Table Of ContentDECEMBER 19TH 2020–JANUARY 1ST 2021
The Arab spring, a decade on
Finance’s quantum promise
The wisdom of Scrooge
Our country of the year
Holiday double issue
An escape to Mars
The allure of pebbles
Hiking in South Korea
The legacy of
Reconstruction
Malaria’s world impact
A permafrost prophet
In praise of Erasmus
Military deception
Isolation in rural
France
Shaolin monastery
An essay on girlhood
and much more…
TOWARDS A DREAM
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COLLECTION
The Economist December 19th 2020
7
Contents continues overleaf
1
Contents
The world this year
10 A summary of political
and business events
Leaders
15 Covid-19 in 2020
The plague year
16 Targeting big tech
Credibility gap
16 Children
Getting girlhood right
17 The Arab world
Ten years after the spring
18 Country of the year
Admiration nation
Letters
22 On farming, books,
aerial combat, Latin,
Machiavelli, diversity,
Ireland, the turkey
United States
47 Georgia’s Senate races
48 New York’s covid-19 shop
48 The SolarWinds hack
49 Covid-19 in schools
50 Lexington Good
neighbours
The Americas
51 Brazil’s spending choices
52 Cuba’s currency reform
Asia
53 Expatriates quit Asia
54 Preserving Yangon
55 Banyan India’s farmers
China
75 #MeToo in court
76 A UN proxy battle
Middle East & Africa
77 The Arab spring at ten
78 Iran hangs a dissident
79 Clashes in Western Sahara
79 Nigeria’s lost boys
80 Congo’s gold-rush towns
Bagehot Dickens is not
just for Christmas, but
for life, page 90
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Holiday specials
27 End-of-year newsletters
31 Solitude in France
34 How malaria
shaped history
36 An East London siege
39 Digital humanities
42 An economics heroine
44 The allure of pebbles
56 Essay: Girlhood
62 In praise of Erasmus
65 Hiking in South Korea
67 Crossword and cheer
69 Leo Abse’s legacy
72 Travels in Zululand
101 A trip to Mars
105 The history of
home-working
107 Tales of a ceo monk
109 The legacy of
Reconstruction
113 Military deception
115 Prophet of permafrost
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8
Contents
The Economist December 19th 2020
Volume 437 Number 9225
Europe
81 The Vatican’s finances
82 EU graft
83 Balkan doctors
83 Azerbaijan’s ghost towns
86 Charlemagne Tories and
Christian Democrats
Britain
87 Negotiations with the EU
88 Brexit-related disruption
89 Heathrow expansion
89 Animal-welfare arms race
90 Bagehot Scrooge
International
91 Waste-picking in
the pandemic
Business
93 Big oil’s diverging bets
94 Streaming v cinemas
95 Bartleby Memo, minus
the faff
96 Schumpeter The parable
of Ryanair
Finance & economics
97 Quantum computing
and Wall Street
98 Frothy markets
99 The gold standard
100 Free exchange Reshoring
supply chains
Science & technology
118 The highest fidelity
119 Wheat and desert dust
120 Tape’s promising future
Books & arts
121 Poetry on the Tube
122 A history of snow
Economic & financial indicators
124 Statistics on 42 economies
Graphic detail
125 Covid-19’s share of the news
Obituary
126 John le Carré, master of the spy novel
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10
The Economist December 19th 2020
The world this year
A novel coronavirus, possibly
transmitted by animals sold at
a market in the Chinese city of
Wuhan, spread to create one of
the worst global crises since
the second world war. Covid-19
has so far caused over 73m
recorded infections and more
than1.6m recorded deaths. On
January 23rd the Chinese au-
thorities imposed a quarantine
in Wuhan, soon extending it to
the rest of Hubei province and
beyond. Variants of this “lock-
down” policy were adopted by
other countries as they strug-
gled to contain the outbreak.
Every breath you take
By late January cases were
widely reported in Germany,
Japan, Taiwan and Vietnam.
Markets were rattled, fearing
disruption to global supply
chains that run through China.
By late February the World
Health Organisation said that
most infections were occur-
ring outside China. Italy was
the first country to be hit hard.
After hospitals were over-
whelmed, the country went
into lockdown in early March.
The sudden imposition of
lockdowns led to panic buying
in some places, notably in
America and Britain, where
supermarket shelves were
stripped bare. Shopping moved
online. Internet searches
rocketed for goods such as
toilet paper, fitness equipment
and breadmakers. In poorer
countries, such as India, the
human cost was higher. Left
suddenly without work, many
migrant labourers tried to
return to their family homes; it
was the country’s greatest
movement of people since
partition in 1947. India’s econ-
omy shrank by around 25% in
April-June.
