Why is China seeking closer UK ties?

Summary

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Global News Podcast – "Why is China seeking closer UK ties?"

BBC World Service | Hosted by Valerie Sanderson
Date: January 29, 2026

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Overview

This episode examines the motivations and implications of renewed efforts to strengthen ties between China and the United Kingdom, highlighted by Prime Minister Keir Starmer's visit to Beijing. It offers insights into the economic deals discussed, the persistent human rights concerns, and the geopolitical maneuvers amid global turbulence. Additional segments cover breaking global news: Antarctic glacier research, India’s proposed social media restrictions, Hungary’s upcoming elections, Venezuela’s new leadership, and a documentary on Melania Trump.

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Main Discussion: UK-China Relations

1. Purpose and Progress of Starmer’s Beijing Visit

• Key Event: UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer meets Chinese President Xi Jinping to rejuvenate bilateral relationships.
• Outcomes so far:
  • Announced a reciprocal 30-day visa-free travel deal for Brits visiting China.
  • Major investment from AstraZeneca in China.
• Underlying Question:
  • How much latitude does the UK have to address human rights concerns amid economic cooperation?

2. Addressing Human Rights in UK-China Dialogue

• Chris Mason (02:52):
  Asks PM Starmer whether raising issues like Hong Kong’s Jimmy Lai or Uyghur abuses was effective.
• PM Keir Starmer (via Justin Roulet, 02:52):
  “Part of the rationale for engagement is to make sure that we can both seize the opportunities... But also have a mature discussion about issues that... we disagree [on].”
• Discussion:
  • Engagement allows economic opportunity and space for difficult conversations.
  • Realism about the limited impact on sensitive issues like the fate of Jimmy Lai.

Notable Quote

• Sebastian Lai, son of Jimmy Lai (03:31):
  “My father is still in prison in Hong Kong. He’s a British citizen. He’s been arbitrarily detained. ...This is something that we will never normalize.”

3. The Scale of New Deals

• Laura Bicker, BBC China Correspondent (04:06):
  • Significance: AstraZeneca’s investment is substantial but not unprecedented; visa-free deals are common among other nations.
  • Insight:
    “It’s almost like, look, come here and then we’ll... give you the visa... I think there are bigger issues at play... But it does seem at least negotiations are starting.”

4. Criticism and Pushback

• UK Domestic Concern:
  • Shadow ministers criticize Starmer’s visit, noting no progress on freeing Jimmy Lai and concerns about expanding China’s presence in London.
• Laura Bicker (05:27):
  • “When it comes to issues on human rights and security concerns, China really pushes back. It turns round and says to their counterparts, stop interfering in internal affairs... They have their responses prepared. Is it going to change things very much? Doubt it.”
• Chinese Perspective:
  • Some Chinese commentators accuse the West of lacking the moral high ground, referencing U.S. issues.
  • “What China is basically saying is you don’t have the moral high ground anymore.”

5. Chinese Strategy in a "Turbulent" World

• Laura Bicker (06:37):
  • China is feeling “confident,” hosting a series of leaders from traditional U.S. allies.
  • Uses manufacturing prowess as leverage and showcases international engagement to domestic audiences.
  • “China is having a new stage in the world.”

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Global Headlines: Other Key Segments

Online Scam Crackdown in Myanmar (07:42)

• Jonathan Head, Southeast Asia Correspondent:
  • China executed 11 people linked to scam operations in Myanmar’s notorious Golden Triangle.
  • The scams, known as “pig butchering,” use AI and social engineering, affecting millions globally.

The Doomsday Glacier: Thwaites in Antarctica (09:34)

• Key Insight:
  • Scientists from the UK and South Korea are drilling into the Thwaites Glacier to understand melting patterns critical to sea-level projections.
  • Justin Roulet, Climate Editor (10:48):
    “Thwaites on its own is 65cm of sea level rise globally... If the other glaciers melted out, we’re talking more like three meters.”

