For clues as to where US policy towards Beijing goes next, look beyond Donald Trump’s chaotic and erratic tariffs and focus instead on the small print of the US-UK draft trade deal. It has a clear message: that if you want to do business with Washington, keep China at bay. The agreement itself doesn’t quite
The presence of Chinese president Xi Jinping as ‘guest of honour’ at Vladimir Putin’s Victory Day military parade in Moscow today, which will include soldiers from the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), is both chilling and fraudulent. Chilling, because it is the most explicit endorsement yet by Xi of Russia’s militarism and its poisonous narratives about
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On this week’s Spectator Out Loud: Ian Williams looks at Chinese influence in the UK (1:39); Philip Patrick interviews Japan’s last ninja (9:35); Guy Stagg reviews Damian Le Bas and explores the myths behind the city of Atlantis (18:23); Ysenda Maxtone Graham reviews an exhibition on school dinners at the Food Museum in Stowmarket (23:38); Mark
Somewhere in the bowels of the Foreign Office, civil servants are still working on the government’s ‘China audit’. The report was commissioned by the new Labour government to ‘assess trade-offs in the UK-China relationship’ and to ‘ensure consistency across government, business and academia towards engagement with China’. Little is known about its workings or who’s
It was an extraordinary statement, given all the bluster that had gone before it. Tariffs on Chinese goods will ‘come down substantially’ from their current level of 145 per cent, Donald Trump said on Tuesday, adding that ‘We are doing fine with China … We’re going to live together very happily and ideally work together’.
Shanghai port is the busiest in the world. Activity there is closely monitored by financial analysts distrustful of official statistics and looking for clues as to what is really happening in the world’s second largest economy. For the past few days they will have been taken for a wild ride. First there was mayhem as
China hit back on Wednesday with an additional 50 per cent tariff on US imports, matching the extra levy imposed overnight by Donald Trump on Chinese goods. That made the running totals 104 per cent so far from Washington, vs 84 per cent from Beijing, prompting one analyst to compare them to two racing cars driving straight
China has accused Washington of ‘blackmail’ and said it will ‘fight to the end’ after Donald Trump threatened overnight to impose an additional 50 per cent tariff on Chinese imports. At the same time, President Xi Jinping is seeking to present himself as a responsible champion of the international trading system and defender of globalisation
Vladivostok, the ‘ruler of the East’, is preparing to celebrate the 165th anniversary of its founding. City Day, as they call it in the capital of Russia’s Far East, will see week-long celebrations, including sailing regattas, street performances and an enormous firework display. The naval base, home to Russia’s Pacific Fleet, usually gets in on
In the fight against climate change, China loves to present itself as the world’s White Knight. Armed with wind turbines and solar panels, EVs and batteries, it will rescue us from oblivion if only we would let it. There’s no shortage of western politicians, academics and organisations who are happy to go along with the
They were only six words on a website, but they helped maintain Beijing’s fiction that Taiwan is part of its territory. Their disappearance has infuriated China’s communist leaders. ‘It gravely contravenes international law and the basic norms of international relations,’ raged Guo Jiakun, a spokesman for China’s ministry of foreign affairs, on Monday. The website
Over the weekend, Donald Trump described his sweeping 10 per cent tariffs against Chinese goods as an ‘opening salvo’. Within minutes of them taking effect at midnight last night, Beijing retaliated with targeted tariffs of its own against US coal, liquified natural gas (LNG), farm equipment and cars. It also announced export controls on a
When the security services accessed the mobile phone of Yang Tengbo, the alleged Chinese spy who became a confidant and business partner of the Duke of York, they found a document in which Yang said of the duke, ‘He is in a desperate situation and will grab onto anything’. We can only assume there are
The Chinese communist party claims to know a thing or two about humiliation – the ‘century of humiliation’ at the hands of rapacious foreigners is a founding myth of the CCP, which presents itself as a redemptive power. It will no doubt derive some satisfaction in making Rachel Reeves look foolish, as she heads to
When Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves visits Beijing in January on a mission to improve ‘economic and financial cooperation’ she could well find her hosts surprisingly well informed about the global financial system and Donald Trump’s plans for it – thanks to China’s hyperactive and increasingly aggressive army of hackers. Chinese hackers are becoming
As the fallout continues from the latest China spy scandal, it is hard not to conclude that Labour’s policy on Beijing – as far as one can be identified – adds up to appeasement in the vain hope of some economic crumbs from the Emperor’s table. It will certainly be seen by the Chinese Communist
By one estimate, Chinese military exercises close to Taiwan this week were the largest since 1996, when Beijing attempted unsuccessfully to disrupt the island’s first fully democratic presidential election. Up to 100 warships were estimated to have taken part in what Taiwanese officials described as a ‘significant security challenge’, while Russian warships were also spotted
Russia and Iran kept Bashar al-Assad in power and are the biggest strategic losers from the toppling of his brutal regime. But also spare a thought for Xi Jinping, who used the dubious ‘stability’ imposed on Syria by Tehran and Moscow to embrace the butcher of Damascus in a bid to extend Beijing’s influence in
In an effort to create a cutting edge force, the Chinese Communist party (CCP) has spent billions of dollars expanding and modernising its armed forces at a pace rarely seen in peace time. But on the evidence of the last few days, the most cutting edge features of its top ranks remain corruption and political
Few people embody the ideal of scientific excellence as much as Albert Einstein. Each year a Berlin-based foundation bearing his name hands out awards for the sort of research that might have made him proud. This week, the individual prize went to Elisabeth Bik, not a conventional boffin, but a sleuth – a dogged Dutch
