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

The world this week

Politics
Business
KAL’s cartoon
This week’s cover
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
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


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