A warm welcome and thanks for being with us on dateline. British laws made by britishjudges, one of the themes those who wanted britain out of the European Union campaigned on. Yet, the government said this week it may not be quite so straightforward to free us from the European Court ofjustice after all. When the negotiators reconvene in a few days time after their summer break, theyll have before them a series of position papers from the british team to absorb, on subjects including immigration, the irish border and the court. Eunice, have the europeans been impressed 7 well, they have been somehow optimistic about a sudden outbreak of realism from the British Government. On the other hand, these position papers were strange because they were position papers without positions, just, kind of, scenarios, and the British Government has no position. But there are some signs of, welcome realism, in the sense that the British Government is ready to continue to contribute to the budget of the European Union for as long as it is a member of the eu. There has also been movement, Welcome Movement in the area of the authority of the European Court ofjustice and i think a fudge is going to be arranged. There are also interesting noises about britain wanting to have a deep and special relationship with the European Union, wanting to have also a special and deep relationship, a trade relationship with the eu, wanting to replicate the Customs Union and so on. The noises point to a kind of membership of the Single Market, but this also happens at the same time as the home office sending deportation letters to european citizens, so the status of european citizens has not yet been sorted, and the European Union and britain have not yet agreed about the process of the negotiations. The European Union would like to start with finding a solution for the budget, and the status of european citizens, and the irish border, and the British Government wants to negotiate the future of the relationship. This business of the irish border is interesting, because one of the things that britain was talking about in that context was how goods and people and services might be traded across the border once britain is out of the European Union, and, of course, the republic of ireland remains in because there is that land border. And the europeans said, we are not talking about that because it is about the trade relationship. In a sense, their distinction is artificial, and we must talk about the divorce before we talk about what comes after. Lets not pretend either side is a paragon of virtue in this discussion. Both sides are perhaps also trying to stake out maximalist positions, which is part and parcel of the negotiating process. This reminds me in some ways of back in the president ial campaign in the us, when people said, we shouldnt take trump literally but figuratively, or make the mistake of doing it the other way about. Sometimes, with negotiations like this, we can get stuck on literal statements that perhaps figuratively mean something else, and so i agree with eunice, in that there is a sign of moderation, of more realistic notions of it is not in the eus interest that there should be any friction along that border or any outbreak of unrest that could jeopardise the peace, which has been fragile, and both sides need to be more realistic when it comes to questions like that. Isabel, are you hearing realism in the political debate back in the uk . The observation that the position papers are without positions is spot on, because we know the government has great difficulty in arriving at a position. And the trajectory by which we got here was a series of promises of opportunity and little discussion of who bears what pain. And now were in negotiations, what the pain is, and how big it is going to be, and how it is shared will be the big political issue, done by a weak Prime Minister with a slim majority and a divided cabinet. I think we are going to hear a lot of magical thinking, still, on the domestic british front, because she. The Prime Minister is not ready to have that conversation, and it will be a tough one. So, the autumn ahead, notwithstanding the negotiations themselves, in terms of domestic british politics, could be fractious. It could be fractious and i think we will go on seeing this ball kicked down the road, this can kicked down the road. We have roughly a year and it will not happen. The most important thing is the lack of trust between this government and the European Union. The people of brussels dont trust theresa may at all. And isabel was absolutely right to say this is a weak government. They lost their majority in the parliament. The pound is losing its ground, more than 25 . Britain is actually about to lose its greatest trade partner. So i believe it is the curse of brexit. Are we going to lose it . The point brexiteers make is that in the end the trading relationship is so strong and well established that it is in nobodys interest to jeopardise that. But you have to keep the good relations. The problem now, when i say a lack trust, europeans say, let us talk about the cost of this divorce. It is £74 million. Lets agree on it. Billion. Sorry, billion. 