Amid reports of Chinese spies in Westminster, we learn that Huawei – the telecoms manufacturer western governments shun for fear of cyber espionage – has launched a smartphone containing microchips more advanced than anything China was previously thought capable of making. Some analysts say China is now ahead of the US in tech fields ranging from AI to robotics, while, in the auto sector, BMW chief executive Oliver Zipse (announcing plans to make electric Minis at Cowley from 2026) described Chinese electric carmakers with improved battery technology as an ‘imminent threat’ to his industry in Europe.

In response, Rishi Sunak – after a brief and no doubt deeply oblique meeting with Chinese Premier Li Qiang at the G20 summit – defended dialogue with Beijing, not least because it had allowed him to express ‘strong concerns’ about the spy story. Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch added that without access to Chinese technology: ‘We wouldn’t be able to get to where we want to get to on net zero.’ Backbench warrior Sir Iain Duncan Smith, in contrast, warned against ‘thinking about China as a business problem’ when the reality is a sinister geopolitical threat.

Who’s right? Is the pursuit of trade with the world’s second economic power an obvious necessity and the only path to grown-up bilateral relations? Trade in this context inevitably means vastly more Chinese goods in our markets than UK goods or services in theirs, but that’s a challenge facing ‘global Britain’ everywhere. Until the day China attacks Taiwan, opinion will divide over engagement vs stand-off – unlike Russia where, as I wrote recently, every western firm is under pressure to withdraw. But then Russia, if we can live without its gas, has nothing the West needs.

So what advice can I offer those well-meaning City ambassadors who trek back and forth to China – in the mode of the late Sir David Brewer, a jovial former lord mayor who made more than 100 expeditions in search of insurance biz? Be acutely sceptical of everything you’re told, leave your mobile and laptop behind – and pack a very long spoon.

Beware cruel fate

Ah, the vicissitudes of corporate life. Sir Howard Davies – former diplomat, Treasury official, CBI chief and deputy governor of the Bank of England – capped his career, from 2015, with the chairmanship of the recovering NatWest. But on the night of 25 July this year, when his chief executive, Dame Alison Rose, was forced to resign over the Nigel Farage scandal despite a declaration of full confidence from NatWest’s board, Davies transitioned instantly from ‘wily operator in the corridors of power’ to ‘lame duck in the departure lounge’. Now his successor – to take over next April and preside over the selection of a new chief executive – has been named as Rick Haythornthwaite.

Who is he? In short, NatWest has picked another chairman with a CV longer than Magna Carta, but there the similarities with the uber-bureaucrat Davies end. Originally a geo-logist with BP, Haythornthwaite is a hands-on industrialist who made his name in cement as chief executive of Blue Circle before chairing everything from Mastercard, Ocado, Centrica and Network Rail to Islington’s Almeida Theatre. Nothing in the boardroom should surprise this smooth and seasoned operator. But he’d be wise to keep photos of Davies and Rose in his wallet, as a reminder that mischievous fate forever lurks in wait.

The City at sunset

From the 50th floor of 8 Bishopsgate – a new skyscraper on the historic site of Baring Brothers from 1806 until mischievous fate pounced in 1995 – the City at sunset looks crowded but relatively calm, in the sense that its recent surge of tower construction is largely complete.

I’m here for the launch of the City of London Corporation’s ‘Vision for Economic Growth’, a manifesto aimed at reversing the Square Mile’s perceived decline as a source of capital for entrepreneurs and making it a leader in ‘sustainable finance’. Admirable ambitions for a financial centre that constantly seeks to reinvent itself. But I’m intrigued to know whether what I’m looking out on is a vast long-term surplus of capacity because technology and WFH have over-taken previous modes of office life.

I put that question to the chap standing next to me, who turns out to be Shravan Joshi, the Corporation’s chair of planning. On the contrary, he says, most City firms are 75 to 95 per cent back in the office, only the techies staying at home. Insurers and lawyers are eating up available space and he’ll need at least five more blocks the size of 8 Bishopsgate to accommodate next-generation demand.

So perhaps what I’m observing is a pause before a new leap forward, both in construction and creative activity. I’ll add only one thought, which is that whether seen from a height or from its Victorian alleyways, the City is very un-green. Whatever they build next, I hope they put gardens on top.

Getting the wind up

‘Record number of renewables projects awarded government funding,’ trumpets a press release in the name of Graham Stuart, energy security and net zero minister. New grants totalling £227 million will secure 3.7 gigawatts of clean energy to power two million homes. All good to hear – except, oops-a-daisy, in the small print, offshore wind, which is ‘central to our ambitions…[does not] feature in this year’s allocation’.

Why not? Because the megawatt-hour price offered for wind power was so low, given cost inflation, that this vital part of the grant auction attracted no bidders – leaving the UK with no serious hope of raising its offshore wind capacity from the current 14 gigawatts to the target of 50 gigawatts by 2030 that Stuart’s press release shamelessly restates. If we can’t have energy policies that deliver their promises, could we at least have a new satirical sitcom called Net Zero?