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From Our Own Correspondent
Donald Trump's China summit with Xi Jinping
00:28:19
China's President Xi rolled out the red carpet for President Trump but differences remain
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BBC Narrator
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BBC Presenter / Reporter
hello. Today we're in the occupied west bank as runners take to the streets for the Palestine Marathon. We head to Venice for the Biennale, where Russia's participation led to resignations. But what does the art world have to offer beyond the boycott? In the Indian state of Maharashtra, the story of a woman who discovers the home of her birth and makes an unexpected connection. And we're traveling in a motorcade with Sierra Leone's first lady, where we get a snapshot of life in the fast lane. But first to Beijing, where the meeting between China's President Xi Jinping and the US President Donald Trump has been closely watched. Donald Trump said the meeting was very successful, world renowned and unforgettable, while Xi called it historic and landmark visit, according to Chinese state media. And while the pomp and ceremony may have been designed to flatter the US President, it also hinted at a broader reality of the global shift in power, says Laura Bicker.
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Laura Bicker
With a tight grip and the odd shoulder tap, Donald Trump in Xi Jinping turned an ordinary handshake into a global power statement. They shook for 14 seconds outside the Great hall of the People as the world watched, in the hope this was a sign the two superpowers could do a deal. Mr. Xi ushered his American counterpart onto the red carpet to inspect the waiting military honor guard whose eyes tracked their leader as he walked up the line. The stagecraft was meticulous. Hundreds of school children waved American and Chinese flags and and shouted welcome. Welcome. Warm welcome Once inside the hall, the real work began. The two leaders talked for over two hours. More than expected. The two countries should be partners rather than rivals, said Mr. Xi, while Donald Trump lavished praise on his host. You're a great leader, he said. We're going to have a fantastic future together. This is a remarkable turnaround for a man who built up his own political brand by being tough on China and claiming China has ripped off America like no one else before it and vowing to make China pay. The next stop was a lesson in Chinese history, a tour of the 15th century Temple of Heaven, a sacrificial altar once used by emperors to pray for a good harvest. China is beautiful, said Mr. Trump, but suddenly stopped talking when reporters asked about Taiwan. The visit was shaping up to be filled with warm words and pageantry, but very little policy. At a state banquet serving Beijing roast duck and pan fried pork buns while basking in what he called a magnificent welcome like no other, Mr. Trump invited his counterpart to the White house in September. Mr. Xi went further, saying, the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and make America great again can go hand in hand. And as the dessert of tiramisu was served, more details of the day's discussions started to trickle to the press. Chinese state media released a statement saying President Xi had warned his counterpart that if the issue of Taiwan was handled poorly, it could lead to conflict. It appeared that where Mr. Trump was being deferential, Mr. Xi was keeping to his strongly held positions. President Xi has been eager to portray himself as a stable global leader, in contrast to a more volatile US President. Given the size of China's economy, plenty of other world leaders from France, Germany and the UK have turned up eager to do a deal. China's trade with the world has also expanded since Mr. Trump's first term, as it braced for exactly what he warned more tariffs. Last year, it flexed its economic and diplomatic muscle, responding to Mr. Trump with tit for tat tariffs and restricting the export of rare earth minerals essential for advanced manufacturing. Washington came to the table and tariffs were lowered. While there are concerns about China's record on human rights and its closeness to Moscow and Pyongyang, they seem to have been overshadowed. As Trump shakes up the world order. Some would see this as a sign that the balance of power is shifting in China's direction. In their final few hours together, President Xi took his guest to the cradle of his Communist Party. Chongnan High is where the top leaders live. It was once a garden for emperors. Mr. Trump was keen to know how many others had been afforded such access to the secretive compound. Not many, said Mr. Xi, except Vladimir Putin, he added. Mr. Trump admired the beautiful trees and the beautiful roses, but a big, beautiful trade deal still seems elusive and there were few real breakthroughs. The US President said China will buy Boeing aircraft and US Farm products, and he added that President Xi will help end the war in Iran. Beijing and Tehran have a relationship dating back decades, and China is Iran's biggest trading partner. If Mr. Xi helps nudge Tehran towards the negotiating table, it may give China even more leverage, but it will want something in return. President Xi potentially taking up the mantle as peacemaker also suggest Beijing is no longer at the center of the global economy, it's increasingly at the center of global power. For the last five years, there's been a saying in China the East is rising, the west is declining. Donald Trump's volatility and mercurial style have allowed Mr. Xi to reposition his country. China was once eager to catch up to the West. Now Mr. Xi may feel after playing host to the US President, that he is on the verge of surpassing it.
