captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> woodruff: good evening. i'm judy woodruff. on the "newshour" tonight, a critical moment for the country as president trump lashes out. what's next as the impeachment inquiry moves forward amid concerns from mr. trump's first homeland security adviser. then, hitting the mark: senator coin booker on his run for the white house and meeting a key and as rapid advances in technology propel china to the global forefront, critics decryy the implementation of a surveillance state within its borders. >> ( translated ): we can feel this surveillance all the time. the chinese authorities use a network of cameras throughoutnew cities, facial recognition systems, as well as various

mobile phone apps to monitor individuals. surveillance is indeed omnipresent. >> woodruff: all that and more on tonight's "pbs newshour." >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: ♪ ♪ moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us.

>> consumer cellular. >> the william and flora hewlett foundation. for more than 50 years, advancing ideas and supporting institutions to promote a better world. at www.hewlett.org. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions: and individuals. >> this program was made possible by the corporation foro public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> woodruff: from president trump today, new accusations-- and threats-- over impeachment. he all but accused a key

lawmaker of treason, hurling accusations against democrats and threatening to expose a whiseblower's identity. all of this, as new allegations emerged and a new subpoena landed. congressional correspondent lisa desjardins begins our coverage. ( applause ) >> reporter: outside washingtons president trump, the commander in chief, today formally welcomed the new chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. back in the oval office, he played the role of his own defender-in-chief, about a july phone call with ukraine's president. >> i made a call the call was perfect. when the whistleblower reported it, he made it sound terrible. >> reporter: while on twitter he has been his own defender ins chief, storming out more than 90 tweets about democrats' impeachment efforts since friday, many re-tweeting thoughts from fox news. in one tweet sunday, the president, quoted a fox news contributor saying, "if the democrats are successful in removing the president from il war it will cause a c like fracture in this nation."

the "new york times" and others reported president pushed industrial's prime minister scott morinisterison in another, say the president sought information from attorney william barr or origins on the mueller probe. this as the top senate republican, mitch mcconnell, stated how he sees the process should the house impeach mister trump. >> the senate impeachment les are very clear, the senate would have to take up an impeachment resolution if it came over from the house. >> reporter: mcconnell did not say if impeachment ruires a full senate trial. this after a weekend of rhetorical exchanges of fire. >> salem witch trials had more due process than this. >> reporter: the president's allies, like south carolina senator lindsey graham and his personal attorney rudy guiliani, repeatedly argued that democrata are rushing this process. white house senior advisor stephen miller went on a different attack, against the original whistleblower who raised concerns. >> the president of the united states is the whistleblower.

this individual is saboteur trying to undermine a democraticallylected government. >> reporter: that, though the identity and motivations of the whistleblower are not known. multiple outlets report that the whistleblower is a c.i.a. official. otherwise, that person's identity and motivations are not known. the whistleblower set off an historic ukrainian volodymyr zelenskiy to investigate his democratic rival joe biden, and biden's son hunter. the younger biden hunter had served been on the board on a ukrainian gas company. a formkrainian prosecutor told the "l.a. times" that giuliani repeatedly asked him to open an inquiry, but he refused and told giiuliani it was a "political vendetta." also this weekend, fox newsd, house democrats subpoenaed giuliani for documents related to his communications with

ukrainian officials. not all republicans defended the president, his former homeland ritycuecseurity advisor criticized giuliani for pushing the biden story. >> that conspiracy theory has got to go, they have to stop with that, it cannot continue to be repeated. i am deeply frustrated with what he and the legal team is doing and repeating that debunked theory to the president. it sticks in his mind when he hears it over and over again. >> reporter: all this as the intelligence committee led by chairman adam schiff ramps up its action with depositions and a closed hearing this week a ut the phone call and aid money kept from ukraine. >> we're going to find out why those funds were withheld, who was in the know about it, we're going to find out what other communications were also improperly hidden in this classified system that's meant m to contain the most highly sensitive, classified information involving covert action, not the presidens misconduct. >> reporter: on "60 minutes" sunday, house speaker nancy pelosi asked the white house to cooperate. >> let us work together to have this be a ifying experience, not a dividing one for our

country. don't make this any worse than it already is. >> reporter: schiff says his committee has reached an agreement with the whistleblower and expects that person willat p testify "soon" in a closed hearing. >> woodruff: this evening both the "wall street journal" and cnn are reporting that secretary of state mike pompeo was among those listening to president trump's phone call with the leader of ukraine. and just moments ago, the justice department released a statement confirming that president trump has contacted other countries to have them connect attorney general william barr with appropriate officials to investigate the 2016 election. and lisa desjardins joins me along with yamiche alcindor to help keep up with this fast moving story. thank you, and it is fast moving, these developments just in the last few minutes. lisa, i'm going to start with you, though. you have been talking to democrats. what s

