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Observing China is the essential newsletter to understand the UK-PRC relationship, explained in the context of global developments.

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During the past week, the United Nations (UN) has been a prominent forum for Beijing’s foreign policy, from nuclear arms control talks with Washington and Moscow, to its denial of any involvement in Russia’s war against Ukraine, on the four-year anniversary of the invasion.

But perhaps the most colourful comments of them all were made at the UN Human Rights Council by Wang Yi, Foreign Minister of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). In a thinly-veiled attack at the United States (US), Wang Yi warned against any single country assuming the role of a ‘human rights teacher’, further elaborating that these rights should not be used to ‘whitewash hegemony’ or be ‘exploited to adorn democracy’.

Tensions between the PRC and the US are now taking on additional dimensions. Human rights and tariffs have long been bones of contention, but Beijing’s nuclear arsenal is increasingly in the spotlight, as is its logistical support for other authoritarian regimes around the world.

Welcome back to Observing China.