March 12, 2011

Summary

FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT — BBC RADIO 4 Episode Summary: March 12, 2011

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Overview

This episode of From Our Own Correspondent, hosted by Kate Adie, takes listeners on a globe-spanning journey beyond headlines. Through vivid storytelling, BBC journalists report from Japan in the wake of a catastrophic earthquake, from the violence-torn streets of Ivory Coast, inside the Libyan revolution, amid the underreported insurgencies of northeast India, and finally, to a day of inventive wonder in a Chinese robotics factory. Each dispatch mixes personal anecdote, local insight, and geopolitical context, offering intimate windows into lives shaped by crisis, conflict, and creativity.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Living With Disaster in Japan: The Ever-Present Wait for “The Big One”

• Correspondent: Hugh Levinson
• Segment Start: [00:22]
• Main Themes:
  • Japanese culture’s ingrained sense of fragility and preparedness amid constant seismic threat.
  • Communal drills and traditional beliefs (e.g., monitoring carp to predict quakes).
  • How cultural icons—the brevity of cherry blossom, the flexibility of bamboo—mirror philosophies on resilience and impermanence.
  • Historical catastrophes: Kanto Earthquake (1923), WW2 firebombings, and Tokyo’s recovery.
• Notable Quote:
  • “Waiting for the big one is a part of Japanese life, and the carp, it turns out, are no help. They have no better idea of when a tremor will strike than the rest of us.” (Hugh Levinson, [05:59])

2. Ivory Coast: Violence and Uncertainty Amid Political Crisis

• Correspondent: Andrew Harding
• Segment Start: [06:42]
• Main Themes:
  • Firsthand account of daily insecurity in Abidjan amid contested presidential elections.
  • Roadblocks manned by masked youths, economic paralysis, and a climate of fear for foreigners.
  • Personal stories from bank queues to besieged hotels reveal the psychological toll and civilians’ resilience.
  • Broader regional context: contrasts with prosperous Ghana, concerns of civil war returning to an erstwhile ‘success story.’
• Memorable Moment:
  • Vivid anecdote: “A pair of bright, focused eyes jump at the window, peering through slashes cut in a homemade orange balaclava. I think of the video I’ve just seen...jeering in the dark at two writhing men slowly burning to death beneath a pile of flaming tyres.” (Andrew Harding, [06:54])
  • “This is the only safe place in the whole of Ivory Coast, says Robert. But we want to leave it and take control of our country.” (Robert Kofi, paraphrased by Andrew Harding, [10:06])

3. Libya: The Exhilaration and Danger of Revolution

• Correspondent: John Simpson
• Segment Start: [11:59]
• Main Themes:
  • The giddy idealism and camaraderie of revolution: “There’s nothing quite as exciting as a revolution.”
  • Welcoming treatment of foreign media by rebels vs. wariness from loyalists.
  • The role of international press attention in fueling uprisings across Middle Eastern states, and parallels with 1989 Eastern Europe.
  • The selective effectiveness of Western pressure: “The West’s care for human life and its free press are great at bringing down the less extreme dictators—and not so good at bringing down the really nasty ones.” ([16:18])
• Notable Quote:
  • “Welcome! Welcome! shouted a revolutionary soldier at a roadblock…” ([12:46])
  • “Reporting on this one in Libya or the one last month in Egypt makes you a part of a process which goes right back to the storming of the Bastille.” ([16:48])

4. India’s Forgotten War: Widows of Manipur

• Correspondent: Rupa Jha
• Segment Start: [17:45]
• Main Themes:
  • Heartbreaking stories from young widows whose husbands were allegedly killed by security forces under India’s controversial Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act.
  • Social stigma against widows: isolation, suspicion, loss of livelihood, and restrictions on their independence.
  • Long-standing hunger strike by Irom Sharmila as a symbol of peaceful resistance.
  • The heavy toll of underreported insurgency: “Here in the northeast of India, the fighting has left many dead and injured—rebels, army and police officers, as well as innocent bystanders.”
• Memorable Moment:
  • “For me, death is not a punishment. It’s a lonely fight for Sharmila.” (Rupa Jha relaying Irom Sharmila’s words, [21:39])
  • “You know, we are young and beautiful and that makes our lives as widows even more tough…our in-laws and parents put a lot of restrictions on us.” ([19:35])