uld we expect them to do in coming days as they move this inquiry forward? >> i don't know that we've had a busier day or i've ever put on a more complicated story at the top of the newscast as now. this is what's ystallizing what's happening this week. we're going to have three major depositions or days for the house intelligence committee. we're going to have wednesday, former ambassador mario vanovich, the asador of ukraine asked to leave and still works at the state department. after that thursday, house intelligence committee will be hearing from ambassador volcker who used to be u.s. envoy to ukraine for president trump, he stepped down last friday, that is the deadline for secretary of state pompeo to hand over documents the house intelligence committee is seeking. also friday is when the house intelligence cotee will hear from the inspector general who basically led the whistleblower investigation over the department for the d.n.i. and

intelligence agencies. but judy, i think a bigger date might be october 15th, tbeis when rudy giuliani has been given a deadline to turn over all of the documents he has about his -- any of his conversations with ukrainians and, judy, that subpoena categorizes 23ifferent types of documents, different dates, meetings that giuliani had with many ukrainians, purportedly on behalf of the president, and even the mayor of kiev, a famous boxer, vatali, he is in that subpoena, so it is a narrow issue but a wide range in investigation. >> woodruff: so many strands they are pursuing. yamiche, meantime, president trump today seem ry focused on the whistleblower, the person whose document we saw last week. >> as this impeachment inquiry deepens, president trump is focusing his anger on this whistleblower and saying he's going to be looking to figure out who this person is.p that one a violation of federal law, and the attorney for the whistleblower feld compelled to twilight about that today and

said, if my whistleblower, my -- my whistleblower, my client needs to be protected andnot retaliated against. we also talked to uh la years involved in impeachment hearings for presidenclinton and said let's look at what the white house is dealing . ngth rudy giuliani is bei subpoenaed, secretary of date mike pompeo now revealed to be on the call with the ukrainian president, president trump pressuring the australian prime minister to essentially be part of an investigation to discredit the mueller repor so this lawyer who worked for president clinton, he said this white house does not have a strategy to handle this. they might have a messaging, they might want to put out tv ads but they need a legal strategy to deal with thitegys d make the case these are not impeachable offenses and right now the white house is not doing that. >> woodruff: yamiche, the white house, the president very focused on joe biden and his son

hunter. how is the biden campaign responding? >> president trump and republicans are making the case joe biden and hunter biden were engaged in unethical behavior as part of their ukrainian business dealings, ratr hunter's ukrainian business dealers. the ukrainian prosecutor working as a part of this said rudy giuliani was trying to pressure him to look into the bidens but he saw no wrongdoing observe any part of the bidens to d o that. ukrainian officials are essentially saying joe biden is in the clear here. joe biden is saying i'm in the clear, all these things they're saying about me are simply not true. but i put the question to the biden campaign, how are you dealing with the idea some see this as a conflt of business, hunter biden profiting off the fact his father was vice president of the united states andte they say it's ridiculous to compare the binds to the trumps and saying this is about the president not being transparent and joe biden is in the clear here.

that's florida their attack for now. >> woouff: lisa, we know you've stepped back to put this into his historical perspective. as this impeachment process moves, you look at president clinton, what happened under his presidency, you see prallels. >> democrats have a lot of choice to make in going forward. here's what we know about how democrats are moving forward now. the house intelligence committee is gathering evidence as we see now. then afterthey're done, they el like they have their case to make and will present it to the house judiciary committee which will vote on articles of impeachment, then those articles would move to the house of representatives. that's a big process, how long coul take and this is where the clinton case comes into play. the inquiry began october 5, 1997. in three months it moved through the house and a senenate trial d began, so -9d '8 and '99. at that point, we see ts could

happen pretty quickly, even by thanksgiving. >> woodruff: didn't feel quick at the time, but -- (laughter) >> feels quick today. >> woodruff: for sure. so much going on. lisa desjardins, yamiche alcindor, thank you both. >> thanks, judy. >> woodruff: in the day's other news: the kremlin declared that u.s. officials need russian consent before releasing transcripts of president trump's phone calls with russian president vladimir putin. the white house has limited access to those records, as it initially did with a call to ukraine's president. congressional democrats are now pressing for the putin scripts. the two front-runners in afghanistan's presidential election claimed victory today, even as vote-counting continued. saturday's turnout was low, but many afghans defied taliban threats of violence to cast ballots. khey received the trad finger ink for voters. by today, the country's chief

executive-- abdullah abdullah-- declared himself the winner. so did incumbent president ashraf ghani, as his running mate counseled patience.ouns >> ( translated ): whatever the outcome will be, we should wait for it and accept the judgement of the election commission. let's not confuse the nation of afghanistan by making casual judgements. >> woodruff: ghani and abdullah have governed under a power- sharing deal negotiated by the united states after the disputed 2014 election. in haiti: violent protests erupted today, as thousands heeded calls from opposition leaders to press president jovenel moise to resign. it is the latest in a series of sometimes deadly demonstrationso that have paralyzed haiti in recent days. frustrations over a surging economic crisis and allegations of corruption linked to moise have fueled the political turmoil. authorities in hong kong are bracing for new protests -- as mainland china marks the 70th

