provoked

For China, the question is whether its playbook has instead provoked the very hard-liners it was meant to circumvent.

Last month Orcel said the stake would rise to around 30 percent by the end of the year, bringing it closer to a possible takeover, which has provoked uproar in Germany.

It has provoked serious allegations from Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson's former chief adviser, about Chinese penetration of sensitive British data - which have only been partially denied.

The reappointment provoked outrage across the political spectrum and pledges to vote it down at the first chance.

The current boom in artificial-intelligence stocks has provoked more than a bit of déjà vu for those who lived through the dot-com bubble that burst around the turn of the 21st century.