26/08/2017 Dateline London

Hello and welcome to Dateline London.

With Brexit talks about to restart, has the blizzard of British

policy papers dazzled or dazed the Europeans?

Is China open to discussion or is the mood darkening

And could there be regime change in the Gulf state of Qatar?

Henry Chu, international editor of Variety,

the writer and broadcaster Isabel Hilton, editor of China Dialogue,

the Portuguese writer Eunice Goes,

and Abdel Bari Atwan, writer on Arab affairs.

A warm welcome and thanks for being with us.

British laws made by British judges -

one of the themes those who wanted Britain out

Yet, the Government said this week it may not be quite

so straightforward to free us from the European Court

When the negotiators reconvene in a few days' time

after their summer break, they'll 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?

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 dismal position papers

without positions, just kind of scenarios and the British Government

has no position. But there are some signs of well, 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 of Justice, and I think it 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 pointer 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 studies 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. Any sense, there are

distinction is artificial and bit and we must talk about the divorce

before we talk about what comes after.

Let's 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 a negotiating process. This

remains me in some ways of backing the presidential campaign in the US,

when people said, we shouldn't take trouble 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 Younis

that there is a sign of moderation of more realistic notions of what

the relationship should be. In terms of Ireland, you know, that is such a

vexed situation from its political and religious sectarian history, and

that has to be grappled with by both the EU and Britain. It is not in the

EU interest that there should be any friction among that border or any

outbreak of unrest that could jeopardise the piece that has been

fragile. And both sides need to be really realistic when they come to

questions like that. Isabel Hilton, do you hear realism

in the political debate back in the UK?

And 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 we are 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 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, notwithstanding the negotiations themselves, in terms of domestic

British politics, it could be fractious.

It could be fractious and I think we will go on seeing this ball kicked

down the road, this can take 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 don't trust Theresa May at all. And it was absolutely right to

say this is a weak Government. They lost the majority in the parliament.

The pound is losing its ground, about 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 a? B point

Brexiteers make is that in the end the trading relationship is so

strong and well established that it is in no interest to jeopardise

that. But you have to keep the good

relations. The problem now, when it's a lack trust, Europeans say,

let us talk about the cost this divorce. It is ?74 million. Let's

agree on it. Billion.

Sorry, billion. 74 billion. Briton 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 of 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 fresh in this 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 of Justice, that will end with some role for the court

remaining? You talk about a bunch, but these blurring things, could

they be enough to get us do it? 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 can't have it. If you

and I were to do a contract, we would agree who would arbitrate and

if there was a dispute, so depending European Court of Justice as a great

imposing dominant thing which imposes laws is nonsense, but you

can't rule 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 direct jurisdiction. There will be some

kind of dispute resolution mechanism and European judges will perhaps be

involved, but not the same as being under the thumb of... I agree the

rhetoric has been so strident that to get 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, eight fudge or compromise.

We will stay on the question of compromise...

The world's oldest publisher, Cambridge University Press,

found itself caught between the lure of entering China and the rigour

Earlier this month, it accepted a request from Beijing that

politically sensitive articles on its "China Quarterly"

A few days a go, it reversed that decision.

Taken with other instances of a Government crackdown on free

Isabel, tell us about the press case and why people are worried

that it may be a harbinger of things to come.

Tell us about the other things perhaps beginning to make people

notice. 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 big company they had removed 300 articles from the

website at the request of the Chinese authorities, still not

absolutely clear which authorities... 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 in 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. As China gets stronger, not only is the party capable of

imposing its view of history, its 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 takeout on the corruption and the Private Wealth of

the leading members of the party, immediately blocked in China. At the

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 have

suffered a lot of reputational damage. It goes further. Chinese

authorities routinely 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 commerce party is 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 his story, and everyone is expected to swallow it.

What the West must decide is, are we going to swallow this?

I find troubling about this Cambridge University Press case that

even blocking western media, whether the New York Times or the other

publications, that has been ongoing for years, so nothing new, but when

I lived in China 15 years ago those sites were blocked. 15 years ago

academic freedom is 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 taken in, that it

real sign that this new regime is not blocking any kind of dissent or

different view than what it wants to put forward. -- it is not allowing

any kind of dissent. The fact there is this kind of party conference,

the 90th anniversary of the funding of the liberation Army, all that is

contributing to this ideological construction, that some people are

hopefully saying will then be loosened after this is over. I don't

think so. They have a regime that does insist on ideological purity

and we will see more of it. You set for five years, which more

or less put us at the time when the president they took office. It is

very much driven by his perspective. There have been leaks of documents,

the notorious document nine which somebody went to jail for a licking,

and explicit rejection of Western values, as they call it. But

included rule of law, and the nihilistic view of history, a

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, some 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 chooses to function. Britain is supposed to

be a cold guarantor of Hong Kong's freedom, and that it continues to

cooperate under this system. Is Britain making enough of that role,

do you think? Is Britain's picking up enough on these issues? A lot of

the dissidents there can complain they can't even get a spate of

British ministers even if they come to Britain.

I believe it is not. I don't believe Britain is doing it all here. I

believe they are 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

Security Council its 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 don't

believe in 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. And they don't care. After ten years

of publishing the book, now they realise that there is this book...

Maybe they like it already... I don't know 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 their

not clear what they are. Are they a commune is party state? They don't

look like a Communist Party. Redistribution of wealth upwards and

downwards? There are kind of state capitalist so they have we Birgitta

a lot of imperial traditions they used to denigrate and despise. --

they have reverted to imperial traditions anyway.