anniversary of the communist state, on tuesday. it follows another weekend of violent denstrations in the city, as protesters battled police with fire bombs. some hong kong lawmakers decried police tactics. >> the police brutality, in fact, is escalating and extremely disturbing and brutal and at the same time, you can see that, under a lot of, different situations, the use of force is unnecessary and disproportionate. >> woodruff: meanwhile, "reuters" reports that china has effectively doubled its securitl forces in hong kong to as many as 12,000. beijing had billed the deployment as part of a routine rotation of troops. it's been nearly a year since the murder of saudi arabian journalist jamal khashoggi-- and the president of turkey says he still wants answers. khashoggi was killed at the

saudi consulate in istanbul, last october. in a "washington post" op-ed today, turkey's recep tayyip erdogan blamed what he called "a shadow state" within the saudi regime. meanwhile, saudi crown prince mohammed bin salman said he takes full respoility-- but he denied he ordered the killing. back in this country: california became the first state to let college athletes hire agents and make money from endorsements-- starting in 2023.. governor gavin newsom signed the measure into law today. but, the n.c.a.a., overseeing llege sports, has warned the law would give california schools an unfair recruiting advantage. it says they may be barred from competition. republican congressman chris collins of new york resigned today, ahead of pleading guilty in an insider trading case. federal court records said collins will enter the plea morrow. he is accused of tipping confidential information about a

bio-pharmaceutical company to his son and then lying to the f.b.i. texas congressman mac thornberry is now t 19th house republican to announce he is leaving office. he said today he will not seek reelection in 2020. thornberry was first elected in 1994. he is the ranking member on the house armed services committee.c on wall street, stocks closed the dow jones industrial average gained 96 points to close above 26,916. the nasdaq rose more than 59 points. and the s&p 500 added 15. opera great jessey norman died today in new york after complications from a spinal injure. she made her international debut in 1969, and her vibrant so brano made her a worldwide star and a winner of four grammys. here she is in concert singing

the spiritual "grspeat day." (singing) ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> reporter: jes jessey norman s 74 years old. still to come on the "newshour," presidential candidate cory booker on his self-imposed fundraising deadline; our politics monday team breaks down the latest on the impeachment inquiry; china's rapid technology boom raises questions of a surveillance state; and our latest newshour bo club author sally rooney answers your questions. >> woodruff: democratic presidential candidates spent this weekend crisscrossing early

primary states. and as yamiche alcindor reports, from nevada to south carolina tn new hampshire, there was one major topic on their minds >> we have a constitutional obligation to move forward with this impeachment investigation. >> i worry that this election is being overshadowed by all that's going on. it's being overshadowed by impeachment proceedings. >> this presidency has got to come to an end for the good of the republic. i think we can all agree on that. ( cheers and applause ) >> reporter: it was the firstr:i weekend of campaigning since house speaker nancy pelosi announced a formal an impeachment inquiry into president trump. all 19 democratic candidates support that inquiry. the last holdout, hawaii congresswoman tulsi gabbard, changed her mind on frid some said the details in the whistleblower complaint are the clearest impeachable offenses yet. massachusetts senator elizabeth warren. >> this president has shown time this latest business with ukraine where it appears that hn is willing to take taxpayer dollars and dangle them in front

of a for count in order to help himself and his own political chances of being reelected. it's wrong. it's a violation of the law. >> reporter: president trump has tried to turn attention to former vice president joe biden and his son hunter's business dealings with ukraine. warren said she would consider a ban on presidential children serving on boards of foreign companies. she added that the focus should be on trump's actions. california senator kamala harris, came to biden's defense. >> as far as i'm concerned leave joe biden, just leave him alone. i'm not going to be distracted by what this president is trying to play, which is a game because he knows that he is actually probably looking at an indictment. >> reporter: if the house does impeach presidentrump, six democratic candidates will have a vote in the senate on whether to remove him from office. vermont senator bernie sanders urged majority leader mitch mcconnell not to hold up a vote. currently though, there are not

the 67 votes required to convict the president. >> i ask mitch mcconnell to do the right thing and make sure the senate begins that trial immediately after the impeachment process is over. >> reporter: mcconnell said today the senate would have "no choice" but to take up impeachment. meanwhile, with just hours until the end of the quarterly fundraising deadline, campaigns sent a flood of emails to supporters soliciting contributions. those efforts come as the democratic national committee continues to raise the bar for candidates to make it onto the debate stage. for the pbs newshour, i'mfo yamiche alcindor. >> woodruff: one candidate who raised his own bar, saying publicly if he did not make fundraising goals he would drop out, new jersey senator corey booker. he met his goal and joins me nol senator booker, welcome to the "newshour". so you did raise the 1.7 million

you said you needed to stay in the race. how far will this take you? >> well, it's going to give us what we need to start growing in the fourth quarter. we're already leading in iowa and new hampshire and endorsements from local elected officials and have aive team but we have to keep building. we have to get through the next debate but we have to keep the pace going. i hope people will continue to go to cory booker.com. we have thousands of supporters in the last ten days and it needs to continue if we stay in the race. >> woodruff: someone says the democratic rules for who can bon the stage in terms of how many people you have to have donating to your campaign and who you need in the polls, some say those rules are too many for tom far away for the election.

