Mar 18th 2021

The brutal reality of dealing with China

The world this week

Leaders

The fallout from Hong Kong

How to deal with China

An epic global contest between autocracy and liberal values lies ahead

Coming to America

Biden’s muddle on immigration

Joe Biden needs a clearer message and a firmer hand to tackle a mounting border crisis

Another shot in the foot

How Europe’s vaccine caution can cost lives

Avoid a small risk; incur a bigger one

Civil liberties

An illiberal bill to suppress protest in Britain

The pandemic has given the government a taste for cracking down

Frontier factories

The right way for Africa to promote manufacturing

The prospects are better than previously thought

Letters

On the Sussexes, language, McKinsey, UBI, duty free, beards

Letters to the editor

Briefing

After the protests

China is not just shackling Hong Kong, it is remaking it

And it does not think global finance will object

United States

Biden’s border bind

Joe Biden faces a humanitarian crisis at the southern border

Murder in Atlanta

A gruesome shooting in Atlanta leaves Asian-Americans frightened

Software and the state

Despite high-profile failures, government tech is slowly improving

The economy v health

South Dakota’s economy defies conventional wisdom about covid-19

From megachurches to haunted houses

The waning of the black church

The United States and India

Joe Biden’s passage to India

The Americas

At loggerheads

Joe Biden and Jair Bolsonaro square off over the Amazon

Over the line

A court case rocks the president of Honduras

Bello

A constitutional convention in Chile could forge a new social contract

Asia

Blood money

Economic pressure is unlikely to force Myanmar’s junta to retreat

Inching forward

A Japanese court backs same-sex marriage

Mourning sickness

Covid-19 is sweeping through Papua New Guinea

A two-year break

India’s government puts nationalism before education in Kashmir

Chambers of secrets

Australian politics is awash with allegations of sexual abuse

Banyan

China and India take opposite approaches to a crisis in Nepal

China

The unseen

Campaigners in China struggle to improve the lot of the disabled

Middle East & Africa

Another tight one

Binyamin Netanyahu hopes to win yet another election in Israel

Bulldozed by reality

John Magufuli, Tanzania’s covid-denying president, dies aged 61

Manufacturing hope

African industry is doing better than previously thought

Cabo Delgado, cape of despair

America designates a new branch of Islamic State in Mozambique

Europe

The sleepwalker

Germany’s Christian Democrats are losing patience with their leader

Suddenly Sigrid

A Dutch election boosts both pro-EU liberals and the far right

Future impurrfect

French politics pits cats against dogs

The brave banker of Ankara

Naci Agbal tries to restore monetary discipline in Turkey

Panic womb

Russia’s liberal surrogacy rules are under threat

Charlemagne

How the British became the new Turks

Britain

White heat

Britain’s foreign and defence policy shake-up focuses on technology

Stocking up

Britain is adding nukes for the first time since the cold war

Protest

Boris Johnson wants to restrict the right to protest

Chop, chop

Cuts in Britain’s aid budget will be even harsher than expected

Uber

Uber’s workers benefit from a Supreme Court decision

Covid-19

Britain’s vaccine roll-out approaches a speed bump

The 2021 Census

Britain’s census form reveals the obsessions of different eras

Ballot boxing

Britain struggles to define who should get the vote

Bagehot

The disruptive rise of English nationalism

International

It might seem crazy

The pandemic has changed the shape of global happiness

Business

Analects and abacus

How Japan’s stakeholder capitalism is changing

Free to go

Acquittal for Eni’s CEO and others accused in an oily case

Searching for the next big thing

Baidu turns to personal transport for growth

Bartleby

The link between personality and success

2025 vision

What Leonardo Del Vecchio wants to do in his late 80s

Schumpeter

America’s drowsy telecom giants face a 5G wake-up call

Finance & economics

Over the great wall

China’s markets are shaking off their casino reputation

More is sometimes enough

America’s banks have too much cash

What’s wrong with this picture?

Non-fungible tokens are useful, innovative—and frothy

New instructions

Efforts to modernise economics teaching are gathering steam

Buttonwood

Italy is central to the bull case for euro-zone stockmarkets

Free exchange

Why two former central bankers are talking about trust

Science & technology

Intelligence gathering

Small, cheap spy satellites mean there’s no hiding place

Espionage

How to see what is hidden from view

Entomology

Honeybees run vaccination programmes, too

Mitochondria 2.0

A tiny creature illuminates an important biological advance

Books & arts

Not gonna lie

A timely diagnosis of the problem of rampant dishonesty

Going gently

The struggle for the right to choose when and how to die

No man’s land

A second novel from a bard of the refugee experience

A crack in everything

The Japanese art of repair

Economic & financial indicators

Economic data, commodities and markets

Graphic detail

Blood and soil

American bombing 50 years ago still shapes Cambodian agriculture

Obituary

Closely observed trains