voice-over: this is bbc news. we'll have the headlines for you at the top of the hour, which is straight after this programme. hello, and welcome to the new series of unspun world. for ourfirst programme, we've come to taiwan where, despite the general atmosphere of calm, the tension with china is unquestionably increasing. the issue is always will america step in? and if the answer becomes

well, maybe it won't, that does raise that question is this an opportunity? for china, this isn'tjust a territorial competition, it's a competition for hearts and minds. and in this brave new world of ours, that means disinformation — lots of it. the chinese government's teaming up with some taiwanese influencers. they want to sell this positive image, like, it's good — it's a good thing to travel to china, to be friends with china. so, in all of this, how do young taiwanese people see their future? if you ask them would you consider yourself a taiwanese or a chinese? 80% will say, i'm only taiwanese, not chinese, because we're so different. hello, and welcome to a special and rather different edition of unspun world.

as donald trump comes back to power in washington, i'll be looking at several of the key conflicts which he faces and giving a bit of a personal view of how we got here. this first programme will focus on the relationship with china, because china is a country which, over the last ten years, has become increasingly difficult for media organisations like the bbc to operate in. i've come to taiwan, a self—governing territory off the chinese coast which could become a majorflash point if president xijinping of china decides to invade it. the capital taipei is orderly, gentle, perhaps a bit drab, but certainly not flashy like the big cities of the mainland. taiwan is where the nationalist

forces ended up when mao zedong's communists drove them out in 1919. now, after 76 years of self—rule, this pleasant, pro—western, thoroughly democratic territory is under real threat. i've been covering the intricacies of chinese politics since the late 1960s, and what a journey it's been. starting off with mao tse—tung's unbelievably irresponsible cultural revolution, where huge crowds of pumped—up, hysterical students attacked their teachers and professors and the traditional expressions of china's long cultural history. then mao died, his closest supporters were arrested and deng xiaoping emerged to reverse the whole process and start the slow opening up of china's economy to the west with scarcely a thought

for ideology. but a new generation wanted greater personal freedom and students from beijing normal university and other centres took over tiananmen square in may 1989. i was fortunate enough to be there. i spent day after day and night after night in the square for weeks and came to love and admire the students for their innocence and courage. true, the students had partly been manipulated by top chinese politicians who wanted to get rid of deng xiaoping. everyone knew from early evening onwards that this was to be the decisive night. commotion. so far, the crowd's had the best of it with the attack on the armoured personnel carrier and the tank but everybody knows that the army has the power to do something about this,

to clear this entire place if it chooses to. the only question is does it choose to? eventually, though, deng managed to find a general who agreed to drive them out of the square by force. when dawn came on the lith ofjune, we watched the unforgettable man with his shopping bags who blocked an entire line of tanks near the square. but when i left beijing a day or so later, i saw the ugly aftermath of the attacks by ordinary people throughout the capital on police stations, security police offices, and unfortunate policemen and soldiers who'd been burned alive by the crowds. these are the images which have been seared on the memory of the chinese communist party ever since. yes, china has grown

unthinkably rich, but the trade—off is that ordinary people must stay out of politics. and the leadership�*s big fear is that if there's a serious economic turndown, the population could take against the communist party. i got to know a top party figure, bo xilai, who staged a bid for the leadership in 2010 and lost. he once remarked to me, "you'll never know how insecure "a government can be when it knows it hasn't been elected". well, bo xilai is now serving a life sentence and the man who defeated him, xijinping, has made himself effectively leader for life. and during the communist party congress in 2022, he staged a masterful but shocking display of power by having the former leader hu jintao escorted off the stage at the great hall of the people —

in full view of the entire nation and the world. but having seen what the ordinary people of china did to the representatives of state power on that violent night of the 3rd to the lith ofjune 1989, i can understand the anxiety that underlies these displays of strength. that's why hong kong represented such a challenge to xijinping. on the 30th ofjune 1997, i watched in the pouring rain... no matter how good their intentions, no matter how... ..as the unionjack was lowered for the last time over british hong kong. for more than ten years, the chinese leadership was happy to stick to the agreement with britain, which enabled hong kong to become part of china — one country, two systems.