what do you think? >> i don't argue with the refs, but we have a real issue here that we've never ever had a president come from our partp since i have been alive that was leading in the polls this far out. people like jimmy carter and blintsen were not really registering that much at all. remember, this far out, we've seen everybody from giuliani leading to rick perricry in the republican party. we're still four months owl. so i understand people that might have some issues with the polling thresholds that are being set, especially when it doesn't necessarily reflect what's actually going on on the ground. >> woodruff: let me turn you to what's going on in the congress right now and that is the impeachment inquiry into president trump. democratic candidates for president you included seem to be all in on this, but what about the point of view out there that's something that the voters should be deciding and not members of congress. >> i swore an oath to uph hold

the constitution and congress has accountability to the constitution. if the president violates the constitution, there has to be consequence. this is ut doing our job. it's not about politics. really, it's about patriotism. i think that the long arc of history is going to look back on this moment and say when you saw a president literally using his office to pursue his ownsu personal ends contrary to national security interests, that's a pretty serious violation. we need to investigate this, and that's why impeachment proceedings mean that we're going to get to the truth and the public deserves t to know te truth, and the more that's coming out. we've seen breaking news today, it's more and more concerning. >> woodruff: are you worried about all some are pointing out this could end up helping the president, galvanizing his base, motivating them donating to his campaign? in other words, see what happened to bill clinton when the republicans went after him

when he was president. >> you know, president bill clinton, the impeachment proceedings surrounding his activities in the white house oval office as opposed to this president, what we're talking about here, i have been to ukraine, i've seen the crisis there, i've met with ukrainian soldiers who have lost their fellow soldiers, this is a very serious betrayal that is being accused here and, again, politics be damned, i just want to get to the truth, i want to do my job, and i think the time is right to do wha t is right in this se, and it's right to investigate this president, t just to wipe your hands and say, well, we'll see what happens in the next election. this is too serious, too grave. >> woodruff: it's a hypothetical now but if president trump were impeached, if he consider convicted from senate and impeached from office would the democrats have a more difficult time running against vice president pence who would then be president? >> hi caption democrats as well

as republicans to not let the elections 13 months from now enter into your calculations. this is a procs that needs to be done in a sober way. it is a sad thing to have a president of the united states have impeachment proceedings begin. we need to deal with this in a sober, objective, nonpartisan way. i plead to folks to approach it that way. let the politics and the campaigning and -- look, i'm out there on the stump i've write day talking about taking the fight to donald trump, but that does not mean the sacred obligation that we have right now to follow this impeachment proceeding where the evidence decision based upon that.tive these are two separate matters, they should be handled that way. >> woodruff: one other part of this ukraine story, senator, senh the white house focus opened is joe biden. did he do anything wrong? >> no. again, to make this about joe biden is absolutely wrong. it's unfortunate, he is a stesman, he is somebody that

many people have investigated this and come up with nothing. this is an attempt upon the trump administration to distract from their massive exposure from the tremendous implications and to distract by trying to besmirch the reputation of joe biden. >> woodruff: and finally, senator elizabeth warren, she is the democrat who is moving up significantly the polls, drawing big crowds. what are you main disagreements with her? >> well, again, i just want to remind everybody about the polls, never have they been predictive of who would be the next president of the united states. i am running my camcaign every sing daily about the highest ideals of our country, but this time especially we need a revival of civic grace, we need to have a nation that can pull together and heal, not just our rty. i warn democrats all the time, this election can't be about what we're against, it has to be what we're for. what we're for is not the short end of beating republicans, this

moment calls us to unit americs. this is the theme i'm bringing. if we're going to bring more justice to the country and deal wish shoes, we need to build new american majorities that can take open tough problems from climate change all the way to turgent is sues with gun violence. >> woodruff: so this is unfair, but in just the few seconds that we have, what would you say is the main thing that separates you from elizabeth warren? >> again, i'm not in this to talk about r campaign, and i think people who read our policies can find that. i'm talking about the spirit i'm trying to bring to the presidency, one that can unit our party, all factions of it, and also can unite this country. that's why i got into this race and that's the theme of my campaign, and folks can look to hearse and compare us on her own, but i will be working every day to let people know my vision of this country, not just my head but my heart and the kind of president i will be as leder of the united states. >> woodruff: senator cory

