Category: The Economist

Listen to this story Your browser does not support the <audio> element. MS MAO WAS making lunch one day at her home in the eastern city of Wuxi when she got the phone call. Rather than the courier’s delivery update she was expecting, she found herself subject to an intimate interrogation by a neighbourhood official: When was your last period? Are you pregnant? Do you plan to have a baby? “It doesn’t seem like the kind of thing that could happen in the 21st century,” says the 28-year-old. Such intrusive…

ONE OF THE many legacies of Donald Trump’s first trade war with China is that pigs in the country now have a more varied diet. In response to Mr Trump’s tariffs on Chinese goods in 2018, China imposed a 25% levy on American farm products. That included soyabeans, which China uses for protein in animal feed. Much of the levy was waived in 2019, but the damage was done. When Mr Trump’s first term began, some 40% of China’s soyabean imports came from America. As he prepares for his second,…

AS DONALD TRUMP assembles his foreign-policy team, many of his picks display a common characteristic: they are strident China hawks. Those seeking a tougher approach towards America’s rival range from Mike Waltz, Mr Trump’s proposed national security adviser, to Marco Rubio, his nominee for secretary of state. Part of their job will be to grasp how relations have changed in the four years since the last Trump administration, a period in which the Chinese economy has sagged, tensions around Taiwan and in the South China Sea have grown, and the…

Listen to this story Your browser does not support the <audio> element. WHETHER A CRIME was even committed is debatable. Nevertheless, on November 19th judges in Hong Kong’s biggest-ever national-security trial sentenced 45 activists to between four and ten years in prison. Those jailed are among 47 pro-democracy figures, known as the “Hong Kong 47”, who were rounded up in 2021 for having organised a primary to choose candidates for the local legislature. Fourteen of the defendants were found guilty in May of conspiracy to commit subversion. Thirty-one had already…

It all started in June when four university friends in the city of Zhengzhou decided to cycle 50km to Kaifeng in order to eat that city’s famous soup dumplings. Their social-media posts about the journey garnered attention. Soon a trend had developed. Hordes of students began making the night-time ride between Zhengzhou and Kaifeng. At first the government encouraged the activity. “A symbol of youthful energy and the joy of shared experiences”, the official People’s Daily called it. By earlier this month, though, the number of cyclists had grown into…

THE DETAILS provided by the police are horrific. Thirty-five people were killed and dozens injured when a man drove his vehicle into a crowd in the city of Zhuhai on November 11th. A suspect was arrested, though not before he tried to kill himself with a knife, causing wounds that left him in a coma. The man, 62, was reportedly angry with how assets had been divided in his divorce. The Economist

WHICH COUNTRIES should shell out more to save the planet? That is one of the big questions being asked at COP29, the UN’s climate summit in Baku this month. A common answer is China, which Westerners accuse of contributing too little to efforts aimed at helping poor countries cope with climate change. For nearly two decades China, the world’s second-largest economy, has been the biggest emitter of carbon dioxide. The Economist

ECONOMISTS SOMETIMES say that China suffers from the three Ds: debt, deflation and poor demography. America’s presidential election added a fourth: Donald Trump, who has threatened to slap high tariffs on Chinese exports when he returns to the White House. To counter these dangers, investors had hoped China would announce a decisive fiscal rescue package after a legislative meeting on November 8th. China’s leaders, though, seem stuck in a cautious crouch. After the meeting, the finance ministry unveiled a new plan to tackle one of the Ds: debt. But it…

For Communist Party leaders, Donald Trump’s electoral success confirms their deepest prejudices about the decline of America and the decadence of its democracy. Towards the end of Mr Trump’s first term, Chinese officials privately shared their judgment that he did not know much about the world—and that all he really cared about were his own interests. They ascribed his victory in 2016 to populism, driven by inequality and the heartlessness of American society. His re-election is unlikely to shake those views. The Economist

These have been heady times for players of China’s stockmarkets. After the government began ramping up measures in late September to inject new life into a flagging economy, share prices soared, before settling back a bit as investors waited for details. Senior legislators revealed more stimulus measures on November 8th. But public anxiety about the economy’s long-term prospects may prove hard to dispel. That was true even before Donald Trump, who is threatening massive tariffs on Chinese goods, became America’s president-elect. The Economist