senior politicians in hong kong have been celebrating the moment the city returned to chinese rule 22 years ago. at the same time, pro—democracy protesters, who've blocked main roads and set up barricades, are locked in a stand—off with police. a major demonstration is expected later. president trump has become the first sitting us president to cross into north korea. the meeting with kimjong—un came four months after the collapse of their last summit. the two leaders posed for handshakes, then talked for nearly an hour in the heavily fortified demilitarised zone. they agreed to set up teams to continue discussions. authorities in sudan say seven people have been killed and nearly 200 injured during renewed protests in several cities. tens of thousands of people took to the streets to keep up the pressure on the country's interim military rulers to hand power over to a civilian administration. it's 3:30am.

now on bbc news, it's dateline london. hello, and welcome to dateline london. i'm carrie gracie. this week: "right back on track" — says president trump of us trade talks with china. but was it peace treaty or a truce when the g2 met at the g20? and the heart—wrenching photo of a drowned father and daughter which reminded us all of the misery and the urgency of global migration. my guests today: marc roche of le point, italian writer and filmmaker annalisa piras, polly toynbee, columnist for the guardian, and john fisher burns, veteran reporter for the new york times. welcome to you all. now, a g20 summit is often

more about the quips, the cold shoulders and calculations that happen on the sidelines than it is about the headline initiatives. the same was true of osaka. but much of the world was holding its breath for a breakthrough on the trade war between the us and china. so, are the big two now back on track as president trump has claimed? john, you start us off. it is very difficult to read into these sorts of statements by president trump. he has made them before only for them to be have proven to fall short. it seems to me that resolving the trade imbalance between the us and china is going to take more than a friendly meeting with xijinping. when i lived in china last, nearly 30 years ago, the total trade between china and the us, both ways, was less then 1 billion.

now, the deficit on the us side is something in excess of 300 billion i believe and mounting. that's going to take a long time. and there are plenty of opportunities for things to go awry. it is only one aspect of an increasingly complex relationship as china evermore assumes the role of a superpower, and as the us become ever more contradictory. so, you think a lull rather than peace in our time? i do. polly, he also seems to have said something obliging about huawei, the chinese tech giant, suggesting that us companies can, at least in a limited reversal or qualification of his ban of last month, that us companies can trade and deal with huawei. and sell them components.

do you think there is something behind this, other than listening to allies, because they have obviously been saying stop the protectionism, we need to get on with this, we have a global economy in crisis. it doesn't help to have a war between us and china. he does not listen to allies, as he set off to osaka, he systematically offended every single one of them, he was personally rude about india, germany, about japan. it was extraordinary as he went through the list offending everybody. but when he got there, he was more emollient. the only reason why he is now making some peace over china is that his advisers are telling him that the economy in america has been booming due to his extraordinary tax cuts for the rich, but that is now flagging. actually, the whole global economy is put in peril by this trade war that trump has begun, as you say, there are imbalances and problems and china probably doesn't play fair. but nevertheless, he has an election coming up,

this is all about trump needing to get his economy back on track, and he is discovering that having a fight with china does not suddenly miraculously open up all those factories in the rust belt that he promised his base would be open because the work would not be done in china. it doesn't work like that. globalism, better or worse, is here to stay. peace is for the election. after the election, if he wins it, i don't know. but i don't think we will see any more china friction until after the election? interesting. marc, is that also your analysis? yes, but i think there will be an informal agreement between the us and china on trade, because the stakes are too important. there will be a reform of the wto, the world trade organisation. that's optimistic. that needs a reform. despite this climate of trade wars, the us and europe hasjust signed a a trade agreement,

no tariff in a market of 790 million people. the usjust also signed before with canada, with japan. now with south america. so trade continues. as a comparison, i don't want to go into brexit, i promise you! no, you're not allowed. i know, iwon't. but i will say that britain, as comparison, in the post—brexit world, has just signed with the faroe islands. are you having a little dig there? yes, cheap whale oil for lamps! it is true that we are so obsessed with trump and china that we actually forget that what has happened between the eu is an extraordinary achievement.

