Aug 26th 2023

Xi’s failing model: Why he won’t fix China’s economy

The world this week

Leaders

Xi’s broken model

Why China’s economy won’t be fixed

An increasingly autocratic government is making bad decisions

Götterdämmerung

Prigozhin’s death shows that Russia is a mafia state

A healthy country uses justice to restore order. Mr Putin uses violence instead

Fair warning

El Niño has started. Preparations must too

It will bring chaotic weather to much of the world

Geopolitics

How Joe Biden is transforming America’s Asian alliances

America is working to deter China even as it defends Europe from Russia

Thailand’s new government

Thaksin Shinawatra shows his true colours

A grubby political compromise with the army has enraged Thai voters

Undisrupted

AI could fortify big business, not upend it

Upstarts face an uphill battle

Letters

On trafficking children, electric cars, liberal values, narrow banking, Warren Buffett, Saudi customs

Letters to the editor

By Invitation

China’s economy

Wei Xiong on how China can overcome its economic challenges

Zimbabwe

Miles Tendi on the depressingly business-as-usual feel to Zimbabwe’s election

Briefing

A problem child

El Niño and global warming are mixing in alarming ways

Havoc in poor countries and commodities markets is inevitable

Asia

The great mateship

Australia is becoming America’s military launchpad into Asia

Strange bedfellows

Thailand’s new Thaksinist government

Regulating sex

Japan’s porn industry comes out of the shadows

Banyan

The trials of Muhammad Yunus

China

How do you say “not interested”?

Why fewer university students are studying Mandarin

Political science

The clock is ticking on an old deal between America and China

Score one for the countryside

How an amateur football league in China took off

Chaguan

The world should study China’s crushing of Hong Kong’s freedoms

United States

Absent-minded

Post-covid, American children are still missing far too much school

Asylum-seekers

New York’s shelter system is being overwhelmed by migrants

Leprosy returns

Floridians should avoid wrestling armadillos unless necessary

In the flesh

The rise of “tranq dope” is making America’s opioid crisis worse

Throngs of praise

American megachurches are thriving by poaching flocks

Lexington

How Donald Trump won the debate he skipped

Middle East & Africa

Déjà vu

Concerns of corruption mar Zimbabwe’s chaotic election

Vox pops on Niger

West African views on Niger’s coup

The Phoenician problem

Lebanon is experiencing a tourism boom

Rehabilitating jihadists

Failing to reintegrate Iraq’s Sunni rebels could prove costly

Grapes of wrath

The challenge of making Palestinian wine

The Americas

Treasure islands

A wave of international rule-making threatens Caribbean tax havens

A win for democracy

Elections in Ecuador and Guatemala suggest an anti-incumbent surge

Europe

A plane crash outside Moscow

Yevgeny Prigozhin’s death may consolidate Putin’s power

Frustrated expectations

Ukraine’s sluggish counter-offensive is souring the public mood

Sí, se puede

In Spain’s parliament, you can now speak Basque (or Catalan or Galician)

The art of war

In Belgrade, backers of Ukraine and Russia fight with graffiti

True colours

Italy’s hard-right government is starting to look more radical

Charlemagne

Italy’s beaches are a battleground of the European economy

Britain

The low-wage economy

Britain’s failed experiment in boosting low-wage sectors

Now museum…Now you don’t

Stealing from museums is easier than you might think

Russians in Britain

How are Russians in Britain faring?

Bullies by nature

Britain has a growing problem with dangerous dogs

Lessons from the Blitz

How the Blitz changed London for the better

Bagehot

Britons are not all in it together (whatever they might think)

International

America and the Middle East

Reassessing Obama’s biggest mistake

Business

Goliath’s triumph

America’s corporate giants are getting harder to topple

Arm-twisting

Arm’s public listing is set to break records

Strike up the band

Arm’s flotation could revive the market for IPOs

Too hot to handle

How climate change will hit holidaymaking

A question of furnace

America’s steelmakers forge a future together

Bartleby

How to get the most out of mentoring

Schumpeter

Corporate America risks losing the Supreme Court

Finance & economics

Power trip

China’s economy is in desperate need of rescue

Aftershocks

What China’s economic troubles mean for the world

Energised

America’s astonishing economic growth goes up another gear

DJ, rocked

Goldman Sachs has a David Solomon problem

Perma-crisis

Argentina is pushing international lending to its breaking point

Free exchange

Which animals should a modern-day Noah put in his ark?

Science & technology

Electric cars

Superbatteries will transform the performance of EVs

Culture

A Chinese superhero

The Monkey King is one of China’s most successful cultural exports

Philosophy

A new book explains the intellectual legacy of four women

A different tour of duty

The Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra is on tour

Hillbilly elegy

How America’s right turned “Rich Men North of Richmond” into a hit

Going for gold

“Anansi’s Gold” examines one of the world’s biggest con artists

Back Story

Calls for actors’ identities to match their roles have gone too far

The Economist reads

The Great American Novel

Economic & financial indicators

Indicators

Economic data, commodities and markets

Graphic detail

Carrion call

The sudden demise of Indian vultures killed thousands of people

The Economist explains

Donald Trump and the history of the mugshot

The Economist explains

How Europe’s new digital law will change the internet

Obituary

Cleanliness, godliness