Does this mean no one can challenge him? The constitution of the Chinese Communist Party defines what it means to be a party member and lists the organization's core beliefs. On October 24th a new principle was added to it: "Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era" - quite a mouthful. Xinhua, a government news agency, said the change was approved at the end of ..
Five outliers - Chesapeake Energy, Netflix, Nextera Energy, Tesla and Uber - have collectively lost $100bn in the past decade Yves Saint Laurent, Lady Gaga, David Bowie. Some people do not operate by the same rules as everyone else. Might the same be true of companies? Most bosses complain of being slaves to short-term profit targets. Yet a few flout the orthodoxy in flamboyant fashion. Consider..
Time for fresh thinking about the changing economics of geography Populism's wave has yet to crest. That is the sobering lesson of recent elections in Germany and Austria, where the success of anti-immigrant, anti-globalization parties showed that a message of hostility to elites and outsiders resonates as strongly as ever among those fed up with the status quo. It is also the lesson from Americ..
Canada's Liberal government is starting to make mistakes and suffer mishaps To oppose the government of Justin Trudeau has been no fun. Canada's prime minister has shrugged off controversies that would have hurt a less charismatic politician. Few Canadians seemed to mind when he accepted a helicopter ride from the Aga Khan to holiday on his private island in the Bahamas; most yawned when the gov..
Do not expect Mr Xi to change China, or the world, for the better American presidents have a habit of describing their Chinese counterparts in terms of awe. A fawning Richard Nixon said to Mao Zedong that the chairman's writings had "changed the world". To Jimmy Carter, Deng Xiaoping was a string of flattering adjectives: "smart, tough, intelligent, frank, courageous, personable, self-assured, f..
North Korea highlights a faultline in the world's business architecture Wars are fought with weapons, but also with money. To understand the global balance of power in the coming decades, it helps to pay attention to the commercial subplot of the North Korean crisis. For the first time, America is attempting to use its full legal and financial might to change the behavior of Chinese companies an..
Goldman Sags For the first time, the famous investment bank has more of a business than an image problem By Tradition, Goldman Sachs makes risky financial wagers and stays icy cool under pressure. A bad trade on Treasury bonds in 1986 almost killed it, but was eventually cauterized. The firm's "big short" in early 2007, when it bet that subprime securities would tumble, helped it to book profits..
To avoid calamity, ask Catalans what they really want When a democracy sends riot police to beat old ladies over the head with batons and stop them voting, something has gone badly wrong. Catalans say that almost 900 people were hurt by police in the referendum for independence on October 1st. Whatever the provocation from Catalan leaders in staging an unconstitutional poll, the reaction of Mari..
Luxembourg's "comfort letter" to Amazon was illegal, says the EU Margrethe Vestager's assault on technology firms she deems to have improperly massaged down their tax bills continued this week with a tilt at Amazon. The internet retailer faces a bill of €250m ($293m) for back taxes over what the European Union's competition commissioner considers to have been an illegal sweetheart deal with Luxe..
A massacre sends clerics in different directions Since the horrific massacre in Las Vegas, the word "evil" has been heard with unusual frequency, on the lips of political leaders as well as clerics. This evil-talk is not just a reflex response or a banal statement of the obvious. It has philosophical implications, and often places the speaker in a particular corner of the debate about guns. In t..
Next it will push them apart Murderous, thin-skinned and in possession of nuclear weapons, the North Korean, Kim Jong Un, has one good deed to his name: he has united America and China. Max Baucus, America's ambassador to Beijing until January 2017, recalls the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, privately expressing "disgust" at Mr Kim's reckless pursuit of nukes and missiles to carry them to other ..
A dynamic Emmanuel Macron and a diminished Angela Merkel point to a new order in Europe Who leads Europe? At the start of this year, the answer was obvious. Angela Merkel was trundling unstoppably towards a fourth election win, while Britain was out, Italy down and stagnating France gripped by the fear that Marine Le Pen might become the Gallic Donald Trump. This week, it all looks very differen..
But does it play fair? If Donald Trump had slapped punitive tariffs on all Chinese exports to America, as he promised, he would have started a trade war. Fortunately, the president hesitated, partly because he wants China's help in thwarting North Korea's nuclear ambitions. But that is not the end of the story. Tensions over China's industrial might now threaten the architecture of the global ec..
Rodrigo Duterte bears many similarities to Thaksin Shinawatra When Filipinos attempt to explain the political success of their tough-guy president, Rodrigo Duterte, they tend to point to local precursors. Joseph Estrada, a former matinée idol who had often played Robin Hood types, rose to the presidency by promising to be hard on bad guys and good to the poor. And then there is Ferdinand Marcos,..
The president's response to the bombing in London shows the bias at the heart of his executive order Less than a month before the Supreme Court considers the legality of his executive order barring travel from six overwhelmingly Muslim countries, Donald Trump has handed a gift to those challenging the ban. Reacting to a bombing on the London underground on September 15th, Mr Trump first condemne..