20 years in the making, it will create an almost 800 million single market, it will reduce tariffs, it will boost exports and collaboration. it will both environmental practices in latin america. this is a sign that things are happening and we should pay attention to them because those are the signs that bring us forward. where the eu moves together in a kind of a united front, it achieves things that benefit the entire world and reinstate an international rules—based order, which is what trump is trying to demolish. so i think it is very important that we pay attention, we know that putin says that liberalism is the way out... that is what i was going to get to next. taking this proof from the both of you, we won't talk about trump tweeting,

let's talk about putin on liberalism, because that is a huge tweaking of the west's tale. what do you think of that? it is extraordinary. you have to give it to putin he was the master, when he was at the kgb, the art of twisting things and making this information. his interview was a masterpiece of disinformation. because he was talking nonsense, first of all, liberal values are outdated, which is blatantly not true, because they still are the dominant, and the fundamental philosophy still. especially in the western world. he was also collating it with letting migrants come in and rape people and the rights of lgtb people. he was making a completely false association. he was stating utter nonsense. yet, you pay tribute to his smarts in doing so. so how does he manage to spin that, in your view,

what is clever about it? what is clever about it is he uses the weakness of the west to make himself stronger. but the problem is us in the west who are just complacent and we are not taking up what is a fundamental historic battle against our foundation values. what i find extraordinary is the interview with the ft is that the interviewers did not ask him the right questions, they didn't push him. it is exactly what you say. it is this complacency in the world. if liberalism was so bad, why do refugees from all over the world want to come to europe? which we are coming to next. which putin did raise. but we will come to that when we deal with migration. polly? i think one thing that he said is right. i think classic liberalism, on which all of modern civilisation

has been built, is under serious threat. under threat from him, from a far more authoritarian chinese president, president xi, from trump, and maybe the american withdrawal from some of these fundamental principles. europe remains, which is the cradle of this kind of — the bastion of this kind of liberalism, but it is a weak one. around its edges, poland, hungary, italy, it is fraying at the edges. the belief in international human law, international human rights, in freedoms of speech, in all the basic freedoms — we have to hold onto those. we have to say, that is what europe represents. it is a tragedy, of course, that britain is withdrawing, helping to weaken that whole idea. we are not talking about brexit! thank you for reminding us!

just in an example in this front line in this ideological war that you're all talking about, we saw, john, president putin sit down with president trump and they were asked about the mueller report and election meddling, and both of them smiled and president trump seemed to be joking about that and about fake news and journalists who should be thrown out. it's like this issue of liberalism is if you have the leader of the free world who doesn't seem to be singing from the hymn sheet, what can you do? it is a very distressing moment. but if i may comment on putin's remarks about liberalism. i find it frightening, his arrogance, the smugness with which he speaks, as if the battle he has been engaged in for nearly 20 years with the west has fallen decisively in his favour. it strikes me that it raises the risk of miscalculation.

he has already broken the basic rules of international behaviour, as established since the second world war, egregiously on a number of ways, one of which mrs may highlighted, the salisbury killings. it strikes me that if we look at what he might do next, particularly in the baltic states, this arrogance... you're right. his whole regime is based on militarism. for the last 40 years, there has not been one year when the russians have not been at war — ukraine, georgia, syria, afghanistan. you did say we were... on that, theresa may did take him on over these values, didn't she? she looked to me like she had a bad time and i wouldn't expect her to be in the peak of health,

but she looked as if she'd rather be anywhere else in the world rather than in that room with putin. it looked very glacial. but she also said, despicable act in salisbury, the use of nerve agents. you did say, when we were talking off—air, you said we could refer to, if not discuss at large, the issue of brexit. i don't want to — i am not censoring it, i just want to be clear to the audience, i have not censored this! ijust said that i think that the audience needs a break! i couldn't agree with you more, but i must say, one of the things that to me has been distressing about the tory leadership campaign and the debate they had was that there was virtually no mention of any other issue, as if brexit is the only issue that confronts this nation. i think mrs may, who goodness knows has been at the sharp end of all this, has some concept, having served as pm for three years, there are issues. dare i say, even greater issues that need to be addressed.

