Out now: The Spectator’s May 2021 edition

Featuring Daniel McCarthy, Ian Williams, Lionel Shriver, Matt Purple and many more

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It’s China’s game, and we are all pawns. In the new May 2021 edition of The Spectator, Ian Williams looks at how the Chinese government is using social media and misinformation warfare to stoke American political and racial tensions. Using troll accounts, some of them official, as well as its own social media channels, such as TikTok, Chinese propagandists can highlight divisive issues in America while distracting attention from their own country’s myriad human rights abuses. In this, the Chinese Communist party has been far more effective that Vladimir Putin’s Russia in causing disillusionment and…

It’s China’s game, and we are all pawns. In the new May 2021 edition of The Spectator, Ian Williams looks at how the Chinese government is using social media and misinformation warfare to stoke American political and racial tensions. Using troll accounts, some of them official, as well as its own social media channels, such as TikTok, Chinese propagandists can highlight divisive issues in America while distracting attention from their own country’s myriad human rights abuses. In this, the Chinese Communist party has been far more effective that Vladimir Putin’s Russia in causing disillusionment and despair in 21st century America.

Elsewhere, Lionel Shriver explains how national self-hatred went mainstream in America. Jonathan Miller explores the very American phenomenon of Le Wokisme and Matt Purple calls for a boycott of identity-politics-mad corporate America. Roger Kimball contemplates the true meaning of beauty, while Dominic Green unmasks mysterious not-so-female novelist Elena Ferrante.

Amber Athey meets with the controversial conspiracy-theorist Marjorie Taylor Greene and Leon Hadar learns that he is Hispanic. Daniel McCarthy predicts the Democratic party’s demise. He also reviews Sohrab Ahmari’s controversial new book.

Ben Sixsmith goes vegan in Poland. Philip Hensher tries out the Mayr diet from home, while Calla J. Corner makes clam chowder. Chilton Williamson, Jr. is decidedly not starstruck at celebrities-turned-politicians. All that and much much more.

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