Transcripts For BBCNEWS Dateline London 20170709

To Great Ormond Street Hospital in london, calling on doctors to allow the terminally ill baby to travel to america for experimental treatment. Sir vince cable, whos favourite to be the next leader of the Liberal Democrats, says he believes brexit may never happen. Now on bbc news, dateline london. Hello and welcome to dateline london. Im jane hill. This week we are discussing what the World Leaders meeting in germany for the g20 summit might be able to achieve. We will look at continuing problems on indias border both with china as well as pakistan, and also a final thought about an exceptionally busy few months in the uk and abroad. Just how desperate is everyone for a holiday . Before that, lets introduce all my guests. Iain martin is with me, columnist with the times, ashish rai of rai media. Nabila randani the french algerian journalist, and henry chu, the International Editor of variety magazine. A warm welcome to all of you. So the discussions in the german city of hamburg involving the worlds leaders come at a delicate time for the world order. North korea, Climate Change, the immigration crisis, trump in europe. There is a very, very long list that we could discuss. Lets see how much we can get through. Iain, President Trump saying, really in the last few hours, there is going to be of a very, very swift trade deal, apparently, with the uk. Yes, so it seems. I mean, there is good news for britain and bad news. The good news seems to be theres going to be a trade deal, and the bad news is donald trump has confirmed at some point, hes coming to the uk. Depending on ones view, obviously. Britain is a very divided country and you wonder whether he might actually do us a service of Uniting Britain against such a visit. But i think the other Big Story Of The G20 is really the diminution, the weakening of American Power. I am reminded, in having seen a lot of these summits, thinking back to the violence in nice, genoa, against this backdrop of chaos and extreme violence. 15 years ago, these events were really about American Power and the projection of American Power and america solving the worlds problems and that is now clearly no longer the case. Power has become diffused and, for all that we focus on trump, for obvious reason, because hes entertaining, a controversial figure, he is not really as powerful necessarily as he thinks or as a lot of americans think. It feels like everyone is nodding around the table. Nabila. I do agree very much with what you have just said. I think all the massive violence that were seeing on the streets of hamburg this weekend, is a perfect metaphor, actually, for international diplomacy, and intense passions have been aroused. The principal responsible, in my opinion, is Donald Trumps position as the alleged leader of the free world. This is hardly an environment for constructive policy making. In the past, summits of this kind used to be all about cohesion and indeed problem solving. I feel that now they are more about pr and indeed showbiz. You just have to look at the way all these World Leaders are marching off to the next meeting, or theyre posing for these endless pictures, and i feel that, in effect, this testifies to a crisis in confidence and, in fact, the Western Consensus which has been so prevalent for many years and people talk about post capitalism but this is almost post diplomacy where commentators are far more concerned about mis speaking and indeed that kind of thing rather than anything that has any substance whatsoever. No one dares say what they really think or. . No, i think the idea that you can get any consensus let alone policy done at this kind of meetings is frankly absurd. Lets not forget that these leaders can link up at any time nowadays in this great communication era. The idea that they are going to get anything done over very violent, hard and social awkward meetings is ridiculous. I agree that what comes out of these meetings, these communiques, are often bland, to the point of pointless, actually. How many of us can remember a communique that has been issued from one of these summits . I do not necessarily think there is a complete break from the past, in that it is interesting you mention 15 years ago and protests against american might. Then you had actually a president , president george w bush, who was talking about, for example, imposing tariffs on steel, which is exactly what is happening today, so there is a little bit of continuity between what happened literally 15 years ago and today. However i do agree that the isolation that the us is undergoing because of our current leader is nothing that i have witnessed before in my life time. It was that usually america was seen as ahead of the curve or at least trying to lead and this is America Retreating and actually finding itself notjust being shunned by powers that we had thought were unfriendly to us but those who were friendly. When you have one against 19 over Climate Change that really says something. That is a process that was begun by President Obama, wasnt it . It is the retreat after the disaster of iraq. The leading from behind view of the world. Obviously im not associating obama and trump, their approach to World Affairs is entirely different. But i think trump might be accelerating the process of americas retreat from the world but obama took a different view from clinton. I am thinking even longer than 15 years ago, thinking back to the tailend of the clinton era, when there were demonstrations as well, and the early bush years both of those democrat and Republican Leaders saw america in terms of World Leadership which now looks inherently ridiculous. But the Climate Change issue, that is all driven by trump. I mean that is one of his bete noire, isnt it . Yeah, although it would not have been that different from george bushs view really. Yes, who took us out of kyoto or wouldnt ratify kyoto. I think the difference with obama though is, i agree that perhaps he did not seem to project the same kind of persona that we have come accustomed to with us