Tesla’s Revenue Drop and Strategic Pivot (13:55)

• Lily Jamali, North American Tech Correspondent:
  • Tesla’s annual revenue drops for the first time ever, with competition from Chinese EV maker BYD surging.
  • Elon Musk is pivoting the company toward robotics and AI.
  • “They are actually going to be phasing out the Model S and the Model X... moving towards robotics, moving towards AI.”

India Considering Age Limits for Social Media (17:56)

• Barasen Etharajan, Global Affairs Reporter:
  • India’s chief economic adviser proposes age-based restrictions on social media, referencing global trends.
  • Platform backlash and state-level debates underscore the difficulty of regulation.
  • “If you describe India in one word, this is where every social media company wants to go... The creator economy is so huge...”

Hungary’s Heated Election (21:08)

• Nick Thorpe, Hungary Correspondent:
  • PM Viktor Orban’s Fidesz party faces stiff competition from Peter Magyar’s Tisza party.
  • Orban touts global alliances (Trump, Putin) while critics emphasize corruption and rule of law issues.
  • Peter Magyar supporter (24:43): “Would you vote for such a guy? Yes, we would.”
  • The electoral system favors Fidesz despite current polling.

Venezuela’s New Leadership and U.S. Relations (24:56)

• Acting President Delsey Rodriguez solidifies control, backed by the military, after Nicolas Maduro’s ousting.
• Opposition figure Maria Corinna Machado has high-profile meetings with U.S. officials.
• Reporter Mimi Suebi (25:39):
  “Having this very large asset—the people who hold the guns in Venezuela—being on your side is a key moment.”

Amazon’s Melania Trump Documentary (28:02)

• Helen Lewis, The Atlantic:
  • Examines the unusual distance of Melania Trump from public political life.
  • Notes the trend of self-authorized documentaries shaping public narratives.
  • Quote (29:54): “She just went, ‘No, I’d rather not, actually. No, thank you.’”

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Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• Sebastian Lai on normalization (03:31):

  “My father is still in prison in Hong Kong. He’s a British citizen. He’s been arbitrarily detained. …This is something that we will never normalize.”

• Laura Bicker on Chinese PR strategy (06:37):

  “China is having a new stage in the world.”

• Jonathan Head on scams in Myanmar (08:01):

  “It’s known as pig butchering. It’s a highly structured, very sophisticated form of scamming… worth tens of billions of dollars a year.”

• Justin Roulet on Thwaites glacier (10:48):

  “Thwaites on its own is 65cm of sea level rise globally… If the other glaciers melted out, we’re talking more like three meters.”

• Helen Lewis on Melania Trump (29:54):

  “So everything we thought we knew about the fact you needed a first lady kind of gazing adoringly at the great man, she just went, ‘No, I’d rather not, actually. No, thank you.’”

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Key Segment Timestamps

• UK-China Relations Main Story: 00:53–07:42
• Myanmar Scam Executions: 07:42–09:34
• Thwaites Glacier Science: 09:34–13:22
• Tesla Revenue Decline: 13:55–15:08
• India Social Media Restrictions: 17:56–21:08
• Hungary Elections: 21:08–24:50
• Venezuela Political Transition: 24:56–28:02
• Melania Trump Documentary: 28:02–31:54

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Tone and Takeaways

The episode blends deep analysis with on-the-ground reporting, maintaining the BBC’s measured yet probing tone. It balances optimism about renewed UK-China engagement with skepticism about its limitations, highlights global instability, and illustrates how political, economic, and technological forces are rapidly shifting across continents.

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Transcript

[Chris Mason]

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the uk.

