across coastal parts of wet across coastal parts of scotland, north—east england, down through wales and the south—west. showers in western scotland and northern ireland as well. not quite as cold here as it was last night. but a little bit of frost here and there but for most under the cloud it will be less cold than the previous night. as we head through sunday it will stay pretty damp across northern england. maybe heavy bursts of rain for the north—east of england so it could be quite right here —— it could be quite wet here. we have a building area of high pressure from monday and tuesday, a window of nice fine conditions for both monday and tuesday. plenty of sunshine around. very cold morning with mist and fog. deep in the way, low— pressure with mist and fog. deep in the way, low—pressure encroaching from the atlantic, increasing cloud under stronger breeze from the south. temperatures will creep up by the end of the week.

hello, this is bbc

news with shaun ley. the headlines: prince andrew speaks publicly for the first time about his friendship with the convicted sex offender, jeffrey epstein. in an exclusive interview with bbc newsnight, the duke says it was wrong to stay at epstein‘s house and admits he let "the side down." that's the bit that, that, that, erm, as it were, i kick myself for on a daily basis, cos it was not something that was becoming of a member of the royal family. prince andrew also said he had "no recollection" of meeting virginia roberts — who claims she was forced to have sex with him when she was 17 after being groomed by epstein. he denies any inappropriate conduct. in other news: scotland yard is investigating claims of electoral fraud — after the brexit party said its candidates had been offered inducements by conservatives to stand down. two people have been hurt in a large fire at a student accommodation building in bolton — more than 200 firefighters were brought in to tackle the blaze.

thank you for your company so far today. now on bbc news — there are hopes in washington and beijing that an agreement to help resolve the us—china trade war could soon be in sight. but this is a rivalry about much more than just trade. washington is designed to impress, to convey notjust prestige but permanence. solid, enduring, american power in architectural form. but behind the marble and granite, policy is always in flux. the current administration has shifted the position on china 180 degrees. a few years ago, the country was seen as a potential partner. now, it's a deadly rival. this is a play for global supremacy.

it really is as stark as that? i believe it is, absolutely. i think it's the most consequential existential threat since the nazi party in world war ii. what's been allowed to go on for decades is disgraceful, it's disgraceful. these two nations are locked in the world's most important rivalry. but what does america want? what is the endgame? announcer: mr donald] trump! donald trump talks about china more than any of his predecessors. we can't continue to allow china to rape our country, and that's what they are doing, it's the greatest theft in the history of the world. but the shift in us—china policy goes far deeper than a few stump speeches or late—night tweets from the president's bedroom.

sometimes i think there is a mistaken view that the us—china policy, the pronounced shift, is based on president trump. but that's actually incorrect. if you had seen a hillary clinton presidency or another democrat or another republican in 2016, you would have seen this sharp turn, that there were, i would say across both in the executive branch and in capitol hill, a sense that our approach to china in the us wasn't working and needed a significant change. and just as this isn't only about trump, it isn't only about trade either. the rest of his administration is very focused on the many ways in which china is seen as challenging american interests around the world, notjust trade. with the help of washington insiders, including some who helped forge this new china policy, i'm going to try to piece together how american now sees its relationship with china and what the us endgame is. how big a threat is china, do you think, to the western order?

i think it's the most consequential existential threat since the nazi party in world war ii. i think it's a far greater threat than the soviet union ever was. as the number two economy in the world, its reach, particularly into the governments and all the institutions of the west, far exceeds what the soviets could ever manage. ever since richard nixon became the first american president to travel to the people's republic of china in 1972, meetings between the us and china have had a formulaic feel. nixon: the companionship with the chinese and american people. always looking forward to better relations. news archive: the administration is giving him the kind of treatment over the next week not normally laid on even for a head of state

or head of government. we expect that normalisation will help to move us together toward a world of diversity and of peace. we believe even greater progress can be made if our future efforts are based on 'hujing hu hui' — mutual respect and mutual benefit. the united states always had the hope that china would become more like the united states, that it would become more liberal, more democratic, not necessarily a democracy as we think it, but more open and potentially even contribute to the world once it became a bigger economy. but then in quick succession, two major events happened. the 1989 tianenmen square massacre told the united states that china wasn't going to reform on its own. a few months later,

the berlin wall fell, setting the soviet union on its march into oblivion. this suggested to american strategists a new approach, to get china to change. the new policy under president clinton was market—driven reform. expose china to the winds of international trade and reform and democracy would come. it was, promised mr clinton, a one—way street. getting into a rules—based system and promoting economic competition will both enhance the march of liberty and law. and human rights. president clinton succeeded in getting china admitted to the world trade organisation, a sort of club of trading nations who agree a common rulebook. this agreement exchanges membership rights for china in the wto for economic opportunities for america in china.