5. China: Nurturing Innovation in an Inventor’s Robot Factory

• Correspondent: Martin Patience
• Segment Start: [22:47]
• Main Themes:
  • Portrait of Mr. Wu, a self-taught rural inventor obsessed with building robots, now running a factory and inspiring a new generation.
  • The Chinese government’s push for homegrown innovation to move beyond manufacturing to design and high-tech development.
  • Challenges to fostering creativity in an authoritarian society: “There’s a common saying here that the bird that flies first gets shot down.”
  • Contrasts between grassroots inventiveness (Mr. Wu’s quirky robots) and state-driven tech ambitions.
• Notable Quote:
  • “Everyone who learns from Mr. Wu is eager to be an inventor.” (Martin Patience, describing factory banner, [24:01])
  • “What they really love to see is a whole generation of high-tech Mr. Wu’s because they believe…that would propel China to the next stage of its development.” ([25:55])
  • “His latest dream is to build a robot that can do all the housework. It may seem like an impossible task, but his spirit could change China.” ([27:32])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (with Timestamps)

• “[Earthquakes] are so frequent in Japan, people are to some extent prepared for them. Hugh Levinson says expecting the worst has become a part of the national culture.” — Kate Adie intro, [00:22]

• “The city of Tokyo has shown extraordinary resilience…A couple of decades after the great earthquake in March 1945, American B29s dropped incendiary bombs on this city of wooden houses.” — Hugh Levinson, [04:46]

• “No uniforms in sight, just hundreds. And then suddenly, well over a thousand young men drawn towards our car like metal shavings to a magnet.” — Andrew Harding, [06:48]

• “Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Libya. In their different ways, they’ve all been exhibiting this uplifting sense of liberation.” — John Simpson, [12:14]

• “Irom Sharmila has been on hunger strike for the past 10 years demanding that the act be repealed…But I went to the hospital where she's held under tight security anyway…” — Rupa Jha, [20:22]

• “Despite protests from his neighbours, who said he should spend more time tending his crops, Mr. Wu persevered.” — Martin Patience, [23:18]

• “This is a society that’s geared towards conformity, stability, and predictability. And there’s a common saying here that the bird that flies first gets shot down.” — Martin Patience, [26:13]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Japan earthquake & cultural context: [00:22]–[06:04]
• Ivory Coast’s unrest: [06:42]–[11:24]
• Libya and media in revolution: [11:59]–[17:01]
• Northeast India’s insurgency and widows of Manipur: [17:45]–[22:18]
• China’s robotic dreams (Mr. Wu): [22:47]–[28:05]

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In Summary:
This episode paints a tapestry of societies at breaking point and crossroads: Japanese resolve in the face of natural disaster, Ivory Coast’s descent from stability to fear, the hope and peril of North African uprisings, quiet grief amid India’s neglected wars, and the inventiveness that could define China’s future. Each story offers a unique perspective on how ordinary people face extraordinary times.

Transcript

[A]

You're listening to a download from the BBC.

[B]

This is from our own correspondent.

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Twitter feed as well.

[B]

But now, with the addition Broadcast on Radio 4, here's Kate Ady today, waiting

[D]

for the big one. How a constant fear of catastrophe is woven into the Japanese psyche. Fury and bloodshed in the country which used to be one of Africa's great success stories. The little reported insurgencies in northeast India, which are costing hundreds of lives. And amid all this international mayhem, time for a fantastic morning of fun at Mr. Wu's Robot Factory in China. The earthquake which yesterday struck Japan, sending tidal waves rippling out across the Pacific Ocean, was one of the strongest ever recorded there. The television pictures showing black walls of water sweeping away cars, boats and houses give some idea of how terrifying it must be to be caught up in such an event. Yet earthquakes are so frequent in Japan, people are to some extent prepared for them. Hugh Levinson says expecting the worst has become a part of the national culture.