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BBC Presenter / Reporter
Laura Bicker Next to Bethlehem, where the 10th Palestine Marathon was held last weekend with a parallel five kilometer run in Gaza, this year's race was the first in two years, having been postponed because of the war in Gaza. This week, Israel passed a new law to impose the death penalty and conduct public trials for those involved in the Hamas led attacks of October 7th. Meanwhile, there's been a recent surge in settler related violence across the west bank in which several Palestinians have been killed, hundreds injured and many more driven from their homes. Wirra Davies has been in Bethlehem.
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BBC Narrator
The sight and sound of thousands of runners pounding the streets of Bethlehem last weekend was a welcome relief for a city that has been hit hard by the economic impact of a succession of Middle east conflicts. Bethlehem, which is just south of Jerusalem, relies heavily on tourism and pilgrims visiting its holy sites. But in recent years, that previously steady flow of visitors has slowed to a trickle, especially since the October 7th attacks in 2023 when Hamas gunmen broke through the Gaza border into Israel, killing more than 1200 people and abducting 251 hostages. Concerns over security and restrictions on travel meant that for the best part of three years, hotel rooms have remained empty and restaurant tables have gathered dust. The impact has been exacerbated by an almost blanket Israeli ban on workers from Bethlehem and other parts of the west bank being allowed into Israel for jobs that are vital to the Palestinian economy. The chairman of Bethlehem's Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Dr. Samir Hasboon recently told me that revenues from Palestinians across the west bank working in Israel amounted to more than 4 billion pounds annually, much of which has been lost. The Bethlehem governorate right now is closed, he told me. The younger generation especially are jobless. They're not working. So the running of this year's Palestine Marathon, attracting several thousand participants from across the west bank and further afield, brought a much needed injection of revenue. You see, I'm smiling. They've come from everywhere, beamed Etidal Ismail, the race director. She and her fellow organizers had taken a risk scheduling the event, knowing they might have had to again postpone it for security considerations. But the sight of Bethlehem's Manger Square heaving with runners and their supporters made it all worthwhile. The focus of this race is our right to move, our right to freedom, said Ismail. In other cities they have this they can move and travel. But in Palestine we don't have that right. Few Palestinian towns and cities in the occupied west bank have been as adversely affected by the growth of Jewish settlements widely regarded as illegal under international law as Bethlehem. Settlements like Ha Homah, home to 25,000 people and partly built on expropriated Palestinian land, encroach on Bethlehem's boundaries. They, in effect, cut Bethlehem off from Arab East Jerusalem and other Palestinian cities in the northern West bank. Finding a continuous 26 mile route around Bethlehem was almost impossible, said marathon organizers, because of Israeli military checkpoints and obstacles, the biggest of which is the huge concrete separation barrier that snakes around the city. So runners in the full marathon race had to run laps, not uncommon in other races. But rarely will runners have had to race under the gaze of border guards in heavily armed watchtowers looking down on them as they negotiated the sometimes narrow gaps between houses and a 9 metre high concrete wall. Having said that, it was quite the backdrop. In the 20 years since its completion, many accessible parts of the wall have been transformed into a canvas, a mural for graffiti artists and painters, nearly all posting political slogans and artworks critical of the barrier and its impact on the daily lives of Palestinians. On the Bethlehem sector of the wall, there are several paintings by the British artist Banksy, who also owns a small guest house, the Waldorf Hotel, which runners streamed past along their route. It's been a tough few years for many west bank residents, with uncertainty over their economic and political futures. Emboldened by support from extremist ministers in the Netanyahu government, violence committed by settlers against West Bank Palestinians their land and property has exploded in recent months. According to the UN's humanitarian agency OCHA, this year has seen the highest number of incidents related to settler violence for at least two decades. But this was a day full of positivity, smiles and of relative freedom. After the main event, which was run early in the morning to avoid the heat of the day, a 10k race was attended by some 6,000 runners of all ages and abilities. As that event started in Bethlehem, over in Gaza, they ran a 5k, the first big sporting and social event to take place there since the devastating war between Israel and Hamas. Reem Ali is originally from the west bank but now lives in the United States. She's an international standard athlete and placed second in the women's standings in the Bethlehem race. This weighs heavily on all of her heart, she told me, almost in tears as she conveyed the emotion of coming home to run. Regardless of what's there, she said, we can still have fun and we don't have to have barriers to control us.
