this is bbc news, the headlines: president trump has belatedly signed a coronavirus relief and government spending bill into law. republican and democratic party lawmakers had been pleading with him to sign it before the deadline of midnight on monday. millions of americans temporarily lost unemployment benefits and emergency top—up payments because of the delay. south africa has registered more than a million cases of covid—19, just a few days after the south african authorities confirmed a new faster spreading coronavirus variant had been detected. some hospitals and medical centres have reported a severe rise in admissions, placing a heavy strain on resources. european leaders have hailed the start of coronavirus vaccinations across the eu as a turning point in the fight against the pandemic. the first in line to receive the vaccine are the elderly and health workers, and the eu aims to vaccinate just over 6 million people by the end of the year.

now on bbc news, it's hardtalk with stephen sackur. welcome to hardtalk. i'm stephen sackur. there is plentiful evidence that covid—19 has inflicted more serious damage on the united states then on china. does that play into a wider narrative about an accelerating transition of global power from west to east? it is a question which demands an historical perspective, and my guest today, peter frankopan, brings just about. he is a professor of global history, and author of global history, and author of the bestselling book silk roads. is the was continuing to overestimate its central importance to the past and the present? —— is the west

continuing. peter frankopan, welcome to hardtalk. thank you. you are a professor of global history so i want you to bring your historian‘s i want the longer term impact of this coronavirus pandemic. —— historian‘s eye. we hearfrom the scientist and the politicians. give me a historian‘s perspective. politicians. give me a historian's perspective. it is a fairly predictable thing for a fairly predictable thing for a historian to say, but change and widespread disease are nothing new. our ancestors all lived through big pandemics, some of which were much more lethal than coronavirus. one of the products of living together, and in high—density populations, going back as far as historical records go, is

that you find there is transmission of disease from animals to human beings and that inflicts damage. but damage is typically measured in mortality rates, and the economic and social consequences of disease, there area consequences of disease, there are a lot of examples of history to learn from. the challenge would coronavirus is that it challenge would coronavirus is thatitis challenge would coronavirus is that it is not as lethal as we all thought it would be. so primarily we're looking at the economic and social dislocation that comes as a result, but global history, the history of long—term big things, climate and disease are two of the big—ticket items thatjoin continental histories together. given our knowledge of past pandemics, whether it be a long time ago with something like the black death, or whether it be more recently with the spanish flu in the early 20th century, is it surprising to you just how much economic and social disruption has been caused by this particular pandemic, which as you have just said, in terms of cost in life, is a relatively, relatively mild pandemics? that

is partly because the health services globally have managed that quite well. to give that some sort of scale, if covid had killed on the same scale as the spanish flu did, relative to the same population, we would be looking at 230 million deaths, not just i would be looking at 230 million deaths, notjusti million. even with economic contractions, in the us, the scale of gdp loss was 10% every yearforfour scale of gdp loss was 10% every year for four years. but mid—1930s the us was 40% smaller than it had been going into the wall street crash and what happened afterwards. even now, a dip of 4% or 5% in the us economy is huge, but i think it is important to have some perspective, but societies, cultures, periods are not immune from this kind of widespread disease. even in the 19505 widespread disease. even in the 1950s and 1960s there were two pandemics which killed more than covid has done, and a big question is, how do political decisions get laid on top of what the medical and healthcare sequences are? in essence, would it be right to see this as some sort of a test of political systems, different styles of political leadership,

and if we see it as a test, who is passing on who is failing? the knee—jerk reaction is that china has passed, having messed it up to start with, and now we're doing a good job of messing it up in europe and the us. the truth is there are lots of other countries that have done quite and found not necessarily technocratic, authoritarian, closed societies. places like taiwan andjapan and societies. places like taiwan and japan and south korea have done really pretty well, partly because they have exposure to the size by 70,003, and understood that pandemics were something likely to come up again, and therefore contact tracing and medical preparation was necessary. “— tracing and medical preparation was necessary. —— sars virus in 2003. i think here we were immune because it was not something we had lived through in our past history. we talked about the black death at school, but otherwise nobody had really mentioned the spanish flu for decades in classrooms and lecture rooms, until the beginning of this year. so i think when you add it out and select the bits of the historical narrative that are more interesting to you, then you forget that disease, and likei then you forget that disease, and like i said, climate is another big issue, that is co nsta ntly another big issue, that is constantly moving and changing

