Category: The Economist

CHINA’S FIRST tropical spaceport, Wenchang, is proof of national swagger. During the cold war, China launched rockets from the Gobi desert and other desolate inland spots, for fear of enemy attack. Once China was more confident that it could deter invaders, though, Wenchang became a fine gateway to space. This close to the equator, on the southern island of Hainan, the Earth’s rotation gives a boost to every launch. The palm-fringed coastal site allows the largest Long March rockets to be delivered by sea. Wenchang finally opened in 2016. Its…

IT IS RARE these days for America and China to co-operate on anything. During a three-day visit to Beijing and Shanghai, beginning on April 24th, America’s secretary of state, Antony Blinken, will press his hosts to stop sending weapons-related materials to Russia’s defence industries. He will be lucky to get much more than a polite smile. So it is noteworthy that the two countries have recently decided to boost mutual support in another domain: the fight against money-laundering. This month they launched a new bilateral forum to discuss the problem.…

Mr ZHANG HAS stared down death during his 90 years on Earth. He has been diagnosed with cancer twice. During his latest bout doctors gave him 18 months to live. “That was 16 years ago,” he recalls wryly. Trim, snowy-haired and energetic—the key is “no exercise” and “no smoking”, he says—the retired manager cuts a dash in a blue shirt, green trousers and black cotton slippers. Yet on this spring afternoon in the city of Hangzhou, Mr Zhang is afraid. Not of death, but of dementia. In his youth, the…

LIKE MOST blizzards, it begins with just a few white wisps swirling about. Gradually the volume increases and the stuff starts to accumulate on the ground. During the heaviest downfalls the air is so thick with it as to impair visibility. But this is no winter scene. It is what happens every April across much of northern China, when poplar trees start giving off their cotton-like seed-pods. The phenomenon has already begun in Beijing. On April 8th an eddy of fluff balls wafted around the American treasury secretary, Janet Yellen,…

AFTER 11 days in China, during which time he was granted an audience with Xi Jinping, its supreme leader, Ma Ying-jeou came back to Taiwan this month with a message. The island’s former president, posting on Facebook, wrote that Mr Xi had “extended an olive branch to us”. Mr Ma hoped that Lai Ching-te, Taiwan’s next president, would “put the people first and respond pragmatically”. Much has changed since Mr Ma left office in 2016, having pursued closer relations with China. His successor, Tsai Ing-wen, has asserted Taiwan’s status as…

AROUND THIS time each year companies visit university campuses in China looking for potential employees. This year the mood is grim. At a job fair in Wuhan a firm was looking to hire management trainees—but it wanted only elite graduates and offered just 1,000 yuan ($140) per month, claimed a post that went viral on social media. At a fair in Jilin most of the advertised positions required advanced degrees, said a soon-to-be graduate online. “Next time don’t bother inviting us.” Another griped that firms are not hiring. The recruitment…

CHINA’s COMMUNIST PARTY has a message for Muslim citizens. It holds their religious freedoms dear—with a special emphasis on the freedom not to believe. The right to be secular runs like a thread through religious regulations enacted this year in Xinjiang, the far-western region that is home to 12m Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities. The revised rules impose new controls on everything from religious teaching to mosque architecture, which should reflect Chinese style. The regulations talk of extremists warping minds and promoting terrorism. To prevent this, the rules state, no…

THERE IS LITTLE doubt which side China favours in the Gaza war. Its muted response to the October 7th attacks on Israel—in which it failed to condemn the perpetrator, Hamas—stands in sharp contrast to its denunciation of Israel’s actions since then. Just days after the war began, the Chinese foreign Minister, Wang Yi, said that Israel had already gone “beyond the scope of self-defence”. But China’s criticism belies a more complicated relationship with Israel, one that leaders in Beijing have long tried to cultivate. Israel has reciprocated, with its prime…

IF CHINA’S OLD people formed their own country, it would be the fourth most populous in the world, right behind America. This silver-haired state would be growing fast, too. China’s over-60 population sits at 297m, or 21% of the total. By 2050 those figures are expected to reach 520m and 38%. Yet demographers describe China’s future as greyer—and smaller. For while its oldest cohorts are growing, younger ones are not (see chart). China’s total population declined for the second year in a row in 2023. The country’s labour force has…

China’s propaganda chiefs are eager to show that Xi Jinping, the country’s leader, belongs to the red aristocracy. They pump out books and documentaries about his late father, Xi Zhongxun (pictured, left), who was a comrade-in-arms of Mao Zedong. Once a year, when state television shows Mr Xi delivering new year’s greetings from what purports to be his desk, his father’s picture is clearly visible on a bookshelf behind him. The message is clear: Mr Xi’s bloodline is impeccable. When Mr Xi came to power in 2012, many observers described…