The Economist Magazine, 1 January 2021

22.9 MB·English

by  Umair Mirza

The Arab spring, a decade on
Finance’s quantum promise
The wisdom of Scrooge
Our country of the year
DECEMBER19TH2020–JANUARY1ST2021
Holiday double issue
An escape to Mars In praise of Erasmus
The allure of pebbles Military deception
Hiking in South Korea Isolation in rural
France
The legacy of
Reconstruction Shaolin monastery
Malaria’s world impact An essay on girlhood
A permafrost prophet and much more…
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Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power & Peace
By Hans Morgenthau
Contents The EconomistDecember19th2020 7
The world this year United States
10 Asummary of political 47 Georgia’s Senate races
and business events
48 New York’s covid-19 shop
48 The SolarWinds hack
49 Covid-19 in schools
Leaders
50 LexingtonGood
15 Covid-19 in 2020
neighbours
The plague year
16 Targeting big tech
The Americas
Credibility gap
51 Brazil’s spending choices
16 Children
Getting girlhood right 52 Cuba’s currency reform
17 The Arab world
Ten years after the spring
Holiday specials 18 Country of the year
27 End-of-year newsletters Admirationnation
31 Solitude in France
Asia
Letters
34 How malaria
53 Expatriates quit Asia
shaped history 22 On farming, books,
aerial combat, Latin, 54 Preserving Yangon
36 An East London siege
Machiavelli, diversity, 55 BanyanIndia’s farmers
39 Digital humanities
Ireland, the turkey
42 An economics heroine
44 The allure of pebbles
56 Essay: Girlhood China
62 In praise of Erasmus 75 #MeToo in court
65 Hiking in South Korea 76 AUN proxy battle
67 Crossword and cheer
69 Leo Abse’s legacy
72 Travels in Zululand
101 Atrip to Mars
Middle East & Africa
105 The history of
77 The Arab spring at ten
home-working
107 Tales of a ceomonk 78 Iran hangs a dissident
79 Clashes in Western Sahara
109 The legacy of
Reconstruction 79 Nigeria’s lost boys
113 Military deception 80 Congo’s gold-rush towns
115 Prophet of permafrost
BagehotDickens is not
just for Christmas, but
for life, page 90
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1 Contents continues overleaf
8 Contents The EconomistDecember19th2020
Europe Finance & economics
81 The Vatican’s finances 97 Quantum computing
and Wall Street
82 EU graft
83 Balkan doctors 98 Frothy markets
83 Azerbaijan’s ghost towns 99 The gold standard
86 CharlemagneTories and 100 Free exchangeReshoring
supplychains
ChristianDemocrats
Science & technology
Britain
87 Negotiations with the EU 118 The highest fidelity
88 Brexit-related disruption 119 Wheat and desert dust
89 Heathrow expansion 120 Tape’s promising future
89 Animal-welfare arms race
90 BagehotScrooge
Books & arts
International
91 Waste-picking in 121 Poetry on the Tube
the pandemic 122 Ahistory of snow
Economic & financial indicators
Business
93 Big oil’s diverging bets 124 Statisticson42economies
94 Streaming v cinemas
Graphic detail
95 Bartleby Memo, minus
125 Covid-19’sshareofthenews
the faff
96 Schumpeter The parable
Obituary
of Ryanair
126 John le Carré, master of the spy novel
Volume437 Number9225
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10 The world this year The EconomistDecember19th2020
BylateMarchChinawas thatsomehadforecast.Britain The outbreak of civil war in
recordingfewerdomestic guaranteed80%ofwagesto Ethiopiawas one of 2020’s
cases.ThelockdowninWuhan workerswhohadbeenfur- great disappointments. Abiy
endedinearlyApril.China loughed,andevensubsidised Ahmed, the prime minister
closeditsbordertoforeigners restaurantmealsinAugust. and winner of a Nobel peace
asthediseasespreadrapidlyin prize, launched an attack on
Europe,mostmenacinglyin the Tigray region when sepa-
Britain,France,ItalyandSpain. Spirits in the material world ratist forces attacked the army.
Chineseand Indiantroops
Don’t stand so close to me clashed along their Himalayan
Americawas hit almost as border, the first deadly en-
Anovelcoronavirus,possibly hard by the coronavirus. counter between the two sides
transmittedbyanimalssoldat Donald Trump didn’t take it in decades. Fighting also
amarketintheChinesecityof seriously at first; he tried to lift erupted between Armeniaand
Wuhan,spreadtocreateoneof federal restrictions in April, Azerbaijanover the long-
theworstglobalcrisessince promising a return to nor- disputed enclave of Nagorno-
thesecondworldwar.Covid-19 mality by Easter. Wearing a Karabakh. Their truce is shaky.
hassofarcausedover73m face maskbecame a badge of
recordedinfectionsandmore political allegiance. Mr Trump Abe Shinzo, Japan’slongest-
