Ian Williams

Ian Williams is a former foreign correspondent for Channel 4 News and NBC, and author of Every Breath You Take: China’s New Tyranny (Birlinn).

Hungary has become China’s useful idiot

23 February 2024 12:53 am

This week a security deal was announced that could see Chinese police on the streets of Hungary. Despite this, there…

China calls the shots in its alliance with Russia

15 January 2024 4:30 pm

There has been a strange atmosphere at recent top level meetings between ‘best friends’ China and Russia. It is not…

Taiwan’s voters defy Beijing

14 January 2024 4:13 am

Taiwan’s voters have defied Beijing’s threats and intimidation and elected as president the most independence-minded of the candidates for the…

Why has Xi Jinping purged his senior commanders?

10 January 2024 12:43 am

The Chinese Communist party will no doubt throw a militarised tantrum should Saturday’s election in Taiwan be won by Lai…

How China weaponises its cuddly giant pandas

4 December 2023 10:41 pm

So Yang Guang and Tian Tian are on their way back to China. Rather like a pair of high-profile celebrities,…

Power shifts at the Biden-Xi summit

16 November 2023 9:57 pm

Perhaps the most important achievement of the summit between Xi Jinping and Joe Biden was that it was held at…

Can China contain Evergrande’s collapse?

27 September 2023 10:15 pm

The Chinese Communist party appears set to kill off its largest economic zombie, while gambling that it can control the…

The mystery of China’s missing ministers

23 September 2023 2:51 am

Two down and who knows how many more to go. This week, Defence Minister Li Shangfu became the latest of…

China’s ‘standard map’ is a chilling reminder of its imperial ambitions

3 September 2023 4:00 pm

The Chinese Communist Party’s ‘standard map’ is updated each year to include Beijing’s ever-extending territorial claims. Neighbours see it as…

James Cleverly is clueless on China

31 August 2023 12:56 am

At least James Cleverly had somebody to meet. The Foreign Secretary’s last effort to get to Beijing was postponed after…

Why is China purging its nuclear missile force?

2 August 2023 12:33 am

The top commanders of China’s nuclear forces have been targeted by President Xi Jinping in his latest purge, adding an…

Will Italy leave China’s ‘atrocious’ Belt and Road Initiative?

1 August 2023 2:45 am

For some time now the world has being growing increasingly wary of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), but rarely…

Where has Xi Jinping’s foreign minister gone?

29 July 2023 9:00 am

Where has Xi’s foreign minister gone?

Tory floundering over China is a gift to Labour

22 July 2023 9:00 am

The government’s floundering over China is a gift to Labour

The strange disappearance of China’s foreign minister

19 July 2023 10:14 pm

It is strange and surreal, even by the standards of the looking-glass world of the Chinese Communist party (CCP). Foreign…

China’s economic self-destruction

15 July 2023 6:12 pm

Mao Zedong had a big thing about contradictions. They were the basis of life, driving it forward, the old despot…

Britain’s China policy has been completely demolished

14 July 2023 12:36 am

China is engaged in a ‘whole of state’ assault on the UK and the government’s approach has been ‘completely inadequate’.…

The secret life of China’s Banksy

8 July 2023 9:00 am

The secretive life of China’s most controversial cartoonist

Gag order: China’s stand-up comedy crackdown

3 June 2023 9:00 am

The crackdown on China’s stand-up comics

China is forcing its chatbots to be socialist

12 April 2023 4:40 pm

So now it’s official, Chinese chatbots will have to be ‘socialist’ and woe betide any tech company that allows its…

Macron has made a fool of himself in China

7 April 2023 11:22 pm

At least there was no six metre-long table in Beijing separating Emmanuel Macron from Xi Jinping. But their meeting was…

What would be the real cost of defending Taiwan?

4 April 2023 1:35 am

It’s 2026 and China begins its invasion of Taiwan with an intense missile bombardment that in a few hours destroys…

It’s time for a reckoning with Chinese big tech

3 April 2023 2:42 am

It has been a bumpy week for China’s beleaguered technology giants. They are under increasing scrutiny overseas, and the communist…

ChatCCP: how will China cope with AI?

25 March 2023 9:00 am

Chinese AIs may be limited by the need to control what they say