but directly xi jinping came to power, there started to be challenges to the freedoms of the former british colony. security police from the mainland arrived to shut down a hong kong book shop where a scandalous account of xijinping's life was on sale. and when people in hong kong started demonstrating against the various attempts to chop down their freedoms, xijinping and his party colleagues were fearful that the demonstrations might spread to the mainland. the pressures grew and grew. soon, china seemed to be a willing part of a four—sided anti—western alliance with russia, iran and north korea. yet, when russia launched its war against ukraine, china always seemed the least enthusiastic partner. china seems even less supportive of russia's war against president

zelensky nowadays. so, there's nothing hard and fast about the way china approaches the world. the history of the chinese communist party shows it's determined to do anything — make any changes, of course — in order to stay in power. everything apart from that is open to negotiation. but what about taiwan, but what about taiwan, the island we're reporting the island we're reporting from? from? china regards it as an integral china regards it as an integral part of its territory, part of its territory, even though it's been even though it's been separately governed separately governed for nearly 80 years. for nearly 80 years. china carries out regular china carries out regular military exercises offshore rupert wingfield—hayes, military exercises offshore and often intrudes and often intrudes into taiwanese airspace. into taiwanese airspace. so, is taiwan up for so, is taiwan up for negotiation, too, or does china negotiation, too, or does china actually intend to take it over actually intend to take it over by force as a matter by force as a matter of principle? of principle? ..being scrambled behind me here... ..being scrambled behind me here...

i asked our asia correspondent, i asked our asia correspondent, rupert wingfield—hayes, who was in seoul, for his thoughts. when xi jinping says the return of taiwan to the motherland, as he puts it, is inevitable, he absolutely means it. i think the question we all have — and i don't have an answer to it, to be honest, john — is when does he mean that and how does he intend to do it? his intentions, i think, are very, very clear — that he believes taiwan must be, as he would put it, reunified with the rest of china within his term or, at least, it has to happen before — before the 100th anniversary of the revolution in 20119. so, you know, that's the absolute sort of end date is 20119. i think there's also a growing realisation by the leadership in beijing that taiwan, in its democratic, open, free system of government,

is never going to vote for that and, ultimately, that means china must be — and i think is — considering military options. and in addition to that, just look at what china is building in terms of its military capability, particularly its naval capability. but, of course, xijinping has seen his close associate russia getting bogged down in a really difficult war that russia thought was going to be just a walkover against ukraine. will that have had an effect on him? i was talking to a former us diplomat who has had long history of dealing with china and taiwan, and he said to me recently, he said, "look, before russia's invasion "of ukraine, i seriously thought we were on a fast track "to a showdown — a military showdown in which china

"would make a move on taiwan." "now, i think ukraine has pushed the timetable back, "maybe back considerably." it has made china — i think xijinping and his leadership — look at that and think, "0k, "we need to be notjust militarily prepared, "but we need to be economically and financially prepared before "we make any move on taiwan. that means we need to, for example, we need to be thinking about, what if there is a energy blockade on china? what if the oil supplies through the straits of malacca are blocked by the us and its allies? "how do we survive that for a period of time? "what about food supplies? "what about our banking system — making our banking "system more resilient?" so, there's a lot of things going on domestically in china — opening up new coal—fired power stations, you know, they've accelerated, having — having gone very much towards renewable energy, they are now

building new coal—fired power stations that they don't need but will be a energy resilience backup should china face energy sanctions from other countries. taiwan has always been one of the great american causes. is it still going to be a cause like that under donald trump for the next four years? donald trump has a very different attitude towards taiwan compared to his predecessors. he sees taiwan, i think, very much in the way that he sees other us allies — japan, korea being, you know, on that list of countries — that have freeloaded off the united states for a very long time. they have taken advantage of the protection of the us pax americana, if you like, to get rich, and that he doesn't like it. he thinks these countries have taken advantage of america and it's time for them to pay up for their own defence and to stop taking advantage of america economically. so, he will probably be willing

to sell taiwan a lot more goodies — a lot more military goodies — to defend itself. but, you know, in xijinping's mind, i don't think there's any doubt that the pla has the capability to overwhelm taiwan militarily. the issue is always will america step in? and if the answer becomes well, maybe it won't and we've got four years, then, you know, there is — that does raise that question is this an opportunity? tell me about your emotions towards taiwan. how do you feel about it? it is a — you know, it is a wonderful place. it is a really remarkable story of transition from a —

who will then, you know — who will face a future like the people of hong kong. they will lose a lot of the freedoms that they have come to enjoy over the last 30 years. i'm less optimistic that that outcome is — than i was a few years ago, that that is not, you know, in taiwan's future. china's pressure on taiwan isn't limited to sending its militaryjets into taiwanese airspace, it's also heavily involved in propaganda. this isn'tjust a battle for territory, it's a fight for the hearts and minds of the taiwanese people, and the battleground is social media. taiwan's government estimates that the amount of disinformation coming from china has more than doubled in the last few years. here in taiwan, bbc news chinese has a social media journalist, evelyn yang, who keeps track of the beijing government's efforts.

