Bungling Trump has given China's regime a PR coup

For all its achievements in relieving poverty in recent decades, few are in doubt about the true nature of China’s hard-line Communist regime.

- SIMON WALTERS

Whether it is the ruthless crushing of democracy in Hong Kong, persecuting Muslim Uyghurs or threatening to invade plucky little Taiwan, it is generally – and rightly – seen as a force for bad, not good.

Certainly, the ever-lengthening tentacles of its increasingly menacing economic and diplomatic reach make it an unlikely and undeserving candidate for sympathy. In any dispute between China and a Western nation, most neutrals would be likely to side with the West. But in his relentless and reckless crusade to shake up the world order Donald Trump may be in the process of turning that on its head too.