leaders, but his idea of diplomacy or leading was more through Multilateralist Organisations and trump is actually trying to pull himself even away from that and being isolationist and that is something i think we cannot afford in this world. I think it is important to bear in mind that while the policy of withdrawing did begin under obama, there is vast difference. Today we have the first g20 where the United States is not playing as central role, it playing a peripheral role. And that i think is a significant change from the past. You have for big agenda items, i guess, and either the United States is not a part of this or they are being obstructive. Climate change, for instance. International trade, for instance. North korea has been outsourced to china by President Trump. And you have, of course, the fourth element where i think there could be some consensus and that is the area of counter terrorism. Thats where i think there is more or less a consensus among the g20 countries. Having said that, i think the problem is of course in the wording of these documents and the follow up. There has to be, a, a Strong Enough wording, which rarely happens at the g20 or any of these summits, for that matter the bigger the group, the more difficult to get strongerwording, but then, comes the matter of follow up. We are now, what, nine years after the economic meltdown, we are still in austerity, so that tells you how much the action that has followed, or the resolutions that have been taken at the summit have done or not done. I would say however that beyond the 620 summit itself, there is strong indication that World Leaders take bilateral meetings more seriously than general ones. As we have seen this morning, theresa may met with donald trump and they didnt hold hands on this occasion. But we heard pledges from donald trump saying there will be very, very big trade deals the reality however is that theresa may could be gone before proper negotiations start as could trump and this is an example of how the 620 meeting cannot, again, come across as more hot air rather than anything being achieved. It is all about good pledges which can turn pretty hollow in the end. Are we all saying that actually these big Set Piece Meetings are worthless . Should we just not stage them any more and just have the bilaterals that you talk about . Well, i think the nature of those meetings have changed and we have to accept that or take that into account. For example, im pretty sure that a lot of people in france and indeed in europe would have been shocked at the way the french president Emmanuel Macron was paling up with trump for example. Of course you have to be respectful and diplomatic on those occasions but it is rather different than literally paling up with somebody like trump and i think president macron will have to learn that International Politics is much more complicated than, you know, pawing somebody like trump or treating him like a buddy. I think having meetings like this does serve a purpose sometimes, because after the financial meltdown there was a 620 that did focus on how to try to repay the Global Financial system and came away with some good ideas from that, but right now, i think with the us being so isolated, historically having been the leader and no longer, i think there is real deficit there. A thought from you on how theresa may and how she has performed in the meeting with trump. She goes into this at a very, very curious and difficult time in this country. What is your take on how she has performed here . I think the way to understand it really is to think of her as leader who has been propped up by her cabinet because they cannot necessarily agree on a replacement so it sounds cruel but she is almost a Cardboard Cutout Prime Minister and this month the focus really is on can she make it through the summer through to the conservative Party Conference which is in october or will she go by christmas . Do the conservatives skip a next generation and go for someone younger which is difficult because it might be someone untried and untested, so she is really there as a placeholder Prime Minister and i think the thing that is most difficult, that really complecates brexit it is that very often and this is where i think diplomacy does still matter the connection between leaders, that leaders can sometimes breach the divide. If the talks get bogged down on brexit, you would need a strong british Prime Minister to say to Angela Merkel and to macron, look, there is gap here, there is compromise to be done which can make brexit happen a bit more smoothly than might otherwise be the case, and that requires a Prime Minister with a bit of confidence and some clout and some authority which i think it is fair to say that theresa may does not have now. So i think it is problematic for the british in terms of how the negotiations go. Also looking at it from the other side, donald trump saying things like a trade deal will happen quickly does not mean anything. He does not even know what hes talking about. I am very sorry to say this but, these deals do not happen quickly. They do take a very, very long time. So you are completely misleading people by saying that. As is the eu, this week, which trumpeted this great trade deal between the eu and japan which doesnt actually exist yet and it is probably going to take four or five years at least. Another thought about Climate Change, is it going to go Angela Merkels way . This is the difficult one. The worlds biggest polluter is not part of the Paris Agreement any more so how does the world proceed with this deal . Of course, the rest of the world may continue to do what they have committed to do but without the United States i think it is a difficult one to achieve the targets that were set in paris. The only consolation that i take from this is that in the us you have states, for example my home state of california, which are still committed to trying to reduce Carbon Emissions and have a much more environmental sense and the idea that Climate Change is real and is happening and needs to be countered as much