Aug 15th 2020

Xi’s new economy. Don’t underestimate it

The world this week

Leaders

The Chinese economic model

Xi Jinping is reinventing state capitalism. Don’t underestimate it

China’s strongman leader has a new economic agenda

Fraud in Russia’s near-abroad

Belarus’s election was a sham. The West’s response has been feeble

The biggest protests in the country’s history call for proper democracy

Kamala Harris

What Kamala says about Joe

Joe Biden’s choice of running-mate reflects well on him

Credit where it’s due

Covid-19 is causing a microcredit crunch

Lenders deserve relief, belief and a dose of red tape

Grey v growth

Boris Johnson needs to focus on boosting Britain’s economy

The prime minister needs to recover the spirit of Margaret Thatcher

Letters

On elderly care, technology, Lyndon Johnson, choral singing, journalism

Letters to the editor

Briefing

The new state capitalism

Xi Jinping is trying to remake the Chinese economy

Party control is mixed ever more intimately with market mechanisms

United States

Joe Biden’s veep pick

Why Kamala Harris was a good choice for Joe Biden

The stymied stimulus

Donald Trump’s executive orders do little for hard-hit Americans

Smash and grab

Chicago, civil unrest and inequality

Au-pair wars

America’s au-pair programme is under assault from Donald Trump and the left

All flaxen was his poll

America’s decennial census and covid-19

Lexington

The politics of patriotism

The Americas

Hand-ups, not handcuffs

How will Mexico’s president handle “El Mencho”, a kingpin on the rise?

Democracy deferred

Protests and the pandemic bring chaos to Bolivia

A shortened shelf life

Canada’s last intact ice shelf breaks up

Asia

Service economy

Cambodians are bingeing on microfinance loans

For peat’s sake

Indonesia risks repeating an environmental disaster

Anti-anti-missile systems

NIMBYs and pacifists thwart Japan’s military plans

Jungle caviar

Urban Laotians pay handsomely for ant-egg soup

Banyan

Sri Lanka is becoming a one-family state

China

The big unfriending

Donald Trump has caused panic among millions of WeChat users

In the party’s sights

Jimmy Lai’s arrest is a blow to press freedom in Hong Kong

Chaguan

Only five blind people sat China’s university entrance exam this year

Middle East & Africa

Democracy’s growing pains

In Tunisia, cradle of the Arab spring, protesters want jobs

Taking a fall

After the blast, Lebanon’s prime minister quits

Thatcherism

Nigeria’s demand for fancy wigs fuels a global trade

Old actors never die

Alassane Ouattara gambles on a third term in Ivory Coast

Courting the big man

Some Tanzanian judges are bravely ruling against the government

Europe

A despot wobbles

After rigging an election, Belarus’s regime beats protesters

Hacker alert

Why the Baltic states are reconfiguring their electric grids

The XXL Bundestag

Germany’s parliament is bursting at the seams. It may get bigger

Sleazy riders

Drugs, torture and turf war: Europe’s biker gangs turn nasty

Charlemagne

Fethullah Gulen shares blame for Turkey’s plight

Britain

The economy

Why Boris Johnson’s grey army is bad for growth

The economy

Britain’s disastrous GDP figures

Exam results

Arbitrary A-level results are normal

Immigration

Britain’s migrant invasion that wasn’t

Fighting covid-19

England’s contact-tracing system (finally) gets parochial

Farm labour

Inexperienced workers make for a difficult harvest

Government jobs

Why most top Foreign Office posts are held by women

Bagehot

What Boris could learn from de Gaulle

International

Facing the world, blindfolded

The dereliction of American diplomacy

Business

The great decoupling

The Trump administration wants a US-China commercial split

The nuclear option

How America might wield its ultimate weapon of mass disruption

Bartleby

The decline of the office romance

Trial by fire

Profits fall sharply at Saudi Aramco, the world’s biggest oil firm

Profits v purpose

How American bosses juggle profits and purpose

Superjumbo problems

What’s an A380 worth?

Schumpeter

Big Tech is the new dividend royalty

Finance & economics

Club class

A new study shows emerging economies are catching up

Not at this rate

As the lira slides, what will Turkey’s central bank do?

Hands off, Uncle Sam

Should personal financial data be sent to foreign tax authorities?

Financial alchemy

In India, gold-based finance is booming

Seeking scale

Blended finance is struggling to take off

Free exchange

Has the ECB found a way around the lower bound on interest rates?

Schools brief

Raising the floor

What harm do minimum wages do?

Science & technology

Satellite warfare

An arms race is brewing in orbit

Self-healing physics

Quantum mechanics is immune to the butterfly effect

An ancient murder-mystery

What killed the woolly rhino?

A plague of insects

Why locusts swarm

Books & arts

Decent exposure

Capturing the pandemic for posterity

Beginner’s luck

Why democracy thrives in some places and not in others

Nazi spies in America

The Führer’s man in Manhattan

Home Entertainment

Discover the riotous prose of a classic Brazilian author

Economic & financial indicators

Economic data, commodities and markets

Graphic detail

The old college try

How America’s electoral college favours white voters

Obituary

Right hand, left hand