China to protect its interests in wake of US Iran sanctions

0:03Hello and welcome to NewsHour. It's coming to you live from the BBC World Service Studios in central London. I'm Tim Franks. There's a weather-beaten old saying when it comes to military campaigns, that even the best-laid plans rarely survive contact with the enemy. So what about the US's much-hyped economic campaign against Iran? If you remember, this was yesterday, Monday, the US Treasury Secretary Scott Besant dialling up what had already long been touted as maximum pressure, dialling that up to unprecedented, The single greatest financial offensive ever, he said. The question we're going to concentrate on today is not whether that plan is surviving first contact with the enemy, in other words, Iran, but whether it can survive first contact with a third party, in this case, China.

0:53Let's hear first, though, from the protagonists. This is what Scott Besant, the US Treasury Secretary, had to say about this new campaign against Iran. We want to make clear here today that no one is above the reach of U.S. sanctions, that if they facilitate transactions and are part of the ecosystem that turns Iranian oil into money, into repression, they will be targeted. Ali Mardani Zadeh, the Iranian Minister of Economic Affairs and Finance, speaking on Iranian state TV. He had this defiant message and response.

1:39Naturally, they want to carry out an economic terrorist attack against us. We have our own tools as well. We know how to play the game too. This time, they should no longer think that we will remain on the defensive and only defend ourselves. They should also expect an attack from our side. The voice of defiance out of Tehran. I'm joined in the studio by Behrang Tajdin from the BBC's Persian service. Behrang, not much time to go through this, but what do we know about? I mean, the Iranians have been talking about a two-year plan to survive. What do we know about this? So basically, let me start from the sanctions.

2:20The United States has been putting more and more sanctions on Iran for the best part of the past 50 years. And the new sanctions are the new round of sanctions are just a new round, an expansion of that. These are not a new type or a new generation of sanctions. And they are aimed at stopping Iran from exporting oils and using the money to purchase other materials. But the problem is this has been tried before. It takes time. And more importantly, right now, according to the Iranian officials, What has stopped Iran from exporting oil is the naval blockade that the US Navy has imposed on Iranian southern ports in the Persian Gulf, the Gulf of Oman and the Strait of Hormuz.

3:14So sanctions more of the same, but it's the blockade you're saying, just briefly, you're saying the blockade is what's really making a difference at the moment. That's what Iranian government says. They say we cannot export any oil right now because of the blockade. So we don't know whether these sanctions are really, really harsher than anything that we have seen before. OK, well, Behran, thank you very much indeed for coming into the studio. What we do know is that at least the US is promising secondary sanctions. And as for China, it has strongly pushed back against this new US line of attack, insisting that while its commercial relationships are entirely proper, it is the Trump administration that is acting illegally trying to impose fresh sanctions without UN Security Council say so.

4:02Here's Lin Jian, spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry. Cooperation between China and Iran has always been conducted within the framework of international law and should not be interfered with or disrupted. China is paying close attention to relevant developments and will take all necessary measures to firmly safeguard its own rights and interests. Well, to look at this, I've been speaking to Alicia Garcia Herrero. She's chief Asia-Pacific economist at the Hong Kong-based French investment bank Natixis. Just a quick mention, you'll hear Alicia referred to RMB in the interview. That's RMB, China's currency.

4:43When it comes to China's role in terms of the US trying to cut Iran off, Is it all about oil or is it about other stuff as well? It is certainly about other stuff. So oil is part of the picture, but a lot of oil was sold or at least shipped reaching Chinese shores before the war. We know that China has been using that oil, probably paying through its own payment system, cross-border payment systems, so-called CIPS, in RMB. So that's very hard for the U.S. to catch because it doesn't go through SWIFT, which is the messaging system that everybody uses in the world except for China's R &B payments.

5:25So that's part of the story. But it's not what the U.S. is looking for, if you ask me. What the U.S. wants China to stop doing is providing dual technology, drones, anti-missile equipment, etc., to Iran, i.e. exports to Iran. That is also something that the US really wants to stop. So it's not only payments to Iran, it's actually Iran payments to China in exchange for what is driving the war, what is driving Iran's ability to stop the US and to keep on fighting. That's really interesting. What in that case do you think? I mean, there've been all these, it seems slightly vaguely worded threats from the Treasury Secretary.

