Yuan Yi Zhu

Oxford

Assistant prof of international relations and int law; sometime political advisor; book reviewer; all views personal; priv @oxon_rambler; Zhu = last name

Articles

Potatoes, pigs and peat

3 weeks ago | thecritic.co.uk | Yuan Yi Zhu

A not-so-definitive account of Ireland’s Great Famine This article is taken from the June 2025 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Right now we’re offering five issues for just £25. There have been many famines in Irish history, but there is only one Famine, a national catastrophe which from 1845 until 1852 killed at least a million people, forced another one and a half million to leave their homeland and poisoned Anglo-Irish relations forever.
Labour and the ECHR

4 weeks ago | thecritic.co.uk | Yuan Yi Zhu

Labour’s affection for the European Convention on Human Rights is on the wane This article is taken from the June 2025 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Right now we’re offering five issues for just £25. One of Sir Keir Starmer’s first gestures when he became prime minister was to declare “We will never withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights” to the leaders of Europe assembled at Blenheim Palace.
Churchill myths and bad history are no reason to defend the ECHR

1 month ago | cityam.com | Yuan Yi Zhu

Thursday 29 May 2025 5:29 am | Updated: Wednesday 28 May 2025 12:45 pm Churchill myths and bad history are no reason to defend the ECHR Prime Minister Winston Churchill outside 10 Downing Street, gesturing his famous ‘V for Victory’ hand signal, London, June 1943.
Revisiting the British Origins of the European Convention on Human Rights - Policy Exchange

1 month ago | policyexchange.org.uk | Conor Casey |Yuan Yi Zhu

This new paper from Policy Exchange challenges the view that the European Convention on Human Rights is a “British legacy” – and that to leave the Convention would be to a “betrayal” of Sir Winston Churchill.
Starmer is simply wrong: international law does not require his Chagos surrender

1 month ago | yahoo.com | Yuan Yi Zhu

On Thursday, the British Government signed a treaty with Mauritius which, if ratified by Parliament, will grant Mauritius the sovereignty over the Chagos Islands, which have belonged to the United Kingdom since 1815. In addition, the UK undertook to pay £101m a year for the next 99 years, in addition to various payments to Mauritius, for a total bill of billions of pounds.
international law does not require his Chagos surrender

1 month ago | telegraph.co.uk | Yuan Yi Zhu
Is capitalism doomed? (I wouldn't bet on it)

1 month ago | thetimes.com | Yuan Yi Zhu
Donald Trump was Mark Carney’s greatest asset

2 months ago | spectator.com.au | Yuan Yi Zhu

This election could have been a lot worse for Canada’s Conservatives. As I write, they have taken 41.7 per cent of the popular vote, their highest share since 1988, and are on track to pick up two dozen seats. They have also managed to make inroads with young people and unionised workers – groups that are famously hard for right-wing parties to win over.
Donald Trump was Mark Carney’s greatest asset

2 months ago | spectator.co.uk | Yuan Yi Zhu

Canada’s Conservatives haven’t done too badly in this election. As I write, they have taken 41.7 per cent of the popular vote, their highest share since 1988, and are on track to pick up two dozen seats. They have also managed to make inroads with young people and unionised workers – groups that are famously hard for right-wing parties to win over. Yet the victor of the night was Mark Carney, who will have a thin but real minority to work with as prime minister of Canada.
Canada has chosen managed decline

2 months ago | thecritic.co.uk | Yuan Yi Zhu

How on Earth has the Liberal Party won again? The Liberal Party of Canada, which is set to form a minority government after securing a fourth consecutive term, is sometimes known as Canada’s “natural governing party”. The moniker has some truth to it: they were in power for roughly seventy years in the twentieth century, including a 22-year stretch from 1935 to 1957, a record that at the time was only bested, in the British world, by Rhodesia’s United Party.