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Investigation into parliamentary aide comes as two main groups on China have descended into rivalry
Many of the debates inside the Conservative party about how western democracies should handle China are entirely common across Europe and the US, but somehow they have been conducted in a more heated and personalised way.
One reason may be the confused and slow leadership on China shown by the government, symbolised by the refusal to follow Germany in publishing a China strategy. Others blame the entrenched factionalist political culture created by Brexit, and the narcissism of small differences. But the revelations that someone under investigation for allegedly being a Chinese spy was operating at the centre of Tory debates will only make the atmosphere worse. The person in question has insisted he is completely innocent.

Rishi Sunak has said he told the Chinese premier, Li Qiang, at the G20 summit that actions aiming to undermine British democracy are unacceptable. The prime minister said he was emphatic that 'actions which seek to undermine British democracy are completely unacceptable and will never be tolerated'

Researchers say they’ve discovered 85 social media accounts and blogs originating from China and working in tandem to amplify a conspiracy theory claiming the deadly fires in Maui were caused by a ...

The shop has over 400 stores and 2,000 Robo Shops, which work like vending machines, and a network of distributors in 84 countries and regions.

China is clearly using its trading supremacy to ignore accepted norms – but the UK has some leverage
Today’s claim that a Chinese spy in his 20s cruising the Westminster drinks circuit might pose a threat to the British state is absurd. MPs always overstate their role in foreign affairs. Boris Johnson, back in 2017 when he was foreign secretary, might have felt a macho thrill from sending an aircraft carrier – where it could be sunk in an hour – but Britain’s defences are no more vulnerable to Chinese attack than China’s are to Britain. It is all defence lobby hyperventilation.
Linking British interests to those of the outside world is a paranoid legacy of empire. The corridors of the Foreign Office are hung with pictures of the glory days when foreign secretaries would lay down the law of acceptable behaviour to lesser regimes abroad. The UK’s relationship toward China is no different. In the run-up to the Beijing Olympics in 2008, visiting British ministers were told to “raise human rights issues” in any meeting with their opposite numbers – as James Cleverly was tasked to do . This they duly did, with a certain embarrassment. The response was always a dignified Chinese nod and smile. A Chinese acquaintance told me they felt sorry for the British for having to be rude their hosts. The calibration of any nation’s response to events beyond its shores has to walk a fine line between promoting universal human rights and pointless grandstanding. The repression of dissenters and treatment of minorities in Tibet and Xinjiang should be condemned, but there are limitations on what western powers can do.
Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist

"So what if we could find a congruence setting in one of these nightclubs, where Madama Butterfly isn't a 15-year-old geisha, but instead, she's an American jazz singer?" Lighting designer Jeanette ...

Boston Lyric Opera's "Madama Butterfly" moves the time and setting from the original 1904 Imperial Japan, to 1940s San Francisco Chinatown.

Boston Lyric Opera's "Madama Butterfly" moves the time and setting from the original 1904 Imperial Japan, to 1940s San Francisco Chinatown.

Visiting Hanoi, the president cemented a new strategic partnership that puts the memories of the past behind them and focuses on mutual concerns over Beijing’s assertiveness in the region.

The man, who was arrested in March in Edinburgh, has said he is ‘completely innocent’
Westminster is in uproar after the revelation that a parliamentary researcher in contact with a series of senior Conservative MPs has been arrested for allegedly spying for China. Here is what we know – and don’t know – so far.