[B]

The first indication was a humming and a rattling. Hundreds of upturned beer glasses on wooden shelves shaking from side to side, then knocking into each other. Conversation dimming, then stopping completely. Faces looking from one to another across the plates of tempura and sushi. Quick. Shouted the barman, turn off the gas. It was my first experience of a tremor, just a few days after I'd gone to live in Japan, and it was typical. Everyone trying to gauge just how serious this quake was going to be. When should we get up and try to run outdoors? Or would we have to dive under the tables or seek safety under a door frame, which we all knew was the strongest part of the room? After a few seconds, this tremor subsided. The conversation picked up. The sushi chef started wielding his heavy knife on the chopping block, and just a few seconds later, a white subtitle appeared on the TV in the corner. It was on all the channels indicating the size of the Quaker and the location of the epicentre. It wasn't the big one, but everyone knew that one was coming. The question was when? Tradition held that animals and fish would act strangely ahead of a quake. Carp would jump out of the water. The Japanese government even sponsored an experiment to monitor carp activity and see if they could be used to predict tremors. Japanese people live with an ever present expectation of natural Disaster, floods, hurricanes, fires, and most of all, earthquakes and the massive waves they can generate. It's no coincidence that tsunami is a Japanese word. The native religion, Shinto is animist, speaking of the divine nature of trees and mountains, of goddesses who emerged from deep clefts in the rocks. The very earth can seem alive. The islands sit on a massive fault line and the classic image of the country is is the perfect volcanic cone of Mount Fuji. Boiling hot water steams up from cracks in the rocks exploited for the natural hot springs that are one of the country's great wonders. In the town of Beppu, you can see pools of foul smelling sulphuric waters that emerge from the earth. But the big draw is the dark red pool guarded by statues of ferocious boggle eyed deities. It's called Jigoku Hell. All Japanese know that anytime the powers of the earth can turn against them. In 1923, the great Kanto earthquake devastated Tokyo. Fires raged across a city built of wooden houses, killing an estimated 140,000 people. Since then, the population on the Kanto plain has grown massively in an interconnected series of cities which marches from the mountains down to the sea. Everyone knows that the pressure between the tectonic plates deep underground will be released. Sometime. Everyone prepares. Schools and office workers take part in earthquake preparedness drills and these are dramatic. The authorities bring along a mock up of a living room, complete with a sofa and a dining table, with one wall missing so you can see inside. The whole room is mounted on a machine on a truck. And gently the mechanism rocks the room from side to side, simulating the usual tremors that you feel. Every few days, curtains sway and plates slide across tables. The movement gets stronger and stronger, wilder and wilder. Crockery smashes, the furniture is hurled about furiously. Just watching, you can feel the panic rising in your stomach. And this is just a mock up and just a mock up of a moderate quake. An ever present sense of disaster is deeply woven in into traditional ways. Japanese culture has long prized fragility, impermanence, transience. The cherry blossom is the most prized of all expressions of nature because it achieves such a brief perfection before falling carelessly. Samurai, so it was said, gave up their lives with similar carelessness because their honour was more important. Zen teaching praised the way bamboo's flexibility gave it a special strength. Subjected to force, its sways and bends, it doesn't snap. The Japanese traditionally built their houses likely out of wood, and it's said this is so they would sway in an earthquake rather than simply collapse. The city of Tokyo has shown extraordinary resilience. A couple of decades after the great earthquake in March 1945, American B29s dropped incendiary bombs on this city of wooden houses. The resulting firestorm killed 100,000 people in the course of a single night. Waiting for the big one is a part of Japanese life, and the carp, it turns out, are no help. They have no better idea of when a tremor will strike than the rest of us.

