China

If you have been troubled by the government’s failure to get tough on the country responsible for our present malaise, never fear. The Foreign Office has issued a joint statement with ten EU members warning this regime of ‘grave consequences’ for its ‘standing in the international arena’. That’ll put Beijing in its place. Well, not quite. The statement wasn’t directed at China and the deadly pandemic it has unleashed upon the world. It was another scolding for the Israelis, this time over plans to apply sovereignty to West Bank settlements in line with the Trump peace plan. With 250,000 fatalities and the world economy on a ventilator, it’s about time

As countries around the world try to work out a way to live with coronavirus, there’s a growing hostility towards China. In order to remedy any such thoughts, this week Beijing sent the Chinese embassy’s second in command to face something unheard of in her homeland – public scrutiny. Chen Wen, a London-based diplomat for the totalitarian state, took the BBC’s World at One programme on Friday to defend the Chinese Communist record on Covid-19. During the extensive interview, she declared that when it come to the global pandemic, which originated from China, the world should ‘appreciate’ the efforts of the Chinese state rather than criticising its failings. However, some gentle probing from the BBC’s Chris Mason

As Britain struggles through the eye of the coronavirus storm, it is difficult not to cast our eyes across the world and compare our fate with that of our friends and allies. One nation in particular stands out – Australia – seemingly on course yet again to assume its role as ‘The Lucky Country’. It’s tasteless to say, but Australia has had ‘a good crisis’ – it’s one of the few nations to emerge relatively unscathed from the pandemic’s deadly grip and has recorded just 75 deaths so far. Now Sydney’s famous beaches are re-opening this week, and visitor restrictions on care homes are being relaxed. Australia’s performance is especially intriguing

Could China have done more to prevent the coronavirus pandemic? One tabloid editor in Germany certainly thinks so and an extraordinary bust-up has broken out between the Chinese government and his newspaper as a result. The row kicked off last week when Bild – the best-selling paper in Germany – published an editorial entitled ‘What China owes us’, calling for China to pay reparations of £130 billion for the damage done by the outbreak of the virus.  Later that day, the Chinese embassy in Berlin then responded with an open letter saying ‘we regard the style in which you ‘campaign’ against China in your current report on page two as infamous… Those

When it comes to China, Dominic Raab says: ‘We can’t have business as usual after this crisis’. Business as usual is China masking the beginnings a deadly pandemic that has infected more than two million and killed 150,000 worldwide. Business as usual is Beijing covering up the existence of a new coronavirus for six crucial days and intentionally under-reporting infection and casualty rates. Business as usual is police harassment of doctors and the disappearance and presumed detention of Dr Ai Fen, who tried to alert colleagues to a new coronavirus in Wuhan. Business as usual is China restricting research into the origins of the virus and, in the estimation of international law

The Great Game of the 21st century is upon us and as ever it’s a scramble for resources. This time, though, the thirst is not for land or diamonds or gold. Personal protective equipment has become the oil of the contemporary moment: desperately needed by a world that is strafed by coronavirus. Britain has its own urgent PPE supply problems. But what about the broader international struggle? The answer to this question offers the clearest glimpse of how our post-pandemic global politics is likely to look.   At the top of this scramble stands China. Ahead of the curve (for obvious reasons), it imported about 2.5 billion healthcare items between 24 January

The United States has long regarded itself as better prepared for a pandemic than any other country in the world, but it assumed the disease would be flu, rather than a coronavirus. This was a failure of imagination. The Sars epidemic showed the world that coronaviruses can lead to acute and fatal respiratory diseases. The Asian countries that suffered most from Sars updated their pandemic response kits accordingly, with mass testing and patient-tracing technology. Neither Britain nor America thought to do likewise. In Britain, we’re starting to admit to flaws in our pandemic response. Donald Trump is less inclined to do so, and is instead directing his fury at China

Few words have as great a hold on the contemporary imagination as ‘disinformation.’ Few words are as ubiquitous in contemporary discourse or as pervasive in political mud-slinging. Donald Trump castigates the ‘fake news’ media for perceived bias against him; Hillary Clinton blames foreign influence operations for her election loss. Disinformation, propaganda, lies: whatever you wish to call it, it’s the bogeyman of our age, a convenient repository for all our sins. There is a reason for this. The author Shoshana Zuboff has correctly observed that information technology brought with it a revolution that reordered capitalism. Human experience – as found in data, which is how we now harness information –

History repeats itself, said Marx, first as tragedy and then as farce. And when it comes to the world’s latest pandemic, China and the coronavirus are no historical exception. ‘Mao’s Flu Strikes’, The Observer declared in November 1968. ‘200,000 people are ill with Mao’s Flu in Rome’, the paper reported, ‘and the epidemic is expected to grow in the next few weeks.’ While sixties’ Brits may have sidestepped today’s loo roll stockpiling, the ‘Mao Flu Panic’ was soon high on people’s minds. By its conclusion in 1969, Mao flu – now known historically as ‘Hong Kong flu’ – had killed around one million people worldwide, including 100,000 in the US