, do you agree? the notion that iain mentioned that the eu might sort of give in at the last moment, usually in the past had to deal with budgetary matters and so forth. margaret thatcher said "i want my money back," in the 1980s, it was all resolved in the very last minute. i think this brexit notion and britain leaving the eu is far too big a subject to be sort of solved at the last moment. i have a little item to show you here... i don't know if the camera can see that clearly. it doees show the impossibility of a solution. i've heard the word 'unworkable' used about boris johnson's latest proposal to the eu, and this is an unworkable mug. it has the name of brexit sort of broken through it, and you can't drink from it. this is not my position. it is just the way we are. it isjust a state we have reached. do you have one with the 'euro zone' written on it? that is a good point, because the euro zone is not in the most glorious place, as we know. that's why i think another referendum in this country to be held on whether you want to remain in the eu or not might go the old way... is this a gift to the programme or is this a gift to iain? the victoria and albert museum in london have found it so interesting as to have included it in their collection of current british art. along with the coronation mugs. to come back to it, the unworkability seems to be proven — after 3.5 years, we have not reached a solution. i agree with iain — there will be an extension plea and whether borisjohnson signs it or not isn't really essential. and there will be an election, which i think he is going to look forward to with great equanimity. but none of you are accepting the prospect that perhaps borisjohnson means it when he says under no circumstances will he seek an extension. perhaps he is going to go rogue. you can't trust him, what he says. it is illegal at this point. well, says who? he can go rogue and challenge parliament and challenge the lawyers and challenge the supreme court, and it will probably end up in the supreme court within 72 hours, and something will happen. but it is certainly a prospect. it is a possibility. it isa it is a possibility. he could decide to go rogue. he did that with suspending parliament and it backfired with the supreme court. he might try it again. he might come in the final 10 or 11 days, he doesn't send the letter and parliament can't agree who replaces him he could do as you describe, just lock himself in numberten, refuse to answer the phone and then just wait for it to be fought out in court. that might happen. he has said, deal or no deal but no delay. how do you explain that? he has also said he would rather die in a ditch. we have options here. but, you know, he has... we have... when you say we have options, do you mean he could leave and let somebody else tackle the extension? if he won't call for an extension and, you know, he is confined by the law of the land, you know, then maybe he has to go for this to be resolved. i think at this point, you know, this thing has been fraught with fantasy from the start. i absolutely agree with thomas that, you know, the notion that it will be done at the last minute is the kind of thing we all used to sit outside european summits, you know, three in the morning waiting. "paragraph five, subparagraph c, to be agreed." that was a tiny thing. this was never going to be like that. we have spent three years discovering, for those who did not realise at the beginning, that anything which is negotiable with the eu is not acceptable to the hard—liners in the conservative party who has voted against the theresa may deal. and not acceptable to remainers either. i don't see what is going to change that. you can get — you have a general election which, in all likelihood, would lead to a pattern of a representation in parliament not that different from what we have got, and here we would be again. so it is that where we would be here again? election, what happens next? after the events of the last five years on both sides of the atlantic, anyone who calls general elections based on the polling when you go into them is being very foolish indeed. so the range of outcomes in a general election runs from a hung parliament in which the tories are not even the largest party, because the voters punish them for the chaos, right the way through to — and i think this is the more likely — if he can corral all of the pro—brexit vote, which is really in terms of the main brexit vote is around 40% of the uk electorate, people who really care about it. and that's the new tribe in british politics. if he can corral that, he probably wins an election quite big. can he corral that if he has not got it done by the date that he said? that's the thing which changed in the last week and changed at the conservative party conference. the assumption all along has been, and i certainly think this was valid in the summer, that if he didn't get out by october 31st and there was a delay, he was completely toast, because that was his main strategic insight, when campaigning to be tory leader, that he had to get it done. but if he is forced into it and it leads immediately to an election, you could see that members of the cabinet and tory mps who previously would not have countenanced it, that it is a different question as to whether the voters would put up with that, are starting to calculate that it might be ok for him and allow him to go into an election saying that he is the guy who is being blocked by the remain establishment, and he wants to get it done and that might... that is a really clear message. but what isn't clear is you say there is 40% support for breakfast. sorry, brexit! there may well be, but