By late March China was
recording fewer domestic
cases. The lockdown in Wuhan
ended in early April. China
closed its border to foreigners
as the disease spread rapidly in
Europe, most menacingly in
Britain, France, Italy and Spain.
Don’t stand so close to me
America was hit almost as
hard by the coronavirus.
Donald Trump didn’t take it
seriously at first; he tried to lift
federal restrictions in April,
promising a return to nor-
mality by Easter. Wearing a
face mask became a badge of
political allegiance. Mr Trump
rowed with the who, accusing
it of being in China’s pocket,
and said that America would
leave it in 2021. Brazil was also
led by a sceptic. Jair Bolsonaro
said the disease was just a case
of the “sniffles”.
The extent of the market crash
in mid-March (the s&p 500 lost
a quarter of its value over three
weeks) sparked fears of a de-
pression. The Federal Reserve
and other central banks made
emergency cuts to interest
rates. The Fed also propped up
the corporate-bond market,
action it had shied away from
during the financial crisis a
decade earlier.
Oil markets took a hammer-
ing. As if the pandemic were
not enough of a problem, in
March Saudi Arabia instigated
a price war with Russia, as their
deal over production levels
broke down. Prices plunged in
the steepest one-day decline
since 1991. They eventually
recovered somewhat. By the
end of the year opec and Russia
had struck a tentative agree-
ment to increase supply.
Politicians in many countries
pulled out their fiscal bazookas
to defend their economies.
America’s Congress passed a
$2.2trn stimulus bill (the
cares act), which directed
cash payments to households
and topped up unemployment
benefits. Some 21m people lost
their jobs in April alone;
unemployment soared to
14.7%, but it never hit the 20%
that some had forecast. Britain
guaranteed 80% of wages to
workers who had been fur-
loughed, and even subsidised
restaurant meals in August.
Spirits in the material world
The pandemic was a boon for
some. Once the shock of lock-
downs faded, stockmarkets
climbed towards new records,
in part because of the soaring
share prices of tech firms.
Zoom meetings became a
feature for office employees
sent home to work remotely
(Zoom fatigue was soon a
common gripe). As online
shopping flourished, Amazon
recruited hundreds of thou-
sands of extra staff. Jeff Bezos,
Amazon’s boss, saw his wealth
increase from $111bn in March
to $185bn in December. The
combined wealth of the world’s
ten richest people grew by 57%,
to $1.14trn.
Among industries, aviation
and tourism were the biggest
losers from the pandemic.
Even with huge government
bail-outs, airlines are reckoned
to have lost $510bn in revenue,
according to their internation-
al association. The un reported
that international tourism
declined by 70% in January-
August, causing a loss of
$730bn in export revenues.
Scientists had what many
thought to be a Herculean task
developing a vaccine for co-
vid-19, but drug firms made
great strides and by the end of
the year several jabs were
ready. Britain started the first
inoculation programme using
a fully tested vaccine, followed
soon after by America. Even
with the vaccine, officials
warn, the world will be battling
the virus for another year.
The outbreak of civil war in
Ethiopia was one of 2020’s
great disappointments. Abiy
Ahmed, the prime minister
and winner of a Nobel peace
prize, launched an attack on
the Tigray region when sepa-
ratist forces attacked the army.
Chinese and Indian troops
clashed along their Himalayan
border, the first deadly en-
counter between the two sides
in decades. Fighting also
erupted between Armenia and
Azerbaijan over the long-
disputed enclave of Nagorno-
Karabakh. Their truce is shaky.
Abe Shinzo, Japan’s longest-
serving prime minister, stood
down from office because of ill
health. He was replaced by
Suga Yoshihide, who is deter-
mined that the Tokyo Olym-
pics will go ahead in July 2021.
China imposed a draconian
national-security law on Hong
Kong to crush anti-govern-
ment unrest. It came into force
just before the 23rd anniversa-
ry of the city’s handover to
China from British rule. Elec-
tions to the Legislative Council
were postponed; pro-democra-
cy candidates had been expect-
ed to do well. Opposition legis-
lators resigned en masse in
protest against the disbarring
of colleagues.
De do do do, de da da da
America’s presidential
election was a rowdy affair.
The Democratic primaries
produced a surprise when Pete
Buttigieg was declared the
winner in Iowa; a delay in the
count because of a technical
glitch raised more questions
about America’s election ma-
chinery. Joe Biden cleaned up
on Super Tuesday, and went on