China
The joy of willow-pattern ceramics
My granny used Spode willow-pattern crockery for everyday use. There was another grander service for Sunday lunch, also blue-and-white chinoiserie:…
A grandmother’s twisted mind: The Passage of Roses, by Tie Ning, reviewed
An ambitious, controlling matriarch will do anything to curry favour during the Cultural Revolution – even to the extent of deliberately harming her vulnerable young granddaughter
The real ‘Thucydides Trap’ Beijing and Washington must avoid
These are good times to be a scholar of the classical world. Last summer, Donald Trump issued an order that…
The humiliating truth about the way we think
We overrate our capacity for rational deliberation, says Turi Munthe, when weather, soil, climate and geography are what really determine of our opinions and beliefs
The rise of the Orienfluencers
The term “Orientalism” has always implied some kind of caricature of the eastern world. It was originally coined as a…
The global ramifications of China’s economic crisis
Whilst Britain’s Labour government continues its war on the price mechanism, Communist China wrestles with the ill effects of an…
Portrait of the week: Streeting resigns, HS2 stalls and ebola spreads to Uganda
Home Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, found his position challenged after Wes Streeting resigned as Health Secretary. At the…
No, I’m not a CIA spy in Greenland
The Danish media has accused me of being a US spy. They say I’m involved in a covert influence operation…
The three things Trump wants from his China trip
Donald Trump flew to Beijing this week, and when he sits down with China’s President Xi Jinping on Thursday morning…
America’s Trump card in China
The Trump administration has released a list of CEOs who will be accompanying the president to his meeting in China…
China’s theft of American AI tech is becoming more brazen
Despite the hype surrounding China’s artificial intelligence capabilities, progress remains heavily dependent on theft and smuggling. The Chinese Communist party…
The truth about Pakistan’s role in the US-Iran conflict
Pakistan was always an unlikely mediator for peace negotiations between the United States, Iran and sotto voce, China. It would not…
With no coherent strategy, Britain seems perpetually adrift in the world
But rather than stagger from one global crisis to another, we could unite the disparate tools we still possess and truly take back control, says Jack Watling
China wants robots to look after the elderly
An AI data centre – imagine a factory of buzzing wires and computing equipment cooled by industrial fans – can…
Will Alberta become the 51st state?
Albertans are very good at keeping things that damage their prosperity out of their province. Take rats, for instance. The…
Will the war in Iran really weaken China?
Analogies in international politics are tricky and easily abused, yet they remain irresistible because they can illuminate patterns that are…
The greater game: Trump’s ultimate target in this war is China
The United States and Israel killed Ayatollah Khamenei, and Xi Jinping’s decade-long project to build an alternative to the American-led…
Revelling in reading: The Enchanting Lives of Others, by Can Xue, reviewed
A group of young fiction enthusiasts and intellectuals channel their energies into devouring novels – and marvel at how enlightened it makes them feel
The deep state vs Nixon
Americans took a break from their partisan vituperation in February to mull over newly revealed testimony that Richard Nixon gave…
Trump’s America isn’t the outlier on greenhouse gases
Irresponsible Trump, responsible China: that is the message the BBC’s climate editor seemed to be sending us by juxtaposing the…
Why doesn’t the CDC care about Chinese biolabs in America?
If you rent a cheap Airbnb house in Las Vegas, you might not be altogether surprised to find dead crickets…
Where have all the graduate jobs gone?
It’s a relief not to have been pressganged into joining the Prime Minister’s plane-load of business chiefs and reporters bound…
Starmer has got nothing from his demeaning trip to China
Sir Keir Starmer told Xi Jinping it was time for a ‘more sophisticated’ relationship, yet there is very little sign…
The Chinese takeover of Britain’s public schools
Roedean is now known as ‘Beijing High’. Cheltenham Ladies’ College is ‘Hong Kong College’. In the country’s most elite boarding…
