Ian Williams

Ian Williams

Ian Williams is a former foreign correspondent for Channel 4 News and NBC, and author of Vampire State: The Rise and Fall of the Chinese Economy (Birlinn).

The mystery of China’s missing ministers

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

James Cleverly is clueless on China

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

Why is China purging its nuclear missile force?

The top commanders of China’s nuclear forces have been targeted by President Xi Jinping in his latest purge, adding an extra layer of intrigue to the unexplained disappearance of Qin Gang, the country’s foreign minister. China’s rocket force will have been of special interest to western intelligence agencies On Monday, Chinese media announced that Wang

Will Italy leave China’s ‘atrocious’ Belt and Road Initiative?

For some time now the world has being growing increasingly wary of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), but rarely has any member of the scheme launched a broadside quite like that of Italy’s defence minister, Guido Crosetto, who described his country’s decision to join as ‘improvised and atrocious’. In an interview at the weekend,

Where has Xi Jinping’s foreign minister gone?

This is the week that James Cleverly planned to be in Beijing to ‘engage, robustly and also constructively’ with China’s communist leaders. But the Foreign Secretary put his trip on hold because the man he planned to engage went missing. Since 25 June foreign minister Qin Gang has vanished without trace, leaving Cleverly twiddling his

Road rage: the great motorist rebellion has begun

38 min listen

This week: In his cover piece for the magazine Ross Clark writes about ‘the war on motorists’. He argues that the backlash against London Mayor Sadiq Khan’s expansion of Ulez is just the beginning, as motorists – and Labour MPs – prepare to revolt. He joins the podcast alongside Ben Clatworthy, transport correspondent at the Times, to

The strange disappearance of China’s foreign minister

It is strange and surreal, even by the standards of the looking-glass world of the Chinese Communist party (CCP). Foreign Minister Qin Gang has disappeared, not seen in public since 25 June and the information vacuum about his whereabouts has inevitably been filled with all manner of rumour about marital infidelity, a love child, and

Ian Williams

Tory floundering over China is a gift to Labour

Earlier this month, a Chinese spy reportedly tried to enter a private House of Commons meeting with Hong Kong dissidents. The alleged spy claimed to be a lost tourist, and there was a brief stand-off before he quickly left. The area was far from those usually visited by tourists, and some Hongkongers, fearing for their

Xi’s iron fist is hurting China’s economy

Mao Zedong had a big thing about contradictions. They were the basis of life, driving it forward, the old despot once mused. But even he might have struggled to understand today’s Communist party – which is desperately trying to drum up foreign investment while simultaneously hounding foreign companies out of the country. The latest figures

Britain’s China policy has been completely demolished

China is engaged in a ‘whole of state’ assault on the UK and the government’s approach has been ‘completely inadequate’. That is the devastating verdict of today’s long-awaited report on China by parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee. The committee accepts that Chinese influence and interference activities may be difficult to detect, but questions whether the

The secret life of China’s Banksy

The crypt of St John’s Waterloo feels serene and secure, a world away from the bustling city above. ‘I will spend the day here, because I feel safe here,’ Badiucao tells me. The dissident political cartoonist, who has been called ‘China’s Banksy’, is preparing to display his work on the crypt’s newly restored brick walls

Gag order: China’s stand-up comedy crackdown

‘The Chinese Communist party is probably the funniest thing that exists,’ the dissident artist Ai Weiwei once told me, ‘but it doesn’t have a sense of humour.’ The brave band of comics in China’s fledgling stand-up comedy scene are discovering that poking fun at the grim-faced old men who run the country with an ever-tighter

China is forcing its chatbots to be socialist

So now it’s official, Chinese chatbots will have to be ‘socialist’ and woe betide any tech company that allows its AI creation to have a mind of its own. While the communist party wants to lead the world in AI, it is terrified of anything with a mind of its own ‘Content generated by generative

Macron has made a fool of himself in China

At least there was no six metre-long table in Beijing separating Emmanuel Macron from Xi Jinping. But their meeting was about as fruitless as the French president’s socially distanced chat with Xi’s ‘best friend’ Vladimir Putin in Moscow last year, shortly before the Russian leader sent his tanks into Ukraine. Macron’s visit to China was

What would be the real cost of defending Taiwan?

It’s 2026 and China begins its invasion of Taiwan with an intense missile bombardment that in a few hours destroys most of the island’s navy and air force. The Chinese navy begins ferrying its main invasion force of tens of thousands of soldiers and equipment across the Taiwan Strait. But all is not lost. US

It’s time for a reckoning with Chinese big tech

It has been a bumpy week for China’s beleaguered technology giants. They are under increasing scrutiny overseas, and the communist party continues to tighten the screws on them at home. In many ways they are also their own worst enemies. The UK has become the latest government to ban the Chinese-owned TikTok from government devices

Ian Williams, Kara Kennedy and Oscar Edmondson

20 min listen

This week: Ian Williams asks how China will cope with the rise of AI chatbots (00:56), Kara Kennedy recounts her upbringing in the Welsh ‘murder capital’ of Pontypridd (08:11), and Oscar Edmondson makes the case for the BBC World Service (13:38).  Presented by Natasha Feroze. 

ChatCCP: how will China cope with AI?

The Chinese Communist party faces a conundrum: it wants to lead the world in artificial intelligence and yet it is terrified of anything with a mind of its own. Chinese regulators have reportedly told domestic tech companies not to offer their users ChatGPT, the Microsoft-funded chatbot that can provide seemingly well-researched answers to pretty much