China

Thursday

Oren Cass

What economists don’t get about Trump’s tariffs

We already knew that most economists are quite bad at economic policy. Unfortunately, foreign policy appears not to be much of a strength either. Indeed, it appears most financial experts may not even know the difference, based on their criticism of Donald Trump’s recent tariff threats against Mexico, Canada and China. Of course, a nation can introduce tariffs to generate revenue, promote domestic production, shift international supply chains and ‘decouple’ itself from an undesirable trading partner. But a nation can also use tariffs as powerful leverage to make other states change their behaviour. That is a negotiating tariff, not an economic one, and it is designed not to minimise potential

Thursday

The Spectator

DeepSeek’s cheap information comes at a high price for the West

This week, Chinese technology has shown the West the challenge it faces – ruthless, implacable and impossible to ignore. The unveiling of the Chinese artificial intelligence model DeepSeek has not only disrupted the business models of America’s tech behemoths; it has also shown that, in the race to develop the tools for economic hegemony, Beijing is set on supremacy. The launch of DeepSeek came just days before the CIA’s conclusion that, on the balance of probabilities, the Covid virus was incubated in a Wuhan lab – a man-made killer, not a product of nature’s evolutionary mischief. China stands revealed as a power bent on using science to secure not human

Monday

Cindy Yu

What is China’s ‘United Front’ agenda?

34 min listen

When Chinese spy scandals break, like the latest involving Prince Andrew and his Chinese business associate, one organisation often comes up – the United Front. Mao Zedong had dubbed it one of the Chinese Communist Party’s three ‘magic weapons’. So what is this mysterious ‘United Front’ and how important is it to advancing the CCP’s agenda? Joining the podcast is Charlie Parton, a former British diplomat in Beijing and a special advisor on China to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee. He is now chief advisor to the Council on Geostrategy’s China Observatory. ** Chinese Whispers is nominated in the Political Podcast Awards 2025. Vote for it to win the People’s

Thursday

Martin Vander Weyer

Rachel Reeves owes Brompton bikes an apology

I long to write less about Rachel Reeves and more about world-beating British businesses – such as Brompton, the folding bicycle maker whose fortunes I have followed since I bought the product and interviewed the founder-designer, Andrew Ritchie, 20 years ago. The latest Brompton news was that profits collapsed from £11 million in 2023 to breakeven for the year to March 2024 in the teeth of a post-pandemic demand slump; and that additional hiring has been put on hold after Labour’s NI increase added ‘hundreds of thousands of pounds’ of extra costs. A move from cramped west London premises to a new base at Ashford in Kent, with room for

Tuesday

Mitchell Reiss

Time is running out to tackle the dangers posed by AI

Is this what it felt like in the months before August 1914? Or during the years leading up to September 1939? The discussion around artificial intelligence produces a deep foreboding that we are in the grip of forces largely beyond our control. Are we sleepwalking towards disaster? That is the feeling I have after reading Genesis, a collaboration by Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google, Craig Mundie, the former chief research and strategy officer at Microsoft, and Henry Kissinger, who died, aged 100, soon after completing this book. They have crafted a holistic analysis of the social, political, psychological and even spiritual impacts that a superior machine intelligence would

Robert Service

Why Trump bullies Nato

President-elect Donald Trump has in recent years talked about ‘buying’ Greenland. Until recently his comments attracted little attention but recently he shocked the world by threatening the use of economic coercion or military force to fulfil his wish. Male gorillas in the forests of west Africa engage in chest-beating to see off their rivals but Nato, to which the Kingdom of Denmark has belonged since its foundation in 1949, is meant to be a zoo park in which all the wardens sign up for a working partnership. What is behind this public breach in diplomatic etiquette? Americans can point to earlier times when they expanded their territory by purchase, not

