Category: The Economist

Listen to this story.Enjoy more audio and podcasts on iOS or Android. Your browser does not support the <audio> element. To grasp China’s approach to the international rule of law, look at the South China Sea. In recent weeks and months, large white-hulled ships belonging to China’s coastguard have been bullying small boats sent to resupply a rusting ship-cum-garrison purposely grounded by the Philippines—an American treaty ally—on a disputed coral atoll two decades ago. China claims that atoll, the Second Thomas Shoal, as its own. At the same time, fighter…

KARL MARX and Confucius may have lived 2,400 years apart, but on Chinese state television they stroll together through an ancient Chinese academy. In a sun-dappled bamboo grove, a group of student painters invite the two philosophers to be their models. As the young people paint, Marx and Confucius chat. They are impressed with China’s high-speed trains, among other things. When the portraits are revealed, the thinkers are surprised. Marx is depicted in a Tang-dynasty robe; Confucius is portrayed in a Western suit and tie. But both are delighted. “I’ve…

Chinese diplomats have had a rough ride in South Asia for most of the past four years. Relations with India took a nosedive after a deadly border clash in 2020. Debt problems, political instability and militant attacks on Chinese nationals have strained an “ironclad” friendship with Pakistan. Mass unrest toppled a China-friendly president in Sri Lanka last year after it plunged into a debt crisis linked to Chinese lending. Bangladesh also shelved several infrastructure projects tied to China’s Belt and Road Initiative. image: The Economist Lately, though, China has bounced…

Listen to this story.Enjoy more audio and podcasts on iOS or Android. Your browser does not support the <audio> element. China’s food-delivery drivers have a lot to complain about. Many work long days, earning as little as 5 yuan ($0.68) per delivery. Heavy rain and heatwaves do not stop them—in fact, demand is highest during such weather. Delivery apps promise fast turnarounds, so drivers, most of whom work for contractors, are sometimes fined for arriving late (not to mention scolded by customers). The only way to keep up, they say,…

Listen to this story.Enjoy more audio and podcasts on iOS or Android. Your browser does not support the <audio> element. The umbrellas gave them away. Even from a distance, these were unmistakably townsfolk, shielding themselves with parasols from an autumn sun that no Chinese farmer would fear. On and on they trudged: a long column of outsiders, following a country lane between rice paddies and fishponds towards the village of Jiuzi, ancestral home of Li Keqiang, China’s prime minister until his retirement earlier this year. They were mourners, turning out…

Not so long ago, the Dalai Lama’s travel schedule was packed. In the six decades after Tibet’s spiritual leader fled to India in 1959, he visited dozens of countries, meeting royalty, religious leaders and four sitting American presidents along the way. Recently, he has slowed down. One reason is his age (he is 88). Covid-19 complicated travel too, as did the penalties exacted on his hosts by China, which considers him a separatist. But while he has not been abroad since 2018, he has committed to keep travelling within India.…

Among the biggest cyber-threats to China, said the country’s spy chief, Chen Yixin, last month, is online rumour. As he put it: “A small incident can turn into a maelstrom of public opinion.” Yet the Communist Party’s penchant for secrecy keeps the rumour mill whirring. After weeks of speculation that he was in political trouble, the government announced on October 24th that the defence minister, Li Shangfu, had been dismissed. It gave no reason but, as many netizens correctly surmised, this was far from routine. General Li’s troubles coincide with…

A little more than a month before Hamas attacked Israel, China’s foreign-policy chief, Wang Yi, hailed a “wave of reconciliation” sweeping the Middle East, and gave the credit to his own country. By way of evidence, Mr Wang cited a Chinese-brokered deal, struck earlier this year, to restore diplomatic relations between the region’s great sectarian rivals, Iran and Saudi Arabia. In a call to Iran’s foreign minister on August 20th, Mr Wang explained why China’s pragmatism makes it an ideal peacemaker. To help the region achieve “good neighbourliness and friendship”,…

Two Chinese women sit on the stage of a basement comedy club in Manhattan. They wear matching blazers and speak highly formal Mandarin, just like presenters on Chinese state television. But their “news commentary” is acid. Chinese youths who have recently been making nuisance phone calls to Japan—in protest at the release of waste water from the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant—have shown “commendable spirit” insists one of the newsreaders, to a guffawing crowd. Despite having “no jobs or incomes” these nationalistic youngsters have “spent their own money on long-distance calls”.…

Chinese officials often talk of the Belt and Road Initiative, a global infrastructure building spree, in hyperbolic terms. On October 17th and 18th Xi Jinping, China’s leader, hosted a big summit in Beijing to celebrate the tenth anniversary of what the government likes to call the “project of the century”. Lately this hype has masked an awkward reality. Since 2020 China has scaled back the scheme as governments have found it harder to repay Chinese infrastructure loans. Yet in recent years one part of the project has stood out as…