as possible. Although it may not be happening on the federal level, from the white house, there at least are movements and states that are trying to take action on this. But thats so interesting, isnt it, but also it is one of those issues that if big polluting industrialized countries are not united, though i think to your point, people will say well whats the point . It is no good being as green as you can be in california despite its size and its economic power if everybody is not on board with this. And as long as we see whether china and india actually live up to their commitments too. It is good that they are pledging to but china has had a history of environmental degradation even though they have policies that are supposed to alleviate that and so, hopefully they will live up to their commitments. We will be discussing that all again im quite sure. Narendra modi is one of the many leaders at the g20 summit in hamburg and lets talk to ashish about many of the problems confronting him at the moment and in terms of what is coming out of hamburg, what do we know about any meeting between modi and president xi because that is where some of the key tensions are. At the moment the stand off between india and china, on the border, which is a disputed border. The two sides have different viewpoints on what the delineation of the border should be. They did have a talk at the g7 and the outcome is not known because no one has confirmed whether the standoff was discussed at all. There has been a lot of tension of late. China refused the meeting because they said the atmosphere was not right for such a meeting. Eventually there was a meeting of leaders and there was a pull aside, as they call it, and the two did have a chat forfive minutes. That said, i think china has been playing tough in recent times. The china pakistan axis really endangers india at the moment. Of late, this is a bit unusual because in the last 25 years since the peace and tranquillity treaty between india and china, things have been going well. Indeed on the trade front, they have been going extremely well particularly for china. But All Of A Sudden in the last three years, the chinese approach has become tough. There is reason for this but at the same time there is a collision which needs to be sorted out between these two major asian countries. Henry, youre nodding. I am glad there was this talk but i am more concerned by the fact that india and pakistan are not talking. I find that border much hotter than the india china border. Given what is going on in kashmir and the fact that both are Nuclear Armed states, pakistan having just performed a testfiring of a Nuclear Missile earlier this week, that seems far more concerning to me than pakistan and china. In general, the tension between india and pakistan is always at a higher level. As a matter of fact, between india and china, matters had cooled off considerably for a number of years, for nearly a quarter of a century. But between india and pakistan there is inevitably a face off. The Kashmir Situation is very hot at the moment and, as you said, there is no dialogue between the two countries at a ministerial level. Maybe the officials will meet soon at a Civil Service level, and high commissioners exist in both countries but fundamentally, it is a very tense situation between the two countries. What is at stake here is the defining relationship of the first half of the 21st century, india versus china. There is a new book called the retreat of western liberalism that makes that point. Two models are being tested alongside each other, both are newly capitalist but one is autocratic and one is democratic. Whoever wins that battle, as American Power declines and the west suffers an identity crisis, will become the great power of the future. That is indeed true. China has been off to a faster pace in the last 30 years. Democratic india has had more challenges. At the moment the situation is interesting because both india and china have slowed down and this is part of the meltdown catching up, or not quite allowing the two countries to take off as they would have liked to do. There was a time india was growing at 10 plus gdp. That was remarkable for a democratic country with hurdles and court cases to deal with before you can even begin a project like a motorway. In that situation, india was doing quite well. Inevitably, the pace is faster in china. Ultimately, india may get there but it is an interesting two models competing with each other. It seems to me that chinas encroachment on that small disputed territory, it seems to me that it is all about the budding superpower, china trying to expand its Sphere Of Influence Beyond East Asia Into South asia. This time around not in an Armed Conflict but it seems to me that it amounts to a geostrategic cold war with india. It is not the first time that these countries have had a stand off. There was one back in 1962. An armed one at the time and it involved tensions over tibet and along the border. China emerged victorious but this is the longest stand off so far between the two countries. We have been talking about americas retreat, if you see it that way, but does america have a role to play here in relation to china . Between china and india, i am unsure. But what has been commented on a lot and what i find ironic having been an american in china, is seeing the ascendancy of china politically and extending its sphere of influence into places where the us once was. Be it on climate or the projection of power it is trying to do through naval forces, for example, in the Shipping Lanes around asia. That had historically been the United States protecting Shipping Lanes. I find it worrisome that china is stepping into the breach but that is in another sign of America Retreating from what had been its historic. Duties . Or, at least, the role it had played. I am concerned about the decline of America Diplomatically and that i would not write off the us. Even though it has been through economic turmoil it has still been by far the most innovative economy on earth. There is something. There