and has these long—term consequences. but is there something about authoritarianism, about the strength of central authority and its imposition upon its peoples, that has, in a sense, shown its strength in dealing with this pandemic? i am not just thinking of authoritarian systems like the chinese system, i am also thinking of the degree to which some democracies have adopted more intrusive and "a less democratic" practices as a result of trying to deal with the pandemic. welcome to your geographical position in the world matters if you are geographically peripheral, like scandinavia or new zealand, then you have a different dose, you have a different level of connectivity of the world. if you are a country like the uk, which is the centre of most globalflight which is the centre of most global flight routes, the incidence of people coming backwards and forwards in and out of the country, you are going to spread it and catch it much quicker. i think one has to factor in, before one asks about political decision—making and whether authoritarian systems a re and whether authoritarian systems are better at doing it, the scorecard is very mixed,

and they have been some democratic systems that have been extremely resilient and robust and anticipating it, and some but got it wrong, and likewise, i think it is easy to think that countries which have single state control respond well because there scorecard is extremely bad and lots of other ways, in terms of identifying and dealing with problems and change and so on. the good thing about democracy is that it allows you to work out what you have done wrong and there is accountability. you are now introducing thoughts which i wa nt to introducing thoughts which i want to get to in the course of this interview, but i want to do it piece by piece. i want right now, to have you think about history, your trade, and your contention that the west has a form of history which is dangerously self absorbed. i mean, you've written these two books, the silk roads and then of the new silk roads, which focuses on your knowledge of that vast swathe of territory from china, the far east, through the central asian nations to the middle east and europe, it is a vast swathe of

territory, you say that we in europe have understood far too little of it and shown far too little of it and shown far too little interest in it, but ways that's that so problematic?” don't think it is a contention, i think it's a fact. most people in the uk, if you ask them to name a chinese emperor oi’ them to name a chinese emperor oran arab them to name a chinese emperor or an arab poet or writer or a persian historian, or a south asia musician, film star, they can't. and although we keep hearing about how globalised we are, in practice what that has meant is that countries which are growing, and they have responded well to globalisation by trying to understand other people, but richer countries have tended to switch off in terms of the global exposure. for example today in the uk there are less than 1000 stu d e nts there are less than 1000 students at university studying chinese, japanese, thai, turkish, arabic, persian, afg ha n turkish, arabic, persian, afghan languages, hindi, combined. less than 1000 come out of about 800,000. that tells you we're not preparing particularly well to be engaging with other people plasma cultures and histories,

and that does matter, it matters but if you go to the streets of shanghai and show a picture of david beckham or common deli or calcutta or kuala lumpur, people know who that is... i am slightly wondering why you are the one who had to point this out, when if one gets a little personal about it, here you sit with me as the son of european nobility, educated at england's poshest private school, and then oxford university, bastions of the english, western, anglo centric establishment, how on earth did you come to the conclusion that there was something fundamentally wrong with the history you are reading? well, i'm a child of the cold war and i grew i'm a child of the cold war and igrew up i'm a child of the cold war and i grew up every other friday having to hide under my desk in a drill because we were convinced of the soviet union was going to launch a missile attack that would destroy the world. we won't wait about climate change in the 1980s. we worried about global destruction. and again, when i was growing up as a teenager, seeing the revolution in iran, seeing the revolution in iran, seeing the revolution in iran, seeing the plo trying to hijack and demand stated in the middle

east, seeing what we would call it the time the enemies both people and the impact of what was happening in cambodia and the end of the vietnam war, it was painfully obvious to me that we were not studying any of these people all these places in my classroom. and i suppose the defensive answer is that in rich, established countries you have good educational systems which encourage people to think for themselves. i think the point of being a historian is to be brave, and that means tackling big subjects, that means tackling regions and people who haven't really been written about, that is quite hard to do. that is a very interesting answer. i just wonder whether your determination to look east and to tell the stories of central asia and of course of china was that you could see which way the wind was blowing, politically, economically, culturally, even, in the early 21st century? because of course the great success of your books has coincided with a message coming from beijing that they are building a new china which has much bigger ambitions than we could have conceived of even