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BBC Presenter / Reporter
Wira Davis Two of Europe's biggest cultural events have been hit by geopolitics the Eurovision Song Contest taking place tonight in Vienna and the Venice Biennale. Both events were founded with the intention of bringing nations together through art, but have been hit by boycotts in recent weeks. The Biennale, often referred to as the Olympics of the art world, is due to run for six months, but hit the headlines after its prize jury resigned in protest over the participation of Israel and Russia at this year's event. Kirsty Lang was there.
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Kirsty Lang
I'm at a party thrown by a major London gallery in a rather glorious Venetian palazzo when somebody whispers in my ear, go to the Russian pavilion tomorrow at 12. Pussy Riot's going to be there. The exiled Russian punk performance artists are a big draw in any context, but this year at Venice they were a headline act. My fellow guests at the party are the usual Venice Biennale crowd wealthy art collectors, museum patrons, gallerists, curators, journalists and artists. But this year, politics dominates the conversation. A week before the opening, the five person jury, which awards prizes for the best national pavilion, resigned, stating they would not judge entries from countries whose leaders face international arrest warrants, namely Russia and Israel. The Israeli Foreign Ministry responded with accusations of anti Israeli political bias, and the EU responded by withdrawing its funding. Over the following few days, I witnessed numerous protests, notable for their theatricality and outrageous costumes. And the slogans packed a punch too. Curated by Putin Russian art, Ukrainian blood, no whitewashing of war crimes, they read. I watched a group of protesters gather outside the Russian pavilion during its opening party from Inside, a DJ pumped out aggressively loud house music, as if to say, we don't care what you think. Through the windows, I could see designer clad dignitaries sipping vodka and prosecco. But there was little sign of any art, just a lot of large floral displays. Protecting the Russian pavilion was a phalanx of Italian police with large riot shields. This juxtaposition between passionate protester and bougie art crowd emerging from their oligarchic motor yachts on the Venice waterfront was striking. But while the furore around Russia and Israel's participation may have dominated the headlines, there was so much more to this year's festival, including a sizable Ukrainian presence. At the entrance to the main festival site, the giardini dangling from a crane is a Ukrainian sculpture known as the Origami Dia. This piece of public art once stood in a park in Pogovsk, a city on the front line in Donetsk. Parents would take selfies with their kids in front of it. But in the summer of 2024, with Russian troops edging ever closer, the Origami Dia was evacuated. A film documenting its long journey to Venice is showing inside the Ukrainian pavilion. A mile or so down the waterfront, in a crumbling palazzo on the Grand Canal, there are more artworks from Ukraine from a show commissioned by a contemporary art gallery in Kyiv. The theme is Joy in a Time of War. The creators commissioned a former marine to collect testimonies from soldiers and prisoners of war, asking each to recall a moment of happiness. One tells the story of a POW who struck up conversation with his Russian guard and discovered a shared connection. He'd served on the same battlefront as the guard's son who was fighting on the other side for Russia, and described how the guard had bought him a chocolate bar the next day. I'd lost several teeth, some pulled out, some knocked out.
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Tanya Datta
So the guard carefully placed the chocolate
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Kirsty Lang
under my leg and said, let it warm up and then eat. You must be hungry in a place so full of pain and fear. This brought me so much joy, I can still remember the taste. In another room is a collection of house plants, each one gathered by the artist from a bombed out building. On the wall beside them hang huge photographs of these little green survivors amid the destruction of their former homes. But one of my favorite works is a film in which a homesick teenage Ukrainian boy, now a refugee in Poland, is invited by the artist to walk through his home city of Zaporizhzhia using a robotic dog. On one screen, you watch the boy with a controller in his hand, remotely operating the robo dog, which is staggering awkwardly around his hometown, visiting his ruined school and his family home, interacting with his mum, even the family cat. The catalogue explains how the technology was originally developed for military purposes. An exhibition about joy from a country at war seems counterintuitive, but curator Bjorn Geldorf says that's the point. It's difficult to share joy when the world is on fire, but in Ukraine we've learned that joy emerges in those cracks between life and death. On the wall by the entrance to the show hangs a quote describing a classic wartime phenomenon well known to historians of war the higher the probability of death, the greater the intensity of living.