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[Valerie Sanderson]

This is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Valerie Sanderson and at 15 GMT on Thursday 29th January, these are our main stories. The British Prime Minister Keir Starmer says really good progress has been made on his visit to Beijing, where he's met China's leader Xi Jinping. Why? Scientists are drilling into the huge Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica. Will Fides, the party of Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban, win a fifth consecutive term in office in the country's upcoming elections? Also in this podcast, as India's massive market is explored by YouTubers, Proposals to curb access to social media for children make any headway in the country. A three day exercise in warming up the relationship between London and Beijing is underway in the Chinese capital. Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer and China's President Xi Jinping have been meeting, as well as business leaders from both nations. So far a deal has been announced on a visa free 30 day travel deal for Britons going to China, as well as a major investment plan in China by the medical giant AstraZeneca. But while both countries hope to boost economic and cultural ties, how much space is there for the UK to raise concerns about China's human rights record? The most prominent case for the UK is that of the jailed British Hong Kong businessman and activist Jimmy Lai, charged under the controversial National Security Law that China introduced in Hong Kong in response to large pro democracy protests. There have also been widespread human rights abuses against the Uyghur minority in China itself. Our political editor, Chris Mason asked Keir Starmer how forcefully he'd raised these issues with Xi Jinping.

[Justin Roulet]

Part of the rationale for engagement is to make sure that we can both seize the opportunities that are available, which is what we've done, but also have a mature discussion about issues that we. Were they listening on that you think? Yes, we did have a respectful discussion about that, raised those issues, as you would expect. But that, if you like, is part and parcel of the reason to engage. It is in our national interest. It gives us great opportunities, but it also gives us the opportunity to have those discussions about areas where we disagree.

[Valerie Sanderson]

Jimmy Lai's son Sebastian had this to.

[Chris Mason]

Say the phrase they use is a normalization. Right, well, what are we normalizing here?

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My father is still in prison in Hong Kong.

[Chris Mason]

He's a British citizen. He's been arbitrarily detained.

[Nick Thorpe]

Multiple states have called for his release.

[Chris Mason]

This is something that we will never normalize. So whether my father is freed or.

[Valerie Sanderson]

Not is ultimate test.

[Chris Mason]

I mean, it's a very visual representation of how China views our relationship. I mean, we could give them the.

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World, but if they're not giving anything.

[Chris Mason]

Back, this is not a relationship.

[Valerie Sanderson]

So in terms of what's been agreed so far, how big are those deals in the grand scheme of things? I asked our China correspondent, Laura Bicker, who's in Beijing.

[Laura Bicker]

There was an expectation that there would be something bigger. Now the visit isn't over yet. There's still more to come. And it is a significant investment by AstraZeneca. And of course, this visa free travel is something that other European countries have had. More than 70 countries, in fact, around the world have. And Britain was an outlier, mainly because China offers these visas after a world leader arrives on their doorstep. It's almost like, look, come here and then we'll, we'll give you the visa. And I think it's kind of on the periphery. I think there are bigger issues at play. But it does seem that at least negotiations are starting. And if you speak to those who kind of do business here in China, they believe that this smooths the wheels, so to speak, so that when they go to their Chinese counterparts, more permission is granted, more access is granted after a world leader visits and after relations come out of the deep freeze.

[Valerie Sanderson]

There has been criticism. For example, the shadow Home Office minister, Alicia Kearns, says the Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, should not have gone to China without a precondition that the jailed Jimmy Lai would be freed. And there's also been criticism of Giving the go ahead to a huge Chinese embassy here in London. Does China really listen to what the UK Is saying?

[Laura Bicker]

I think they'll sit there, I think they will make noises. But I think when it comes to issues on human rights, when it comes to security concerns, China really pushes back. It turns round and says to their counterparts, stop interfering in internal affairs. And I think they expect it to come up. They know that when Western governments face these, their counterparts here in Beijing, that that's something they've been told to raise. They know that it's coming and they have their responses prepared. Is it going to change things very much Doubt it. And I think actually one of the things that I've heard many Chinese commentators push back on, heard from a few yesterday, saying on various foreign media, Hang on, you're accusing China of human rights abuses, but look at the United States now. One has got absolutely nothing to do with the other. But what China is basically saying is you don't have the moral high ground anymore.

