At 54, China’s average retirement age is too low

ChinaVanguard of the non-working classChina’s average retirement age is ridiculously low (54)The government’s efforts to raise it face stiff oppositionAT ABOUT 54, the average age of retirement in China is among the lowest in the world. This is a problem. Life expectancy has soared since standards were set, while the number of working adults—those whose...

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China’s average retirement age is ridiculously low (54)

ChinaVanguard of the non-working classChina’s average retirement age is ridiculously low (54)The government’s efforts to raise it face stiff oppositionAT ABOUT 54, the average age of retirement in China is among the lowest in the world. This is a problem. Life expectancy has soared since standards were set, while the number of working adults—those whose...

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China and America are borrowing each other’s weapons

Try this for sizeChina and America are borrowing each other’s weaponsThey may be less effective than they were in the original owner’s handsChinaJun 19th 2021 editionAMERICAN AND Chinese officials often talk of expanding the array of weapons they have to confront one another. China studies its opponent’s moves and responds in kind. America is learning...

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Hong Kong’s liberal media are under pressure

No news is bad newsHong Kong’s liberal media are under pressureThe Communist Party in Beijing wants to tighten controlsChinaSINCE CHINA imposed a national-security law on Hong Kong a year ago, restrictions on the city’s media have sharply escalated. The latest clampdown came on June 17th when police arrested Ryan Law (pictured), the chief editor of...

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China’s climate sincerity is being put to the test

ChaguanChina’s climate sincerity is being put to the testUntil it stops burning coal for power, foreign firms will be reluctant to invest more thereChinaTO HEAR CHINA’S Communist Party tell it, the nifty thing about autocracy is that it lets rulers plan for the long term. Apologists for one-party rule hail China’s leaders as enlightened technocrats...

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The anti-graft unit of China’s Communist Party has grown in power

Who watches the watchmen?The anti-graft unit of China’s Communist Party has grown in powerIts agents can now seize people who are not party membersChinaJun 12th 2021 editionAT MIDNIGHT ON June 1st Shi Zhaoqing, a local boss in China’s new anti-graft super-ministry, was working late on a case in the central city of Qianjiang. It was coming to a head;...

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China says it will be a “museum power” by 2035

Build big, show littleChina says it will be a “museum power” by 2035It is opening five of them a week, with the Communist Party’s needs in mindChinaJun 12th 2021 editionCHINA HAS big plans for the year 2035, if somewhat lacking in clarity. It will “basically achieve socialist modernisation” by then, whatever that means. Its army will be modernised,...

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Foreigners rush inside the Great Wall

ChaguanForeigners rush inside the Great WallGlobalisation was meant to change China. Instead, China is changing globalisationChinaJun 12th 2021 editionEARLY LAST year, as covid-19 brought China to a near-halt for several weeks, multinational corporations caught a glimpse of a different kind of globalisation: one without a dynamic Chinese economy at...

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Uyghur groups want to take China to the International Criminal Court

Prosecuting ChinaUyghur groups want to take China to the International Criminal CourtLawyers think they’ve found a way around China’s refusal to join the ICCChinaWHEN SALIH HUDAYAR visited Tajikistan in 2014, he remembers there being “thousands” of fellow Uyghurs in Dushanbe, the capital. Many of them came from the same city as him, Artush, in western...

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Hong Kongers try their best to remember Tiananmen Square

A suppressed commemorationHong Kongers try their best to remember Tiananmen SquareIn the only place in China where people had been free to mark the crushing of the protests, this year’s vigil has been bannedChinaFOR SEVEN weeks in 1989, China was convulsed by pro-democracy demonstrations that ended with the army’s killing of hundreds, if not thousands,...

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