If you’ve read Ben MacIntyre’s “The Spy and the Traitor”, you’ll know that Russia, then the Soviet Union, was recruiting both MPs and their staff left (of course), right and centre in the Cold War 60’s and 70’s. So China is (allegedly) following a well-tried model. The difference is that, back in the day, Russia was a military but hardly and economic threat; it was its economy, or lack of one, which finally brought it down. Now China makes most stuff, owns (with Russia) half of Africa’s and many other countries’ mineral rights and is the world’s second biggest economy. China sneezes and we all catch… well, enough said. In other words, we can’t afford, literally, to upset them too much and any wobbles in their finances feed through pretty quickly to the value of their investments. Noone, indeed, apart from the US, wants to upset them; and even they are treading pretty carefully these days.
“Apple versus the world”
Apple has just launched its first actual new product in quite a while, a virtual reality gizmo, and that is quite big news. What they do put out there is usually a big seller and makes still more big bucks.