we are going to address one of them now. from the two or three weeks that are left, i would be very happy if mrjohnson or mr hunt were to address these issues. i think some of them are coming up on the hustings, to be fair. we will not go on the debate today, we'll get the chance to go back on it. because it'll be going on for several weeks. you will be allowed to come back. now, we will turn to a global issue, one that concerns all of us. oscar and valeria ramirez — a young father and his 23—month—old daughter who drowned in the rio grande river as they tried to make it from poverty in el salvador to the united states. and in the same week as that harrowing photograph of their washed up bodies, we've also heard eyewitness reports of many young children separated from their parents and kept in degrading and inhumane detention camps on the american border,

or so say the reports. immigration is a bitterly partisan issue in us politics, but the migration crisis is by no meansjust a us problem. annalisa, i want to come to you first on this, because you spent years making a film about migration in europe. this is a global problem, why do we seem to get regional or national about it? you are right. it isa... let's start by saying, this is not a crisis, this is a global phenomenon, and it will increase massively in the next decade. the un has estimated that there are 70 million people on the move around the world. this is not about migrants from africa or mexico, this is a world phenomenon and every person in the whole world is challenged by it. so the error and tragedy of us liberals, people who think that humanity is a value, is to lose the battle

to the populists. we have lost the battle because we have not been able to make the case for a rational approach to what is a worldwide phenomenon. we have lost the battle to the populists who keep saying that this is all about locking invaders out, and that is what has been happening in mexico, what is happening today in europe. where in italy we have the atrocity of a national european state that is locking the doors to refugees that are risking drowning at sea. there was a boat that was left in the middle of the sea for 40 days, the captain was arrested yesterday for breaking the blockade. it is a huge, huge issue and i think that we are failing miserably to actually get a proper explanation because there are solutions.

marc, you agree with annalisa? completely. but i think, in europe, the problem is that this refugee crisis is coming at a time with economic difficulties, with the digital revolution causing people to lose theirjobs. it can be very hard for working class and lower middle class people who feel threatened in theirjobs by refugees, even if it is purely an invention. i think the only solution is developing aid to help countries where refugees are coming from, to stop them fleeing. an example, we go back to the us, instead of doing all these detention centres — help the el salvador government to fight the drug gangs, and then you will have less el salvadorians coming to the us. we'll come back to the us in a moment.

this relates back to what we were saying about putin and liberalism because the issue of migration was something he used to make its case. he said that germany had made mistakes and president trump had been right to keep them out of the us. yes, he said multiculturalism was dead. his ideas, about the way he treats his own minorities, the way the chinese treat their minorities is becoming an apartheid state of mind. you have a shrinking sense of what your identity is, to keep everybody out, lock them up. as marc says, it is rather like climate change, in the end, as this is a global problem that is to be dealt with globally. more and more people will move, because of climate as well. on the whole, people do not move for minor economic reasons, they only move when things are terrible, mostly wars, sometimes famine, sometimes gangs like in el salvador, which is absolutely terrifying. so there are good reasons and those good reasons could be dealt with if the world said it would do something about it.

the other thing is that it is not europe that is hurting, it is countries on the edge of africa and other places who take those refugees in. whether it's from myanmar, or wherever. we protest, but we are rich. it is those poorest countries facing the biggest problems with huge refugee camps. john, why have we failed to find a multilateral solution to what is a global problem? i think because it's a huge problem. i spent the best part of fifty years travelling the earth, much of it in the poorer and more oppressed regions of the world, not having realised that this was a predominant issue as it should have been visible to people