6:08And he hasn't actually, as far as I'm aware, even uttered the word China or Chinese. But what do you think the US leverage against China potentially is? I would say China is the bulk of the story is around 85 to 90 % of oil exports from Iran. So, you know, China is clearly there. But the US happens to be waiting or Trump is waiting for Xi something like 24th of September. You see what I mean? Like, There's no way that Iran alone can stop a meeting that would be important for Trump as a way to show that, you know, things are working, that the stock market can keep on doing well. So for Trump to really go harsh on China, on Iran, is costly.

6:53So that's why I think they're trying these bilateral discussions. There's also Turkey. There's also the UAE. Each of these actors have different functions. But the hardest cookie here for Trump is China, because China has ways to even avoid being caught, even if the US were to say, stop it. Still, they might not manage to see all the financial activities between China and Iran. And in terms of what China wants from the United States, I mean, is it possible we've got these talks that are expected next month between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping? Is there a scenario whereby China could maybe offer something on, for example, oil, but in response, China says you need to give us this?

7:40China already promised, if you recall, a trans visit to Beijing. That was what I call a quid pro quo. China would not sell arms to Iran and the US would not sell arms to Taiwan. That was the deal. Now, the problem is China keeps on selling dual technology, meaning maybe not arms, but maybe components of drones. And that is basically what is feeding Iran. At the same time, though, Trump stopped providing arms sales around$11 billion to Taiwan, waiting for the second visit. So it is true that Trump has one card that is important for China as a negotiation tool, which is if you do not cooperate on Iran, I will sell arms to Taiwan.

8:21I will go back to my decision. So I think that's the strongest card, in my view, that Trump can use to have China cooperate on Iran. But could it be used the other way around? Could Xi Jinping say to Donald Trump, if you entirely cut off arms sales to Taiwan, then fine, we'll play hardball with Iran? Yeah, of course. It can go both ways. So this is why Trump cannot be excessively pushy. People thought financial secondary sanctions on major Chinese banks, that's not going to happen. It's too harsh for Trump to get Xi on board into the US and still get a good meeting. And that was Alicia Garcia Herrero speaking to me from Taiwan.

9:11The next story, I confess, is rather strange because just over four hours ago, Europe's top human rights court ordered the release from prison of Osman Kavala, the Turkish philanthropist, businessman and political activist. That judgment might seem unequivocal enough and indeed entirely unsurprising, given that the same court, the ECHR, first ordered Kavala's release back in 2019. But just as unsurprisingly, the Turkish authorities are refusing to do any such thing. Kavala, they say, has been found guilty of attempting to overthrow the government and will spend the rest of his life in jail. So what now?

9:48Aisling Reedy is Senior Legal Advisor at Human Rights Watch, the advocacy group, and joins us live from New York. Aisling, thank you for your time. Before we get on to what difference this might make, what are the grounds for the ECHR finding that he's detained wrongly? Hi, good afternoon, Tim. So the European Court has found he was detained unlawfully And on a number of grounds. First, that the reasons that he was initially detained, you know, he was accused of being part of an effort to overthrow the government, which linked into to the attempted coup. And this was all based on his participation, along with many, many others in peaceful protests, which took place in a park in Istanbul called Gezi Park.

10:36And so historically then the Turkish authorities, they constructed this kind of fantasy whereby the Gezi Park protests were all part of a much bigger conspiracy to overthrow the government. And they put Osman Kavala in the center of this, despite the lack of any actual evidence. And that's essentially what the court found, as you've already mentioned, in 2019. but now that at the time in 2019 they were looking at his detention and this morning's judgment reflects the fact that since then he's actually been convicted to life imprisonment which was upheld by Turkey's highest court and they looked at everything from his the way he was detained the charges brought against him and the trial which he which he endured and they found kind on every level.

11:25So it's a more substantive finding. And, you know, without wanting to get your reaction to this, I mean, I'm just stating for the record that the Turkish government obviously says that its justice system is impartial and independent. I realise that you would not agree with that assessment. But I guess the major question now is what sanctions, if any, the European Court of Human Rights has? No, that's a good question. And I just will fill up. You are right, I wouldn't call it independent and impartial, but in fact the court itself as well has said that its independence and impartiality has been undermined.

12:03So what has the court left? Well, currently what will happen immediately now is that the Committee of Ministers, which is part of the Council of Europe, will engage with the Turkish government and try to get it to do what the court has said in its judgment. Yeah, unlikely though, isn't it? It is unlikely, but then, you know, this has to be the first process. And then the other options left is the committee of ministers has an option to move with any country or any state which has persistently, for example, refusing to implement judgments to the extent that the rule of law is in question. they can then bring proceedings to try to have some of the rights suspended.

