Series Three

In this episode of 'The New Abnormal' I interview the renowned journalist and author Ian Williams, who was Foreign Correspondent for Channel 4 News, based in Russia and Asia, before joining NBC News as Asia Correspondent, when he was based in Bangkok and Beijing. 

As well as reporting from China over the last 25 years, he has also covered conflicts in the Balkans, Middle East and Ukraine. (He won an Emmy and BAFTA awards for his discovery and reporting on the Serb detention camps during the war in Bosnia). 

His latest book "Every breath you take - China's new tyranny" illustrates the world's first digital totalitarian state, where a system of hitherto unimaginable control threatens to make the world of Nineteen Eighty-Four a terrifying reality. 

In our discussion, he therefore illuminates the extraordinary rise of the Chinese surveillance state, the war against truth and liberal values, and the vital need to make artificial intelligence democratically accountable. 

Ian also describes the implications for the rest of the world regarding the urgent challenges facing the West, in what has become a technological Cold War...