[Valerie Sanderson]

Well, you've raised the United States and President Xi described the world as turbulent and fluid. How do you think China is positioning itself now?

[Laura Bicker]

China is feeling confident. They're watching this parade of world leaders arrive on their doorstep from France, from Germany next month, from Canada, from South Korea, from Finland and now the UK These are traditional US Allies now finding a way to overcome their differences with Beijing. And I think what China's trying to do is use its status as the world's factory with its manufacturing prowess to kind of galvanize denies power and influence on the world stage. So that is how it's kind of portraying it, not just to the leaders arriving, but also to its domestic audience. I've just been watching the flagship bulletin here in China. They spent 18 minutes of their 30 minute bulletin on Sir Keir Starmer's visit. That's extraordinary. So it's not just being sold to the world as China's doing deals while Donald Trump threatens tariffs, it's also being shown to its own population that China is having a new stage in the world.

[Valerie Sanderson]

Laura Bicker, Meanwhile, China says it's executed 11 people linked to online scam operations in Myanmar. Beijing has stepped up its crackdown against the compounds where Chinese speakers have been lured and trafficked to work in the elaborate fraud enterprises. Southeast Asia correspondent Jonathan Head has more.

[Chris Mason]

These 11 who've been executed are the first. And a whole number of people who were captured in one town in the far northeast of Myanmar, kind of golden triangle area, famous for years for having its own militias, for having lots of drug production. It's right on the Chinese border. And the four families who ran this town called Lao Khein started with casinos, but during COVID when Chinese couldn't come across, once that stopped, they built up these scam operations. Many of the people working there were lured in. They were treated very harshly indeed. They were in effect, imprisoned. And I think of all the scam operations that have gone on in lots of places in southeast Asia, this was one of the toughest and most brutal. They're essentially classic sort of fraud, but much more sophisticated than what people would have experienced maybe 30 years ago. People create fake identities for themselves. You've got huge numbers of people packed into these compounds, sometimes thousands of them. They get hold of people's phone details, they approach them on social media. They tend to befriend often elderly people, people on their own, and over time build up a relationship and then start offering them chances to make money. And they are very persuasive and millions of people around the world have fallen for them and end up essentially emptying their life savings. It's known as pig butchering. It's a highly structured, very sophisticated form of scamming with lots of deception, lots of AI used to convince people that they've actually got a friend giving them good advice. And it's worth tens of billions of dollars a year.

[Valerie Sanderson]

Jonathan Head. The Thwaites glacier in West Antarctica is a colossal mass of ice and snow covering an area roughly the s size of Great Britain. It's nicknamed the Domesday glacier because it's one of the fastest melting glaciers in Antarctica. Now, a team of scientists from the UK and South Korea have set up camp on the Thwaites, and over the next two weeks they'll gather information on the glacier. Dr. Peter Davis is an oceanographer at British Antarctic survey. Speaking to the BBC from the Thwaites glacier, he told us how his team plans to gather the data.

[Chris Mason]

We use this hot water drill and basically, if you imagine a cartridge pressure washer and scale it up many, many times, that's the system. So we have big tanks of water, 20,000 liters is what we start with. We have heaters, we have pumps, and we generate a high pressure flow of water at about 90 degrees that we send down a massive pipe, more like just a big hose pipe, essentially an oversized hose pipe into the ice. And we drill at about half a meter a minute, so about 30 hours we'll have drilled through the ice and have access to the ocean underneath.

[Valerie Sanderson]

Our climate editor, Justin Roulet is one of only a Handful of journalists to have ever visited Thwaites. And he told us more about the importance of this glacier.

