About Me

I am Senior Editor, China and Global Affairs, at the New Statesman and the author of Dancing on Bones: History and Power in China, Russia, and North Korea (Oxford University Press, 2022), selected as one of the best books of the year by the Financial Times, Sunday Times, and BBC History magazine. I am a former fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC, and have written for publications including The Atlantic, Times Literary Supplement, Wall Street Journal, Sunday Times, and Foreign Policy.

Previously based in Moscow and Beijing as a foreign correspondent for Sky News, I write about the politics of authoritarian regimes, with a particular focus on elite politics in Russia and China and the complex relationship between the two powers.

From Beijing, I also reported extensively on North Korea, covering multiple missile and nuclear tests and traveling to Pyongyang, the DMZ, Seoul, and the China-North Korea border to document the rise of Kim Jong Un. In China, I watched Xi Jinping cast his vote to remove term limits on the presidency inside the Great Hall of the People and traveled across the country covering domestic politics, the economic slowdown, and the crackdown on civil society. In the wider region, I traveled out into the disputed waters of the South China Sea to document China’s artificial island-building (on a fishing boat), into the mountains of Myanmar to interview rebel fighters (on the back of a motorbike), and to Marawi in the southern Philippines, where our team came under fire from ISIS-linked militants.

During my time in Russia, I also traveled frequently to Ukraine, leading the channel’s coverage of the Maidan revolution in Kyiv, Russia’s annexation of Crimea, and the subsequent conflict in eastern Ukraine.

I graduated from University College London with a first class degree in English and hold a master’s degree, with distinction, in War Studies from King’s College London.

Originally from the Scottish Highlands, I like to take on foot-based endurance challenges my friends think are bonkers and have so far run marathons, ultramarathons, or triathlons in Beijing, Inner Mongolia, Mongolia, Taiwan, the DMZ, and across a frozen lake in Siberia. This turned out to be great preparation for having small children.