The geopolitical row between the United States and China, the great schism of our times, has become personal. The man at the centre of the storm, grizzled Ren Zhengfei, was trying to soft-sell his giant tech company Huawei at the Davos talkfest the other day as if the world was experiencing little more than a mild bout of indigestion. Yet his daughter, Meng Wanzhou, is wearing an electronic tag as she fights extradition from Canada to the United States.

A Huawei employee has been arrested for spying in Poland, and across the globe countries are working out ways of preventing his company’s devices being used to snoop on smartphone users. Perhaps Ren was cheery because his other daughter, Annabel Yao, has made a social splash