74 billion. Was going to say, if it was 7a million, well pay that. Britain shot itself in the foot by saying it does not want to be part of the Single Market or a part of the Customs Union. When you are outside these aspects of the european integration project, you are essentially killing off business opportunities, but also creating problems in ireland. The question with the irish border, the problem is created by the british position, the british stance. Yes, we want a frictionless border, but we are out of the Single Market and out of the Customs Union. It is not possible. Like as you said, trying to create a new potential Customs Union between just as and the eu, and this issue of direct jurisdiction of the European Court ofjustice, that will end with some role for the court could remain . Are these blurrings. You talked about a fudge, but these blurrings or however you want to describe it, could they be enough to get us through . They have such emotional resonance amongst the brexiteers here that this is the problem. If you have a Major Trading relationship with a block like the European Union, you need some means of arbitrating disputes. You cant have it. If you and i were to do a contract, we would agree who would arbitrate if there was a dispute. So to paint the European Court ofjustice as a great dominant thing which imposes laws is nonsense, but you cant roll that back with the group that theresa may as the biggest problem with, the hardline brexiteers in her own cabinet. Some have been making a bit of noise in a mollified direction saying that, look, it is not directjurisdiction. There will be some kind of dispute resolution mechanism and perhaps european judges will perhaps be involved, but this is not the same as being under the thumb of. I agree the rhetoric has been so strident that anything that seems to climb away from that position is dangerous ground, but in the end, as you say, politics is the art of compromise. Some of this is going to have to be compromised, whether you call it fudge or compromise. We will stay on the question of compromise on a different subject and that is china, because the worlds oldest publisher, Cambridge University press, found itself caught between the lure of entering china and the rigour of Academic Freedom. Earlier this month, it accepted a request from beijing that politically sensitive articles on its china quarterly website should be blocked. A few days ago, it reversed that decision. Taken with other instances of a government crackdown on free expression, is a trend emerging. Isabel, tell us about the background to this case and then tell us the other things that are perhaps beginning to make people nervous. As you say, Cambridge University press the publisher of the china quarterly, a respected academic journal which actually comes out of the school of oriental and african studies. They are the publisher but the content is produced elsewhere. When they announced as a fait accompli, that they had removed 300 articles from their website at the request of the chinese authorities, its still not absolutely clear which authorities. But also 1000 e books had been removed. This was a major purge. There was a howl of outrage from the Academic Community. But this is, you know, a row that has broken out four or five years into a tightening in china, increasing censorship, increasing ideological control from the chinese authority, and an increasing boldness from the Chinese Government, that as china gets stronger, not only is the party capable of imposing its view of history, its very narrow ideological intellectual traditions on china, but it can impose them on the rest of the world. So, if you want to publish in china, as newspapers have found, you have to weigh your International Reputation against what you see as your market opportunity. The New York Times, for example, when they publish those big takeouts on the corruption and the private wealth of the leading members of the party, immediately blocked in china. Had they backed down, they would have suffered a tremendous loss to their International Reputation, and that was what Cambridge University press was facing. They made the wrong call, as it turned out, and that have suffered a lot of reputational damage. But it goes much further. Chinese authorities routinely screen out academics from international conferences, not only in china, but they try to stop them presenting papers in conferences elsewhere, and in the Academic Community there has been mounting alarm that the Chinese Communist partys attempting to impose one view of history to completely exclude a whole bunch of topics like tibet, taiwan, tiananmen square, cultural revolution, because the party has to maintain its position in china which says, we are going to rule china forever and this is why. And that means excluding all negative past history, and everyone is expected to swallow it. What the west must decide is, are we going to swallow this . What i find troubling about this Cambridge University press case is that blocking western media, whether its the New York Times or other publications, that has been ongoing for years, so nothing new. When i lived in china 15 years ago, those sites were blocked. But 15 years ago, Academic Freedom was beginning to actually flower. This was an area where it seemed that there could be real cooperation and real delving into issues between china and outside. With that tightening, that is a real sign that this new regime under xijinping is not allowing any kind of dissent or different view than what it wants to put forward. The fact that there is this Party Conference coming up in october, its the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Peoples Liberation army, all that is contributing to this ideological constriction, that some people are hopefully saying will then be loosened after this is over. I dont think so. I think we have a regime that does