Sunday

Cindy Yu

Keir Starmer wants to redefine crime and punishment

How far should a government go to stamp out people smuggling? This month, the Home Office is set to introduce powers that will allow courts to place expansive restrictions on those suspected of people smuggling and other serious crimes. Penalties are set to include social media bans, restrictions on banking and even curfews, imposed pre-arrest. Infringement of these court orders would be a criminal offence punishable by up to five years in jail. Some have welcomed this as tough action from the Labour government; finally, you may think, they’re doing something about illegal immigration. But tough policies aren’t always good policies. The mooted powers would allow the police to shut down a

Anatol Lieven

Give Trump’s realism a chance

In one place at least, the reaction to Donald Trump’s threats to annex Greenland, Canada and the Panama Canal has been one of unequivocal joy. That is Russia – and for obvious reasons. Most Russians have long seen US language about the ‘rules-based order’ as a mere mask for US empire and US national interests. In their view, Trump has now removed the mask. Even more importantly, for the Russian establishment Trump’s words are a confirmation that he and Vladimir Putin see international affairs in very much the same way: as a matter of spheres of influence, transactionalism, and the ruthless defence of national interests. During the Ukrainian revolution and

Thursday

Calvin Po

The architectural provocations of I.M. Pei

When first considering architects for the new Louvre in 1981, Emile Biasini, the project’s head, liked that I.M. Pei was both ‘Chinese as well as American: Chinese in his respect of the past, and American in the way of radical solutions’. His controversial glass pyramid ignited much debate about which side won out. These entanglements, between traditionalism and modernity, East and West, would come to characterise both Pei’s Louvre and his six-decade career. After a seven-year gestation, the first comprehensive retrospective of the architect, at Hong Kong’s M+ museum, finally offered a longer view. Despite calling America home, Pei felt a duty to help China find its own architectural language

Monday

John Connolly

‘They don’t want me to rise again’: China’s gene-editing scientist on why he’s back in the lab

Before he agrees to be interviewed, He Jiankui has one request: that he is introduced as a ‘gene editing pioneer’. This may come across as grandiose, but it is also indisputable. No one else in history, after all, can say they have created genetically edited human beings. In 2018, He dropped the mother of all scientific bombs when he announced that he had used Crispr, a gene-editing technique, to alter the DNA of two babies. In a YouTube video, He explained that the twins, ‘two beautiful Chinese girls’, codenamed Lulu and Nana, had been born safely just a few weeks before in Shenzhen. Both had had their embryos edited to

Anthony Sattin

A dreamy, if overly ambitious show: Silk Roads, at the British Museum, reviewed

Towards the end of the British Museum’s Silk Roads show, there is a selection of treasures found in England. Among them is a copper flagon made in Syria and buried in Essex in the late 500s. It is believed that the flagon belonged to an English mercenary who went to fight for the Byzantines against the Sassanians in the 570s. The flagon’s looping handle would have held it tight to a saddle, so perhaps it came to England attached to the warrior’s horse as he rode home from his adventures in the East. There are many spectacular objects in this exhibition. Very many If objects are to inspire more than

Monday

Cindy Yu

What’s in a name? Peter Hessler on what English names can reveal about China

34 min listen

Why do so many Chinese people choose such curious English names? You must have come across this phenomenon – whether they are names from a past century, or surnames, nouns or even adjectives used as first names, or words that aren’t real at all. I have a particular interest in this because my English name – Cindy – isn’t exactly in vogue these days. You might think this is a bit of a trivial question, but I think the question of English names goes deeper than just some odd words. I think these names reveal something about the China that gave rise to them. So I was pleased to come

Tuesday

Katy Balls

Chinese spy named, plus Farage meets Musk

11 min listen

After days of speculation online, the alleged Chinese spy has been named as Yang Tegbo. This latest example of Chinese espionage has opened up a number of debates in Westminster, firstly around Labour’s push to ‘reset’ its relationship with China, as well as the conversation around the Foreign Influence Registration Scheme – a number of China hawks such as IDS and Tom Tugendhat are pushing for it to be implemented sooner than summer 2025. Can Labour’s China policy survive this latest wave of Sino-scepticism? Also on the podcast, it’s happened: Nigel Farage has met with Elon Musk to discuss his party’s electoral prospects. What’s the readout from their meeting? Katy