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BBC Presenter / Reporter
Kirsty Lang
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BBC Presenter / Reporter
From the 1960s through to the 1990s, there was a rise in Indian children being adopted by Western parents. As children's homes, police stations and private shelters often transferred children to adoption agencies, it was a process that lacked transparency and accountability. And not all children sent to live abroad were abandoned or as destitute as their new parents were led to believe. Tanya Datta travelled with one adoptee brought up in France by French parents, now in search of her birth mother in the Indian state of Maharashtra.
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Tanya Datta
My friend Stephanie has always known she was born in a place called Amravati. It's one of the rare hard facts found in her adoption papers. That and the name of the Mumbai orphanage that looked after her before she was flown to France to be adopted aged 16 months. The rest of her documents are marked by an absence of information as well as bureaucratic terminology like absolutely abandoned, destitute and parents unknown. But Amravati, her birthplace, is known. It is named and therefore it brims with possibilities. And with all those ahs, it flows from Stephanie's French tongue far more beautifully than my British one, as if it knows which one of us it truly belongs to. Now, almost 40 years later, as we speed along the newly constructed six lane Mumbai Nagpur Expressway towards the city, I watch her take in the motorway signs listing its decreasing distance with an intensity that's hard to read. All the adoptees I've talked to have such powerful imaginations. They've imagined their unknown biological parents. They've imagined the lives they could have had so much imagining in their yearning to understand why. Amravati, the ninth largest city in the vast state of Maharashtra, is close to the very centre of India. It's located in a thriving agricultural and industrial region. And as we pass through its outskirts, a reel of small town India, of business parks, textile factories, lacklustre shopping malls, plays through our car windows. Stephanie, though, studies the streets as if she is committing them to memory. She's chosen to wear an Indian outfit. Today it's strange not to see her in her usual jeans with a simple T shirt plus a cigarette held in her perfectly manicured hand. The classic French cool girl uniform. Instead, she's dressed in a peach coloured silk tunic known as a kurti, adorned with traditional Lucknowy embroidery which she wears over shiny white cigarette pants, along with a pair of huge sunglasses, a gorgeous ensemble that seems to belong on her. At last we find the Missionaries of Charity home hidden away on a peaceful suburban lane and enter it warily in its sister branch in Mumbai, Stephanie's former orphanage that we'd visited before our trip to Amravati. Her search for her birth mother hadn't exactly been encouraged. Instead, she was urged not to disrupt her birth mother's life, a position that upset Stephanie greatly. But out here in the provinces, once the sensitivity of our visit is understood by Sister Rossine, who's in charge, we are immediately treated to tea and biscuits by a small group of nuns. Although we uncover no new information about Stephanie's past, it's clear she is deeply affected by the nun's kindness. She listens hungrily as Sister Rossine, who began work at the orphanage from the mid-1980s onwards, unfortunately missing Stephanie by one year, describes those times when there were so many unwed teenage mothers, mostly students brought in by their worried families, that up to four babies could be admitted daily. And then, in that free flow of recollections, we inadvertently learn that contrary to what Stephanie's always thought, she was not actually born here, but in a local maternity hospital where, incredibly, the same paediatric doctor might still be working. It's a lead we can't ignore. One hour later and we have tracked down Dr. Hemant Murque, a calm, composed man who informs Stephanie that he would almost certainly have looked after her for the first few weeks of her life. It's an unforgettable encounter for everyone present in front of my eyes. A cloud seems to lift intangibly from her as she breaks into a tearful smile of happiness at the man opposite. Stephanie's pilgrimage to a place called Amravati has proven more healing than she could ever have imagined. It's yielded real context to pour into all those painful gaps in her history, along with a precious image of being cared for as a baby, perhaps even held in this doctor's arms to counter the cruelty of those early labels. Above all, her city. Welcome Stephanie home.
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BBC Presenter / Reporter
Tanya Datta. And finally, we're in Sierra Leone, travelling through the streets of Freetown to the home of President Julius Marda Biot and his wife, Fatima. The first lady was formerly an actress who spent time studying and working in London, but moved back to Sierra Leone following her husband's election in 2018. She's since gained recognition for her campaign against sexual violence and child marriage, but has also faced scrutiny over her finances. Megha Mohan was recently granted an interview with her and recounts the hair raising journey to meet her.