20 years on from those rose—tinted rose garden pronouncements, the world looks very, very different. it's clear now to many in washington that back then, the us simply got china wrong. the way the current us president talks about china and the wto couldn't be more different from his predecessor. the world trade organisation needs drastic change. the second—largest economy in the world should not be permitted to declare itself a developing country in order to game the system at others' expense. there are a few areas where, not just president clinton but i think the us foreign policy establishment, generally got wrong. one was that these international institutions had the power to truly reshape china, that at the end of the day, china was able to find loopholes or slow down punitive action. and this is notjust in the wto. the wto is perhaps the best example,

where ultimately, these institutions didn't really have the power to compel china to make meaningful change at home. china never really intended to fulfil wto obligations. it's more the case that china intended to join multilateral fora and gain voice there. in order not to learn how it's done but in order to begin to shift how multi national fora regulate global trade. so theyjoined not to be changed but to change? yes. instead of the us transforming china, the change was the other way round. the result was what economists

call the "china shock." a huge wave of us jobs lost and us factories closed. it is devastating. not only did we lose 13 millionjobs, not only did we lose all our manufacturing capacity to the point where china's manufacturing circuit boards for the f—35, but also, the people losing those, losing health benefits, losing retirement benefits. all of that was levied on the state, local and federal governments to take care of and then behind that, to add insult to injury, not only did they lose theirjobs but the products that came in, that they were previously manufacturing, were of substandard, they poisoned you, they exploded, they caught on fire. of course, chinese companies would dispute that characterisation of their products. however, the transfer ofjobs was vastly accelerated by decisions made by us companies in search of increased profits. it wasn't the chinese that stole

the jobs but because the cost of doing business in china, producing in china, was so much lower than in the united states, many companies had closed down factories in the united states and set up factories in china and that was also seen as part of this unfair playing field, even though the united states was able to buy products from china much more cheaply than if they had been produced in the united states. not only did consumers love being able to buy those cheap products but governments appreciated the low—cost china option because it helped them keep inflation under control. however, many american companies that relocated to china rapidly found that low labour costs came at a very high price. it opened up the companies to leverage by china for their technology. once the chinese realised that market access to china was a goal of us firms, then the chinese government policy began to subtly exercise leverage.

for decades, beijing, as a kind of quid pro quo for western companies having market access to china, has forced them to hand over their technology, their intellectual property. and for a long time this was perhaps concerning but not an existential issue for many companies, they felt like they could stay multiple steps ahead but ultimately, china's closing that gap and that's why you see today us policymakers so focused on this technology transfer issue. in the american political system, it's companies that help bankroll the politicians and the parties. 20 years ago, they were begging congress to give them access to that lucrative chinese market. by 2015, though, it was quite the opposite, they were begging the politicians to protect them from china. when companies were finding out that their patents and things were being rifled through, when their products were being reverse engineered, when their r&d processes

are being hijacked, more and more companies came to the conclusion that being in china, partnering with china, ultimately was not turning out to be profitable and could actually be downright negative. american corporations found they were pushing at an open door. as well as appropriating american technology through joint ventures, the us authorities accused the chinese government of stealing industrial and military secrets through hacking and espionage. the mood in washington changed almost overnight. what i noticed was that in the agencies and departments, consensus shifted from engagement means, be patient and let them learn, to, oh my goodness, they're getting way ahead and they're not really showing signs of wanting to learn but rather of taking advantage. is it possible to put a number

on the value of the technology that has been transferred to china over the course of the last 20 years or so? people have begun to look at that bipartisan commission called the intellectual property commission or the commission on theft of intellectual property. estimates that the loss of ip is somewhere above between 225 and 600 billion. also, a separate study estimates that the annual loss from cyber espionage is 400 billion so during the four years leading up to 2017, at one point, $2 trillion. "$1.2 trillion. inside the pentagon, this transfer of technology was seen as a huge national security risk. so much of us military superiority depends on having exclusive access to us innovation.