Monday

Cindy Yu

Xi Jinping’s PLA purges

35 min listen

More than a year after Xi Jinping purged two senior generals in the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force unit, China’s investigation into its military seems to be ongoing, with more scalps taken. In recent weeks, Miao Hua, another senior general who had been a member of the Central Military Commission, has been suspended; while reports abound that the country’s current defence minister, Dong Jun, is under investigation too. If suspended, Dong would be the third consecutive defence minister that Xi has removed. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, to lose one defence minister may be regarded a misfortune; to lose three looks like carelessness. So what is happening at the top of

Monday

Cindy Yu

What’s behind the Chinese migrant surge at the Darien Gap?

23 min listen

The Darien Gap is a 60 mile stretch of jungle that hundreds of thousands of migrants from all over South America trek through in order to reach the US-Mexico border. From there, they enter America in search of better lives. These are usually migrants from Venezuela, or Colombia or Panama. But in recent years, a new group of people have appeared at the border, having paid people smugglers and hacked through the jungle. They often bring young children, clutch on to smartphones with which they check their routes, and watch social media videos that set out, step by step, the journey they are embarking on. These are the Chinese, which

Thursday

Peter Frankopan

Will China soon rule the waves?

On Sunday morning, a communications cable between Sweden and Lithuania was damaged, almost certainly deliberately. Just hours later, the C-Lion cable, the only data link between Finland and central Europe, was severed by what authorities have diplomatically called an ‘external impact’. Most would call it sabotage. In a week where the Biden administration finally gave Kyiv authorisation to use longer-range missiles against targets in Russia, few should think it is a coincidence. Sir Walter Raleigh said that ‘whoever commands the sea commands the trade’ and that ‘whoever commands the trade of the world commands the riches of the world – and consequently the world itself’. To understand how the English

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Labour’s Chinese takeaway

I was thrilled to learn that our government intends to enjoy an ‘open’ relationship with China – one of my favourite countries, as I am sure it is yours. Sir Keir Starmer announced this intention when he bumped into Xi Jinping at the G20 beano in Rio de Janeiro. He also said: ‘We want our relations to be consistent, durable, respectful, as we have agreed, avoid surprises where possible. The UK will be a predictable, consistent, sovereign actor committed to the rule of law.’ Those agreeable adjectives are all Keir’s – I didn’t slip any in, surreptitiously, Not even ‘predictable’, which I assume was there to reinforce the earlier commitment

Monday

James Heale

Labour’s Trump-Xi balancing act

14 min listen

Keir Starmer today will become the first British leader to meet China’s Xi Jinping since 2018. The two leaders will meet on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Brazil, and under the looming shadow of a second Trump presidency. Can Starmer strike the right balance? James Heale talks to Cindy Yu and Katy Balls. Produced by Cindy Yu.

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Is it wise for Starmer to meet Xi?

Keir Starmer will today become the first prime minister in six years to meet with Xi Jinping. The Labour leader is due to meet with the Chinese president at the G20 summit in Brazil as Starmer’s government attempts a wider reset of UK/China relations. This is being pitched by Downing Street as a move to ‘stable and pragmatic engagement’ with Beijing following a cooling of relations in recent years. The last prime minister to meet with Xi was Theresa May in 2018 who hailed a ‘golden era of UK-China relations’. Since then, however, allegations of espionage, human rights abuses, the national security law in Hong Kong and the pandemic have

Tuesday

Christopher Harding

Stalemate over Taiwan is the best we can hope for

The United States of China, anyone? The idea that a federal China might be able to accommodate within it a relatively autonomous Taiwan is one of the more radical solutions mooted to the thorny problem of Taiwan’s status. The difficulty, of course, is that neither the Chinese Communist party nor Taiwan’s leaders would find such an outcome remotely acceptable. The CCP will not countenance a loosening of its control over mainland China; the Taiwanese, for their part, see in Hong Kong’s recent sad trajectory a vision of their own future should their politicians ever accept an offer of special status within China.  At the other end of the spectrum lies