An insider’s account of the CCP’s stranglehold on China
A high-ranking intelligence officer leaves a cache of letters revealing his increasing disenchantment with the party after being purged numerous times
Why the Tories need the new Hong Kong voter base
With the Conservatives trailing around twenty points in most polls, the outcome of the next election seems all but set.…
Can Xi successfully stage manage Li Keqiang’s legacy?
Political deaths in China always carry the risk of social unrest. It was premier Zhou Enlai’s death that triggered the…
125,000 Hong Kongers have come to the UK. Where are they?
125,000 have come to Britain. Where are they?
How I got to know Westminster’s ‘Chinese agent’
How I got to know Westminster’s ‘Chinese agent’
‘I want to see my parents. I’ll take any deal’: the Tiananmen Square leader desperate to return to China
Dissident Wu’er Kaixi on why he’s desperate to return to China
James Cleverly faces his biggest challenge yet on his trip to China
Much has changed since the last time a British Foreign Secretary visited China. Back in 2018, when Jeremy Hunt met…
Chinese cities are being sacrificed to save Beijing
Bazhou and Zhuozhou, two small cities to the south of Beijing, have been submerged in record floods since late July, when…
Why Xi Jinping finally agreed to meet Antony Blinken
When Antony Blinken got on the plane to Beijing two days ago, the US Secretary of State didn’t even know…
The 19th century Chinese craze for all things European
By the 1800s, the mechanical clock had become a status symbol for wealthy Chinese. The first arrived with Jesuit missionaries…
The root of the problem
The novelist and filmmaker Xiaolu Guo is attracted by the freedom a New York job promises, but misses the young daughter she has left behind in London
Could the UK’s new China policy prevent a second cold war?
What a difference a year makes. Three prime ministers ago, in April 2022, Liz Truss gave a characteristically punchy speech…
The EU puts Ukraine at the centre of its China policy
If Beijing was in any doubt that its 12-point peace plan for Ukraine has gone down badly in Europe, those…
Taiwan’s voters face a big decision at the upcoming election
‘We must peacefully strive to rejuvenate the Chinese nation. This is an unshirkable duty for Chinese people on both sides…
Michelle Yeoh and Britain’s invisible East Asians
This week Michelle Yeoh became the first Asian to win Best Actress at the Oscars – and not by playing…
Beijing is likely to react badly to Sunak’s Integrated Review
It was only last summer that Rishi Sunak declared China ‘the largest threat to Britain’, but in today’s refreshed Integrated…
Who will salvage China’s spiralling relationship with the US?
When China’s ambassador to Washington, the bookish-looking old hand Qin Gang, was appointed to be China’s next foreign minister in…
Why China is courting Hollywood again
Until a few years ago, Hollywood dominated Chinese cinemas. In the People’s Republic, Marvel’s superhero romps were the people’s favourite. In 2019, Avengers:…
Biden’s muddle on Chinese arms for Russia
Will China send arms to support Russia? That was the possibility that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken raised at…
Joe Biden puts America First on electric vehicles
A trade war is brewing between the United States and its closest allies. When Thierry Breton, the EU’s internal markets…
Has China admitted failure for zero Covid?
Why did China end its zero Covid policy so abruptly? This question has confounded China-watchers and even the Chinese people…
China is paying a high price for opening up
Beijing’s roads are busy once more. Though zero Covid had ended in December, cities across China emptied out again over…
China is obscuring the scale of its Covid wave
One University of Hong Kong model has forecast that there could be up to a million Covid deaths in China over the…