Category: The Economist

For much of the Western world, the two-day weekend is sacrosanct. In China, the right to rest for two days each week is not a given. Many students say goodbye to the concept when they start high school. Overtime is sometimes compulsory for white-collar workers, especially in the go-go world of tech. In 2019 Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba, an internet giant, famously defended the “996” work culture—9am to 9pm, six days a week—as “a huge blessing”. The Economist

Even before Donald Trump’s tariff turmoil, it was hard to discern a clear China strategy. With decisions depending largely on presidential whim, his foreign-policy advisers seemed to have split into warring tribes. To use a shorthand common in Washington, the “primacists” seek to re-establish America’s dominance in the world, taking on all threats; the “prioritisers” think America can handle only China and should abandon Ukraine; and the “restrainers” want to focus on only the homeland, avoiding future wars. Since April 2nd Mr Trump’s trade war has sown further confusion. But…

On april 8th Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, posted a video on X that he said showed one of two Chinese citizens captured by Ukrainian forces while fighting for Russia. China was now militarily supporting Russia, he added in a press briefing, and “the United States of America should pay attention”. The next day he posted a second video of both men, who gave their names as Zhang Renbo and Wang Guangjun, and shots of their Chinese passports. Mr Zelensky claimed Ukraine knows of more than 150 Chinese nationals fighting on Russia’s…

Some 1,200 miles south of where government officials in Beijing have been breathing retaliatory fire at American tariffs lies the coastal province of Fujian. This is where the rubber of a million running shoes will hit the road as the tariffs take effect. The Economist

Listen to this story Your browser does not support the <audio> element. China says its ties with Russia involve “back-to-back, shoulder-to-shoulder” co-operation. Yet when it comes to concerns about security for its massive exports to Europe, the People’s Republic would rather not depend on its best friend. In December work officially began on a multi-billion-dollar railway through Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan that will link China more closely to Europe, bypassing Russia (see map). The connection could become all the more important for China should President Trump’s escalating trade war squeeze its…

It was never going to be a simple transaction. But the deal hailed by Donald Trump as a way to regain American control of the Panama Canal seems to get more complicated by the week. BlackRock, an American investment firm, was scheduled to sign an agreement on April 2nd to buy 43 ports, including two in Panama, from ck Hutchison (ckh), their Hong Kong-based operator. That signing has now been postponed, even though both sides suggest the deal is still on. The Economist

Chinese netizens joined people around the world in marvelling that an American journalist could be accidentally invited into a private group chat with senior American national-security officials. But they have also been intrigued by another data leak closer to home. In March the teenage daughter of Xie Guangjun, an executive at Baidu, a tech giant, got into an apparently innocuous online argument over Korean pop music. After the exchanges escalated, she posted some of the private information of her opponents online. Known in English as doxxing, in China it is…

In Shuozhou, a nondescript city of 1.6m people in northern China’s Shanxi province, the veins of the local economy run black with coal. To the north of the city lies one of the largest open-pit mines in the country. Shuozhou’s mines churn out 200m tonnes of the black stuff every year. Lines of lorries carry it to be washed, sorted, then burned in power stations across the country. If China ditched coal in favour of cleaner sources of power, the city would be “finished”, warns Sun Zhigang, a recently retired…

This is the introduction to the War Room, a weekly, subscriber-only newsletter in which our correspondents turn their gaze on the latest developments in defence. Shashank Joshi, our defence editor, on Chinese hackers and how they operate The average attendance at football matches in England’s Premier League is about 40,000. Even Manchester City, the current champions, boasted only 53,000 or so last year. Compare that with the Wangding Cup in Shenzhen, a city in south-eastern China. The tournament attracted more than 60,000 people in 2024, according to its organisers. The cup…

On the list of professions that are currently flourishing in China, estate agents do not come high up. Houses were once easy to sell, the surest investment available. But as a result of a four-year slump in the market, millions of homes now sit unsold. Some already paid-for properties are not even getting built. New home starts fell by almost 30% in the first two months of this year, compared with a year earlier. As of February, average new home prices had fallen for 21 months in a row. The…