In 2004, an unusual crime wave swept cities around the world. Some called it the great drain robbery. Under cover of darkness, thieves were stripping manholes of their heavy iron covers, leaving streets perforated with sudden drops into sewage tunnels. …
China is ready for battle
Donald Trump boasted that world leaders were “kissing my ass” as they scrambled to negotiate tariff deals with the United States. At a fundraising dinner this week in Washington, the President taunted his purported sycophants: “Please, sir, make a deal. …
The Left can’t go back to free trade
President Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs have drawn condemnation not just from the libertarian Right, but also from many progressives. Opponents on the Left and centre-left argue that Trump’s gambit will leave Americans poorer, weaken the nation, and harm developing countries …
Why Trump keeps saving TikTok
TikTok spent 75 days living on borrowed time. ByteDance, the company that controls the platform, now has another 75 days to go before it has to comply with congressional legislation demanding that it lose its Chinese ownership or face a …
Trump will make China great again
Although the White House insists it used a sophisticated formula to calculate its ‘Liberation Day’ tariff list, and even showed us its maths, can it really be a pure coincidence that if you type “What would be an easy way …
Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ will fail
President Trump has dubbed 2 April, when his new tariffs go into effect, “Liberation Day”. While many investors, financial analysts, and consumers are in panic mode, Trump’s pitch to the industrial working class remains blunt: over the last half century, …
China isn’t afraid of Trump
When Donald Trump increased the tariffs on Chinese goods to 20% last week, China’s Foreign Ministry blasted back that it was ready for a tariff war, a trade war, or “any other kind of war”. “China will fight to the …
Trump’s tariffs won’t hurt China
While President Trump seesaws between punishing or not punishing Canada and Mexico with tariffs, he has shown no such hesitation when it comes to China. Upon returning to the Oval Office, he doubled the 10% tariff on Chinese exports to …
Trump’s reverse-Nixon manoeuvre
As the world reels from the scenes of the televised boxing match between Zelensky and Trump, with Vance egging the fight on, we are in danger of losing sight of what the encounter reveals about Trump’s priorities. Though it was …
The roots of Trump’s realpolitik
President Trump’s attempt to end the war in Ukraine has enraged liberal internationalists on both sides of the Atlantic. Dealing directly with the Kremlin and going over the heads of America’s European allies, publicly belittling Ukraine and its leader, and …
Pete Hegseth and the defence revolution
“It was just a fucking mess.” That’s how Pete Hegseth, President Trump’s new Defense Secretary, describes America’s post-9/11 wars. We are aboard his plane, flying home to Washington from Guantanamo Bay, where he had spent the day overseeing migrant-removal operations. …
China is back in business
In his glory days, Jack Ma, billionaire founder of Alibaba, was hailed as the embodiment of Chinese innovation. The young and online christened him “Daddy Ma”, and dreamed of emulating his rags-to-riches life story — from a humble English teacher …
Keir Starmer’s foolish China strategy
Last month’s release of DeepSeek’s latest AI model shattered assumptions about Silicon Valley’s technological exceptionalism. Some have even called it China’s “Sputnik moment”. But China’s rise to the frontier of AI is no accident. It is the product of decades …
Steve Bannon is ready for war
“Musk is a parasitic illegal immigrant. He wants to impose his freak experiments and play-act as God without any respect for the country’s history, values, or traditions.” Steve Bannon doesn’t hold back when I meet him in the basement of …
China’s unstoppable STEM army
Donald Trump called it a “wake-up call”; Marc Andreessen called it a “Sputnik moment”. By all accounts, the release of DeepSeek’s R1 model was a bombshell. Not only is the Chinese AI model highly intelligent, but it was supposedly far …
