The battle for zero-Covid is being fought in Shanghai
Confusion infected Shanghai on Tuesday, as the authorities dithered over a promised easing of severe lockdown rules and Covid-19 continued…
Is China beginning to distance itself from Russia?
The read-outs from Friday’s two-hour call between Joe Biden and Xi Jinping were so different, that you have to wonder…
Will China come to Putin’s rescue?
Joe Biden appears to be trying to force China’s hand over Ukraine. This follows days during which Beijing has tied…
Xi Jinping and the plight of Chinese nationals in Ukraine
The plight of desperate Chinese nationals in Ukraine has further battered Xi Jinping’s credibility, testing his continued refusal to condemn…
China is tying itself in knots over Ukraine
A few hours after Vladimir Putin sent his tanks into Ukraine, Beijing announced that Russian wheat, previously barred because of…
Unmasking ‘panda diplomacy’
The star of the Beijing Winter Olympics wasn’t an athlete: it was Bing Dwen Dwen, the spacesuit-clad panda mascot. It…
‘Xi Jinping Thought’ is taking over China’s classrooms
From last fall, in an extension of a personality cult not seen since Mao Zedong, “Xi Jinping Thought” is being…
China breaks new records in the Surveillance Olympics
Never before have the participants in a major sporting event been so closely monitored as in this Winter Olympics in…
The dangerous alliance between Russia and China
The growing alliance between Russia and China is something we shouldn’t lose sleep over, their long history of mutual suspicion…
How China spies on the West
In December last year Oxford University students were offered £15,000 in prize money if they could solve challenges relating to…
China’s zero-Covid policy is becoming unsustainable
With just three weeks until the opening of the Winter Olympics in Beijing, Covid-19 is creeping ever closer to the…
Britain is finally waking up to China’s influence operations
The biggest surprise in Thursday’s security warning about a Chinese agent seeking to influence British politicians is that it came…
China could be more dangerous than ever in 2022
Twenty twenty-two is the year that Xi Jinping plans to seize power for life, but it is not going according to…
Xi’s bunker mentality
Why is China self-isolating?
Why it matters that tennis is standing up to Beijing
The commercial road to Beijing is littered with grovelling apologies, cringeworthy kowtows and silent complicity in repression. That’s why the…
Peng Shuai and the limits of China’s #MeToo movement
China’s #MeToo movement has taken a step closer to the centre of power in Beijing, after sexual abuse allegations by…
China’s energy crisis
The absence of Xi Jinping from COP26 in Glasgow this weekend should strip away any illusion that China is a…
Can Beijing buy the Taliban?
China is seeking a grand bargain from the Taliban: eliminate the groups Beijing says are stirring up trouble among its…
Xi threatens Taiwan because he’s weak
Over the weekend, China sent waves of warplanes racing towards Taiwan in numbers not seen before, forcing the democratic self-ruled…
Paperless tiger
The rise of the digital yuan
Is China’s debt-fuelled economy doomed?
For years it seemed as though China’s massively inflated property bubble would just keep on expanding, seemingly defying the laws of economics, as…
Xi Jinping is weaponising China’s sex scandals
Zhou Xiaoxuan was in tears when she emerged from the Beijing court around midnight on Tuesday. ‘I’m really sorry there…
China’s #MeToo moment
The employee alleged that she was forced to drink heavily at a banquet during a business trip, then sexually assaulted…
Lack of personality cult
How ‘Xi Jinping Thought’ took over China’s classrooms
#XiToo
Can the CCP control China’s harassment scandals?