12:45So that would be it. And the court has raised the fact that this is really a threat to the rule of law, their failure to implement the judgment. Aisling Reedy, thank you very much for joining us. That was Aisling Reedy, Senior Legal Advisor at Human Rights Watch, speaking about the imprisonment of Osman Kavala. Now, coming up on the programme, we'll hear about how the flow of one of Europe's major rivers, the Danube, is being radically reduced by drought. Normally, we have two million litres of water each second. That's really a huge amount. But because of the drought, we have just about 600 ,000.

13:28Just a third of the volume the Danube brings normally in this season. Our report coming up in about 20 minutes. We'll hear how all this is putting great pressure on Austria's energy supply. And one headline from the BBC Newsroom, the UN and the Red Cross are calling for urgent international regulation of fully autonomous weapons. And that is a story we'll be looking at in just over 15 minutes.

13:59This is the BBC World Service and live from London, you're with NewsHour. The Australian Recording Industry Association, known as ARIA, says it is banning music primarily made by artificial intelligence from the country's official charts. The decision comes after a cover by an Australian DJ called Josh Farwas of Madonna's Like a Prayer. It rocketed towards the top of the charts last month. Well, that track was later revealed to have used AI-generated vocals and drums. Mitch Thomas is a music producer and DJ in Australia. He goes by the artist's name Needs No Sleep. What does he make of the ARIA band?

14:37Gets a step in the right direction. I'm very proud of ARIA for taking the initiative to get out ahead of this instead of waiting for more public outrage to accumulate. I'm very happy and proud that they've made this decision to say we stand with artists and we take the side of artists over AI music. OK, a couple of things to pick you up on. First off, public outrage. Do you think the public are outraged? I would say artist outrage. The music industry as a whole is definitely outraged on it. But I would also say that there is a segment of the population that is also outraged. After the couple of videos I made exposing AI music, I had many people comment saying they had no idea, they felt they had been lied to and deceived.

15:23Yeah, I mean, it's difficult, isn't it? Because it's difficult to run a control experiment because this particular track, I think it's had something like 50 million plays on one streaming service, Spotify. And, you know, you just wonder how many people would have bothered listening if they thought this is largely AI created. But I mean, difficult to know, but you reckon it would be a reasonable number. Yeah, I can understand. If someone hears the song, it's objectively not a bad song. Like it sounds decent. It sounds fine. It's the ethical and legal issues that come with how it was made, whether the AI program was trained on copyrighted material and whether the artist is trying to pass off something as their own, which they did not make.

16:06And I think once people are aware of those certain issues and aspects, then it might change their mind on things. The comparison I give is when a sports star cheats in the Olympics or uses steroids to improve their performance, we don't celebrate that or hold that in high regard. We honour and appreciate people who do the right thing and put effort into the craft. And those are the ones we look up to. So you, I mean, you would say it's cheating, even if somebody comes clean. I would say it's cheating. You literally type a sentence like, make me a song like this in this style at this speed, and it will spit you out an entire song fully generated without you having to do anything.

16:44So it is cheating. It's the equivalent of if I went on to chat GPT and I said, write me a book on this topic, it would spit me out a book worth of material. However, I wouldn't call myself an author and I wouldn't expect anyone else to consider me one. I will do my best to fight back against it because I've spent my whole life making music. I care about the craft. I care about the process. I enjoy the process of making music. And I think it's special. And I think to try and jump frog or shortcut that entire process just to get an output to be efficient, I think defeats the whole purpose of making art.

17:17And that was the music producer and DJ, Mitch Thomas.

17:25You may have seen some of the pictures from the world humanoid robot games in China over the last few days. A robot running faster than Usain Bolt, robots kickboxing each other. And elsewhere, you're probably familiar with China's robots singing and dancing in tight formation. But as our Beijing correspondent Laura Bicker has been finding out, the real robot revolution is taking place in the country's industrial heartlands. China has more robots working in its factories than the rest of the world combined. The country spent hundreds of billions of dollars to transform its workforce. It's a priority for President Xi Jinping.

18:04But what does this mean for China's human workers? Here's Laura's report.

18:16Chinese factories echo with a rhythm created by both man and machine. There are even robots to transport goods around the building and they don't stop talking.

18:33I'm not sure if you can hear clearly behind me, but that is the sound of the swirling, twirling movement of a robot arm. These robot arms need human hands. They drill, they check. But some of this human workforce could soon be replaced. Engineers are creating a new human-sized robot. I think he needs a smile. For now, its hands can only do basic tasks. but Peng Kai from CRP Technology has ambitious plans.

