James Kynge

Dark satire is a developing genre online in China. Take the recent social media posting of a People’s Daily article, the mouthpiece of China’s ruling Communist party, from the lunar new year of 1960. It told of harvests up “28.2 per cent” at a time when — as educated Chinese now know — the country was in fact sunk in a desperate famine that may have killed as many as 40mn. Aside from the chilling absurdity of a huge lie, the post’s impact rested on the fact that in 2024 — as in 1960 — the natio…

‘In a world that is the most dangerous it has been since the end of the cold war, we cannot be complacent,’ Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said at a news briefing alongside Nato secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg during a visit to Poland this week. The PM mentioned the threat from Russia but also from China and pledged to boost defence spending by £75bn over the next six years. Lucy Fisher is joined by colleagues George Parker and Jim Pickard to discuss whether this pledge will lead to deep spending…

China’s President Xi Jinping has hailed Hungary as one of Beijing’s most important strategic partners, showering accolades on maverick Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s country during a trip to Europe that analysts have said is intended to widen divisions in the EU and Nato. China and Hungary had upgraded their relationship to an “all-weather comprehensive strategic partnership for the new era”, Xi told carefully selected journalists in Orbán’s office atop the Buda Castle Hill in Budapest. “Our bi…

By upgrading China’s relationship with Hungary, Xi Jinping this week made the central European state led by maverick Prime Minister Viktor Orbán a model he hopes will be followed by others in Europe and beyond, Chinese officials have said. Visiting Budapest at the end of a five-day, three-nation tour of Europe, Xi hailed what is now officially China and Hungary’s “all-weather comprehensive strategic partnership for the new era”, a description the officials said was of much more than mere semant…

Just over 30 years since the cold war ended, commentators are struggling to describe a new era of great power competition, this time between China and the US-led west. The problem is that so much about this new era is unclear. Is the growing estrangement between the west and China being driven by America or by China itself? With so many of Europe’s leading companies deeply embedded in the Chinese market, is Europe in danger of falling hostage to Beijing’s will? How should the US counter China’s…

This is an audio transcript of the Tech Tonic podcast episode: ‘China’s race to tech supremacy — Chatbots & chips’ James Kynge In this season of Tech Tonic, we’ve been following China’s rise as a tech superpower. And if there’s one technology today that everyone thinks will be absolutely central to the future of the world, it’s artificial intelligence. [AUDIO CLIP OF JAMES ASKING THE CHATBOT IN CHINESE] OK, so I started by asking it. Hey, hello. And it replied to me, hi. Is there anything I c…

This is an audio transcript of the Tech Tonic podcast episode: ‘China’s race to tech supremacy — New frontiers’ James KyngeIn this series, we’ve talked a lot about China’s innovation in smartphones, drones, AI and electric cars. But the country’s tech industry also extends into more distant frontiers. News clipThe Chinese continue to make some spectacular gains out in outer space. James KyngeEarlier this year, China went to the dark side of the moon. News clipsThe Chinese lunar probe has suc…

Chinese call it “runxue” or “run-ology” — the study of escaping China and taking your wealth with you. The word plays on the English verb “run”, which sounds like a Chinese character “run”, meaning profitable. The “ology” hints at the fact that emigrating overseas is no easy task. Working out where to go, how to get there and then finding ways to smuggle your capital out of China can be an obscure science. The word became popular inside China in 2022, when Beijing’s draconian Covid lockdown inc…

A UK-based human rights group has launched a legal campaign to stop the online fast-fashion group Shein from securing a blockbuster listing on London’s Stock Exchange. Stop Uyghur Genocide, which alleges minority Uyghur people are being used as forced labour in Shein’s cotton supply in China’s north-western Xinjiang region, this week urged the Financial Conduct Authority, the UK financial regulator, to block Shein’s application, challenging the potential listing on legal grounds. “Any attempt…

Moore’s Law defined the chip industry. Has it run its course?