which brexit — what brexit? because if the european union won't accept boris's brexit, which seems fairly clear, and certainly ireland will not go for this arrangement and that is, you know, the immovable points for both sides, which brexit? i would like a deal. but brexiteers — the big message of what is going on in britain this week — there's a fascinating report by kings policy institute this week called divided britain, which actually challenges the notion that britain is more divided than it's ever been. in a whole swathe of social issues, we're actually really quite united. but what has happened is that party allegiance has collapsed and it has been replaced with tribal allegiance around brexit. those pro brexit voters, a lot of attention goes on how remainers had become radicalised, but brexiteers have become radicalised and whether or not they like johnson, lots of brexit voters have doubts about him, they have found someone who wants to get this done and they see it — this might be right, this might be wrong — as a primary democratic imperative and they want this done and they want this concluded whether that is with a deal or without a deal. and that is a very clear, powerful message. but that's another illusion, "let's get it done," as though at a stroke of a pen it is over. it is not going to be over. trade negotiations are never over. what brexit is a good question. we have a deal on the table which is theresa may's deal. and i'm hoping perhaps against hope that eventually it will dawn on people that this deal wasn't such a bad deal at all because it does provide for an exit from the eu after a period of interim years until 2021, and then we will go into a negotiation of a trade deal. what is so bad, what is so ruinous for the fate of great britain that you can't wait another two years until you get to the point where your dream is fulfilled? but that is the hidden story of this week that, essentially, what boris johnson was doing is changing the font on the withdrawal agreement, he's making a specific change in customs to northern ireland. personally, i think the european union has negotiated brilliantly, but it is only a brilliant negotiation as long as it gets a deal through, and it looks like it won't. it now has a deal on the table from borisjohnson that i think it should take seriously and should move a bit. how are we going to convince the prime minister of ireland that he should go for that? i think that this is the moment, and this is where the european union as an institution sort of falls down in great power terms. i understand why the 27 are united, but this is where you would hope that macron and merkel would be able to negotiate. the border has always been fudged, and from the start of this process, whatever happens with northern ireland, if we want to avoid a hard border, which everyone does — everyone does, then that was going to require some form of fudge. we can argue about whether those customs checks should be in the irish sea or away from the border, but that is always, was always going to come down to this question of whether it could be fudged. and i think, i would hope that macron could persuade the irish premier to move a little bit, because i think it is in everyone‘s interest to have a deal. we have got one minute left, so let's take the rest of the table on whether there's any chance of getting what iain is talking about done before the summit in the middle of the month. that is not going to happen. zero chance. that didn't even take a minute! but do you think, then, he goes back then, borisjohnson, to the electorate and says, "your suggested message about i need a mandate now to get this done and i was forced for the extension and now we have to give me the mandate," and then go back to the european union with exactly the same? that is his plan. what could possibly go wrong? he is so popular in the country. a magnetic personality in many ways. and a talented campaigner. there we have to leave it on the hypothesis of an election. that's it for dateline london for this week. we're back next week at the same time. goodbye. hello. it was a pretty wet day for some parts of the uk on sunday, with some floods in force. another area of low pressure came in giving us more rain and this time strong wind. gales and severe autumnal gales are forecast. the most severe for the north and west of scotland, but most of us quite a breezy day. any early morning fog and ease clear the ease clears away but this is miserable conditions, wind and rain combined, lots of spray and standing water on the roads. it does brighten to showers but still is poorly wins into the afternoon further north and west and it may take much of the day for the rain to reach southern and eastern areas. not as wet as yesterday but any rain falling onto the saturated ground, the already high river levels will not be welcome. 0nce high river levels will not be welcome. once the rain clear through tuesday and wednesday very much sunshine and showers but they will be some torrential downpours around. you this is bbc news — welcome if you're watching here in the uk, on pbs in america or around the globe. i'm reged ahmad. our top stories: a second whistleblower comes forward in the impeachment case against donald trump — he says both of them are biased. hong kong police make their first arrests under a new law banning face masks. could married men be ordained as catholic priests? the pope opens talks to find ways to boost the clergy in countries around the amazon. a massive explosion ripped through our galaxy 3.5 million years ago — the discovery sheds light on the secrets of the solar system.

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