than1.6mrecordeddeaths.On rowed with the who, accusing The pandemic was a boon for serving prime minister, stood
January23rdtheChineseau- it of being in China’s pocket, some. Once the shock of lock- down from office because of ill
thoritiesimposedaquarantine and said that America would downs faded, stockmarkets health. He was replaced by
inWuhan,soonextendingitto leave it in 2021. Brazilwas also climbed towards new records, Suga Yoshihide, who is deter-
therestofHubeiprovinceand led by a sceptic. Jair Bolsonaro in part because of the soaring mined that the Tokyo Olym-
beyond.Variantsofthis“lock- said the disease was just a case share prices of tech firms. picswill go ahead in July 2021.
down”policywereadoptedby of the “sniffles”. Zoommeetings became a
othercountriesastheystrug- feature for office employees
gledtocontaintheoutbreak. The extent of the market crash sent home to work remotely
in mid-March (the s&p 500lost (Zoom fatigue was soon a
a quarter of its value over three common gripe). As online
Every breath you take weeks) sparked fears of a de- shopping flourished, Amazon
By late January cases were pression. The Federal Reserve recruited hundreds of thou-
widely reported in Germany, and other central banks made sands of extra staff. Jeff Bezos,
Japan, Taiwan and Vietnam. emergency cuts to interest Amazon’s boss, saw his wealth
Markets were rattled, fearing rates. The Fed also propped up increase from $111bn in March
disruption to global supply the corporate-bond market, to $185bn in December. The
chains that run through China. action it had shied away from combined wealth of the world’s
By late February the World during the financial crisis a ten richest people grew by 57%,
Health Organisationsaid that decade earlier. to $1.14trn. China imposed a draconian
most infections were occur- national-security law on Hong
ring outside China. Italywas Oil marketstook a hammer- Among industries, aviation Kongto crush anti-govern-
the first country to be hit hard. ing. As if the pandemic were andtourism were the biggest ment unrest. It came into force
After hospitals were over- not enough of a problem, in losers from the pandemic. just before the 23rd anniversa-
whelmed, the country went March Saudi Arabia instigated Even with huge government ry of the city’s handover to
into lockdown in early March. a price war with Russia, as their bail-outs, airlines are reckoned China from British rule. Elec-
deal over production levels to have lost $510bn in revenue, tions to the Legislative Council
The sudden imposition of broke down. Prices plunged in according to their internation- were postponed; pro-democra-
lockdownsled to panic buying the steepest one-day decline al association. The unreported cy candidates had been expect-
in some places, notably in since 1991. They eventually that international tourism ed to do well. Opposition legis-
America and Britain, where recovered somewhat. By the declined by 70% in January- lators resigned en masse in
supermarket shelves were end of the year opecand Russia August, causing a loss of protest against the disbarring
stripped bare. Shopping moved had struck a tentative agree- $730bn in export revenues. of colleagues.
online. Internet searches ment to increase supply.
rocketed for goods such as Scientists had what many
toilet paper, fitness equipment Politicians in many countries thought to be a Herculean task De do do do, de da da da
and breadmakers. In poorer pulled out their fiscal bazookas developing a vaccinefor co- America’s presidential
countries, such as India, the to defend their economies. vid-19, but drug firms made electionwas a rowdy affair.
human cost was higher. Left America’s Congress passed a great strides and by the end of The Democratic primaries
suddenly without work, many $2.2trn stimulusbill (the the year several jabs were produced a surprise when Pete
migrant labourers tried to caresact), which directed ready. Britain started the first Buttigieg was declared the
return to their family homes; it cash payments to households inoculation programme using winner in Iowa;a delay in the
was the country’s greatest and topped up unemployment a fully tested vaccine, followed count because of a technical
movement of people since benefits. Some 21m people lost soon after by America. Even glitch raised more questions
partition in 1947. India’s econ- their jobs in April alone; with the vaccine, officials about America’s election ma-
omy shrank by around 25% in unemploymentsoared to warn, the world will be battling chinery. Joe Bidencleaned up
April-June. 14.7%, but it never hit the 20% the virus for another year. on Super Tuesday, and went on