they try to send this kind of pro—unification with taiwan kind of propaganda, and it's sent by a lot of ways — with videos, with social posts, or in some, like, fake, maybe, news report. recently, there's, like, a huge discussion about the chinese government teaming up with some taiwanese influencers. they want to sell this kind of positive image, like, it's good — it's a good thing to travel to china, to be friends with china, and it's good to be a family with china, even. is it illegal for influencers here, say, to start promoting the chinese line or are they free to do that if they want to? so, i think it's kind of a controversial and grey area. we have a law in taiwan called the anti—infiltration act and if they do something that is really obvious —

like cooperating with the chinese government, the ccp, or, like, promoting the pro—unification kind of agenda — that would be illegal. 0r taking money from the chinese government. yeah, or taking money. but i saw the details of an opinion poll which seemed to indicate that most young people in taiwan didn't really want any action to be taken against all this disinformation. is that true? i think for taiwanese young people nowadays, they get in touch with this kind of chinese—generated content very easily. maybe they can tell it's obviously, like, made by chinese but also, they feel like, "i'm not going to get affected by it". i think if it's from a young person's perspective — like, if you go on the streets and you ask them, "do you worry "about chinese invasion potentially in the future?",

they mightjust tell you, like, "it's really hard to say". but what they really care about is theirjob, the low wages and, like, the high, like, rising housing prices and a lot of, like, these kind of domestic economic issues. has it got worse over the last few years? has china stepped up its attacks, essentially, on taiwan through disinformation? more and more disinformation has been attacked — has been detected throughout the years — especially, like, in 2024 — and the government is working to build up the media literacy in schools, like, from elementary school to, like, senior high schools and also, some companies, they also build, like, fact—check chatbots so that people can — especially, notjust young people, but for like the older generation. in taiwan, they use a communication app called line

very often and so, they can send this kind of message to certain chatbots and they can tell you, like, "oh, this is false". like, "you should not spread it or you should not send "it to your friends because it's fake". from this kind of methods, taiwanese people can gradually learn to protect themselves from the chinese disinformation. taipei, the capital of taiwan, is 100 miles from the chinese mainland — pretty close — but we flew to the taiwanese island of kinmen, which is only a couple of miles from china. you might expect it to be in a permanent state of nervousness, but it isn't. it feels perfectly relaxed and normal. and when we made the short journey to the island's coast, instead of finding it heavily defended, we could see it was scarcely defended at all. there were tanks there, certainly, but they were long out of date and part of a permanent display for tourists.

as i wandered along the shoreline with tzu—wei liu, a seniorjournalist from bbc news chinese, the buildings of the chinese town just opposite kinmen were clearly visible through the haze. she showed me that the sea defences, too, were rusted and bent and long out of date. so, if the taiwanese government doesn't seem to be taking the threat of chinese invasion very seriously, what about taiwanese people? i think there are two layers of worry that taiwanese people have. like, on the surface, we — because we hear the news about chinese military, like, pla sending fighter jets flying over taiwan, it's not news to us. so, when we see, like, china conducted military drills or some fighterjets fly over, we think, "oh, it's quite "normal," so we don't panic.

but deep down, the concern of chinese military may invade taiwan do exist. sort of way — kept way down inside you? yeah, and i think sometimes, we look calm or we look nothing's happened — that's the way we try to avoid thinking the consequences what if china invade us? the damage to taiwan would be, like, very, very big and i cannot even imagine what happen or what will happen to our society or to my family, to myself. it's interesting — just before we started this interview, there was a little group of tourists here. some were taiwanese, some were from the chinese mainland. there didn't seem to be any hostility between them. for ordinary people, the relationships are not as nervous as the governments from both sides. and especially in kinmen island, in this area, you can see how close it is to each other.

