Gray Sergeant is an Associate Fellow in Chinese Geopolitics at the Council on Geostrategy, Chair of Hong Kong Watch, and a long-suffering Labour party campaigner based in South Essex
Since Keir Starmer took office, Britain’s approach to Taiwan seems to have changed little from that of the previous Tory government – but is that really the case? Beneath the surface, there are worrying signs that Starmer’s government wants to dodge discussing the potential flashpoint of Taiwan’s sovereignty, lest it disrupt their attempt to reset relations
Zhang Biao, Beijing’s man in Scotland, warned earlier this month that a proposed friendship agreement between Edinburgh City Council and Taiwan’s southern city of Kaohsiung would ‘hurt the feeling[s] of the Chinese people’. The people of China, from Shenzhen to Harbin – all 1.4 billion of them – can sleep easy tonight: the proposal has been pulled
When two Chinese fisherman died last month trying to flee Taiwan’s coastguard, Beijing laid the blame at Taipei’s feet and demanded an apology. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) also spied an opportunity to advance its territorial claims. China has been targeting Kinmen, an island controlled by Taiwan, more aggressively over the past few weeks. The CCP stated that ‘there is no
Why should we care that Beijing has suspended tariff relief for 12 Taiwanese petrochemical products? The move certainly lacks the fear factor which Chinese military manoeuvres around Taiwan generate – exercises which have become more routine and grander in scale during 2023. Yet China’s economic warfare against Taiwan is just as pernicious. It is also premeditated, with moves
For more than 20 years the West ignored China’s militarisation of the South China Sea. Until, that is, it was too late. Now, after being artificially expanded and built out with sand, the islands of this crucial maritime space are dotted with Chinese missile systems and runways. The region’s smaller nations, who also lay claim to
Imagine for a moment that Cuba picked the next Pope. That is the scenario which Lobsang Sangay, the then-Sikyong (the Tibetan government-in-exile’s head of state), asked the world to consider several years ago in light of growing concerns that the Chinese Communist party (CCP) would seek to select the next Dalai Lama. Now such a
Now that we’ve finally heard Boris Johnson’s ‘roadmap’ out of lockdown, a key question remains: when will we see a return to politics as normal? It might not be the most pressing concern for most people, but for Keir Starmer and his supporters, it matters. Only when this happens can Labour start making some serious assaults on
Was China involved in the coup in Myanmar? It seems unlikely, but that does not mean Beijing is blameless. As satisfying as it might be to point the finger at an omnipotent and scheming superpower, the reality is rather more complicated. After all, for all the shenanigans associated with China’s wolf-warrior diplomacy, Beijing is not as reckless