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Megha Mohan
This is not your typical car ride. We're in a presidential convoy piercing through traffic at speed, the rest of the traffic forced to swerve around us. Off we go through the cinematic landscape of Freetown's hill station, the greener, leafier, elevated stretch of the capital's west end. The road winds along the hillside. To our left there's a steep drop through thick vegetation and beyond it, glimpses of the Atlantic silver. And still in the distance. For the first 10 hectic minutes it is exciting and then it isn't. More like alarming. Soon I'm gripping the sides of my seat, trying to steady my breathing and keep my voice calm so as not to distract Umaru, my colleague who is driving. We're still threading through traffic, trying to keep pace with a siren blaring police car in front of us. Then Umaru says very simply, I hate this. And with that, I feel free to admit my own terror. I hate this too. I shout. We are traveling up country along the Masayaka highway to the family farm of Sierra Leone's first lady, Fatima Bio. Umaru has told me that once we get there, I will find vast pools of catfish and tilapia, thousands of chickens and large, pale white cows, a sign of abundant wealth. The farm sits within a wider push by President Julius Biot's government to strengthen food security in a country hit hard by the inflation shock that followed the Russia, Ukraine war. Umaru says, we are only an hour away, but in a convoy like this, an hour feels like a very long time. There's a police car ahead of us, another behind us, and behind that, the most important vehicle of all, the one carrying Fatima Bio herself. Behind her, a private ambulance. Two people died in her convoy the other month, Ismail, Fatima Bio's chief of security, had told me earlier. It is not at that moment a comforting thought. So I force my mind elsewhere, to the farm and to my questions. I need to ask the first lady about her childhood as the daughter of a diamond dealer who had four wives, about fleeing child marriage, about her former career acting and directing in Nigeria's Nollywood film industry, about how she went on to become one of the key figures behind Sierra Leone's ban on child marriage in 2024. I will ask her, too, about power, about popularity, and about the criticism that has followed her public life, not least retaining the tenancy of a council flat in the UK and her alleged acquisition of several beachside properties in the Gambia. Indeed, Fatima Biot is a divisive figure. To many young women here, she represents glamour, fearlessness and possibility, a woman who says what she thinks and does not apologise for taking up space. To her critics, she's too political, self interested and too outspoken for a role they believe should be largely ceremonial. All of that runs through my mind as we speed on, overtaking cars to keep up. The police car in front of us is waving long foam poles out the window to signal drivers aside. At one point, a man tumbles from his bicycle. No one stops. The convoy keeps moving. The heat is thick and oily, the kind that makes you long to be on a beach instead of sitting in a car racing through traffic. And just as another bend sends a fresh wave of nausea through me, Umaru says, we're here. I pull down the mirror for a quick look at myself. My makeup has melted and my hair has stuck to the sweat on my head. My glasses are steamed. We pull into a clearing with a portico where giant ice coolers filled with soft drinks seem to beckon us. Behind them is the vast open farm. Standing nearby is Ismail, the first Lady's head of security, a statuesque, unreadable man in a crisp navy uniform. Giving nothing away. And then the door of the cream SUV opens and out steps Fatima Bia. Her hair is tied back in a ponytail. She's wearing jeans, a baseball cap and an Arsenal football shirt. She looks unscathed by the journey, sweat free, immaculate camera ready. In time I will ask her whether she wishes to be president herself one day. She will reply only if it is God's will. Then she will promise me the first interview if she does. But right now we catch each other's eye for a moment and she laughs. Not for the faint hearted, this life, she says. And then she begins to tell me about it.
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BBC Presenter / Reporter
Mega Moen and that's all for today, but you can hear more stories from around the world on BBC Sounds. We'll be back again next Saturday morning. Do join us.
- [30:11]
Tanya Datta
If you've got a scrolling problem, then
- [30:13]
Kirsty Lang
this is the podcast for you.
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Megha Mohan
It's called Top Comment with me, Matt
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Tanya Datta
Shea and me, Mariana Spring. We both investigate social media for a living.
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Megha Mohan
Whether it's disinformation, conspiracy theories, Internet culture memes.
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Tanya Datta
We're going to be getting behind the
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Kirsty Lang
stuff that is popping up on your
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Megha Mohan
feed on this podcast that's Top Comment on BBC Sounds.
- [30:34]
Kirsty Lang
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