booker, running for the democratic >> woodruff: and now we turn to you, senator. >> thank you very much. >> woodruff: and now we politi monday with amy walter of the cook political report and host of public radio's "politics with amy walter." and tamara keith from npr. she also co-hosts the "npr politics podcast." hello to both of you. there's so much going on. i do not know know where to begin, but why don't we start, tam, with senator booker and what he had to say about impeachment, his own campaign. what did you hear? >> well, i heard him not taking an opportunity to try to go after joe biden and not taking an opportunity to try to go after elizabeth warren. he is really taking the position in this race as he is trying to stn it and work his way up, he is taking a position of not attacking other democrats. some of the other candidates have taken a different tack, but when it comesout ukraine conversation and joe biden, the

democratic candidates have really hung back. in some ways, it's put the primary in stasis. you know, they are being careful to not go after joe biden, inid part because he is in the middle of this storm that president trump created. >> woodruff: what are you hearing, amy? >> yeah, and i think it's for a candidate like cory booker who is struggling to catch up into the top tier of candidates, all the focus on impeachment sucked all the oxygen and attention away. it was hard enough to break through even before this story, now it's nancy pelosi, donald trump, donald trump's administration that are going to be the senator of the universe, it's not going to be as much as even on elizabeth warren, so if you are elizabeth warren and getting a great deal of attention up to now, you also will have trouble breaking through all of this. i did think i it was interesting to your point to get him to try to contrast himself. there's one candidate in the lower tier who is actively trying to contrast himself and

that's mayor pete buttigieg, who is basically saying i am the bridge between the old, which is joe biden, and the old way of doing things and what he would say would be the too far left candidates like warren and sanders, i can be that middle candidate, that person who's young enough, different enough but not too far to the left. >> woodruff: categorizing her on the left. >> right. >> woodruff: let's turn to the elephant in the room, tam, and that is impeachment. the democrats are going with the subpoenas of rudy giuani, news stories breaking from oneg news organization to the other. does it seem like a rush on the part of the democrats, or does it seem like they have their ducks in a row and they're proceeding carefully? >> what is completely remarkable is i reflect back on one week ago today we were sitting on this set talking about, you know, there's one democrat who has crossed over after this news

came out. within five or six hours, the whole universe had changed. this is happening incpeniredibly quickly. it's a challenge for president trump who -- i mean the president and the white house have really been caught flat-footed by this in part because they thought that the mueller thing was over and theyv were done and they were focused on reelection and all of a sund this blooms up. nancy pelosi, the speaker, had been holding back democrats, trying not to do this, and then the moderate demrats she was trying to protect jumped out in front of her and said stop protecting us, we're ready, we feel like this needs to be investigated, and now they're on the path and now it's going. >> woodruff: it's going. it is going. >> woodruff: amy -- i mean, is there any break on this now? is it full-throated ahead? >> to me that's the real interesting question. down these tracks, there is no going back. there will be an impeachment vote, no matter what, and it

then will be determined by the senate, whether the president is convicted and ultimately has to leave office. and i think the fact we're on a two-week recess is really important. these members now get a chance to check in back home at the reception that they're getting. we're seeing a lot of polls coming out in the last few days. there was absolutely one in newspaper marist pbs poll, they're showing, basically, folks, while engaged in this, they don't quite know what to make of it either. i think we have the most polarized electorate that i certainly remember of my lifetime, we have a very polarizing president, so, not surprisingly, i think we'll see people going to their corners, we get evenly divided about this. the challenge to the point you l are making about nancy pelosi and the calendar, i think that the more this drags out, the more it looks partisan, the more that it looks like they're just fishing, for example this australian story sort of muddies

the water a bit in my mind because it's no longer about ukraine and this call, it drags out and out, and it's getting harder to keep people focused on what it was exactly that decrats said wy th the impeachable offense. >> and there's so much fatigue, there was so much fatigue about the mueller investigation and now the voters are going to get tired of this quickly, not leant because, if this continues on the path that it's on, there's going to be an air war. there are going to be ads in congressional districts of vulnerable democrats, ads on cable, this is going to be fought out both in paid media and freed media and it's going to be a lot. >> woodruff: so you're saying even if the democrats move quickly with whatevertever ammunition, information they have, you're saying there's a real risk if they can't get voters engaged and on board.

>> certainly, and because this moved, you know, the course of a week so dramatically, i think it's hard for these polls to fully pick up. it's hard for people to register this just yet because it just happened so quickly, if you miss a couple of days, you've missed numerous developments. >> woodruff: and among republicans, it looks like the number barely moved, it moved slightly but within -- >> but within democrats, they're nor unified and then, surprise, surprise, independents will sube divided by it. >> woodruff: quickly, issues that get forgotnan all of this, whether guns or anything else the democrats have been talking about -- >> it's not exactly like congress and the white house have been on an reak-neck base pace in passing significant legislation, so i don't know voters were going to say, boy, they were just on the cusp of doing something. they haven't been on the cusp of doing anything sift for the last two and a half years, but if this drags out, it certainly lends to the argument that this is just partisan politics,

washington becomes more dysfunctional and it's harder for democrats to make a strong case. >> woodruff: the warnings have very begun. amy walter, tamera keith, "politics monday," thank you both. >> you're welcome. >> woodruff: chinese technology has helped the country achieve extraordinary growth. but critics say it is facilitating a surveillance state. tonight we begin two stories focusing on chinese technology, part of our seri, china: power and prosperity. with the support of the pulitzer center, nick schifrin begins in a remote area that is becoming more connected. >> reporter: in china's lipu mountains, pt rolling hillside farms, the remote city of guilin is nestled into a valley and built along a riverbank that's been inhabited for 10,000 years. today, this old town is getting older.

