Jun 15th 2024

The rise of Chinese science: Welcome or worrying?

The world this week

Leaders

Brain gain

How worrying is the rapid rise of Chinese science?

If America wants to maintain its lead, it should focus less on keeping China down

Economic exceptionalism

America seems immune to the world economy’s problems

Elsewhere, political dysfunction and fiscal frailties are taking a toll

The Economist’s US election model

A second Trump term: from unthinkable to probable

Introducing our 2024 American election forecast model

Double or quits

Emmanuel Macron wants a snap election to get him out of a deep hole

But he’s taking a big risk

Setting sales

If a bestseller list shuns authors it dislikes, it should say so

Bestseller lists are supposed to reflect sales, not political ideology

Letters

Low birth rates, OpenAI, cricket in America, American students, Danish food, the British election

Letters to the editor

By Invitation

A moderate proposal

Why political centrists must rediscover their passion

Crypto-criminality

Digital finance is a money-launderer’s dream, argues an author

Briefing

A botched hit

America’s assassination attempt on Huawei is backfiring

The company is growing stronger—and less vulnerable

Asia

Taiwan, war and technology

The semiconductor choke-point

A new diaspora

Russian exiles are making a mark in the Caucasus and Central Asia

Modi’s new normal

How will India’s new coalition government work?

Banyan

Why caste still matters in Indian politics

China

From wolf warrior to panda-pusher

Li Qiang and China look to make up with Australia

Passing judgment

Foreign judges are fed up with Hong Kong’s political environment

A whiff of diplomacy

China is going crazy for durians

Chaguan

Why China takes young Tibetans from their families

United States

Numbers for November

Five months out, Donald Trump has a clear lead

Battleground boost

Might Wisconsin’s redrawn state-legislative districts help Biden win?

Guilty as charged

Hunter Biden’s criminal conviction is good for nobody politically

Surgical solution

Louisiana could soon start castrating child-rapists

Back to school

Thousands of American pensioners are retiring on college campuses

No promised land

Brandon Johnson, Chicago’s leftist mayor, is struggling

Lexington

Joe Biden’s best chance to shake up the race

Middle East & Africa

A bridge too far?

Hamas and Israel are still far apart over a ceasefire deal

Slender hope

Who are the main contenders to be Iran’s next president?

Deal or no deal

The president of Somaliland is bargaining for recognition

Out of Africa

The deadly journey to the Gulf

High kicks

Kung fu gives Africans their kicks

The Americas

Embrace the neighbours

Why Latin America is the world’s trade pipsqueak

Leaving behind compromise

Colombia’s leftist president is flailing

Europe

Macron’s mega-gamble

Why France’s president called a snap election

European elections

Beyond France, the European elections will deliver more of the same

Peace for Ukraine?

A peace conference over Ukraine is unlikely to silence the guns

Too thin to survive?

The tiny statelet of Transnistria is squeezed on all sides

Build back better

Politics overshadows a conference to raise money for Ukraine

Charlemagne

No wonder Macron’s gambling: Europe is home to the high-roller

Britain

Conservative collapse

What would a rout do to the Tories?

Blue rinse

Our constituency poll has awful news for Britain’s Tories

Canvey Island

The most Tory place in Britain

Testing times

Britain’s NHS reels from a ransomware attack

Lining up

What unites a Spice Girl, an opera star and champagne?

Ethnicity and politics

In search of the white British voter

Bagehot

What separates Tony Blair’s Labour from the party today?

International

Ghosts in the machines

The new front in China’s cyber campaign against America

Business

Retention is all you need

The war for AI talent is heating up

The LLM summer sale

A price war breaks out among China’s AI-model builders

The call of duties

The EU hits China’s carmakers with hefty new tariffs

Wrongs of the right

The rise of the hard right alarms German business leaders

Mumbai mood swings

What Indian business expects from Modi 3.0

Bartleby

How Gen Zs rebel against Asia’s rigid corporate culture

Schumpeter

Hey Siri! Help me get Apple out of an AI-shaped hole

Finance & economics

The caged bird sings

Donald Trump’s trade hawk is plotting behind bars

The art of the deal

Rumours of the trade deal’s death are greatly exaggerated

In the stocks

China is distorting its stockmarket by trying to prop it up

The missing million

The cracks in America’s ultra-strong labour market

Dropping anchor

China’s currency is not as influential as once imagined

Buttonwood

Has private credit’s golden age already ended?

Free exchange

Does motherhood hurt women’s pay?

Science & technology

Red moon risen

China has become a scientific superpower

Culture

Tipping the sales

Is the New York Times bestseller list politically biased?

Internet culture

Famous Birthdays wants to be the Wikipedia for Gen Z

Monster, Inc?

Is now the right time to publish a novel by Louis-Ferdinand Céline?

Keyboard warriors

How Chinese computing nerds cracked a linguistic conundrum

A peace offering

How left-wingers abandoned free trade

The Economist reads

The Economist reads

Seven memoirs help explain Europe past and present

Economic & financial indicators

Indicators

Economic data, commodities and markets

The Economist explains

The Economist explains

Ukraine has a navy that needs no sailors

Obituary

Out of the window, Earth