[D]

And that was Hugh Levinson. The African Union has now thrown its support behind Alassane Ouattara, one of the two men who reckon they should be president of troubled Ivory Coast. But the Union's suggestion that Mr. Watara lead a government of national unity in Ivory coast has been rejected by the other man who would be president. Laurent Gbagbo. Andrew Harding's in Ivory coast, where the standoff between the two men and the supporters has led to widespread violence. Hundreds of people have been killed, thousands displaced. The disruptions also devastating the country's economy.

[C]

The grenades, the long knives, the pistols jabbed in the air, all bad enough. But it's the balaclavas that somehow scare me the most. Here we're halfway through a roadblock. Huge chunks of steel, burned out cars pulled across a four lane highway leading north out of Abidjan. No uniforms in sight, just hundreds. And then suddenly, well over a thousand young men drawn towards our car like metal shavings to a magnet. A pair of bright, focused eyes jump at the window, peering through slashes cut in a homemade orange balaclava. I think of the video I've just seen on the Internet. A crowd like this jeering in the dark at two writhing men slowly burning to death beneath a pile of flaming tyres. The last time I was in Abidjan, in January, we were pulled from another car at another roadblock and told we'd be killed on the spot. This time. Flying back into the city's Smart International Airport, between the sea, the port and the lagoon, it was quickly clear things weren't getting any better. Airport officials snarled at our team. I know you. You tell lies, said a woman at the X ray machine. A baggage handler half whispered to me, be careful. Trust no one. You can drive through big chunks of Abidjan and pretend it's still the jewel of West Africa. Shopping malls, functioning traffic lights, wide avenues. Men with ties and briefcases waiting to catch buses. But there is a sense that the city is just going through the motions now. Rubbish is piled in the streets. Most businesses sit idle and look at the pavements full of long queues as people wait all day in the sun outside banks, hoping to get paid. These are civil servants, many of them supporters of Laurent Gbagbo, the man the world says lost November's presidential election fair and square. Mr. Bagbo insists the result was rigged and remaining in office has seized control of the banks and the main cocoa industry here. But those are empty gestures. International sanctions have already brought the economy to a standstill. The money is simply running out. We stop and try to talk to people in a static bank queue, but they're furious, blaming us, the west and the former colonial power, France in particular, for their suffering. There is a venomous, unpredictable feel to the city. Being white is not helpful. Foreign embassies are busy drawing up their evacuation plans. After dark, Abidjan falls silent and the makeshift roadblocks multiply. We head to a poorer neighbourhood across the lagoon. From the bridge, I can see big clumps of green vegetation floating with the tide. They look like little islands. I'm halfway through a plate of falafel at a Lebanese restaurant when gunfire crackles. All around us, police still loyal to Mr. Bagbo are chasing and shooting civilians who've been demonstrating against him. Last week they killed seven women in one incident. The waiters bolt the doors fast. It looks like they're used to the routine. We watch the battles from an upstairs window. After 30 minutes, there's a lull and we slip out of a back door and drive fast down empty back streets. Later, we hear that four people were killed. The next day, we take a United nations helicopter back over the lagoon to a besieged hotel, Le Gulf. This is where the country's internationally recognized government, guarded by the un, is still trapped by Laurent Gbagbo's forces. Soldiers from Bangladesh and Pakistan scrub their clothes by the hotel swimming pool. In the foyer, officials shuffle paper and sip coffee. I run into a soft spoken ministerial aide named Robert Kofi. He's been here since the siege started two months ago. I miss my family, he says. It's not safe for them out there. In recent days, Gbagbo's supporters have been looting and burning the homes of those stuck inside the Gulf Hotel. This is the only safe place in the whole of Ivory coast, says Robert. But we want to leave it and take control of our country. That battle for control is heating up in the city. One suburb called Abobo, has already been seized by a militia group opposed to Laurent Gbagbo. In the west of the country, the fighting is more intense. I'm not a pessimist about Africa. Next Door. In Ghana, the economy is booming. The Chinese are building roads across the continent. Plenty of countries are moving towards greater democracy. But here, in what was one of Africa's greatest success stories, the roadblocks are spreading, the mercenaries are being hired, the bullets bought, and the balaclavas are coming out again.