by ferry, it only takes 30 minutes from here to xiamen, to the chinese city, so the people here, like... just there. yeah, yeah, yeah. so — so, like, the interaction between people here and there are, like, often. sometimes on weekends, they will take the ferry, go there to watch films, to cinema or to do shopping, to do their haircut. do you think that taiwan can really defend itself? mm... i think taiwan have to defend — as the taiwanese, we have to defend for ourselves. but we cannot live without other support — like, the support from the us orfrom other democratic countries. but you may not get that help from president trump. i think it's hard to answer the question at the moment but i — i know that taiwan, we have a semiconductor industry which is very important to the world. so, i think at some point, if the world needs this industry, that maybe

the us will do some help. what you were saying earlier — it gives a strong impression that it's not taiwanese people versus chinese people, it's the chinese government versus the taiwanese government. would — is that accurate, do you think? yeah, yes, i think so because — because we don't have the reason to hate chinese people because we are — we speak the same language, we share a certain level of the same history. i personally don't have any bad feelings towards chinese people and — but we just want to remain as the taiwanese. we want to be ruled by a democratic government. would you want to go on living in taiwan if it were controlled by china? no. if taiwan were to be taken by communist chinese,

i will try to find my way, get out of the island. because why i love taiwan is because — because what it is. like, we enjoy the freedom of speech and the free press — everything as a democratic country. do you think a lot of people feel that? i think especially for the younger generation, if you asked them would you consider yourself taiwanese or chinese, 80% will say, "i'm only taiwanese, "not chinese, because we are so different". wei liu, here on the island of kinmen, overlooking china. it really is hard to think of these peaceful waters being churned up by an invasion fleet under a sky darkened by aircraft but the chances are pretty strong that, at some point, it could happen. the depressing fact is our world seems to have reached the end of the era of post—second world war peace. it's lasted my entire

lifetime — 80 years. a period of unimaginable growth and prosperity right around the world. yet now, president putin talks about the possibility of all—out nuclear war, donald trump hints at invading greenland and panama, and china has built up its forces to an alarming degree. can we get back easily to peaceful coexistence again? sadly, history isn't encouraging. and yet, things can change radically and unexpectedly. back in 1989, almost everyone thought the soviet system was fixed forever and it started collapsing in a matter of weeks. could the same thing happen to the communist system over there in china? looking out towards the chinese mainland, it's impossible to say. but so many extraordinary

changes have happened in our lifetimes, perhaps we should never say never. well, that's it for this special edition of unspun world here on the island of kinmen, off the coast of taiwan. and until we meet again, goodbye. hello there. another named storm as we start off the new working week. this time, it's been named by the spanish met service because of the effects that it will have on the iberian peninsula. it's storm herminia. but also, some impacts here across the united kingdom, heavy rain and some strong gusty winds. there are met office weather warnings in place and this time, it's the southern half of the uk that will bear the brunt of the worst of the weather over the next few days. so, the storm's been brewing

out in the atlantic. it's been pushing this mass of cloud and outbreaks of very heavy rain at times further northwards and eastwards through the night, that hook on the rain producing potentially still some very squally gusts of wind of up to 60—80 mph but clearing into monday morning, so this is how we'll start off the day. perhaps still some hill snow, just as that rain curls into southern central areas of scotland. there'll be squally showers out towards the west and some very strong gusty winds. heavier rain pushing eastwards from northern ireland into north west england and eventually up into southern and central areas of scotland, too. but very strong winds out towards irish sea coasts of up to 60—70 mph, also for some western channel coasts, too, and some of these showers are likely to have some thunder, some lightning and some hail in them, some very heavy downpours and strong gusty winds. temperatures 6—9 degrees celsius, tending to be drier and brighter across eastern areas of england. an improving picture somewhat

on tuesday as that area of low pressure starts to weaken and fill but there'll still be plenty of showers swirling around. they won't be quite so potent as they will have been on monday, though, and there will be some brighter spells, also some areas of cloud. more of a northwesterly wind. still quite blustery, particularly towards those western coasts. temperatures between six and nine degrees celsius for most of us. and that area of low pressure clears away, only to be followed by another one that this time is going to be bringing some heavy rain at times towards southern areas of england in particular. now, there's still a lot of debate on how far north this rain is going to get and if it does get further north than this, then over the higher ground, potentially there could be some snowfall. but for much of the northern half of the uk, largely dry. a few showers around. temperatures again 6—9 degrees celsius. on thursday, though, a ridge of high pressure, so much more settled. conditions generally dry. there'll be some sunshine. more rain potentially on friday and through the weekend. bye— bye.

live from singapore, this is bbc news.

hamas will hand over six more hostages, including arbel yehud, paving the way for displaced palestinians to return to northern gaza on monday. president trump and his colombian counterpart trade threats of tariffs after colombia turned back two migrant deportation flights. a report on the south korean plane crash details how the pilots spotted a flock of birds seconds before they declared an emergency. celebrations and protests. some call it �*australia day', others, �*invasion day'. hello and welcome to newsday, i'm steve lai.

we start today in the