From Our Own Correspondent

The Chinese government is, as ever, staying busy by devising new regulations. It's unleashed a raft of regulatory changes on everything from the limits on how much debt property developers are allowed to build up, to changes in the tax code and the breaking up of tech giants. But the Communist Party has also launched a series of rather paternalistic moves, reaching right into family homes, with measures designed to tackle perceived problems of laziness, or even what the state calls “spiritual pollution.” As Stephen McDonell reports from Beijing, it’s as if there is nowhere that the Party doesn’t know best - and no aspect of life where it’s not prepared to take charge.The French government has expressed its fury after the decision by Australia to scrap a contract to buy French submarines. Canberra chose instead to enter a nuclear security pact for the Indo-Pacific with the US and the UK. “We’ve been stabbed in the back!” is how the French foreign minister put it – and off the record you can imagine that the co