[D]

Andrew Harding in Abidjan. The battle for control of Libya shows no signs of coming to an early end, with continued fighting between rebel troops and forces loyal to the country's leader, Colonel Gaddafi. After a series of battles and skirmishes, reports speak of many casualties as hundreds of rebels in cars and trucks retreat eastwards along the Mediterranean coastal road. John Simpson, who's been a part of the BBC team providing coverage of the fighting, has just left Libya and sends us this dispatch from Cairo.

[E]

There's nothing quite as exciting as a revolution. It sweeps up people of all types and classes and makes them braver, more generous, more resourceful than their usual everyday selves. Suddenly, after the long years of keeping their heads down, they're prepared to give their lives for liberty, or at least to let you film the shooting in the street from their upstairs window. Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Libya. In their different ways, they've all been exhibiting this uplifting sense of liberation. Welcome. Welcome. Shouted a revolutionary soldier at a roadblock on the coastal road in central Libya the other day. As my team and I drove towards the front line, he pressed water and fruit and bread on us. In the early days of any revolution, the press are always treated as friends of the uprising. It isn't necessarily true, and perhaps it never is. But whereas the government loyalists usually see the international press as being part of the subversive process that's brought the trouble about, the revolutionaries greet you enthusiastically. You are, after all, sharing their dangers and privations, and they love you for it. And of course, for the first time, you're showing their side of the story. For 41 years, Colonel Gaddafi has carried out his unconventional, sometimes cruel experiment in government. Supposedly, it's all been done by and for the people. And for those people, suddenly, to be able to tell the world's press openly that the old system was actually run by a corrupt and hated clique is a liberation in itself. Sometimes this revelation of what people really think has been enough on its own to bring down the ancien regime. The revolutions in eastern Europe in 1989 happened essentially because people rose up and confronted the crass fiction that that the state was run for them and by them. So the foreign press plays a big part in any revolution. The four countries in the Middle east, which journalists could get to easily. Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain and surprisingly, Libya are the ones where the big convulsions have taken place. You don't need special press visas to get to Tunisia, Egypt or Bahrain. And the eastern part of Libya bordering on Egypt is the part which threw off Colonel Gaddafi's rule first. So it was easy to fly to Cairo, drive to the border and be welcomed with open arms by the Libyan revolutionaries who were in control there. In countries where the comings and goings of the international press are heavily controlled, places like Algeria, the Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iran and so on, it's far harder to show the outside world what's happening. And the would be revolutionaries can't get the external attention that acts like a draft on an open fire and brings all those statements from the White House and Downing street and UN headquarters. It was Edmund Burke, back in the very early days of the first modern revolution, the one in France, who foresaw that all the freedom, equality and fraternity would soon disappear and lead to terrible excesses. Executions, torture, repression. That's what happened in Libya in 1969, after Colonel Gaddafi's coup took place. Only journalists couldn't get in there. It also happened in Iran 10 years later, when the Shah was overthrown. But it was easy to go there. The combination of press attention and Western disapproval played its part in bringing him down. I reported on all that myself, and only the other day in London, near my house, an elderly refugee from Iran started shouting at me in the street. Now you see what the revolution you started has done to the whole world. The more vulnerable a country is to Western pressure, the more likely its leaders are to step down when a revolution comes. If President Mubarak hadn't been America's ally, he might still be in his impressive palace in Heliopolis now. Colonel Gaddafi has so far managed to hang on because he's too way out, too friendless internationally for anyone to be able to stop him using his tanks and air force to bombard his own people. So the West's care for human life and its free press are great at bringing down the less extreme dictators and not so good at bringing down the really nasty ones. It's something to muse on revolutions, whoever they're against, all share a basic similarity. Reporting on this one in Libya or the one last month in Egypt makes you a part of a process which goes right back to the storming of the Bastille.

