UK in China: Hard choices between rival superpowers

UK in China: Hard choices between rival superpowers

Author: Chatham House January 30, 2026 Duration: 35:32

Host Bronwen Maddox is joined by Ben Bland, head of our Asia-Pacific Programme, and Dr Yu Jie, senior research fellow on China. They discuss the opportunities and risks of closer engagement between the UK and China, and why the opacity of Chinese elite politics makes them an unpredictable security actor.

Read our latest:

EU leaders echo de Gaulle, saying Europe must depend on no-one. But where should autonomy begin?

UK ratification of the Chagos Archipelago treaty will not violate international law

The US and Russia's nuclear weapons treaty is set to expire. Here's what's at stake

Myanmar 'election' shows the military regime is here to stay. How should the world respond?

Presented by Bronwen Maddox. Produced by Stephen Farrell and Sara Seth. 

Read the Winter issue of The World Today.

Listen to The Climate Briefing podcast 🎧 

Listen to Africa Aware podcast 🎧

Subscribe to Independent Thinking wherever you find your podcasts - please listen, review, and subscribe.


Hosted by Chatham House director Bronwen Maddox, Independent Thinking brings the institute’s private deliberations into the public ear. This isn’t a rehearsed lecture series, but a direct channel into candid, high-level discussions typically held behind closed doors. Maddox guides conversations with a carefully selected mix of leading policymakers, frontline journalists, and Chatham House’s own deep bench of experts, focusing on the international political issues that are shaping headlines and rewriting global strategies. The tone is analytical yet accessible, privileging substance and nuance over soundbites. Each episode feels like a privileged seat at a crucial roundtable, where complex topics-from shifting alliances and economic sanctions to climate diplomacy and conflict-are unpacked with clarity and intellectual rigor. Listeners gain a clearer understanding of the forces driving world events, hearing diverse perspectives clash and converge in real time. For anyone looking to move beyond the superficial news cycle and engage with the substantive arguments defining our geopolitics, this podcast offers an essential and thoughtful resource. It’s where informed opinion meets the pressing questions of our moment, fostering a deeper kind of political literacy.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 50

Independent Thinking
Podcast Episodes
Is Putin losing control of his war in Ukraine? [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 33:24
Is the initiative on the Ukraine war slipping out of Russian president Vladimir Putin's hands? And how has the US-Israel war on Iran affected Moscow? The economic crisis is tightening, and Moscow and St Petersburg are in…
Is the shock of the US-Iran war helping Europe come together? [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 34:41
EU expansion, energy shocks, and uneasy alliances: will the conflict in the Gulf – and other crises – force a more unified European strategy? This week's episode comes from the Delphi Economic Forum in Greece, where host…
Iran, Pope, Economy: How many battles can Trump fight at once? [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 33:17
From Hormuz to Hungary and the Vatican to the Federal Reserve, it has been an unusually contentious week for the White House, even by the standards of President Trump's second administration. This week's podcast comes fr…
Why are UK energy costs so high? And how to bring them down [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 38:14
An earlier than usual episode of the Independent Thinking podcast, ahead of the Easter break. In a one-on-one conversation, Chatham House Director Bronwen Maddox discusses energy with Sir Dieter Helm, Professor of Econom…
Iran war: regional shock or global crisis? [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 30:15
One month on from the start of the US and Israeli war on Iran, governments worldwide are trying to assess the scale of its long-term impact on the global economy and political system. Much will depend on how long the con…
Is Iran one crisis too many for Trump? [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 36:29
The US-Israel war on Iran is straining Trump's alliances, at home and abroad. Three weeks into exactly the kind of war of choice that he spent years decrying, US President Donald Trump is not getting the amount of intern…
AI wars: Anthropic battles the Pentagon as China plans ahead [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 32:59
The US military's AI provider Anthropic is feuding with the Pentagon after the company tried to impose 'red lines' over the use of its artificial intelligence products for lethal autonomous weapons and mass surveillance…