China
Letters: Should conservatives be worried that high-spending Boris has a majority?
My father’s imprisonment Sir: Harald Maass’s piece on the plight of Uyghurs in China (‘A cultural genocide’, December 14) captures…
The chilling stories from inside China’s Muslim internment camps
Vegetable-seller Kairat Samarkhan didn’t know why he had been summoned to the police station. ‘I had to empty my pockets…
Portrait of the week: Bercow steps down, Hoyle steps up and an election begins
Home Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the Labour MP for Chorley and deputy Speaker since 2010, was elected Speaker by the Commons.…
From Brexit to Beethoven: John Humphrys returns to radio
Some listeners will have had quite a shock first thing on Monday. Turning on at six to Classic FM they…
Portrait of the week: Brexit uncertainty, Turkey in Syria and a Chinese threat
Home Brexit teetered from uncertainty to uncertainty. Parliament had been summoned to sit on Saturday 19 October to debate what…
Letting China join the WTO was the worst decision the West ever made
It’s not often that you come across a book that completely transforms your understanding of the world. Just recently I’ve…
Painful, funny — and with a brilliant twist: The Farewell reviewed
The Farewell is a quiet film that builds and builds and builds into a wonderful exploration of belonging, loss, family…
Contraception is the answer to climate change
When last week’s IPCC report warned that the human race may soon have trouble feeding itself, my reaction was: duh.…
Give Hong Kongers real security: a British passport
We seem to be building up to a second Tiananmen Square, 30 years after the first. This time the venue…
From Hong Kong to Kashmir, a new authoritarianism is on the rise
Frank Johnson, editor of The Spectator until cruelly sacked to make way for Boris Johnson, never wasted ideas. He liked…
Hong Kong protesters are following the wrong script
What do you call a global hub without an airport? Hong Kong. No other city can lay claim to this…
Hong Kong protesters are making things easy for China
The world is watching Beijing as it watches Hong Kong. There are nervous expectations that troops will be deployed in…
Letters: Donkeys are the latest victims of China’s gross cruelty to animals
We don’t cut God Sir: The Revd Dr Peter Mullen suggests (Letters, 3 August) that Boris Johnson told him my…
Is China really the enemy?
China is a nation with values deeply at odds with the West. The Chinese spy, steal and bully. They don’t…
Portrait of the week: Theresa May’s new role, England’s cricket victory and the world’s steepest street
Home In a televised debate between the rivals for election by members of the Conservative party as their new leader…
A brief history of tea
It had to happen. Since almost everything became either ‘artisan’ or ‘curated’, conditions have been ripe for a curator of…
Portrait of the week: Boris vs Jeremy, Brexit party rallies and Hong Kong protests
Home Boris Johnson, the bookies’ favourite for the leadership of the Conservative party, would, if he became prime minister, ‘show…
China’s surveillance technology is terrifying – and on show in London
I was recently treated to a small taste of the real China. It was in the incongruous setting of a…
Trump vs Xi: the new Cold War is hotting up
It will be all smiles when Donald Trump meets President Xi Jinping this week in Osaka at the annual meeting…
Will the next prime minister betray Hong Kong again?
For many years, a framed cover of The Spectator looked down, like a silent reproach, on the drinkers in the…
Portrait of the week: Gove confesses, Brexit party falters and the BBC makes pensioners pay
Home Michael Gove, the Environment Secretary, a candidate for the Conservative leadership, admitted he had used cocaine several times 20…
The silliness of ‘serious’ leaders
You would think it would be unarguable that ‘Serious times demand a serious leader’. This, with small verbal variations, is…
The Hong Kong protests have echoes of Tiananmen
Whatever the authorities in Beijing say, the anger on the streets of Hong Kong isn’t synthetic, nor is it stirred…
Donald Trump’s one-front trade war
At 12:01 a.m. on Monday, President Donald Trump went a long way toward defusing a potential war – not with…
Britain’s Huawei gamble is sure to anger Donald Trump
Just hours after Donald Trump’s long-delayed state visit to Britain was finally confirmed, reports surfaced that Theresa May and her…