[D]

John Simpson there. Much of the news we hear from India these days concerns its powerhouse economy, its effervescent Film industry, its current position at the centre of world cricket. Amid all this, the long running insurgencies in seven North Eastern states gets little coverage. The causes of the friction are many and various, but the fighting's left hundreds dead and injured. Rebels, army and police officers and innocent bystanders too. Rupert Jha has been to the state of Manipur to meet some of those who've lost husbands in the conflict. The women were, she says, highly critical of the so called special powers given to the security forces in the area.

[F]

There were 10 of them. They were strikingly beautiful. They were all sitting, chatting in a regular room, in a regular house. Nothing about the way they looked prepared me for the sad story they had to tell. Adina, a young widow in her mid-20s with two children, is eager to show me her photographs. She told me how she'd heard what happened to her husband on a chilly morning back in January 2009. He was a driver, she said, a very loving and caring father. That day after lunch he went out and not long afterwards I heard on the television news that he had been killed by the security forces. They said he was an insurgent. I asked Edina if the security forces had shown her any evidence for that claim. No, she replied in a choking voice. And I know they are lying, she said, tears rolling down her cheeks as she caressed a photograph of her husband which she'd arranged neatly in the album. These young widows meet every second Saturday to cry their hearts out and exchange stories about their losses. It's a particularly strong image of this, one of the world's longest running insurgencies. Here in the northeast of India, the fighting has left many dead and injured. Rebels, army and police officers, as well as innocent bystanders. These women, they are young, in their early 20s, have all lost their husbands, killed by the security forces. They all insist that their husbands were innocent and had been picked up under the special powers and accused of being insurgents. Being a widow with children in small towns in India means an extremely tough and deprived life. Adina, Neena, Nitan and others became friendly with me after several hours talking and began to open up and tell me a bit more about their lives. You know, we are young and beautiful and that makes our lives as widows even more tough. Our in laws and parents put a lot of restrictions on us. They don't like us to go out and work. As people start saying bad things about us, they are afraid we may remarry and that is considered very bad in our society. The sense of loss and void that one feels in Manipur is overpowering. I wonder how much of this can be attributed to the controversial act brought in more than 50 years ago, which gives these sweeping special powers to the armed forces. They are regularly accused of abusing these powers. Irom Sharmila has been on hunger strike for the past 10 years demanding that the act be repealed. This 38 year old woman is alive only because she is force fed in the hospital ward where she is kept in judicial custody. I was allowed to meet her back in 2007, but this time the authorities wouldn't give me permission to see her. But I went to the hospital where she's held under tight security anyway. As I walked down a corridor, I caught a glimpse of her as she passed by on the other side of a big iron gate as she made her way to morning exercise. Sharmila, I called out. She was thin and frail. She had a drip feed hanging from her nose but smiled at me. How are you? I asked. I heard her whisper, fine. Our exchange was cut short by a security officer, but I managed to thank her for answering some questions I had sent her in the post. In one, I had asked, was she not scared of death? No, she had answered. For me, death is not a punishment. It's a lonely fight for Sharmila. And yet I sense she feels no anger towards the rest of the world and no desire to hit back for the years she has lost. I went to visit her mother. She hasn't seen her daughter for 10 years because she feels that may weaken Sharmila's resolve, but told me she was waiting to welcome Sharmila home in that moment of victory when the government finally agreed to repeal the act. But in the very next sentence, she adds, I don't think the government will listen to her demand. Can you make it happen as a journalist?