the population is older, and often needs medical care. but the closest hospital is far. so on this day, they line up for a mobile clinic-- on a bus. visiting specialists have a small room in the back for x- rays, and a nearby room for eye specialists to check for cataracts. in this clinic, everything is electronic. and all the patient records and data feed into a single phone application. it's made by the company ping an, and the app is called "good doctor." local doctor luo jiangshan says the technology changes everything. >> ( translated ): before we had this platform, patients had to go so far away. it was a big burden. now, with this platform, it saves both money and time. >> reporter: for decades, a country that suffered from widespread, rural poverty, relied on so-called barefoot doctors to provide remote areaso medical care. technology--from medicine, to telecommunications, to artificial intelligence--is

helping transform the country. >> ( translated ): china is en ae unique because it's rapidly developing country. so we have very, very uneven distribution. technology helps to bridge those gaps and deliver service, particularly in an environment like this. >> reporter: jessica tan is the co-c.e.o. of ping an, whose building towers over shenzhe china's silicon valley. ( gong ) ping an boomed financially into the world's second largest insurance company. but now it's celebrating by turning old insurance, into new tech. last month, ping an unveiled new facial recognition software-- for drivers. those markings judge whether she's a good driver and feeds all her data into pingan's base. a separate application uses facial recognition to determine whether ping an loan applicants are lying about their identity. the system identifies abnormal emotions of applicants by examinapplmore than 90 distinct expressions. >> sometimes when you are nervous there are these micro-

expressions that people would do. verifying the person who they are supposed to be is quite accurate. i think it's now already better than the human eye. >> reporter: and those human eyes-- china's 1.4 billion citizens-- are now entering more and more data on their phones. and in china, it's big data. ping an's healthcare app has 250 million users. ping an's car accident app that can automatically assess and cost damage, has 200 million users. and china has developed so recently, the majority all of thosty aers have never owned cars, or borrowed money, or to oose loan applicants, ping an's developed a social credit score, based on all the data users enter into their phones. e having the expertise to change that series of raw information to actually a credit report, a score the people trust, right? so we're able to do at based on your mobile phone bills. your shopping records.

do you splurge on your spending? if you have a good credit record you get the loans faster at a cheaper rate. so i think the idea is that, there's incentive for people who have nothing to hide to want to share the information. >> reporter: but in communist china, who decides who has nothing to hide? like ping an, the government is now converting data on its citizens into a social credit scores. nd's called "sharp eyes," those eyes are electronic thanks to the world's most advanced surveillance. the five most surveilled cities in the world are chinese. china now has more than 200 million cameras-- including at the entrance of an internation conference. and cameras use software that recognize not only faces, but also how people walk, reuters and can then track their location as they move. that allows cameras to judges ca behavior. in shenzhen, cameras watch this intersection. if people jaywalk, they're publicly shamed when their faces are displayed on this screen. do you think that because that

camera is there, more people cross legally? >> ( translated ): of course. they are afraid to be seen doing something inappropriate, so they will change their behavior. >> ( translated ): if you jaywalk, it reduces your score. for example,f you cross the red light, your score would be reduced by 2-3. >> reporter: behavior change is exactly what the government wants. and the credit score system is so important, there's even a communist party-produced naonal credit magazine. wu xiaoyan is the editor in chief. >> ( translated ): the chinese system's main purpose is to build a credib society of trt. this system has become an effecte measure in our social governance. person gets on bus, screen flashes "check credit score" for example, on the bus, people with regular scores will pay regular price, and people with good scores only pay 80% of that. >> reporter: rewarding good behavior all across society, and punishing bad behavior, is enshrined in her magazine. when i look in this magazine i

see an honor list in red, and then in black, a black list. >> ( translated ): those on the red list are people who have trustworthy behavior. those on the blackist are people whose behaviors are not trustworthy. >> reporter: and does it work? does rewarding people who act well and punishing people whoe h act badly make more people act well? >> ( translated ): of course it works. >> reporter: and something about that question made her uncomfortable. she and her staff walked out of the interview and the newsroom. but the microphones were still rolling, and recorded their conversation about my questions. >> ( translated ): don't talk about the government. talk about companies, businesses. we need to be calm. we cannot refuse to be interviewed. not too rigid or serious. >> reporter: 10 minutes later, she did come back to finish the interview. everything okay? ay, said everything was but the government's critics say

everything is not okay, because they say china's big data is becoming big brother. china companies that use the social credit system and the government, say the social credit sysm improves people's behavior. but critics say that the government can use the social credit system to target and penalize anyone who criticizes the communist party. in hong kong, protestors sayesto mainland china is exporting a system of surveillance. so when they demonstrate, they climb up ladders and try and cover up the cameras. and protestors also cover up their faces. this 21-year-old and her friends declined to give their names, for fear china would punish them. >> although i'm wearing a mask,