19:21Machines can work 24 hours a day and don't ask for a pay rise. We were offered a tour of Leap Motors, a leading electric vehicle maker in Hangzhou. So in between each stage of the factory, they have to blow dry as clean, make sure we're not carrying any dust. The hum and the roar you hear is a so-called dark factory. Car parts are lifted in the air, turned, polished and welded with barely a human in sight. Only a few engineers are here to check things are OK. 90 seconds. I'm told parts of the car can be welded together in just 90 seconds. There are more robots working in China than the rest of the world combined.

20:13And as you walk along the length of this production line, you can see there's a robot for every single task. They're pivoting, grabbing, spraying, and some are simply just shifting the car part from one area to the next. It's efficient and it's continuous. But behind the scenes, there are still a row of workers helping to do the final touches. But for how long? Sao Yi is vice president of Leap Motors. Some of our workstations are already fully automated and require no human involvement. I think the day that all cars in China are made by robots will come very quickly. China needs robots as its workforce is getting older.

21:04By 2030, around a third of the population will be over 60. But the speed of this transition is key. Around 120 million people still work in manufacturing. If China moves too quickly, job losses could follow.

21:22The school bell ushers a new generation of robot engineers to class. There are 7 ,000 students at Hangzhou Technician Institute and they come here from the age of 15. They learn how to work in leading Chinese industries from aeronautics to processing rare earth minerals. Two of the class are trying to reboot a robot arm alongside teacher Chen Tianyu. Some students will ask me, Sir, teacher, one day what will happen? I say, I don't know. The technology has changed so fast. I don't know what will happen tomorrow, even next second. I think the change is so fast. Maybe I take a snap, the world changes.

22:10So the robots are coming. President Xi is betting on this new technology to power his country's next economic transformation. What's still unclear is whether they'll make life easier or more prosperous for people. rather than simply replacing them.

22:29And that was our China correspondent, Laura Bicker, with that report. You're listening to NewsHour. We've got much more to come in the next 30 minutes. Stay with us if you can.

22:50Welcome back to NewsHour. Online sports and casino betting have soared in popularity in Brazil, the country's now one of the largest gambling markets in the world. The self-help group Gamblers Anonymous says it's receiving thousands of calls each month, and millions of Brazilians are estimated to be suffering financial, emotional, or relationship problems as a result of betting. Bob Howard has this report from Sao Paulo. My name is John. I'm a compulsive gambler. And when I discovered poker, I think I discovered the best thing of my life that will fix all my problems. John works in IT and is in his early 40s.

23:32He comes from Rio de Janeiro, but now lives in Brazil's biggest city, Sao Paulo. Like millions of other people in this country, he has a gambling habit that at times has come close to ruining his life. I have a corporate car and I used to travel a lot to the US. And in a weekend I entered there and I spent$75 ,000 off the corporate card. And I spent a lot of money off my wife. I destroyed her credit card. So I was completely out of control. John was taking part in a gambler's anonymous meeting in a Sunday school classroom attached to a church in Sao Paulo's financial district. He didn't want us to use his real name because he doesn't want to be recognised.

24:17There are about a dozen people attending so far, mostly men. Urbano Tavares is a psychiatrist and also an associate professor at the Federal University of Sao Paulo, where he runs a clinic which helps around 300 patients a year who have been diagnosed as being clinically addicted to gambling. And we're talking about 2.1 million people needing treatment today. And those are just people with a clinical diagnosis. If you look at the people with moderate or severe problems, those who have financial, emotional or relationship problems from gambling, the number of people impacted reaches seven and a half million.

24:57Do you think there will be enough psychologists and psychiatrists in the world to treat that? I don't think so. Although most of the people Professor Tavares treats are men, there are increasing numbers of women suffering from addiction as well. Rosangela, a businesswoman in her early 50s, told me about her addiction issues related to the popular online game called Chigrin, or Little Tiger.

25:24After the new year, I started losing. I took loans from three different banks and was still hiding from my family. Sometimes they would say something and I would laugh and reply, are you crazy? I am not gambling. Her life effectively fell apart. Then I came to a point where I was already becoming very apathetic. I couldn't work. My business was suffering. A new law means gamblers can register their ID cards with betting companies to block themselves from sites if they're becoming addicted. Rosangela has asked to be blocked. She's made good progress, but she doesn't feel yet in control of her addiction.