Category: The Economist

At some point the ill-explained, weeks-long disappearance of China’s foreign minister, Qin Gang, will come to an end. Quite possibly Mr Qin—a suavely confident diplomat of the iron-fist and velvet-glove type, rocket-propelled to high office by a spell as an aide to President Xi Jinping—will quietly resume his duties, just as suddenly as he stopped work after a day of meetings on June 25th. Perhaps he will explain the undefined health issues that remain the only official reason for his absence. Still, it cannot be excluded that Mr Qin’s career…

In the maize-producing areas around the city of Chengde, in northern China, the heat arrived early this year. With it came drought, the worst in decades. The needle-shaped leaves on the region’s pine trees are turning brown. Worse, much of its maize is now stunted. The central province of Henan faces the opposite problem. There it was the rain that came early, causing floods and drowning fields. The region produces a quarter of China’s wheat. But much of it is now unfit for human consumption. Heavy rains elsewhere in China…

When the National Bureau of Statistics announced that in April workers across China toiled an average of 48.8 hours a week, the agency was ridiculed. That number includes government workers, wrote a commenter on Weibo, a Twitter-like platform. “Try counting only in private companies.” There is no need to count, wrote another, “just look at the lights of office buildings at night.” Low as it may seem to netizens, the average weekly number of hours worked is the highest it has been since the statistics bureau began including the data…

One of China’s most widely revered works of art is called “Along The River During The Qingming Festival”. The painted scroll, five metres long, portrays bustling scenes of life in Kaifeng, the imperial capital, during the Song dynasty (960-1279). Prominent among the people and activities depicted are peddlers, merchants and craftsmen working out of street stalls. But today in China—and especially in the capital, Beijing—these tiny trading posts are often frowned upon by officials. Listen to this story.Enjoy more audio and podcasts on iOS or Android. Your browser does not…

With every year, the word of China’s supreme leader, Xi Jinping, is treated more like law. His favourite slogans are printed on red banners and posted on urban streets and highway bridges. Roadside images of his face remain rare, at least outside restive regions like Tibet or Xinjiang. But his name is everywhere, used on billboards extolling his philosophy or instructing citizens to uphold his leadership. His sayings are taught in school textbooks. They are turned into marching lines of metal characters that are erected in fields. Listen to this…

It was a chilly afternoon in early February. In Yingshang, a town in the central province of Anhui, local bosses of more than 100 big private firms kept their jackets on as they took their seats behind rows of desks in a Communist Party meeting room. Three officials, flanked by red flags, sat on the dais before them to explain some new procedures. The businessmen were there to learn how to rewrite their company charters to specify a role for the party. The officials were from Yingshang’s Administration for Market…

At THE age of 29 Gavin Ye decided that she wanted to become a mother, but not a wife. She travelled to America and Russia for in vitro fertilisation (IVF) and gave birth to two daughters. Ms Ye—also known by her Chinese name, Ye Haiyang—now has more than 7.3m followers on Douyin (Chinese TikTok). She posts videos of life with her girls, interspersing occasional advertisements for her skincare company. She dresses in menswear and sports a crew cut. “The powerful aura of a man, the gentleness of a woman, the…

To turn on its head a cliché of China analysis, Communist Party leaders may soon learn that behind tempting opportunities, a potential crisis lurks. With each month that the war in Ukraine grinds on, officials in Beijing see new chances to rally and lead an anti-Western bloc formed of low- and middle-income countries. These states blame America and its allies for prolonging the conflict, which is causing energy and food prices to soar worldwide. China’s actions carry risks, for it has no interest in burning all bridges with the West.…

WHEN CHINA foisted its suffocating national-security law on Hong Kong on July 1st 2020—the 23rd anniversary of its handover from Britain—one gleeful official called it a “birthday present”. Days after this year’s anniversary came another surprise. On July 3rd Hong Kong police offered a reward of HK$1m ($128,000) for information leading to the arrest of any of eight pro-democracy activists and former lawmakers who have fled to the West. The eight are accused of various offences under the security law, including inciting secession and colluding with foreign powers. They are…

Deep under the South China Sea, below the reach of sunlight, lies treasure. Last year Chinese researchers found two rotting shipwrecks some 1,500 metres down and 20km apart. One contains thousands of porcelain cups and vases, their bright blue-and-white glazes half-covered in silt. The other holds timber. The two wrecks offer a glimpse of global trade during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), when porcelain fired in the imperial kilns of southern China was shipped to buyers as far away as Europe. The timber was probably headed in the other direction, perhaps…