[Justin Roulet]

It's, as you said, the largest and one of the fastest changing glaciers in the world. It sits in the West Antarctic, this huge basin of ice. And it kind of acts as a kind of barrier, a natural barrier, a cork in the frozen bottle of West Antarctica, if you like, holding back the other glaciers. So if Thwaites melted out, the other glaciers would then have to space themselves to melt out. So it's worrying because Thwaites on its own is 65 cm of sea level rise globally. So huge impact on sea level rise just from Thwaite. If the other glaciers melted out, we're talking more like three meters. So it's a real serious peril for the world if the entire basin were to melt out. The it sits below, half the glacier is below the sea level, going down to a depth of about 2 kilometers, and then there's sort of 2 kilometers of ice above it. So that's why there's such a vast amount of water that could pour into to the sea. So it's crucial that we understand the processes driving the melting to give us the forecast. We need to adapt our societies to deal with the sea level rise that will come as the glacier melts out over the next couple of centuries. And that's the idea, is to use that hot water drill down through the ice, as you heard Pete say there, drill down through the ice a kilometer. And then they put complex equipment down there to measure the kind of flow of the water, the temperature of the water at that grounding point, the grounding line, the point at which the glacier kind of floats off the bed of the ocean as warm water melts away the bottom of it. They'll also be taking sediment samples and they can look at that to see how the glaciers changed over the decades and centuries and look at the movement to try and understand, you know, what's happening with this crucial glacier.

[Valerie Sanderson]

Everyone listening to you, Justin, will be worrying about this. And how worried should we be? I mean, it's not going to collapse anytime soon, is it?

[Justin Roulet]

It appears to be accelerating. So satellite images show that the melt rate is increasing, it's melting increasingly faster, the flow of ice is moving more quickly. These have slow processes still. We're talking a melt over, over centuries, not over decades. But it is, you know, as the doomsday moniker suggests, it is the most worrying area of ice in the world because of the huge scale of it. So we should be concerned and we should be Thinking about the impact of future sea level and the kind of adaptations we need because so many cities around the world are at or near sea level and therefore would be disastrously affected if the kind of sea level rise that we're talking about happened.

[Valerie Sanderson]

Justin Rolatt and for more on this story, you can go on YouTube, search for BBC News, click on the logo, then choose Polish Podcasts and Global News Podcast. There's a new story available every weekday. The electric carmaker Tesla has experienced its first ever annual decline in revenue, closing a difficult year, 3% down. Now Elon Musk's company looks to be shifting its focus to other products, including artificial intelligence and robots. Our North America technology correspondent is Lily Jamali. We asked her what's going on.

[Lily Jamali]

I'll start with revenue, which saw an annual drop, the first that this company has experienced. So that's a big deal. Profits down 61% in the fourth quarter. That's the quarter that ended in December. Why is that? You know, two big reasons come to mind. One is just increased competition in the electric vehicle space. It wasn't long ago, just a couple weeks ago, that we saw that China's BYD has surpassed Tesla as the biggest EV maker in the world.

[Valerie Sanderson]

World.

[Lily Jamali]

And we've also seen a bit of a backlash, to say the least, against Elon Musk, the boss at Tesla, for his involvement in right wing politics and the role that he played in the Trump administration for the first couple of months last year. So what we're seeing now is a pivot away from EVs. Elon Musk even said that they are actually going to be phasing out the Model S and the Model X2 vehicles that were blockbusters at various points in this company's history. It was there when the Model X was released 10 years ago. The company seemed like it was at the top of the world back then, but they're moving towards robotics, moving towards AI. Capping that with this 2 billion dollar investment by Tesla in Musk's private artificial intelligence venture.

[Valerie Sanderson]

Xai Lily Jamali in San Francisco. Still to come in this podcast with a new documentary about her being released in cinemas, how is Melania Trump upended expectations?

[Helen Lewis]

So everything we thought we knew about the fact you needed a first lady kind of gazing adoringly at the great man, she just went, no, I'd rather not, actually. No, thank you.

