RT @WMatthewsChina: A week on from the China audit & in the wake of various new UK govt strategies, a short thread of pieces on China polic….

Check out the latest analysis by @CHAsiaPacific's @Yu_JieC on how China is handling Donald Trump's tariffs and the broader trade and technology war with America

RT @WMatthewsChina: Without a public China audit, it's impossible to judge the merits of the UK government's China policy, as I argued in t….

Rethink the CRINK: great piece by my colleague @WMatthewsChina arguing that viewing China, Russia, Iran and North Korea as a unified axis of authoritarianism (the so-called CRINK) may be comforting for Western analysts but is inaccurate and dangerous

RT @benjaminbland: My initial take on the outcomes of the UK government's China Audit, which has been rather hard to write given that the a….

RT @jamescrabtree: Good analysis from @benjaminbland on the unfortunate non-appearance of the UK China Audit. The whole process has been a….

My initial take on the outcomes of the UK government's China Audit, which has been rather hard to write given that the audit hasn't been published. Read and subscribe to my newsletter below

UK Foreign Secretary making statement in Commons today about China Audit. But govt won't be publishing the audit, beyond what's in National Security Strategy & other recent reviews. That allows flexibility but could be a missed opportunity to shape narrative & agenda on China.

RT @Chietigj: Having had the opportunity to interact with the multi-party delegations from India and Pakistan, one thing becomes abundantly….

RT @CatherineWest1: Today is Aung San Suu Kyi's 80th birthday. She will spend today, alongside thousands of other political prisoners, in d….

It's an unnerving time for Brentford fans, as rumours swirl that Thomas Frank is going to Tottenham. But while Thomas has been brilliant, he's also thrived because of the smart, agile system around him. In management, as in politics, you need to get the people and system right.

RT @benjaminbland: Excited that we have another key Asian leader, Muhammad Yunus, chief adviser to the government of Bangladesh, coming to….

RT @benjaminbland: 🧵Not sure why UK's Strategic Defence Review was published after 5pm (maybe it needed a final spellcheck) but here are so….

Another positive is call for more strategic defence diplomacy, with MoD working with FCDO, think-tanks et al to ensure greater, sustained intl impact. It will publish a Defence Diplomacy Strategy by end 2025. They will also need to invest in these networks to make them effective.

Given resource constraints and primary focus on Euro-Atlantic, SDR suggests close cooperation with NATO's IP4 partners-Australia, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea-and Europe. This approach to burden-sharing is smart and in line with what I've been arguing for some time.

More surprising, in a good way, is suggestion Royal Navy will keep two offshore patrol vessels, HMS Tamar and HMS Spey, in the I-P. There had been rumours that they would be withdrawn. Regional partners say these two small ships are useful platforms for meaningful collaboration.

SDR backs existing initiatives like GCAP, AUKUS and the Five Power Defence Arrangements, while emphasising that Five Eyes intelligence partnership will remain key to I-P cooperation. This is pretty much in line with expectations.

Call to "maintain military-to-military channels of communication with China to deepen mutual understanding and avoid miscalculation and inadvertent escalation in the event of a crisis" suggests MoD foresees a pretty low ceiling on cooperation with Beijing.

More broadly, MoD as expected places Indo-Pacific as secondary priority alongside Middle East, after Euro-Atlantic. It says UK should push back on China's efforts to reshape regional order by "strengthening regional partners and protecting freedom of navigation".

But it is rightly cautious about the extent of China-Russia-Iran-North Korea cooperation, noting that this is transactional and "the dynamics of these relationships will be conditioned by differing interests and longstanding mistrust". This will disappoint the CRINKists.