>> reporter: and protesters fear surveillance goes from cameras, to inside their phones. they organize these rallies offline, because they believe police hacked into their messaging apps. >> ( translated ): we are super >> reporter: protestors' fears are accurate, says zhang lifan, a longstanding critic of the government. he was willing to sit for an interliview, but refused to be seen with us in public. so he met us in our hotel room. are you, as a constant critic of the government, under surveillance? >> ( translated ): of course. we can feel this surveillance all the time.al the chinese authorities use a network of cameras throughout cities, facial recognition systems, as well as various mobile phone apps to monitor individuals. surveillance is indeed omnipresent. >> reporter: and that surveillance happens automatically, and instantaneously. every day, chinese citizens send

more than 45 billion messages on wechat, the countrmost popular messaging service. if you type in something e toitive, like a refere the tiananmen square massacre in mandarin, the recipient never receives it. >> ( translated ): sometimes, my wife and i suddenly can't contact each other. i noticed that whenever foreign erdia reporters were trying to set up interviews with me, the police would always show up downstairs. and i've noticed that the police who follow me use the same mobile phones from huawei. >> reporter: huawei is a 100 billion dollar phone andbill technology giant, huawei stores, that's the world's largest provider of telecom equipment. u.s. officials describe it as the symbol of hi-tech chinese government suppression, and beholden to the communist party, alongside fellow telecommunications giant z.t.e. >> as a matter of chinese law, the chinese government can rightfully demand access to data flowing through huawei and z.t.e. systems. why would anyone grant such power to a regime that hasto already grossly violated cyberspace?

>> reporter: the trump administration has mostly blocked u.s. companies from selling technology to huawei. but the company is expanding its 5g, or fifth generation phone technology, and vice president vincent peng says business is booming. >> all our major customers chose still stay with huawei. we sign 50 contracts with our major customers for 5g already.t and this year, we will deliver 150,000 base stations outside of china. i think that is the fact. >> reporter: and that expansion of chinese technology around the world, has enormous implicatio for china, and the u.s. that that story, tomorrow night. i'm nick schifrin. >> woodruff: now, jeffrey brown is here with some your questions

about our latest book club pickp and at the end of the conversation, what to read next month. stick around for our latest selection with "the new york times." it is all part of "canvas," our ongoing series on arand culture. >> reporter: it sounds perfectlr ordinary-- "conversations with friends." but the novel by that name about two dublin college students and their relationship with an older couple was an anything but ordinary debut for young irish writer named sallyney. "conversations with friends" was our book club pick for september. sally roney joins me now. welcome to you. thanks for being part of this. >> thank you for having me. >> reporter: so in one way this was an a coming of age story but set in a very particular timey a place. tell us what you were after. >> yeah, absolutely. i think it's right to describe it in one sense as a coming of age story. so you know as you've said it follows these two college students it's told from the perspective of my narrator francis. and it's very much about her relationship with her ex- girlfriend, her best friend bobby. and it's also about their

encounter with a married couple who to these young women who are 21 in the course of the book. and this couple seem much older much more glamorous much more sophisticated in fact they're quite young. they're only in their 30's. and so it's a book set in dublin sort of in the present day or the present day. when i was writing this and it follows the urney of those four characters and the sort of into relationships that develop between them. >> reporter: it's a love story but it's also a kind of running commentary on social life that the characters are encountering it's set very specifically in this post crash post economic crash write s 2008. what ideas did you want to get across there. >> so it wasn't necessarily that i was am undertaking a project of social commentary as such but i suppose what i was trying to do was observe the texture of the world that i myself was inhabiting. so even though all the characters are completely fictional and their exploits are very much figments of my imagination the world that they live in was and is very similar to the world that i was living in. and as i wrote the book and so in that sense maybe it does and accidentally provide some kind

of commentary on a on the city of dublin at that time from one very limited i should say perspective. >> reporter: and a number of our readers wanted to know about the particular characters where, where did they come from where they of course they want to know are they based on real people? >> i feel if i knew the answer to that question myself i would be able to rise a novel sort of every month because i, i, i can i never know where are the ideas for whereracters are going to come from. they do arrive to me what seems fully formed sort of whole. and even with the interrelationships between them kind of intact. and then my job as a novelist is i feel i'm to follow the thread of where those relationships a going and to try and explore them on the page. but the characters really seem to walk into my brain and they aren't based certainly not consciously on any one that i know or any fictional characters i've read about before. they're sort of just the whole thing and they cto me as they are. >> reporter: one reader mary o'brien she noted as did others the constant push and pull between the emotional life and the analytical which we see constantly throughout the book. and no one can seem to escape

