China

Political deaths in China always carry the risk of social unrest. It was premier Zhou Enlai’s death that triggered the ‘democracy wall’ movement of the late 1970s, a student protest that was the precursor for the Tiananmen Square protest ten years later. In turn, the latter protest was triggered by former Chinese Communist party (CCP) leader Hu Yaobang’s death. Last night, the former premier Li Keqiang passed away of a sudden heart attack at the age of 68, so reports Chinese state media Xinhua. A few things will happen now. It’s true that Li was not as well loved by the Chinese people as Zhou, nor was he explicitly associated

Taipei I arrive here shortly after Taiwan National Day, which is 10 October. The day might seem strangely chosen, because the date commemorates the Wuhan Uprising in 1911, the spark for the revolution which overthrew China’s last imperial dynasty and created the Republic of China. At that time, the island of Taiwan did not benefit. It had been ruled since 1895 by Japan and continued thus until Japan’s surrender in 1945. The reason 10 October is the National Day is because the ‘nation’ referred to is the whole of China, not Taiwan. When Chiang Kai-Shek, the Kuo Min Tang (KMT) generalissimo, was defeated by the communist revolution in 1949, he

In the early hours of this morning, Vladimir Putin touched down in Beijing to attend the third forum of the Belt and Road initiative (BRI) at Xi Jinping’s invitation. The trip is clearly important to Putin: it is just the second time that he has left Russia, and the first time travelling beyond the former Soviet Union, since the international criminal court (ICC) issued a warrant for his arrest in March. Xi invited Putin to attend the forum back in March in a show of unity when the former visited Moscow just days after the ICC issued its warrant. At the time, the visit – during which both leaders were

Only last week, China was pushing itself forward to be the regional eminence grise in the Middle East, the powerbroker driving renewed Palestine-Israeli peace talks. In August this year, China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi said that Chinese-mediated detente was driving a ‘wave of reconciliation’ in the Middle East. China’s inflated sense of its influence in the region came to a juddering halt in the light of the horrific attacks on Israel by Hamas militants last weekend. As a self-declared mediator in the region, China refused to condemn the Isis-style barbarity of Hamas, instead choosing to chide Israel for refusing to enter talks. It called for both sides ‘to remain calm

How should Britain handle its relationship with China? That’s an increasingly fraught question inside the Tory party lately, with several China hawks in government and on the backbenches keen to limit engagement while classifying the country as a security threat. Earlier this year, James Cleverly faced criticism after becoming the first UK Foreign Secretary to visit Beijing in five years – a trip he defended at the time as necessary for diplomacy, arguing that disengaging from the country was not ‘credible’. Speaking to Cindy Yu at conference today, for a special edition of the Chinese Whispers podcast, Cleverly defended his position again, saying: ‘Foreign secretary flies to foreign country to have

The Chinese Communist party appears set to kill off its largest economic zombie, while gambling that it can control the fallout. Evergrande, the world’s most indebted developer, first defaulted almost two years ago, as China’s property bubble began to burst. It has since been able to stagger on from one crisis to another, while struggling to restructure its mountain of debt and sell its assets. Now even the CCP seems to have decided this is untenable. The problem for the party is that Evergrande is not the only occupant of China’s economic valley of the living dead, and the impact of its collapse may be impossible to control. The signs

Two down and who knows how many more to go. This week, Defence Minister Li Shangfu became the latest of China’s top leaders to vanish, reportedly caught up in a corruption scandal. He has not been seen for three weeks and his disappearance comes three months after that of foreign minister, Qin Gang, and follows a purge at the top of China’s Rocket Force, which oversees its rapidly expanding nuclear arsenal. Li lasted just six months in the job, having been appointed in March. At a security forum in Beijing late last month, one of his last public appearances, Li said the world was entering a period of ‘instability’ –

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

A parliamentary researcher has just been arrested on suspicion of espionage. A man in his late twenties, with reported links to the security minister and the chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, is accused of spying for China and may have had access to sensitive secret documents. A second suspect has been collared in Oxfordshire. It’s said to be the worst Westminster security breach in years: ‘We haven’t seen anything like this before.’ I’m sure you were as surprised as I was to find out that the Chinese are spying on us. Gobsmacked. Flabbergasted. Probably nearly as surprised as the Prime Minister. And to hear his spokesman tell it,

