BY ROGER WATSON “I just love Chinese culture.” I hear this often from people whose encounter with Chinese culture is limited to a weekly visit to the Yangtze River Chinese restaurant in town or having watched some ‘limited hangout’ documentaries by Michael Palin or Niall Ferguson on the BBC. My inevitable response is, “which aspects of Chinese culture do you like?” and offer them a … Continue reading Cultural Cringe
BY ROGER WATSON “Welcome back to Taiwan…” “…do you still have diarrhoea?” Few, if any people arriving in the landside of customs at Chiang Kai-Shek airport near Taipei in Taiwan will have been greeted like this. The young student sent to welcome me, demonstrating typical Chinese directness and insensitivity, was referring to my previous visit when I arrived from Hong Kong following the worst bout … Continue reading Welcome Back to Taiwan
BY EFFIE DEANS Everybody including me got everything wrong about the war in Ukraine. The Germans and the French thought it wasn’t going to happen right up until the moment that it did. The British and the Americans thought that the Ukrainians would be defeated within a week or so. The fear was that the Russians would then threaten Lithuania and Poland and that NATO … Continue reading Mother Russia Calls in Vain
BY IAN MITCHELL The controversy over the statue of Cecil Rhodes in Oriel College, Oxford, suggests that the modern world is opposed to imperialism. I believe the opposite is the case. It shows that Oxford dons are at least as imperialistic as Rhodes ever was, though in a more sly and dishonest way. In fact, the most dangerous imperialism that has descended on the civilised … Continue reading The Imperialism of Anti-Imperialists
THE CITY GRUMP I am not a fan of Donald Trump. It has been evident for years now that he is immature, narcissistic and obsessed by power, which is of course why his foreign policy has been such a great success. It takes one to know one and the autocracies of China, Iran, North Korea, etc certainly met their match in him. Accordingly when the … Continue reading The Rattled West
BY BERNADETTE SPOFFORTH China’s exploitation of consumerism is a virus, but we created it. I have many experiences of business in China, over 25 years in fact, from dealing with small family factories to multibillion-dollar factories; good ones, who at least attempt to follow ethical working practices, to ones that hide child workers before inspections. They all have one thing in common – a collective … Continue reading China’s Consumerist Virus
BY PAUL NEWALL The reopening of pubs on Saturday put me in mind of a 4th of July from several years ago, when I hit the town with a guy I went to school with. I’d offered to take him out because he was what would be termed these days as an InCel (involuntary celibate). I thought I could help him with his confidence issues … Continue reading The Xi Virus
BY DANIEL KAWCZYNSKI MP As Britain prepares to step out of the European Union, our Overseas Territories will play a hugely important role in re-establishing ‘Global Britain’. Nowhere is this contribution more obvious than in the realm of defence. Last year, I joined two fellow MPs on the first-ever official parliamentary visit to the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT). On that trip, I saw first-hand … Continue reading BIOT is Key
BY TARQUIN SUTHERLAND There has been much in the news of late to perturb the deeper thinker – regardless of so-called ‘conspiracy theories’. It does not really matter what one might think of David Icke, but his recent banning from social media platforms should worry all and any that consider the notion of Freedom of Speech an inalienable right. It appears that we are staggering … Continue reading Snitchers’ Paradise
CSM EDITORIAL The gossip spreading around the internet about China since the Coronavirus outbreak hitting the West should be enough to make the Chinese Communist Party take stock. Some of the chatter associated with the virus has been nonsense – on a par with the 5G rubbish emanating from Ickeians and Gab wingnuts. Increasingly China is seen to have hatched the virus in a lab … Continue reading Zero Sum
BY EFFIE DEANS It is clear now that Covid 19 originated in Wuhan China sometime in November or early December 2019. It might have been stopped if the Chinese Government had taken the necessary steps early enough. Instead they tried to prevent Chinese doctors from telling the truth about the illness and repeatedly lied to the rest of the world about its nature, the danger … Continue reading Lies Now Costing Lives
BY FRANK HAVILAND It was once a feature of adulthood that we labelled things correctly, something even the millennials’ Bible (Harry Potter) acknowledges: ‘Always use the proper name for things. Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself’. The Wuhan Virus however, has shown how staunchly opposed to facts our societies have become. On February 11th, the World Health Organisation declared it had … Continue reading Kung Flu
The Editor of Country Squire Magazine interviews a German business colleague, Jürgen, who is stuck in his apartment in Shenzen in mainland China. While Jürgen is allowed out, he lives in fear of high-handed Chinese police officers and someone in his building getting Coronavirus. Jürgen is a made-up name – there have been police crackdowns on those in China telling the truth about the situation … Continue reading Interview from Coronavirus China
BY EFFIE DEANS I don’t think many people in Britain had heard of Wuhan or Hubei province before the present outbreak of Covid-19 (Coronavirus). The fifty largest Chinese cities each has a population greater than two million, yet few of us could name more than two or three. Chongqing, for example, was first settled in 316 BC and has a population of 30 million, but … Continue reading Little Bottle
BY QUENTIN PIGG With the Pope having signed the ‘Sino-Vatican Agreement’ (a treaty which allows the Vatican to appoint Chinese bishops) one could be forgiven for thinking that Christians in Communist China enjoy a kind of freedom only described in the pluralistic Utopian visions of ‘literal consumerists’ – sorry, communists – like the ridiculous Ash Sarkar. But as with any China counterfeit, this holy bound … Continue reading Forbidden Religiosity
BY ANASTASIA CHOO Taiwanese voters re-elected incumbent president Tsai Ing-Wen in a landslide election on Saturday 11th January which translates as a sharp rebuke to Beijing and its attempts to intimidate Taiwan into China’s fold. Tsai won over 8 million votes, or 57% of the vote share, leading her Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) to a crushing victory with a landslide in presidential and legislative elections. … Continue reading Taixit Holds Strong
BY MEI LIN CHAN The first of October 2019 will mark the 70th Anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China and Beijing is pulling out all stops for a day replete with fireworks, fanfares and a huge military parade. To ensure all goes smoothly, authorities have been ramping up security in the capital (and online) for weeks. During rehearsals for a military … Continue reading Hong Kong Dominates China’s 70th
BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN As I write this piece from Biarritz on the French Atlantic coast, the September sun is shining and waves are crashing down onto the beach in front of the Hotel de la Plage. A dozen or so surfers attempt to gain traction from the occasionally useable waves. The terrace cafe in which I am sitting is much quieter than a month ago, … Continue reading A Postcard from Biarritz
BY ANASTASIA CHOO Donald Trump’s win on 8th November, based on a campaign of fiery and blistering rhetoric often singling out China, sent shock waves around the globe. Mainstream media observed closely as world leaders raced to make that all-important phone call to congratulate the unpredictable political virgin. Some calls were fulsome and some tentatively made but none caused as much furore as the phone … Continue reading One China or Two?
BY ANASTASIA CHOO Andrea Leadsom, who helped spearhead the Brexit Campaign, announced on 18th October a Five-Year post-Brexit plan to boost the British economy by almost £3 Billion through the export of British products. What were her genius “British” products? Tea, jam and biscuits. Tea is from China and the best jam and biscuits tend to herald from France. It’s not difficult to see why … Continue reading Keep Calm, Drink Tea