i had a team working at the pentagon from 2014 to 2016 that really looked at, what would a notional national security strategy look like, that looked at national security in a globalised, 21st—century construct, where data is a strategic resource, where business and finance really drive geopolitical outcomes, and how do you, how do you begin to think about that in terms of implementing a national security that is fundamentally different from that of the cold war, even the post—cold war? so, three crucial constituencies of opinion had shifted. the business community, government departments and agencies, and the military — well before donald trump was even confirmed as the nominee for president. he most definitely didn't create this wave of change on china, but he certainly sought to harness it. president trump absolutely rode part of this backlash, because if you're going to have manufacturing moved to china and out of the united states,

if you're going to have hollowing out, where's the benefit? presumably there is supposed to be some benefit for some part of the american economy, but in fact what has happened is that the companies that reduce their labour costs were nonetheless finding out that the intellectual property is being lost as well. so you pretty much have an across—the—boa rd reaction that found china to be less and less desirable as a partner. china and others are making our products. we don't make it anymore. a trump administration will stop the jobs from leaving america. a lot of the things that he was saying on the campaign trail resonated with what we were trying to come to, as we tried to put the pieces in place of what a counter—strategy might be, and so it was interesting to note, for me as a strategist, that not only what i was seeing in a national security sense, but the american electorate was seeing in a social sense, and they were seeing it collectively.

the ultimate result of general spalding's work at the pentagon was arguably the most important policy document of president trump's first year in office, the national security strategy, published in december 2017. with this strategy i am announcing today, we are declaring that america is in the game and america is going to win. ultimately, the national security strategy is kind of the leading document for the us government and the various departments and agencies take that as their marching orders. and so to have a document of that kind of high—level nature, very fairly calling out china as a strategic competitor, making an argument that there was a competition of systems between a kind of liberal rules—based order and the kind of repressive autocratic order that china was trying to enforce, that was highly significant, especially in how it guides how the us government as a whole is executing china policy. so it was a major shift from the past. the first government department

to incorporate the new china policy was defense. the us and china are locked in an increasingly hostile competition in the south china sea, where china has built and militarised a string of artificial islands in defiance of international law. the us responded very slowly. it took a long time before they fully appreciated what china was building. by the time china had really started militarising these islands, it was too late for the united states to respond, and nobody wanted to go to war with china over what they called "reefs and rocks" in the south china sea. $5.3 trillion of trade transits through the south china sea, very near the spratlys.

china's actions were, in a sense, an attempt to be able to cut the carotid artery of global trade. so many of the conversations i have had in this city boil down to one concern — that china's rise is nowjust too rapid for the united states to manage. like those islands that appeared almost out of nowhere, there is a sense that unless the us gets a grip on the china challenge, and soon, it might well become unmanageable. the stated chinese government policy is to dominate emerging technologies like robotics and ai. the stated chinese government policy is to dominate emerging technologies like robotics and ai. this truly was a wake—up call for washington, that china had said so explicitly that it wants to dominate these technologies. this is very core to the competition now between the united states and china, because if china

were to succeed in these areas, then it probably would supplant the us as the leading power in the world. information technology and other emerging technologies are going to be keys to global economic power, and so either working out a better global system of agreement and cooperation, or establishing supremacy, or a combination of both, is absolutely critical to survival of any major country, and the united states in particular. which is one of the reasons the us government is so concerned about having chinese companies like huawei involved in crucial technologies like 56. how secure do you really think you can be when the physical hardware of your information

networks is manufactured by china? the american conclusion is, "we cannot be sure." and policymakers in washington are increasingly worried about the pressure exerted on us companies trading with china. the nba faces a major backlash this morning... in recent weeks, the us basketball league, the nba, has apologised to china after the manager of one club tweeted support for the protesters in hong kong. the us vice president, mike pence, is a long—standing critic of china, and is now critical of us companies he says are kowtowing to china. in siding with the chinese communist party and silencing free speech, the nba is acting like a wholly owned subsidiary of the authoritarian regime. for some, though, the main problem isn't so much china's influence over the us, but other parts of the world. what you see today is not only china perfecting technologies for surveillance