the emotiol life in the end right. so she noted the character saying you can't always take the analytical position. where does this push and pull come from? >> i think certainly that the narrator that i conceived for self here francis is somebody who's a little bit more comfortable on the analytical level than she is. i'm both experiencing her emotions and also inhabiting a sort of physical body. those things don't come so easily to her whereas the kind of intelctual life she finds a little bit more comfortable. so i think for me it was interesting to take her out of your comfort zone and force her to confront these parts of life that for her a little bit more a little bit messier and more difficult to deal with. >> reporter: much of theor conversation between friends is by text by email. all of them used extensively in the novel is that because that was just natural to you? >> yeah, i mean partly because it was natural and partly i think because it was interesting. i like as a writer i'm very drawn to text and words and so on uses of language always interest me and i feel that the

internet gives us new ways of using language and has really lives in a new way.nguage in our so the fact that so many relationships are now conducted almost primarily through the written word for a writer is sort of very juicy and interesting because i love the written word. >> reporter: yes. >> so i was yeah really interested in pursuing how it is that people build relationships using language alone. >> reporter: well, but it's also very interesting because you know there's all kinds of discussion and talk about what our lives on screens are doing to us into relationships communications with our friends and lod ones. >> sure. >> reporter: do you see it changing? do you see-- as a >> yeah absolutely. i mean i think we've our lives have become more textual and we spend more and more time looking at screens and most of what we look up on screens are words of one kind or another.on so of course that shift into text reality is very compelling for me as a writer because my my whole life my whole working life is about text. but i suppose i feel that as a novelist my job is to observe rather than to judge. so just to try and depict and to get into a granular level of detail about what it feels like

to live out these kind of lives without sort of judging whether or not that's a good or bad thing. >> reporter: all right, we'll continue our conversation online where you can find it later on. for now let me say thank you sally rooney. >> thank you so much for having me. >> reporter: before we go i want to introduce our pick for october. it's a shift to a subject very much part of our political campaigns these days as candidates legislators judges and citizens assess and debate the political power of corporations especially after the citizens united case. the book is "we the corporations" by law professor and author adam winkler. as always we hope you'll read along and join us and other readers on our web site and our facebook page for now read this. our book club partnership with "the new york times." >> woodruff: finally an excerpt from our facebook watch show, "that moment when."

netflix has just released actor ben platt's new series "the politician" and in this episode he discusses how he chooses the roles he plays. it is also part of our "canvas" series. >> what's the first thing you look for when you read a script? with theater, i think the first thing i look at is sort of the trajectory of the character because i feel like when you're doing a piece of theater and you're getting to live, it kind of from beginning to end, so much of what's sort of bite- into-able about it is the change or sort of the journey that you get to go through every night cause it's going to be something you're doing eight times a week theoretically. and with film, it's also very much character driven when i read it. but i think it's a little bite i more about the grander piece right from the get go. just because film is so much less, at the end of the day, our medium as actors because it gets sort of curated and edited by other people after the fact. and then afterou've decided to take it, how important is tone, to like match the tone of the piece. >> totally. like tone is nearly everything,

particularly with film. like for example, the show i'm doing onho netflix called "the politician," i think kind of the, the greatest strength of it is that it has a very sort of strange and singular tone and feeling, which creates kind of a different world than anything else that i've seen. and i think that sort of is the ultimate entry when reading something where you feel like it's a voice and a feeling that is sort of like a vernacular you've never heard before. that is why i'm proud to introduce my running meattoday infinity jackson! >> some of the roles you've had, you had to reconcile, feels like universal theme and adolescents have both confidence and terror in the same person. >> you kind of can't necessarily have one without the other. i think terror is necessary. making it througterror and sort of finding ways to push the art through regardless of fear. and, and anxiety, which is obviously one of my biggest sort of issues is what cultivates confidence ultimately. i think if someone is just blindly confident from birth and you never get to sort of see where that came from or what challenges brought the character

to that place, then you don't necessarily find a way into them or a way to relate to them or to love them. and on the same token, i don't think you necessarily want to see a character that's purelya h weak and terrified and never can overcome that to accomplish anything. >> woodruff: ben plat.. you can find all episodes of this series on facebook watch, "at that moment when show."w. and that's the newshour for tonight. i'm judy woodruff. join us on-line and again here tomorrow evening. for all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you and see you soon. >> major funding for the pbs newshour h been provided by: >> bnsf railway. >> consumer cellular. >> and by the alfred p. sloan foundation. supporting science, technology, and improved economic performance and financial literacy in the 21st century. >> supported by the john d. and

catherine t. macarthur foundation. committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. more information at macfound.org >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org >> you're watching pbs. [ theme music plays ]

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ -today on "cook's country," we're taking a trip to the aloha state. brian makes bridget the ultimate hawaiian-style fried chicken, adam reviews plastic wrap, jack challenges bridget to a tasting of potato chips,