China
Hong Kong protesters are following the wrong script
What do you call a global hub without an airport? Hong Kong. No other city can lay claim to this…
Hong Kong protesters are making things easy for China
The world is watching Beijing as it watches Hong Kong. There are nervous expectations that troops will be deployed in…
Letters: Donkeys are the latest victims of China’s gross cruelty to animals
We don’t cut God Sir: The Revd Dr Peter Mullen suggests (Letters, 3 August) that Boris Johnson told him my…
Is China really the enemy?
China is a nation with values deeply at odds with the West. The Chinese spy, steal and bully. They don’t…
Portrait of the week: Theresa May’s new role, England’s cricket victory and the world’s steepest street
Home In a televised debate between the rivals for election by members of the Conservative party as their new leader…
A brief history of tea
It had to happen. Since almost everything became either ‘artisan’ or ‘curated’, conditions have been ripe for a curator of…
Portrait of the week: Boris vs Jeremy, Brexit party rallies and Hong Kong protests
Home Boris Johnson, the bookies’ favourite for the leadership of the Conservative party, would, if he became prime minister, ‘show…
China’s surveillance technology is terrifying – and on show in London
I was recently treated to a small taste of the real China. It was in the incongruous setting of a…
Trump vs Xi: the new Cold War is hotting up
It will be all smiles when Donald Trump meets President Xi Jinping this week in Osaka at the annual meeting…
Will the next prime minister betray Hong Kong again?
For many years, a framed cover of The Spectator looked down, like a silent reproach, on the drinkers in the…
Portrait of the week: Gove confesses, Brexit party falters and the BBC makes pensioners pay
Home Michael Gove, the Environment Secretary, a candidate for the Conservative leadership, admitted he had used cocaine several times 20…
The silliness of ‘serious’ leaders
You would think it would be unarguable that ‘Serious times demand a serious leader’. This, with small verbal variations, is…
The Hong Kong protests have echoes of Tiananmen
Whatever the authorities in Beijing say, the anger on the streets of Hong Kong isn’t synthetic, nor is it stirred…
Donald Trump’s one-front trade war
At 12:01 a.m. on Monday, President Donald Trump went a long way toward defusing a potential war – not with…
Britain’s Huawei gamble is sure to anger Donald Trump
Just hours after Donald Trump’s long-delayed state visit to Britain was finally confirmed, reports surfaced that Theresa May and her…
Britain’s liberals have fallen out of love with democracy
Every now and then there is a political moment, some event or comment, that reveals just how much society has…
The Chinese must be furious. Imagine blowing $1.3m on Jeb!
Jeb! We hardly knew ye. The 2016 election seems soooo long ago. There was a time, for about 15 minutes,…
Don’t hate housebuilders who profited from Help to Buy. It wasn’t their fault
Was Help to Buy a timely market intervention with a valid social purpose or a political gimmick that unintentionally showered…
Would your son marry me? Inside Shanghai’s marriage market
Shanghai ‘How old are you, young lady?’ A small, curious crowd starts to surround me. ‘How tall are you? What…
Portrait of the week: Resignations galore, Honda’s announcement and Islamic State’s brides
Home Seven MPs resigned from the Labour party and sat in the Commons (next to the DUP) as the Independent…
The Nissan move shows Britain is losing its competitive edge
Has ‘Jay’ Powell gone wobbly, or does he know something we don’t? That was the question being asked after the…
![The China-Russia East Route pipeline under construction in 2017. At 3,968 km in length, it is designed to carry 38 billion cubic metres of natural gas from Russia’s Far East to Shanghai. [Getty]](https://www.spectator.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Pipeline.jpg?w=410&h=275&crop=1)
China’s power grab steps up apace
Five years ago President Xi Jinping gave a speech in Kazakhstan, launching the ‘Silk Road Economic Belt’, a wildly ambitious…
In China’s new surveillance state, everyone will be watched, reviewed and rated
The bullet train from Beijing to Shanghai is the fastest in the world. It takes just over four hours to…
Adam Smith would have approved of Trump’s trade tariffs
‘What the hell is going on?’ That anxious wail of economic incomprehension has been heard ever since President Trump decided…
Trade wars: The method behind Donald Trump’s madness
Donald Trump campaigned as an unrepentant protectionist and, on the face of it, he has lived up to his word.…