and censorship at home, but increasingly exporting these technologies as well as finance and know—how abroad. so, example, you see china working in east africa with governments, or the indo—pacific as well. so this kind of issue of what might be called high—tech liberalism or high—tech authoritarianism is one, that i think will become more and more central as we talk about china in the future. for some, the right approach — the only approach — to these difficult questions is decoupling, severing economic ties with china. how do we get companies like apple to actually not censor speech because they are incentivised by the chinese communist party to do so? we have to limit their ability to have access to the chinese market, if that's the key influencer. you have to limit their ability to have access to chinese investment, if that's a key factor. there's a lot of things that go into why the apple board would essentially allow an american company to slowly adopt

the principles of totalitarianism, and once you begin to unwind those from a policy perspective, then the incentives start to go away, and when the incentives go away, behaviour begins to change. in response to general spalding's comments, apple referred to this statement: president trump is clearly delighted to have the beginnings of an outlined trade deal with china, posing with the chinese vice—premier in the oval office last month. but nobody i have spoken to in washington thinks that this will make much difference to the direction of travel in relations.

for example, while the president is making positive noises, in another part of washington, the fbi director is telling congress that the cyber—war with china rages on. the fbi has over 1000 investigations involving attempted theft of us—based technology that lead back to china. when you look at what the us trade representative's office has focused on, and the issues that have stymied progress in the actual negotiations, it's always come down to ip. so if the chinese do not make a serious effort and demonstrate a serious effort to reduce their non—compliance with intellectual property, i don't see any change in the state of trade relations, and that will lead to a further deterioration of us—china relations. the us relationship with china has gone through many transitions over the past 50 years. but it is now fundamentally

about global power. who will control the emerging technologies of the coming century? as viewed from washington, this is a fight from the future that america can't afford to lose. hello there. a chilly weekend in store, maybe not quite as good as the last few days because the winds will be lighter but we continue with low pressure nearby, causing all sorts of problems in europe and the mediterranean. the heavies of the rain will be close to france, for us, that are weaker fronts bringing thicker cloud and patchy rain at times. it could be quite right through tonight and tomorrow, in

particular eastern scotland. there is also a front vision into scotland and northern ireland bringing more cloud, it will be less cold and it was last night. bit of cloud for england and wales also. into sunday, that area of sporadic rain which could be heavy for the north—east of england, a few showers publicly south coast and china out there coming into wales. the midlands and southern england should see some sunshine, the heavies of the rain is likely to be confined to the north of england. high is to topple into northern ireland, increasing amounts of sunshine through the afternoon. just a few showers around for the afternoon. just a few showers around for the northern isles, chilly day for the northern isles, chilly day for all. it looks like those clearer skies begin to migrate southwards, a bit more cloud across england and wales through sunday night, one of a

breeze across the south—east, temperatures 4 or five celsius. were that there are clear skies in the north, widespread frost with some mist and fog. the reason for that clearair is mist and fog. the reason for that clear air is because of an era of high pressure which brings a window of fine weather for monday and tuesday. monday, a cold and frosty star, mist and fog around, modelled a breeze down the east coast, maybe one 01’ a breeze down the east coast, maybe one or two showers there. looks like a glorious day for many, light winds and sunshine, it will feel cold. tuesday still has high pressure, but then an id of low pressure comes into play, bringing some weather fronts, mainly to central and western areas. it will turn a breeze from the south, introducing slightly less cold air from france, temperatures will be picking up a little bit by the end of the week, but we could see more cloud around, outbreaks of rain across the west.

that is how it is looking, see you later.

this is bbc news. the headlines at 2pm: prince andrew speaks publicly for the first time, about his friendship with the convicted sex offender, jeffrey epstein. in an exclusive interview with bbc newsnight, the duke says it was wrong to stay at epstein's house and admits he let "the side down". i admit fully that...that...that...that my... ..judgment was probably coloured by my... ..um, tendency to be too honourable, but that's just the way it is. prince andrew also said he had "no recollection" of meeting virginia roberts, who claims she was forced to have sex with him when she was 17, after being groomed by epstein. he denies any inappropriate conduct.