[Laura Bicker]

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[Chris Mason]

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[Valerie Sanderson]

And now to India, Where creators like these have helped turn the country into one of the biggest social media audiences on the planet. But that audience could start shrinking, at least at the younger end. India's chief economic adviser has suggested the country should consider age based limits on social media. Warning platforms are predatory in how they keep children Online it's only a proposal for now, but it taps into a growing global trend. After Australia introduced a ban for under 16s, a global affairs reporter and Barsen Etharajan told us more.

[Barasen Etharajan]

If you describe India in one word, this is where every social media company wants to go and then expand the market. Just to give you a sheer scale, India's got about 500 million YouTube users, probably the highest in the world. 400 million in Facebook and 480 million in Instagram. And as you mentioned, the creator economy is so huge where you will see very often youngsters doing real standing in railway stations, sometimes dangerously near flooded bridges and other places. So it's quite huge now. Now in the economic survey which comes ahead of the annual budget, we see that the economic adviser is proposing certain types of age based restrictions because what he called the social media companies, some of them as predatory because they are forcing, people are getting addicted. And so he's proposing also off screen times and also device free hours and also like telling people to share online activities to tell their youngsters to do all these things. I don't know how it's going to work. It didn't work in my home. So it is basically. So he's proposing this gives you a glimpse of what is the thought behind this, what is the discussion going among at the highest level of the Indian government. It all comes in the wake of what Australia did and what other European countries like France and Britain and Denmark they are discussing. So it is a real thing that people now want to talk about putting age based restrictions on social media, various apps.

[Valerie Sanderson]

Is there a pushback? Because it's a pretty big blow if it happened to say YouTube and Meta, isn't it?

[Barasen Etharajan]

It is indeed. Because you know it's also on the one side it is the economy and the other side people are also using it for other purposes. So far we haven't heard from these meta and other companies on this latest comment by the India's chief economic adviser. But what previously what they were saying was like if you're going to stop the youngsters from accessing Instagram or other social media apps that might push them towards you regulated some of these very dangerous or websites so you are pushing them towards the dark web and then they will try to access this information from a different area. So that is one argument from these companies and of course you know it's not going to be easy. How are you going to regulate it? But Indian states like even though the state, various state governments have their own powers like Andhra Pradesh and Goa they also say that they are going to have a look at it how they are going to monitor their social media.

[Valerie Sanderson]

Usage and Barasan etherajan with just 10 weeks to go until parliamentary elections in Hungary, the veteran Prime Minister Viktor Orban and his governing Fidesz party face their stiffest challenge yet. Ex Fides insider Peter Magyar and his Tisza party lead in most of the polls and are promising a radical overhaul of the political and institutional system in Hungary if they win. But Fides still sound confident that the party can secure a remarkable fifth consecutive term in office with the backing of the most powerful leaders leaders in the world including Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. From Hungary, Nick Thorp sent us this report.

[Nick Thorpe]

The Fides party congress in January drew several thousand party faithful to a congress centre in Budapest and an event modelled on big Trump Republican Make America Great Again Rallies.

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[Laura Bicker]

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[Nick Thorpe]

Earlier in January at his annual international press conference Mr. Orban faced questions about his friendly relations with the presidents of both Russia and America.

[Chris Mason]

The goal of our foreign policy is to make friends. I believe it's in the interest of the Hungarian Hungarian people for the Hungarian government to be supported by as many major powers as possible.

[Nick Thorpe]

While Viktor Orban is proud of his friendships with famous statesmen he came to power and stayed in power with a promise to the Hungarian public. A new civic Hungary Hard working, well functioning, law abiding, socially conservative and self confidently Hungarian. His challenger in the April election, Peter Modyar offers essentially the same vision because he claims that Orban betrayed it in his bid to stay in power.

[Barasen Etharajan]

It's not very safe to go against this government and to speak freely and openly criticizing openly this power.

