Category: The Economist

Listen to this story Your browser does not support the <audio> element. MODERN CHINA is a superpower with its roots in a guerrilla army. This helps explain its self-interested responses to crises, including the turmoil now raging in the Middle East. To hear America and other long-established powers tell it, China has unique influence over that region’s worst agents of disorder, starting with Iran, and an unusual need for stability in the Middle East. China is the world’s largest importer of both oil and liquefied natural gas, buying vast quantities…

The historic city of Suzhou, about an hour’s drive from Shanghai, is criss-crossed with canals. Old whitewashed buildings line the banks. A century ago some of these would have been chaguans, or traditional teahouses, where locals gathered to discuss the news or conduct business. Today a visitor is more likely to find shops serving a different kind of beverage. There are dozens of Starbucks outlets in Suzhou, as well as other coffee sellers. Some even look like old chaguans—from the outside at least. The Economist

Just last month Sheikh Hasina travelled to Beijing, where she met China’s leader, Xi Jinping. According to some reports, the erstwhile leader of Bangladesh cut her trip short, miffed at receiving less financial support for her country than expected. But if any foreign power deserves blame for the uprising that forced Sheikh Hasina to flee Bangladesh on August 5th, it is America, suggest Chinese state media. The Global Times, a nationalist tabloid, cites experts speculating about Western involvement in the chaos. The Economist

POSTERITY HAS not been kind to Widow Luo. Bereaved as a young mother in the late Qing dynasty, her refusal to remarry earned her the emperor’s praise and a zhenjie paifang—a carved stone archway commemorating her chastity. A century and a half on, Widow Luo’s arch stands forgotten, its stonework crumbling on a backstreet in Lianglu, a sleepy village in south-west China. The Economist

China’s “reform and opening” policy began more than four decades ago in the countryside. It involved dismantling Mao Zedong’s disastrous “people’s communes” and giving farmers their own plots of land to tend. Food production soared, as did farmers’ incomes. Now some Chinese leaders want to disentangle rural property from a web of Mao-era restraints on ownership and let villagers enjoy another boom. The impact could be as far-reaching as those changes in the 1980s. But this time officials are proceeding more gingerly. The Economist

Netizens in China cannot post a comment on Weibo, a social-media service, or buy something on Pinduoduo, an e-commerce site, without first using their national ID or phone number to register with such platforms. That allows the services and, more important, the government to keep tabs on what people are doing online. It helps the authorities to combat such scourges as cyber-bullying—or to find people who criticise China’s ruler, Xi Jinping. Internet firms use the consumer data for their own financial gain. The Economist

On July 29th Lian Junjie and Yang Hao (pictured) leapt off a ten-metre-high platform, twisting and flipping in near-perfect synchronisation. Before the Olympic judges even posted their marks, Chinese fans celebrated. Then it became official: the pair had won gold, beating divers from Britain. China has won 50 gold medals in the sport of diving over the years, more than any other country. The Economist

EVERYWHERE YOU look, the world’s politicians face tough economic choices. In many countries, they must raise taxes, cut spending or put up with high interest rates to keep inflation in check and make room for investment in the future. China is different. In the world’s second-biggest economy, inflation is too low, investment is excessive and interest rates are falling. The government’s most urgent economic task is to encourage citizens to loosen their belts, not tighten them. The Economist

ONLY A FEW fire-blackened branches and tree stumps, half hidden by young green ferns, betray the horrors that visited this valley in southern China a little over two years ago. No shrine or memorial stone marks the place where 132 people on a domestic flight from Kunming to Guangzhou lost their lives. They died in the early afternoon of March 21st 2022 when their China Eastern Boeing 737 hit the ground in a near-vertical nosedive, travelling at close to the speed of sound. The Economist

SCATTERED ACROSS the ocean floor are trillions of lumps of nickel, copper, cobalt and manganese. Companies have long wanted to mine them: these “critical minerals” are needed in vast quantities to electrify the global economy and cut dependence on fossil fuels. But the International Seabed Authority (ISA), a UN body, is still figuring out how mining should be regulated. Some environmental groups want an outright ban. Supporters and critics of deep-sea mining are hashing out these issues at an ISA meeting in Jamaica between July 29th and August 2nd. Of…