Day: May 7, 2021

May 8th 2021 LEADERS OF CHINA and America share an obsession: the notion that a large enough coalition of Western democracies might have the heft to confront a rising China about its authoritarian, state-capitalist ways, and demand that it follow a new trajectory, one that does less damage to norms and universal values that have governed the rich world since 1945. Listen to this story Your browser does not support the <audio> element. Enjoy more audio and podcasts on iOS or Android. China fears a broad, American-led coalition as the…

May 8th 2021 HANNAH TANG, a company manager in Beijing, first went under the knife when she was 18. The surgeon made an incision across each of her eyelids, then stitched folds of skin back to transform her monolids into “double eyelids”. The result was eyes that look bigger, rounder, and in Ms Tang’s opinion, more beautiful. Now 35, Ms Tang (not her real name) has since had two more eyelid surgeries, as well as botox injections in her neck and monthly non-invasive “skin booster” treatments. “Pretty much everyone I…

May 8th 2021 NOT LONG before the Beijing Olympics of 2008, the Chinese government carried out a vicious crackdown on demonstrations in Tibet. Foreign media drew attention to it, and people outside China held protests. A Chinese academic popularised the idea of “three afflictions”: two that China had faced in the past (“being beaten” by foreign powers and “being starved” by poverty) and a third that it faces now: “being scolded” by the rest of the world. Later President Xi Jinping adopted the concept, arguing that China faces a “fight…