A long history that predates the Communist Party. If there is a big

cultural that we in the West have not fully grasped? Or is that an

excuse? It is about modernity and

modernisation. For 100 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

bowed 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 where an academic

publisher, who is supposed to be a little bit above profit-making,

which they are clearly not, is ready to read Vogue any claims to be a

defender of academic freedom -- it is ready to revoke any claims to be

a defender of academic freedom. The economy plays a major role. Look

at Shanghai or other cities, 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 and we have good business

with them, I am not surprised... The governments are doing the

universities do so. The reality is if you read up on

this 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 China. Let's kowtow to Ireland

instead. China's economic development is undeniable, and

because of the place it is around the world, it has been able to

marking are just as economic model but its political model as well. You

say it has been influencing the Western also influencing other

countries, whether it is to hear other part of Asia who say, look, we

can become economic prosperity without liberalisation and that is

dangerous. A massive role in Africa.

Do 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 pointing out, from 1911 onwards. Anyone who studies China knows that

there are periods of tightening and periods of liberalising and periods

of tightening. I don't know that I would feel very confident in making

any kind of production in 20 years from now where we will be. Will it

have tightened further or will it have undergone another

liberalisation? Hard to say. And maybe that's it becomes the mind

about the Chinese politician who was asked about the outcome of the

French Revolution, it's too soon to say. We talked

We've talked before on Dateline London about

the standoff between a number of Gulf States and Qatar.

Abdel Bari has been watching this closely for us.

You're detecting signs of regime change -

who wants to bring that about, and why?

It is very dangerous. Now the conflict started with a media war

between Saudi Arabia and its allies against Qatar. They presented about

13 demands for Qatar to apply or else. One of them, closing

al-Jazeera, the other to stop financing and supporting the Muslim

Terrorism. Terrorism. There is a huge step now

for word for a regime change in Qatar. It seems that all mediation

between the two sides held completely, so now the arena is

grooming another prince from the royal family, and they have another

prince and they think he should replace the Royal family. This is

the most dangerous things. This happens, how they will sink into

power, for example, reinstate him in power? Because he belongs to the

founder of Qatar... The Royal family, he is part of it. How they

are going to do it? Either planning for an internal military coup or

political revolution a popular revolution? Are going to carry him

to go higher, for example, to rule the country. We don't know yet. The

most important thing, the Saudi are furious and very serious and now

they are giving this man of the authority. They are creating, you

know, a parallel Government... So it is extremely dangerous.

How well Qataris respond to that? There were reports after this,

dictation began that the emir was becoming like a pop star on the

streets of the capital, that people were putting up his portrait and

singing his praises, that they admired him, and taking a stand

against this pressure from outside. Has that changed?

It has not changed. There are no traces of changes but we have to

remember that it is a tribal society, a tribal country, and these

tribes are divided, between Saudi Arabia and Qatar and the Emirates

and they have roots there. They could play on the tribal nerve here

and it could also split, as I said, the Royal family. There are always

disputes in these royal families. There is another one outside power.

And Qatar, for example, witnessed more than three or four military

coups or political coups, so we don't know what will happen. So it

is really deadly serious. Qatar is now under blockade and Al Jazeera is

now launching a huge war against Saudi Arabia and the United Arab

Emirates and Egypt also. Whether they succeed are not, we don't know,

but the outcome is a mess. This part of the world is to be the most

stable part. It is very well become a very... The people are the same

attitudes, the same attitudes, the same background, but for the first

time there is an earthquake hitting the whole area and where it will

last we don't know. I will give you one example. If you tweet

sympathising with Qatar, if you are in United Arab Emirates you could be

imprisoned for ten or 15 years, with a huge fine, maybe a million. Things

are really developing to the worst. Short of actually developing a

Government in exile, or preparing a Government takeover, there are other

things these four countries can do which they have not done yet. For

example, imposing formal sanctions are going further. They have not yet

taken that route. It seems it is a stand-off at the moment, that there

is no upper hand on either side. I don't know that there is a good

outcome necessarily, but it hasn't escalated to the point yet, it

seems, where... Will it come to terrorism? All these

countries actually were financing and supporting some kind of

terrorism in Iraq, in Syria, Libya. This is not the problem... The real

problem which is facing them, you know, Qatar is a small nation,

300,000. The population of Qatar 's 300,000, and one of the richest

countries on earth. A wealth fund which spends huge

amount of money in European countries.

They have about $320 billion in their sovereign funds they are rich

and they know how to buy their own people to make them happy. The

problem is the blockade is starting to hurt... It is starting change and

people are now saying, OK, why shall we be besieged? Saudi Arabia and its

allies, Egypt and Bahrain and Arab Emirates, they are saying, we have

time. We are well established and we have also... Qatar is besieged...

I think we have to be a bit careful with all this talk, because the

potential of instability, it is absolutely huge. There is no

guarantee whatsoever, at least perhaps what the Saudis have to dig

about, that the population of Qatar is going to support it brings that

is a stooge of the Saudis. It is likely that actually the actual

population will support the current in the year. On the other aspect of

all of this is the original implications... Of this instability.

We have on one hand Qatar being supported by Turkey, Iran, there is

a strengthening of the relationship with Iran. And Israel is on the side

more or less of the Saudis, but there were previous relationships

with Qatar, so it is cutely contradicted the potential for

instability. Be sure effect has driven Qatar

closer into the arms of restoring diplomatic relations... I wonder,

had President John's visit to Saudi Arabia not given such explicit

encouragement to this action, whether we might not... -- President

John's visit to Saudi Arabia... I believe they gave the green light.

-- President Trump. He said, I have got jobs for you...

We'll must leave it there. Thank you all very much.

Do join us again next week, same time, same place,

but, for now, thank you for watching and goodbye.

Now let's take a look at the weather.

There may be a few showers, a few splashes of rain in the UK

over the next few days, but given the fact it is the weekend

and an extended weekend and what we've had so far this