is something inherently necessary for innovation and competition to happen, you need a free society. That is the problem, the unknowable thing with china. Can you, in an autocratic society, can you innovate . You can replicate and become efficient and successful but can you produce the answer to Climate Change, the next wave of the internet . All of the things that have come from america in the last few decades has its roots in bill gates being rebellious. A battle of ideas, saying that i will not go off and join a state run company and take orders from other people. I will go off and innovate and invent because my ideas are better than the other guys ideas. That idea runs right through American Society and even though they are in a bad place they should not be written off. If i may, withdrawing from expensive wars will lead to an economic bounceback for the United States. Whether that happens under the trump model, we do not know. Certainly there was an indication that coming out of these expensive situations in the middle east and afghanistan was helpful and, gradually, it would lead to prosperity. That said, there was a strategic agreement between the United States and india which china saw as being against china. This was an agreement between President Obama and Prime Minister modi. That seems to have slipped away under President Trump. This is also to do with an arms race and i think the visit of modi to israel testifies to that. To me it is another example of a populist Global Leader trying to humiliate millions of muslims around the world not only in his own country but in the neighbouring pakistan. He wishes to portray as The Enemy Within and one that threatens externally. Instead of conciliation and resorting to democracy, he sees the future in a constant Armed Struggle with his side being armed to the teeth and ready to dispatch as many muslims as possible when trouble arises. This is what i call the israeli model and this is why modi has chosen to break decades of overt indian support for the palestinian cause and, indeed, decided to talk to a far right hawk like benjamin netanyahu. His behaviour in israel included snubbing palestinian leaders and stocking up on weapons. I find it outrageous that a leader like modi chooses to side with a state like israel, a state that breaches humanitarian law, whose leaders are accused of war crimes, and which is a state that constantly expands its illegal colonial entity. These are Big Questions that we will continue to debate. Lets have a brief moment because everyjournalist i know in the uk and abroad is worn out over the events of the last few weeks. The queen is on holiday, westminster is about to shut down. Lets find out what our guests are planning now that we are injuly. Every Political Correspondent i know is on their knees. Where are you off to . The south of france as quickly as possible in a few days time. I have never known a period where people are just in so much need of a holiday. Brexit, trump, britain has been on this cycle. This has been a running for three or 4 years and i think the combined with the heat, the political and Media Establishment in london has gone off its head and it needs a rest. You are all in agreement. Journalists have difficulty these days to switch off completely now that we have a 24 hour news cycle and we are sucked into all of this at any time of the year. I remember a time when i used to. I would go on holiday and catch up on the world by watching Television News bulletins or reading newspapers. But now Television Screens are everywhere and you are encouraged to be connected to your device at all times. To me this is the most enjoyable time of the year because i go to lords to watch test cricket. I go to wimbledon to watch tennis and then there is the British Open Golf coming up. I am looking forward to it. I figure with brexit looming that i should go to countries that i dont need a visa to visit so i have chosen scotland. I will be going to the highlands. You will love it. Enjoy it, all of you. Switch off your smartphones. And for anyone watching also on holidays, have a wonderful time. For those who do not, we will see you again over the course of the summer. For now, enjoy your week. Hello there. Another very warm day across wales with some sunshine coming through, although weve had some early mist around some southern and western coasts. But further north, for scotland, northern ireland, a different complexion to the weather. Weve got this Weather Front meandering its way southwards, some Rain Pepping Up into the afternoon. To the north of it, much drier and brighter. To the south of it, it should be dry, warm, spells of sunshine. But there could be some heavy downpours triggered. East wales, the midlands, east anglia and the south east, no surprise with those sort of temperatures, potentially 28 degrees. And they will rumble on into the evening. We could even see some thunderstorms running up from france. At same time, our weather from further north is heading its way southwards. Behind it, fresher. Still a muggy night, uncomfortable night in southern and eastern areas, which means that, for monday, we could well have some downpours still with us across central and eastern parts of the country. Our Weather Front further north turns more showery. So we are freshening up gradually, but weve still got that heat with us in the south and east. Welcome to bbc news. The headlines large amounts of drugs and thousands of Mobile Phones were found in prisons last year the Ministry Ofjustics says its unacceptable. The parents of charlie gard deliver a petition to doctors at great ormond hospital in london, to allow the terminally ill baby to travel for experimental treatment. Sir vince cable tipped to be the next leader of the Liberal Democrats says he believes brexit may never happen. A Business Tycoon submits plans to build a third runway at heathrow which he says would be 5 billion pounds cheaper than the current scheme. And in half an hour here on bbc news, click looks at so called Net Neutrality and how the internet may be about to change forever