Oh dear. The Sunday Times is tonight reporting that a Westminster parliamentary researcher has been arrested on suspicion of spying for China. The male suspect, who is in his late twenties, is reported to be linked to a number of senior Tory MPs, including several who are privy to classified or highly sensitive information. Among them are Tom Tugendhat, the, er, security minister, and Alicia Kearns, chairman of the influential Foreign Affairs Committee. Oops. Counterterrorism police are reported to have swooped on the researcher and another man in his thirties on suspicion of espionage-related offences back in March. The researcher is British and held a parliamentary pass, with the Sunday Times quoting one Whitehall source

The Chinese Communist Party’s ‘standard map’ is updated each year to include Beijing’s ever-extending territorial claims. Neighbours see it as a sinister measure of Beijing’s imperialist threat, but to the party it is a sacred document, a badge of legitimacy, encapsulating its historic grievances and its growing ambition. It must be faithfully reproduced in school textbooks and in government and corporate handouts and plastered to the walls of workplaces and classrooms.  The timing of the latest edition is unfortunate – or perhaps deliberate – coming just ahead of next week’s summit of G20 countries in Delhi, a meeting that President Xi Jinping intends to snub. It seemed to send a

At least James Cleverly had somebody to meet. The Foreign Secretary’s last effort to get to Beijing was postponed after his Chinese counterpart disappeared in late June. Former foreign minister Qin Gang has not been seen or heard of since. Gang’s whereabouts are as mysterious as Cleverly’s China policy, which is beginning to feel a lot like a re-tread of the incoherent and failed past strategy of ‘engagement’. That policy, as far as it can be described as one, was driven by greed and gullibility. It added up to little more than kowtowing to Beijing, largely ignoring its growing repression at home and aggression overseas, while at the same time

Much has changed since the last time a British Foreign Secretary visited China. Back in 2018, when Jeremy Hunt met his Chinese counterpart, foreign minister Wang Yi, the world had never heard of Covid-19, Hong Kong remained mostly immune from interference from Beijing, and the truth about the mass internment camps in Xinjiang had only started emerging. Hunt and Wang agreed to keep ‘building the ‘Golden Era’ of China-UK relations’. How different the world looks, just five years later, as another British Foreign Secretary prepares to visit Beijing.  In British diplomatic circles, the term ‘golden era’ has been retired, as various human rights and geopolitical spats have led to the UK adopting

Once, not that long ago, few people outside China had heard of the property developer Evergrande. Now it is synonymous with failure, debt and loss – and seen as the tipping point in China’s real estate market three years ago. Now meet Country Garden, another large property developer, hailed even a year ago as a model ‘corporate citizen’. As of this week, it is a penny stock facing a debt and liquidity crisis, cannot service its US dollar debt, and is on the brink of default. Its financial demise is not quite on the scale of Evergrande, but it comes at a worse moment, when China’s economy is in the

Electric cars made in China could be turned off remotely, immobilising them instantly and crippling the West. That terrifying prospect was highlighted by Professor Jim Saker, president of the Institute of the Motor Industry. ‘The car manufacturer may be in Shanghai and could stop 100,000 to 300,000 cars across Europe thus paralysing a country,’ Saker warned. Yet few people seem bothered. Nor was there much reaction to Tory MP Iain Duncan Smith’s claim on LBC this week that Beijing may have used a hidden device in Rishi Sunak’s car to track the PM’s movements. If this allegation involved another country it would likely have lead the headlines for days. But, because

Bazhou and Zhuozhou, two small cities to the south of Beijing, have been submerged in record floods since late July, when Typhoon Doksuri swept through China’s northeast. Nearly one million people have been displaced. But this is not just a natural disaster. The region has taken more than its fair share of floodwaters. All of this is a deliberate strategy to protect Beijing, the capital, and Xiong’an New Area, a project dear to Xi Jinping’s heart.  Residents are understandably furious. Yesterday, a group of Bazhou residents took to the local government building to demand compensation, for the second time in three days. The protestors were met with pepper spray and batons.