like me, 20—30 years ago. i think what happened was that it became suddenly visually accessible, through satellite television and other means, to people who are not prepared for their children's or grandchildren‘s generation to enjoy some of this wealth. it's not really wealth pulling. it is utter desperation pushing. it is wars and acute famine. it's notjust, it looks richer in america — i'll go there. i think there are a number of people who fall into that category. but to deal with it will be extraordinarily difficult because it will be, not net migration as we face here of 200,000 a year, we are talking about 1—2 million a year if we are going to meet the standard you are talking about, i don't think that it will be

politically feasible. germany did very well. i think there was some tension in the eastern part but more than 1 million people were integrated. it shifted the politics of germany. and italy... it is a moral example to follow. as a one—time shock, germany survived it, but if it became the case of more each year, it could be a problem. look at france and italy, at the frontier. everybody in europe is egotistical and terrorised about the effects on populism. if you had a repartition of refugees, that would have worked.

at the same time, a policy of collaboration. i want to hear from annalise... europe's attempts to have what you call a repartition have failed. when you look at the countries in europe that have actually managed to bring the population into accepting huge numbers of migrants, that's when things have been explained to people. take sweden, they did have a growth in extreme right—wing parties... sweden has not done terribly well, actually. now, you will have a backlash. but if you explain, like germany has done, actually there are humanitarian reasons, if you tell people that. today, in britain, farmers are crying for help because they cannot get people to pick their crops because of the brexit backlash against foreigners. so you need to make a case for migration. annalise, it won't be the answer.

you cannot have 1—2 million arriving in each country. in the end, it has to be stopping the causes of the migration. people don't like leaving their own countries. it's needs to be all these things, there is not one magic wand. it needs to be a complex of things. that is what the eu has been trying to do. but they have to increase development aid, everywhere it is reducing. not here. you are right, but you're

no longer in the eu. giving money has not worked in the past. these are all things the eu is doing together. europe as a whole has really been breaking new ground. i want to go back to the us which is where we started this topic. we heard from putin, we hear from trump on immigration issues — do you think his tone will play well in the re—election battle of 2020? or do you think his voters are outraged by children suffering? i think the 2020 election will be deeply divisive and bitter. this will be one of the issues. there will be many people in the united states, it may be many of the people who voted for him last time when he promised to build a wall, who feel deeply uncomfortable about the undocumented migration in the us, which again is reaching record levels, 144,000 in a month for march or april. heading for over! million people this year. that will not be

politically sustainable. what about the democratic opposition? have you heard them articulate the kind of case that annalise is talking about? the long education type case for doing something different? not really, i think it will be difficult to do so. they will make more liberal noise about it but i don't think they will be able to make a case, i think that is very toxic and difficult. especially at a time when the economy is showing signs of going badly. dealing with the causes of this migration at source is impossibly expensive. we taxpayers pay £15 billion a year into the aid budget, we would be talking about that

proportionally and much more, in the years ahead, if we want to make any impact whatsoever. what are we going to spend our money on at the end? are we all going to die due to the climate emergency? in the end, we will have to pay a lot of money and have a lower standard of living to solve these global problems or we will be overwhelmed by them. there really is no choice. no politicians are telling the truth about this. i do hope we can move beyond brexit and start to have a responsible, public debate about these issues because they are crowding in on us at a terrific speed now. the thing about that is that they need multilateral solutions. would president trump, if he got a second term, be the person to lead on multilateral solutions? unlikely, but it might be necessary for him to change because he will face the consequences of his bullying unilateralism soon, and maybe be forced to change. i will have to leave it there.

that is your word, bullying. we will hopefully come back to that issue of migration before too long. that's it for dateline london for this week — we're back next week at the same time. goodbye.

this is bbc news. welcome, if you're watching here in the uk or around the globe. i'm reged ahmad. our top stories: hong kong marks the 22nd anniversary of the handoverfrom british to chinese control as pro—democracy protestors are locked in a stand—off with police. a handshake and a moment of history. could president trump's visit unlock further progress in the us—north korea talks? at least seven people are killed in sudan after tens of thousands return to the streets to demand civilian rule. and sir david attenborough joins kylie and the cure