[Nick Thorpe]

While Viktor Orban and his party reveled in the razzmatazz of their congress Peter Modyar and the Tisapati candidates for Hungary. 106 individual constituencies were out on the streets. In the village of Matrasole in the Cerhat hills PETA Madhya and local Tisa party activists unload firewood over the fence into Jula and Valeria's garden. Both are elderly and disabled. A central plank of Peter Madhyar's promise to the Hungarian people is to bring home 17 billion euros of funds due to Hungary from the EU budget it but withheld due to allegations of rule of law abuses and corruption by the Orban government. Peter Modyar's TISA party is in the lead in his polls, says pollster Andrash Pulai. But the electoral system tilts the playing field towards Fides. Many people will vote for Tisa, he says, not because they especially like or trust Peter Magyar, but simply because he's the only hope against Viktor Orban.

[Barasen Etharajan]

If Fidesz tries to send the message.

[Chris Mason]

That he is a bad guy, he is a narcissist, or he beats his.

[Barasen Etharajan]

Wife, etcetera, People think, yes, we know. And would you vote for such a guy?

[Nick Thorpe]

Yes, we would. The Hungarian election result on 12 April will be watched closely around the world.

[Valerie Sanderson]

Nick Thorpe in Hungary In Venezuela.

[Nick Thorpe]

Thousands.

[Valerie Sanderson]

Of soldiers and police have pledged their loyalty to the acting president, Delsey Rodriguez at a military ceremony in the capital, Karachi. Rodriguez became a leader after US forces seized her predecessor, Nicolas Maduro, in early January. Here she is speaking at the ceremony. Venezuela today needs to truly believe in politics, but in politics with a capital P and with a V for Venezuela. And that means a dialogue among Venezuelans without any kind of external interference. Our reporter Mimi Suebi told me more about the significance of the event.

[Capella University Advertiser]

It's incredibly important. The military is and was a key asset for Nicolas Maduro, Delcio Rodriguez's predecessor, and it remains to be in place for her, really showing its support, really headed by the interior minister, Dios Dao Caballo, who was a key figure in Nicolas Maduro's inner circle. And he is very much seen as a key force behind the scenes of the past government and now the interim government. So for having this very large asset, basically the people who hold the guns in Venezuela, being on your side is a key moment. And we saw that come into play with more than 3,000 troops and police, all dressed in uniform. File past Venezuela's now first female leader and commander in chief of the country. So a very important moment for Delsey Rodriguez. And as we heard there, she was very exclamatory, very emotive in her speech, essentially saying at one point that anybody who wishes any harm or to disrupt peace in Venezuela should stay in Washington. So some very pointed comments there at the US but very much saying that she is cementing herself in power. She's really shored up leadership, and the military are a key part of that.

[Valerie Sanderson]

How difficult is her position, do you think?

[Capella University Advertiser]

She's toeing a very tight line at the moment. So she's trying to shore up support for her leadership and really publicly show that as well inside Venezuela, but at the same time, she's trying to appease President Trump of the us and show that she is cooperating and to what level of cooperation, that's what we're really trying to see here.

[Valerie Sanderson]

And what about the exiled Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corinna Machado's meeting with Marco Rubio, the US Secretary of State?

[Capella University Advertiser]

So this is the second high profile meeting Maria Corinna Machado has had with the Trump administration. She spoke with President Trump himself, himself recently. And now the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio has an invested interest in the region. He's a son of Cuban immigrants. And we understand in that closed meeting, that closed door meeting, that he again kind of reassured the opposition leader that she has the US's long term backing. Interesting though, after the meeting, Speaking to reporters, Ms. Machado said that Des Rodriguez couldn't be trusted, that no one had any faith in her, and that she was essentially a key part of the so called call state terrorism that Venezuela is kind of issuing out at the moment. So again, some very heated and emotive language on the opposite side of the spectrum from the opposition leader, Mimi Swaby.

