Drum Tower: Xi’s doomed economic plan

As attention has focused on war in Iran, Israel sees an opportunity to crush a weakened Hizbullah in Lebanon. Our correspondent says it would be far better for the Lebanese state to do so. As south-east Asia is modernising, Islam is counterintuitively gaining greater primacy in c ...  Show more

A rash entry into a war of choice exposes President Donald Trump in a number of ways—and he may prove more dangerous as he becomes weaker. Turkey’s foreign entanglements mask the democratic backsliding at home; that is bad news for an opposition figure whose trial just began. And ...  Show more

Ten years ago Xi Jinping announced the “project of the century”, China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Over the last decade, more than 150 countries have signed up to Mr Xi’s global infrastructure project.  In this first episode of a two-part look at the BRI, Alice Su, The Econ ...  Show more

Panzhihua used to be a state secret. The steel-making city, buried deep in the mountains of Sichuan, formed part of Mao Zedong’s Third Front, a covert plan to move core industries inland in case America or the Soviet Union attacked. David Rennie, The Economist’s Beijing bureau ch ...  Show more

Sign up for Economist Podcasts+ now and get 50% off your subscription with our limited time offer* China is celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The global infrastructure project is a keystone of Xi Jinping’s foreign policy and he has lauded the ...  Show more

Sino-American relations have been blown off course after the downing of a Chinese balloon.  The Economist’s Beijing bureau chief, David Rennie, and our senior China correspondent, Alice Su, explore whether China and America are heading towards a stand-off and what needs to be don ...  Show more