30 or a0 years ago. so in a sense, you are providing a historical backdrop that suits the chinese government and its narrative today. well, i am not really a china specialist. i mean, i work in russia, the middle east, central asia. a key moment was actually 1989 and the berlin wall coming down. the rise of china that everybody has been talking about in the last three or four yea rs about in the last three or four years in thinking that is in the wind started blowing, we need to go back 30 years if not more. if you are taking the longer you would ask, what was it the communist revolution is of 1917 stops, and what came out the other side of them... actually, i'm going to stop you, may be the key moment was not the fall of the berlin wall, may be the key moment was deng xiaoping saying that china was going to embrace capitalism and that he was going to do it while maintaining the political authority of the communist party. maybe actually, when we look at the span of the next 100 years, that will be much more important. well, i wrote a book about that, and in fact you are right. the tiananmen square incident in july 1989

was almost synchronous with the berlin wall coming down in the colla pse berlin wall coming down in the collapse of the soviet union sent shock waves through the communist party in china, and even now, xijinping is, i would say possessive, but that is very carefully about how the soviet union failed to adapt and how it failed to respond to the crisis in 1989, and there is no doubt the modern trajectory of china from deng xiaoping onwards has been heavily influenced by seeing what happens when there is a lack of control, lack of anticipation, and trying to work out how to respond in advance. so i think these are closely connected topics. they are, andi closely connected topics. they are, and i take your point that your specialism isn't china, but nonetheless you have written two books which in the are about the power of china, going through millennia but particularly in the new silk roads, talking about china and its relationship with the neighbourhood and even all the way to europe, in the 21st century. and i would just suggest to you that maybe you are over estimating the power and influence that china wields

today. so, what i thinki am writing about is that two—thirds of the worldpopulation that lives east of istanbul, and the amount of attention being paid to the people in those regions by not just china, by russia, by iran, by india, by pakistan, by the us, and to some extent by europe. so my interest, i think, not china centric. it is about seeing what influence and impact there is in these regions. and china for sure is paying a great deal of attention lots of different complex reasons to specific industries, specific sectors, specific countries, sometimes for strategic importance, sometimes for political alliance building, and sometimes for their own energy and other requirements. so it is not, in fact, it is almost the other way round. it is, what is the impact of chinese attention that has been paid to these countries and what alternative do they have to money coming out of beijing, example, in the bolton road initiative. right, but when you talk about the east you seem to be suggesting that the sort of modern day silk road, the belt and rode initiative that china

launched in 2013, is producing a sort of coherent, integrated east, which can be talked about in the same way that we talk about the west. and ijust wonder if that is true, if one looks even today at the hostility, for example, between india and china, if one looks at the way in which china is seen at the way in which china is seen to be projecting its power into central asia and many central asian republics are deeply worried about that, is it coherent? is it integrated? or is it actually unsustainable? well, i think all these labels are not helpful. so in the same way in the west, what is on—site started work as one in the same way, asia or the east or even when you talk about the belt and rode initiative, from the chinese perspective that includes the arctic, that includes the arctic, that includes oral hygiene, that includes oral hygiene, that includes space. so these labels are designed to suggest a narrative, and there is an advantage to a narrative because it suggests there is a plan. and one of the things thatis plan. and one of the things that is very striking to me is that is very striking to me is that in all these countries, many of the countries that i work on, what it is saudi

arabia, vietnam, kazakhstan, there are long—term national plans aware the country is going and what the threats and risks are and it is very striking to me that here in europe and arguably here in the uk particular, we do not have the ability to think beyond a few months ahead, because of brexit, partly, but also because the way in which democracies work includes the idea that you can chart a course and then stick to it. so i think some of it is notjust the china story, it is about all these countries which have very fast organising populations, in india for example, the indian development is of course closely linked to what is happening in china, and the political and military rivals, but india likewise has its own huge economic boom that has been going through of the last 30 years, the expertise on the computer and digital sectors in particular, but it trajectory that india takes is also completely independent to developments inside china, but clearly, the story of the past is about how well people can trade, and what kind of barriers that are to their ability to buy and sell things to each other and encourage economic growth. and one of the stories about history is that you tend to see big regions,