[D]

Rupa Jha in Manipur in northeast India, China is already regarded as the world's factory, producing cheap goods for export round the globe. But increasingly, the Chinese authorities want the country not only to produce goods, but to design them as well. Martin Patience from our bureau in Beijing has been trying to find out if a spirit of creativity can be fostered within an authoritarian regime.

[A]

Mr. Wu is a man who can't fail to inspire. He grew up in a farm just outside of Beijing and for some reason in his mid-20s, Mr. Wu says he doesn't know why he was compelled to build robots. I wanted them to walk and move just like human beings, he told me. Despite having no formal education, Mr. Wu started designing contraptions made out of any Scrap that he could lay his hands on. Things didn't always go smoothly. He once mistook detonators for batteries and blew up his house. He says he singed his face. But despite protests from his neighbours, who said he should spend more time tending his crops, the Mr. Wu persevered. And after two decades, he finally received recognition. He won top prize on a TV show for inventors. His robots had finally made him money and his neighbours were impressed. They no longer pestered him about the state of his crops. Mr. Wu has left the fields far behind and now runs a factory employing 50 people. An entrepreneur has invested in the company, believing Mr. Wu and design robots that could be used for industrial purposes. At the factory, a few miles from his farm, the inventor held court. He's a quiet man with studied intensity, but he has a determination that refuses to flag. On the top floor of the factory, there was a banner which read, Everyone who learns from Mr. Wu is eager to be an inventor. In a corner, Mr. Wu and his team worked on a variety of contraptions. One prototype was designed to give people massages. It had huge hands which relentlessly beat the shoulders of an employee who was being used as a test dummy. Mr. Wu admitted that the design still needed a bit of work. And then there was the robot made out of washing machine tubing that bows. Mr. Wu said he was going to put it at the entrance of the factory, so it welcomes visitors as they arrive. Mr. Wu has designed more than 50 robots in total, named after himself. The Wu 1, the Wu 2, etc. His most popular model, which he sold quite a few of, is the WU32. It's a life size robot pulling a rickshaw and it's a noisy but a pretty smooth ride. What I loved most about the robot though, was its face. It had lips made out of sponge eyes that rolled and ears that flapped. And it spoke, saying, hello everyone. Mr. Wu is my father. It was a fantastic morning of fun at the factory. It was impossible not to admire Mr. Wu's drive and determination. And while the authorities aren't particularly interested in his low tech robots, they are interested in the creative spirit which Mr. Wu embodies. And what they really love to see is, is a whole generation of high tech Mr. Wu's because they believe that if that were to happen, then it would propel China to the next stage of its development. In the last three decades, the country has largely copied technology created elsewhere. That's allowed China to produce cheap exports that have driven its remarkable economic growth. But now the government not only wants to make products and they want to design them as well. And authorities are spending billions of dollars on research to try and achieve this goal. They believe growth in the high tech industries will mean better paying jobs and a higher standard of living. At a solar panel factory on the outskirts of Beijing, I saw firsthand how this innovation was being encouraged. As well as the production floor, there was a research lab. The the factory's owner, Tianj, told me that his firm was receiving tax breaks and other incentives to create new products. Mr. Tian said he didn't expect any major breakthrough in the short term. But he told me that the groundwork for innovation had been done across China. The only way to remain competitive, he said, is to keep developing. But critics say that innovation needs more than just a slew of tax breaks. It also requires an atmosphere in which creativity is encouraged. And some would argue that China, with its authoritarian government, isn't exactly the best place for that. This is a society that's geared towards conformity, stability and predictability. And there's a common saying here that the bird that flies first gets shot down. But as Mr. Wood demonstrates that there are plenty of people here prepared to buck the trend, his latest dream is to build a robot that can do all the housework. It may seem like an impossible task, but his spirit could change China.

[D]

And with that from Martin, Patience and the incredible Mr. Wu, we've reached the end of another edition. I'll be back with more from our correspondents around the world on Thursday and Saturday mornings next week. Do join us. Goodbye.