China
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…
India is going to keep polluting. They can thank China
Mumbai India is the last major global polluter to set a date to go carbon neutral. In a surprise announcement…
China’s energy crisis
The absence of Xi Jinping from COP26 in Glasgow this weekend should strip away any illusion that China is a…
The rise and fall of Jack Ma
Jack Ma used to give rock star performances for his employees at Alibaba, Asia’s biggest online commerce company. He once…
Wuhan clan
The price I paid for my lab leak exposé
COP out
For China, the climate is a useful bargaining chip
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
Portrait of the week
Home The crisis of the week was a shortage of fuel at garages. ‘There is no need for people to…
Gas crisis offers hard choices: market mayhem or limitless subsidy
Will my bath water still be hot by Christmas? That’s not a question I’d normally feel a need to share…
Dangerous waters
The case against Aukus
The Spectator’s Notes
Stephen Toope, Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge University, has begun this academic year by announcing it will be his last in the…
The Covid blame game
Are you ready to relive 2020? That’s what Adam Tooze is offering as he tells the story of Covid-19 through…
China’s obsessive attempts to subvert the West
Most people who think themselves well informed know little or nothing about China. They – or I should say ‘we’…
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 war on effeminate men
A rectification notice from China’s state censor earlier this month included a peculiar admonition to ‘resolutely oppose’ effeminate men on…
Lack of personality cult
How ‘Xi Jinping Thought’ took over China’s classrooms
Defund the world’s policeman?
It gets lost in the many creative purposes successive American administrations invented to justify remaining in Afghanistan, but the primary…
Did Chinese fentanyl kill Michael K. Williams?
Did Chinese-manufactured fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, kill Michael Kenneth Williams, the man who played ‘Omar’ in The Wire? Within minutes…
Portrait of the week
Home Britain brought its last troops home from Afghanistan, having flown out more than 15,000 people since 14 August; but…
How China drove a wedge between America and Israel
Two weeks ago, CIA director William Burns – who has rather a lot on his plate just now – had…
Would Japan defend Taiwan from a Chinese attack?
In a parliamentary debate in early June about Covid, Japan’s prime minister Yoshihide Suga said that Australia, New Zealand and…
The Supreme Court’s shameful statement on Hong Kong
In a statement which will doubtless surprise the scores of lawyers, democratic politicians and human rights activists who are currently…
China’s Great Game in Afghanistan
China greeted America’s chaotic retreat from Afghanistan and the Taliban seizure of power with a mixture of glee and trepidation.…
China’s zero Covid strategy is being undermined by mahjong
Mao Zedong once said that the game of mahjong should not be underestimated, because: ‘If you know how to play…
