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About China Blog
Jonathan is a co-founder of Trusted Sources. He has a wealth of experience as a writer and commentator on Chinese political, economic and social affairs. He was formerly editor of The South China Morning Post, The Observer and Reuters World Service as well as a senior correspondent for The Economist.
Previous posts
China Blog
What's going on in the world's second biggest economyEast Asian asymmetry grows greater
14 May 2012
The asymmetry between the strategic and economic situations in East Asia has just been heightened (subscribers see our January report Why China Will Come out On Top In East Asia).
Maritime clashes but economic links. On the one hand, Beijing is involved in a confrontation with Manila over maritime rights, the latest in a series of clashes between China and countries stretching from Japan and South Korea to the Philippines and Vietnam. The tension has made it easy for Washington to pursue its “Pacific pivot” policy of stepping up military protection for countries in the region which...
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When US politics and China’s security apparatus go head to head
4 May 2012
As it spirals out of control, the case of Chen Guangcheng, the blind Chinese lawyer who sought refuge in the US embassy in Beijing, is becoming a major test of Washington’s long-standing policy of hedging relations with the People’s Republic. The approach has been to engage with Beijing but always to retain the ability to stand up to China if things turn sour. That possibility has usually been seen in terms of economics and military strategy in East Asia but now human rights return from the shadows to demonstrate once again the complexity of the relationship between the world’s two...
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Everything crowds in on the leadership
30 Apr 2012
“Events, dear boy, events” was the (perhaps apocryphal) response of Harold Macmillan, the British Prime Minister, when asked by a journalist what was most likely to blow a government off course. China’s leaders might say much the same thing this spring.
First there was the Bo Xilai affair, which is far from over. The latest leak has Bo tapping the telephones of Hu Jintao and other leaders when they visited Chongqing while British newspapers unearth such details as his wife’s involvement in a scheme to import hot air balloons from England to China (see my last blog – Play the wife,...
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Play the wife, not the man
24 Apr 2012
Whatever the truth in the swirl of stories around Bo Xilai’s wife, ranging from poisoning in Chongqing to bottom-pinching in Bournemouth, a clear political motivation is evident. Gu Kailai is to be blamed for all transgressions of a material or human kind, be it moving large sums of money out of China or murdering the British businessman, Neil Heywood.
A political affair. Initially at least, her husband will be blamed simply for infringing Communist Party discipline (and, at any rate by inference, for not having kept his wife in order). Later he may be charged with pecuniary...
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