It is widely acknowledged that Britain has some of the world’s finest cyber capabilities. GCHQ is a global leader in those dark arts, and its offshoot, the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), is making that expertise available to businesses and others in need of help with their digital defences. All the more shocking, then, that
Days after a nuclear power plant began spewing deadly radiation, the ruling Communist party pushed ahead with a huge and self-indulgent celebration of the sort that had become a hallmark of its rule. This was no time for bad news, and the party delayed, dithered and hid the truth about the deadly events that were
In a defiant speech to mark the Communist party’s centenary today, Xi Jinping warned foreign powers they would ‘have their heads bashed bloody against the Great Wall of Steel forged by over 1.4 billion Chinese people’ if they tried to bully China. Beijing would not allow ‘sanctimonious preaching’, he told a carefully vetted crowd in
There can have been no more avid viewers of the CCTV footage of Matt Hancock’s snog and grope than China’s cyber spies, chuckling in some dark room in Beijing and asking each other, how can it have been so easy for somebody to obtain? MI5 seems to be asking itself the same question. Three days
Footage of a brutal late March attack on a 65-year-old Asian American woman in Manhattan drew widespread outrage on social media. It also made for a productive afternoon for Zhao Lijian. From his Beijing office, the Chinese government spokesman retweeted 20 posts and shared the video 12 times on his official Twitter account. ‘We can’t
23 min listen
On this episode, author and journalist Ian Williams starts by looks at how China is using tech to expand its reach. (00:45) Then, Fiona Mountford reflects on how to deal with grief. (12:00) Finally, Deborah Ross reviews the Oscar-nominated Promising Young Woman, ‘a wonderfully clever, darkly funny, stomach-knotting’ revenge-thriller. (18:10)
37 min listen
In this week’s podcast, Katy Balls expands on her cover story, analysing Number 10’s hopes for November’s COP26 summit in Glasgow (01:10). She’s joined by Boris Johnson’s former advisor and co-author of the last Conservative election manifesto, Rachel Wolf and together, they ponder whether the much-anticipated green jamboree signposts a supercharged boost not only for
The government’s decision to water down new foreign investment rules designed to protect national security casts serious doubt about its resolve to keep China out of the most sensitive parts of the British economy. Raising the threshold above which an overseas stake must be examined from 15 per cent to 25 per cent will sharply