even globally rising together orfalling even globally rising together or falling together. one of the things that intrigues me about your historical approach is that you do put trade front and centre asa do put trade front and centre as a integrating force, bringing people across vast regions in communication and contact but you don't speak much about ideology and the power of ideas. going back to 1989, there was a feeling in the west that liberal western democratic values and ideas had somehow won and we would be globally exported. have you a lwa ys globally exported. have you always been deeply suspicious of the power of ideas as drivers of history? i think it is aggregates and if we were to globalise trading, we would not have had global pandemic but people get on planes to take garments to northern italy from

china and that's how coronavirus was seeded in europe, it was bought by people moving and travelling around and sometimes that is the tourism but for a lot of times trade and many times religious pilgrimages, is like inside india and also in the islamic world when they do the hajj. it is about the practicalities about why people want to open the countries or close the countries or their willingness and ability and requirement sometimes to get things from abroad that the interesting thing about china and authoritarian regimes in central asia and elsewhere, they are open in the sense they have embraced a form of managed capitalism. but they are most definitely not open and flexible cultures when it comes to ideas and everything that goes with democracy and dissent, for realism. in your view, looking across the

historical piece, is there a problem with societies that are open intellectuallyjust problem with societies that are open intellectually just as they are open to trade, for example? the trade world are generally more tolerant and open and they identify problems and fix them. that is the point about china today, it is fine in the face of that generalisation because in so many ways it is more impressive today than it was 15 years ago stop alone a question about that in the last four years and digital tools allow for surveillance and monitoring that the key driver is economic growth. from china's point of view, as long as they can keep delivering high levels of growth and better quality of life, very little pushback will be likely. really? so you are a deeply materialist historian? you think as long as the material development and progress is there, no amount of dissatisfaction with the fact that you cannot speak your mind or criticise the powers that he

is going to threaten authority. so china can be sustainable in its current form in your view? three different answers. first, injanuary and three different answers. first, in january and february when the outbreak started in wuhan, they were on chinese chat rooms and there was pushback in china about the need for openness et cetera and speak to the authorities and at that time when the west was convincing so the tipping point where was going to go through some form of self revolution seeing the communist party challenged and that was navigated quite successfully at the time because it shut down the town of9 because it shut down the town of 9 million people, wuhan, and another model of how it works, is quite sellable notjust in china but outside of that but the western world less so. the challenge for china is that state owned businesses carry large amounts of debt and whether that is sustainable globally in a competitive

market is in question and if they falter or lose the plot will go wrong, there are consequences. the growth is not is as easy to deliver and that's one of the reasons why china looked at with with the belt and road initiative was not about china exploring new alliances it was about displacing access infrastructure and excess load that existed because the role already too many bridges in sichuan province, as the governor said, and they were trying to find new outlets for business. for we go, i want to focus your eye on not your normal areas, like central asia and the east but the west, but the flipside of the descendant eastis the flipside of the descendant east is an implication of descendant west. talk about a feeling in the united states and the western world and yet i look at the statistics where china's gdp per capita today is

something over $10,000 and in the united states it is well over $65,000. the gap in prosperity is still there. doesn't that actually fundamentally matter today and tomorrow? of course it does. i think what the challenges is it's very easy to take medium incomes. the key is how do you find people who have no access to healthcare, food and are living in poverty and that is the mark of how a good political system works for all sorts of reasons, and the us and here in the west have not done well in tackling inequality. that is fixable, not hard to do. it requires more aggressive forms of taxation and enlightened forms of taxation and the best thing about democracy is the opportunity to change course and we can do that. i expect we have character driven personalities... . call donald trump. he is not the only

populist leader globally, the attractions of finding someone who can speak their own mind is reflected in the fact that young people particularly in europe today are disillusioned with democracy so we need to do much better at explaining the benefits and how everybody comes along on that trip and on that course. and what is the purpose of us having high costs to digital technologies, clothing industries, by being more selective about these global supply change. by and large the consumer has shouted too loud at the expense of citizens in democratic societies we need to be better at doing that. having watched the soviet union, totalitarian authority and states struggle when they reach critical size so so the fact there are more billionaires in china then there is in the us, it shows that those inequality issues are even more pronounced and keeping the show on the road is not easy and i assume that one of the reasons for the