[Valerie Sanderson]

She may be the first lady of the United States, but Melania Trump remains a bit of a mystery to most American people, making very few public appearances alongside her husband Donald. A new documentary called Melania, produced by Amazon, is being released in cinemas worldwide on Friday, promising a behind the scenes look at the first lady, particularly during the weeks before the presidential inauguration last year. One country that won't be showing the film is South Africa, its main cinema. Operators pulled the documentary a day before its release, citing the current climate. Without elaborating more on the reason. Helen Lewis, staff writer at the Atlantic, spoke to Amalrajan about what the Trump family and Amazon are getting out of the film.

[Helen Lewis]

Amazon has, shall we say, burnished its relationship with the Trump White House. Obviously that's something that Jeff Bezos has been very keen to do. The other thing he does, obviously is owns the Washington Post, which refused to endorse Kamala Harris very notoriously at the last presidential election. So really he is somebody who values very closely this relationship that he has with the Trump White House. So they've paid $40 million to make this. Most of that is reportedly gone to Melania Trump herself, plus another $35 million to market it. And she is an executive producer on this. So it's a big gift from wrapped present to the Trump White House, really. And as for Melania Trump, she's somebody who has really stayed massively in the background. You know, I think she's a fascinating first lady because she's offended so many of our assumptions about American politics and the role of the First Lady. She barely appeared on the campaign trail. She did the Madison Square Garden rally right at the end, but she didn't even speak at the Republican national convention in 2024. So everything we thought we knew about the fact you needed a first lady kind of gazing adoringly at the great man, she just went, no, I'd rather not, actually. No, thank you.

[Chris Mason]

And just on the genre that she.

[HomeServe Advertiser]

Has now entered, this is part of.

[Chris Mason]

A recent spate of films, isn't it? Not just from Amazon, but others, including other streamers like Netflix, where you get people to executive produce documentaries about their own lives, which cast them in a rather flattering light.

[Helen Lewis]

Absolutely. I mean, the two documentaries on Netflix about the Beckhams are another really good example of this. They're very much the authorized version of the Life, you know, and that's the thing. I don't think we'll learn anything enormously insightful from the Melania documentary. What we will learn is the storyline she wants to tell, what's the image that she wants to present, what's the story she feels that she's telling about her life.

[Chris Mason]

And one thing that might drive interest in this film is there has been this kind of contrast between Trump's immense availability on all platforms at all times and the fact that she has been somewhat enigmatic, somewhat distant, somewhat hard to know.

[Helen Lewis]

Yeah, it's extraordinary, really, how little she has engaged in publicity. You know, she notoriously. She used to talk to her parents who lived in the White House with her in the first term, and her son Baron in Slovenian and sort of lock Donald Trump out. Even in the trailer for the film, all you see here is her saying a couple of slightly icy things and then Trump phoning her when she's in their New York apartment and to ask if she's watched something, and she says, no, I'll watch it on television later. There's a kind of lack of being botheredness about it, which means that people have had to overread enormously from the few things that they do have. So one of her causes, a traditional first lady cause, has been children. She went to visit victims of the Trump regime's family separation policy at the border, splitting up immigrant children from their parents. And she did that, wearing a jacket on the back, said, almost unbelievably, I don't really care, do you? And literally no one knew what to make of this. She wrote in her autobiography, which was a masterpiece of total blandness. That this was terrible. How could the media overru read from it? But, but there are almost no other statements from her of any significance. So that that has sort of been her biggest public statement to date, really.

[Valerie Sanderson]

Helen Lewis from the Atlantic on Melania Trump. And that's it from us for now. If you want to get in touch, you can email [e-mail] you can also find us on XBCWorldService. Use the hashtag Global News Pod. And don't forget our sister podcast, the Global Story, which goes in depth and beyond the headlines on one big story, available wherever you get your podcasts. This edition of the Global News Podcast was mixed by Martin Baker. The producers were Alice Adderley and Chantal Harshall. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Valerie Sanderson. Till next time. Bye bye.

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