Should Nancy Pelosi have gone to Taiwan? The question might preoccupy America for months ahead of the November mid-term elections. But the truth is her visit did nothing to alter China’s stance towards Taiwan. The Speaker of the House was …
How Chinese is Taiwan?
The government in Beijing likes to portray its attitude towards Taiwan as the final resolution of its anti-colonial struggle; the end of its self-described “century of humiliation” at the hands of foreign powers. But the opposite is true. Today, as …
Chinese Zero Covid was always a lie
For the past two years, the Western media has taken that pernicious little term, “Zero Covid”, at face value. While the rest of the world saw rocketing caseloads and death rates, during a key 18-month period China reported two (yes, …
Zero Covid has radicalised Shanghai
Shanghai is finally opening up after three months of coercive detention, although China has effectively been in a state of lockdown for two years. Horror stories abound: of employees who found their office doors chained shut during the working day, …
The British weapons expert cosying up to China
His audience hung on his every word. Here was one of Britain’s foremost weapons experts chairing a prestigious, two-day conference devoted to exploring new ways of making arms more deadly. But the packed conference hall, its walls lined with oak …
Inside China’s fiction factories
“I want to influence the world with China’s intellectual property.” This is the great ambition of Tang Jia San Shao, 41, who wants to build the “Disney World of China” — a gigantic theme park inspired by his stories. But …
The myth of Chinese supremacy
When I first arrived in China in 1976, four years had passed since Nixon and Kissinger had gone to Beijing to meet Mao, kicking off what Nixon would label “the week that changed the world”. But that interval was not …
How China ghosted Hollywood
Filmmakers often end up as propagandists. Hollywood’s biggest directors went to the front lines, cinematically speaking, during the Second World War. Luminaries like Frank Capra, John Ford and John Huston made Why We Fight films to rally a war-weary nation. …