Category: The Economist

To ears accustomed to a swelling chorus of China-scepticism in the European Union, the language of Hungarian diplomats is striking. Not for them the common talk of European officials about the need to “de-risk” relations with China and to treat it as a “systemic rival”. Co-operation between Hungary and China presents “opportunities rather than risks”, said Hungary’s foreign minister, Peter Szijjarto, in Beijing on May 15th. Wang Yi, China’s foreign-affairs overlord, told him that relations between the countries had entered their “best period in history”. As China surveys the grim…

Beware of Starlink, says the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). The mega-constellation of satellites, designed to provide off-grid high-bandwidth internet access, is run by SpaceX, a private American firm. But officials in Washington are surely taking advantage of it, warns the Liberation Army Daily. When Starlink was made available to Ukraine last year, after Russia’s invasion of the country, the army’s newspaper called it an “accomplice” of the “hegemony-obsessed US”. Never mind that it was Ukraine that asked SpaceX for help. Starlink has been vital to Ukraine’s war effort. The satellite…

Six years ago, when China unveiled its grandiose plan to build a new metropolis 100km south of Beijing, it was hard to envisage the finished product. Ambitious planners promised a “first-class international city” covering 2,000 square kilometres, nearly three times the size of New York City. The “Xiongan New Area”, as it is called, would be a green, ultra-modern annexe to Beijing, easing pressure on the congested capital, where more than 21m people live. But at the time Xiongan was just a sprawling expanse of scrubby lowlands and shabby villages.…

Nine months after being secretly launched into orbit, an uncrewed Chinese spacecraft touched down at a spaceport in the Gobi desert on May 8th. Not much is known about the mission. A terse report from state media called it an “important breakthrough”. Listen to this story.Enjoy more audio and podcasts on iOS or Android. Your browser does not support the <audio> element. The Chinese spacecraft may be similar to one developed by the US air force, called the X-37B, which has spent over 900 days in space in one stretch.…

EVER SINCE British troops vanquished Qing dynasty forces in the Opium Wars of the 19th century, Chinese modernisers have dreamed of building world-class armed forces with a strong navy at their core. China’s spears and sailing ships were no match for steam-powered gunboats, wrote Li Hongzhang, a scholar-official who helped set up the country’s first modern arsenal and shipyard in Shanghai in 1865. If China systematically studied Western technology, as Russia and Japan had, it “could be self-sufficient after a hundred years”, he wrote. It took longer than Li imagined,…

For hundreds of years China could boast of having more people than any other country. The title became official in the 1950s, when the UN began compiling such data. Such a large population conferred on China certain bragging rights. A huge labour supply also helped to boost its annual GDP growth, which has averaged close to 9% over the past three decades. Last month China’s reign came to an end. India has overtaken it as the world’s most populous country. The demographic trends behind the shift have troubling implications for…

China’s struggle against spying is “extremely grim”, said a spokesman for the country’s rubber-stamp parliament late last month. The techniques used by foreign spooks, he added, were becoming ever harder to detect. To tackle this, the legislature approved a new, more sweeping, version of the country’s counter-espionage law on April 26th. Among foreigners in China, it is causing jitters. In what Chinese officials call their “smokeless war” against spies, risks to the innocent are growing. Even before the law was passed, anxieties had been rising. The arrest in March of…

The Chinese name for Lego, Legao, includes the character for happiness. And indeed, China has brought much joy to the world’s top toymaker by revenue. Brick by brick, the Danish company has built up its business in the country, which is increasingly central to the firm’s future. Last year over 60% of the new shops opened by Lego were in China. Listen to this story.Enjoy more audio and podcasts on iOS or Android. Your browser does not support the <audio> element. That brings with it unique challenges. In 2015, for…

In these tense times, a lack of loud war drums in Beijing and Washington has been a rare source of comfort. True, the drums are not quite silent. Some American generals and politicians have talked up the chances of conflict with China within a few years, which is less helpful than they may suppose. People’s Liberation Army (PLA) fighter jets keep staging recklessly close, high-speed passes to intimidate Western military aircraft in international airspace near China. The PLA refuses to discuss rules for safely managing close encounters, precisely because it…