crackdown of authoritarianism is the realisation inside china that thejuggernaut as is the realisation inside china that the juggernaut as it becomes more powerful, people's expectations rise. so far, the beneficiaries of the last 30 yea rs a re beneficiaries of the last 30 years are all grateful to the way the system has worked. we have to end in a moment, sadly. on this thought, we began with a discussion of a pandemic and we talked about the rise and fall of empires and i wonder, as you consider your historical work, where you end up feeling that we humans as a species are heading ina that we humans as a species are heading in a positive direction, are you optimistic about where we're going, given what we have seen of our past or argue deeply pessimistic? we're talking any child born in the world has a longer life expectancy than anyone ever before, chances of access to clea n water before, chances of access to clean water maternal healthcare literacy. . .. were clean water maternal healthcare literacy.... were born clean water maternal healthcare literacy. . .. were born into a world where there is more carbon in the atmosphere than ever before in history, with a much greater world population,

heading towards eight, nine billion, we don't know where it will end. those are surely structural issues that human beings in our societies are not learning how to deal with? beings in our societies are not learning how to dealwith? i'm more optimistic than you. firstly, it can be fixed by science and scholarship and political willpower does exist to bring together but i would still rather be alive in 2020 then in 1939 or 191a or any other point in history. apart from the fact that we have dental care and have long lives and watch bbc hardtalk streamed around the world, we should not forget how lucky we are! coronavirus has taught us one lesson great belief, we should be grateful for what we have one we have it when the world gets back to the beginning and going again, the qualities of resilience and robustness and working together are more important than ever. i'm optimistic. as long as we avoid warand optimistic. as long as we avoid war and confrontation, which happens all the time, and the

eu won the nobel peace prize because we had not fought a war in 70s, excluding the breakup of yugoslavia and that is very not normal and the fact that we argue with each other across the table and make high drama in our political classes, i can live with that. we could carry on much longer but sadly we are out of time. peter frankopan, thank you so much for being on hardtalk. thank you. hello. the weather is taking on a decidedly wintry complexion as we head through the final days of 2020. the satellite picture shows this big stripe of cloud that brought very wet and windy weather through the early parts of sunday courtesy of

storm bella, but now we've got these speckled clouds working in from the north, some shower clouds, those showers turning wintry as well with some really cold air digging its way down. and we stick with this northerly air flow right through the coming week. so, yes, it will be cold by day and by night. there will be a mixture of rain, sleet and snow at times, amidst all of that, some spells of sunshine. certainly a very chilly start to monday morning with temperatures widely below freezing, several degrees below freezing in places. that could well give rise to some icy stretches, and also notice this area of rain, sleet and snow across parts of wales, the midlands, down into southern england. this is going to be moving very slowly through the day, he could give some snow certainly over high ground, but even to low levels don't be surprised if you get a brief covering of snow. elsewhere, some wintry showers continuing in eastern coastal counties. northern ireland, western scotland keeping a lot of cloud. a mix of rain,

sleet and snow here. it will be windy in the west, not as windy further east, but even if you get sunshine through the day it will feel chilly. top temperatures between 2—7 degrees. now, as we had through monday night western areas particularly will see further cloud and epics of rain. some sleet and snow. some wintry showers for eastern coasts as well. elsewhere, we keep some clear spells, again a touch of frost and some icy stretches with temperatures for many dipping well below freezing. so as we go on into tuesday, low pressure will be sitting just to the east of the british isles. high pressure a long way out to the west, but that will be driving a feed of northerly winds once again. another fairly windy day across the west, where we will see showers of rain, sleet and snow. some wintry showers for northern and eastern coasts. elsewhere, a lot of dry weather and some spells of sunshine to come with those temperatures still struggling below average for the time of year. three, four, five, six celsius in most places. and we stick with that very cold weather throughout the rest of the week. a lot of dry weather around,

but some showers, some of which will still be wintry.

this is bbc news. welcome if you're watching here in the uk or around the globe. i'm rich preston. our top stories: president trump belatedly signs a huge bipartisan coronavirus relief and government spending bill into law. south africa registers more than a million cases of coronavirus. hospital admissions rise steeply as a new faster spreading variant is detected. the vaccine rollout begins in european union countries. health workers and the elderly the first in the queue. new york prepares to say a rousing, if virtual, farewell to 2020.