insist on ideological purity, actually, and i think we will see more of it. You said four or five years, which more or less puts us at the time when president xi took office. It is very much driven by his perspective. Absolutely. There have been leaks of documents, the notorious document nine which somebody went to jail for leaking, which was an explicit rejection of western values, as they call it. So that included rule of law, and what they call the nihilistic view of history, the freedom to explore history from any angle. It included freedom of speech. You know, those are explicit enemies of the party, as the party sees it. It is returning to, kind of, leninist principles in a bizarre way. One area where this has perhaps caused consternation is in hong kong, and there has always been a debate about how one country, two systems would function. Britain is supposed to be a co guarantor of hong kongs freedom, and that it continues to cooperate under this system. Is britain making enough of that role, do you think . Is britains speaking out enough on these issues . A lot of the dissidents there complain they cant even get to speak to british ministers even if they come to britain. I believe it is not. I dont believe britain is doing its role here. I believe staying away gradually from hong kong and even china. Now china is a strong power, it is the second biggest economy in the world, and they are gaining confidence now. They would like to send a message, look, here we are. For the first time, china used the veto, the security council, eight times. So, before. Tens of years ago, they never involved themselves in any international crisis. They stayed away, either abstained or even not to take any action at all. So now the message is very clear. We are not a western democracy. We dont believe in the western democracy. We have our own way to handle things. And either you respect that or go to hell. That is the message, very clear. I have had experience with them, they published, beijing University Press publish my book, the secret history of alqaeda and they dont care. After ten years of publishing the book, now they realise that there is this book called the secret history of alqaeda maybe they like it, maybe. I dont know, but about the message is very clear. We are not democracy. We are not western democracy. It worked for us, now we are the second biggest power on earth, so why not . That is the message. This nervousness is to do with theyre not clear what they are. Are they a communist party state . They dont look like a communist party. Redistribution of wealth upwards, not downwards . There are kind of state capitalist so they have reverted to a lot of imperial traditions they used to denigrate and despise. Thats very interesting, because theres a longer history that predates the communist party. Is there something cultural that perhaps we in the west havent fully grasped . Or is that an excuse . It is about modernity and modernisation. For100 years, china has been arguing with itself about who owns the state, ever since the 1911 revolution. On the streets in 1911, people were calling for mr science and mr democracy and they still are 100 years later. The other interesting and perhaps worrying aspect of all of this is that since china joined the wto, there was a great hope that very soon china would become a democracy and capitalism would bring democracy and so on. Actually what is happening is that china is transforming the west. The west is not very assertive in its dealings with china. We are allowing ourselves to be transformed by china . We are and it is shocking the number of Media Companies who have not only bow to the requests of censorship coming from the Chinese Government, but actually have helped the Chinese Government to arrest dissidents. Yahoo is a case in point. It is worrying when an academic publisher, who is supposed to be a little bit above profit making, which they are clearly not, is ready to revoke any claims to be a defender of Academic Freedom, for access of a huge market. The economy plays a very major role. Look at shanghai or other cities, they are prospering, a huge market. Many people think twice before taking any steps which. Even the British Government here know it is a dictatorship and they are banning the press. They know they are arresting dissidents but despite that, they would like to do business. I would not actually be surprised if, for example, Cambridge University said, ok, we have Good Business with them, i am not surprised. The governments are doing, so the universities can do the same. The reality is if you read made in china 2025, its quite clear that from now on there will be less access to that market for foreign companies. The dream of the chinese market, which the chinese have used to devastating effect, to get their way, is actually fading. We sell three times as much to ireland as we to china. Lets kowtow to ireland instead. Chinas Economic Development is undeniable, and because of the primacy thats been placed on that around the world, it has been able to market, notjust its economic model but its political model as well. You say it has been influencing the west, its also influencing other countries, whether its turkey or other parts of asia who say, look, we can become Economic Prosperity without liberalisation and that is dangerous. They have been having a massive role in africa. Thats rigt, but then to take that long view you were talking about, china loves to go on about its 5000 year history, even to take the last 100 years that isabel was pointi