Aug 19th 2023

China’s disillusioned youth

The world this week

Leaders

Economic malaise

Is Germany once again the sick man of Europe?

Its ills are different from 1999. But another stiff dose of reform is still needed

The danger of letting it rot

China’s economic malaise is causing disillusion among the young

Xi Jinping wants them to focus on the party’s goals. Many cannot see why they should

Beware the Licence Raj

India must abandon protectionism

High tariffs and licensing do not help development—they hurt it

England’s green belt

Britain should scrap its green belt

It has a stranglehold over the economy and protects the wrong bits of land

Substitution required

Why sex differences matter in football

Women are not simply men with long hair, even on the pitch

Letters

On college costs, climate change, our double issue, ice cream, dragons on flags, harsh critics

Letters to the editor

By Invitation

China’s infrastructure bank

The AIIB’s former communications chief on why he blew the whistle

American politics

Hold Donald Trump and his allies accountable at every level, say Norm Eisen and Joanna Lydgate

Briefing

Generation Stagnation

China’s defeated youth

Young Chinese have little hope for the future. Xi Jinping wants them to toughen up

Asia

Power to the people

How to fix India’s decrepit cities

Almost twins

South Korean literature is inspiring Japanese women

South-East Asian syncretism

Indonesia wants to export moderate Islam

Malaysian politics

In Malaysia, Anwar Ibrahim survives his first electoral test

Banyan

What India’s foreign-news coverage says about its worldview

China

Squid games

Keeping tabs on China’s murky maritime manoeuvres

Loaded lyrics

China tries to figure out whom a hit song is mocking

Chaguan

China’s slowing economy, seen from ground level

United States

California leavin’

The Hollywood strikes reveal Los Angeles’s deepest anxieties

Puerto RICO

Donald Trump’s racketeering indictment is the most sweeping yet

Lock, stock and pork barrel

Iowa has become a petri-dish of Republican radicalism

Paradise lost

Lessons from the blaze that levelled Lahaina

Diabolical follicles

The mullet has had a resurgence in right-wing America

Post haste

Louis DeJoy’s ambitious plans for America’s postal service

Middle East & Africa

Divided they fall

The Kurds’ dreams of independence look farther off than ever

Zeal estate

How long can property booms in Dubai and Riyadh last?

The Horn of Africa

Ethiopia risks sliding into another civil war

Scrambled skies

Herders and farmers seek reasons for east Africa’s drought

The Americas

The lion’s roar

Argentina could get its first libertarian president

Democracy in doubt

Guatemala’s elite may try to scupper the presidential election

Sub-national and sub-optimal

Latin America’s local governments too often fail their people

Europe

Germany own goals

Germany is becoming expert at defeating itself

Metre by metre

Ukraine’s counter-offensive is making progress, slowly

Not small beer

Poland’s far right could be the next government’s kingmaker

According to the conventions

How Russian prisoners of war see Putin’s invasion

The booming baguette

French bakeries are thriving in unlikely places

Charlemagne

Having shaken off nationalism, Europe risks civilisationalism

Britain

The green belt

Britain’s green belt is choking the economy

Not so black and white

Reckoning with slavery remains an elite project in Britain

Sporting girls

England’s Lionesses reach the World Cup final

Devolution

Since Brexit, Britain’s union has grown increasingly European

Treasure from the Thames

Britons are ever keener on mudlarking in the River Thames

Bagehot

What happens to comedy when British politics becomes a joke?

International

Is a bigger party a better one?

The BRICS bloc is riven with tensions

Business

Digging for digits

AI is setting off a great scramble for data

Dusting off the guns

War in Ukraine has triggered a boom in Europe’s defence industry

Two-step stop

America’s courts weigh in on how firms resolve liability claims

Bartleby

A retiring consultant’s advice on consultants

The great untangling

Can India Inc extricate itself from China?

Ready for lift-off

Flying taxis could soon be a booming business

The fast and the dubious

Is Vietnam’s EV darling heading for a crash?

Schumpeter

The battle between American workers and technology heats up

Finance & economics

How the wheels came off

The German economy: from European leader to laggard

Seeing cents

Russia will struggle to cope with a sinking rouble

Unemployed and uncounted

China’s consumers, officials and statisticians all lack confidence

Homesick

How bad could China’s property crisis get?

Buttonwood

Why investors are gambling on placid stockmarkets

Free exchange

Democracy and the price of a vote

Science & technology

Mean and green

Can computing clean up its act?

Regenerative dentistry

Scientists want to fix tooth decay with stem cells

The second shall be first

A pair of Indian and Russian probes approach the Moon

Sports science

Should women’s football have different rules from men’s?

Culture

The right stuff?

Conservatives are attacking capitalism

Travel

A new book pays affectionate tribute to the Paris Metro

Johnson

AI could make it less necessary to learn foreign languages

A mirror on our times and theirs

Mint, wax, poisonous plants: beauty tips from Renaissance Italy

Uyghur memoirs

Two accounts of surviving and escaping Chinese repression

Meet me at the bubble pit

The rise of “kidulting”

Economic & financial indicators

Indicators

Economic data, commodities and markets

Graphic detail

Red giveaway

What drives people to vote the way they do?

The Economist explains

Why are Moscow’s air defences performing so badly?

The Economist explains

Why was RICO, a mafia-targeting act, used to charge Donald Trump?

Obituary

Safety first