1、Bewarethe cultof XiAmerica turns against free tradeEuropes centre-left collapsePakistans long fight against terrorVenezuelas future: to be ZimbabweThe kakapos miserable sex lifeAPRIL 2ND8TH 2016OFFICIAL AIRLINE PARTNERONLY IN CINEMASBATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE and all related characters and e
2、lements Deutsche BrseSeptember 2015, bn02040 60 80 100 120CMELCH.ClearnetEurexClearingOCCICEStock exchanges The mergerbetween Deutsche Brse andthe London Stock Exchangeshould be blocked: leader,page 11. When it comes toclearing-houses, bigger maynot be better, page 63Kapapos If a bizarre,endangered
3、species of parrotis to survive, its sex life willhave to involve an awful lot ofscientists, page 68Asia45 Terror in PakistanThe battle for Punjab46 Welfare in South KoreaDoubt of the benefit47 Thai BuddhismMen-at-alms48 BanyanBurmese army manoeuvresChina49 Xi Jinpings leadershipUntrammelled powerInt
4、ernational52 Islamists in BelgiumBattle of ideas53 Islamists in FranceTalking cure54 Counter-radicalisationA disarming approachBusiness55 Artificial intelligenceMillion-dollar babies56 Solar energyBlinded by the light57 TelefnicaNot sweet enough58 Malaysia AirlinesRecovery phase58 Shareholder valueA
5、nalyse this60 SchumpeterEmerging-market tycoonsFinance and economics61 Chinas M the governmentwanted to sell the gas to Egyptand Jordan in order to boostrelations with those countries. After renegotiating a lowerprice for its bid, Foxconn, aTaiwanese contract manufac-turer which assemblesproducts fo
6、r Apple and othersin China, sealed a deal to buy amajority stake in Sharp, astruggling Japanese electronicscompany, for $3.5 billion.Sharp was an early innovatorin LCDTVs, but, as with othersin the electronics industry,demand for its mid-rangeproducts was squeezedbetween the likes ofApple andlower-c
7、ost rivals. The shine came oSunEdison, a big solar-energycompany, after one ofits sub-sidiaries warned ofa “sub-stantial risk” ofbankruptcy.With more than $11billion indebt, that would be one ofthelargest failures outside thefinancial industry in the pastdecade. The BankofEngland called forlending c
8、riteria to be beefed upfor buy-to-letmortgagesforexample by seeing how bor-rowing would cope iftheminimum interest rate is set at5.5% (around twice currentrates). The central bankisconcerned that loose lendingpractices have fuelled thebuy-to-let sector. The Britishgovernment is also trying toconstra
9、in the growing army ofpart-time landlords. Buy-to-letpurchases are already subjectto a surcharge ofthree percent-age-points above the currentsales-tax rate. From next yeartax reliefon mortgage-interestpayments will be cut and from2019 capital-gains tax will bedue within 30 days, not theend ofthe fin
10、ancial year. Janet Yellen, the chairman ofthe Federal Reserve, scotchedany expectations ofaninterest-raterise in April, andprobably June as well, whenshe urged caution in tighteningmonetary policy. She also saidshe expects the pace ofrateincreases to be “somewhatslower” than expected. Stock-markets
11、rose in response.Hotel sweetThe bidding war forStarwoodHotels, which counts theSheraton chain among itsbrands, escalated. Anbang, aChinese company that ownsthe WaldorfAstoria in NewYork, increased its oer to $14billion, around $400m morethan Marriottrecently pro-posed after it upped its ownbid. Star
12、wood is talking toAnbang again, but favoursMarriotts deal, for now. An American court sided withMetLife, an insurance firm, inits battle to remove the govern-ments classification that it issystemically important, or “toobig to fail”, and thus escape thetougher regulation that labelbrings. MetLife wa
13、s seen as avictim ofregulatory overreachby many on Wall Street. Thedecision is an embarrassmentfor the government, whichplans an appeal.Volkswagenswoes mounted,when Americas Federal TradeCommission sued it for an adcampaign that touted thegreen benefits ofits dieseltechnology. The carmakerfaces vari
14、ous investigations inAmerica and Europe for cheat-ing in emissions tests for itsdiesel vehicles. Left to its own devicesAmericasFBIsaid it had founda way to unlockthe iPhoneused by a terrorist in last De-cembers attackin San Bernar-dino, thus ending its legalbattle with Apple, which hadrefused to he
15、lp on the groundthat doing so would under-mine the iPhones securityprotocols. An Israeli forensics-software firm was reportedlyassisting the FBI. That stillleaves Apple with a problem ifthe FBIdeclines to share infor-mation about how it was ableto get around the iPhonesvaunted security features. Bus
16、inessHousing in BritainSource: Department for Communitiesand Local GovernmentBy tenure, m051015201991 95 2000 05 10 13Owner-occupiedPrivate rentalsThe Economist April 2nd 2016 9“IFOURpartycantevenhan-dle food-safety issues prop-erly, and keeps on mishandlingthem, then people will askwhether we are f
17、it to keep rulingChina.” So Xi Jinpingwarned of-ficials in 2013, a year after he be-came the countrysleader. Itwasa remarkable statement for the chief of a Communist Partythat has always claimed to have the backing of “the people”. Itsuggested thatMrXi understood howgrievancesaboutocialincompetence
18、and corruption risked boiling over. Mr Xirounded up tens ofthousands oferring ocials, waging a waron corruption of an intensity not seen since the party came topower in 1949. Many thought he was right to do so.Today, however, China is enduring its biggest public-healthscandal in years. Tens of milli
19、ons of dollars-worth of black-market, out-of-date and improperly stored vaccines have beensold to government health centres, which have in turn beenmaking money by selling them to patients.Mr Xis anti-graft war has often made little dierence to or-dinary people. Their lifeand healthis still blighted
20、 by cor-ruption. In recentdaysthere have also been signsof discontentwith MrXi amongthe elite: ocial media complaining openlyabout reporting restrictions, a prominent businessman attack-ing him on his microblog, a senior editor resigning in disgust.Mr Xi has acquired more power than any Chinese lead
21、ersince Mao Zedong. It was supposed to let him get things done.What is going wrong?Credibility gapIn fairness, Mr Xi was bound to meet with hostility. Many o-cials are angry because he has ripped up the compact bywhich they have operated and which said that they could linetheir pockets, so long as c
22、orruption was not flagrant and theydid their job well.ButMrXi hasalso found thatthe pursuitofpoweris all-con-suming: it does not leave room for much else. In three and ahalf years in charge, he has accumulated titles at an astonish-ing pace. He is not only party leader, head of state and com-mander-
23、in-chief, but is also running reform, the security ser-vices and the economy. In eect, the partys hallowed notionof“collective” leadership (see page 49) has been jettisoned. MrXi is, one analyst says, “Chairman ofEverything”. At the same time, he has flouted the partys ban on perso-nality cults, int
24、roduced in 1982 to prevent another episode ofMaoist madness. Ocial media are filled with fawning over“Uncle Xi” and his wife, Peng Liyuan, a folk-singer whom flat-tererscall “Mama Peng”. Avideo, released in March, ofa dancecalled “Uncle Xi in love with Mama Peng” has already beenviewed over 300,000
25、times. There have been rumours recent-ly that MrXi feels some ofthis has been goinga bit far. Some ofthe most toadying videos, such as “The east is red again” (com-paring Mr Xi to Mao), have been scrubbed from the internet.Many would take that as a sign that the personality cult islittle more than h
26、armless fun. Mr Xi is no Mao, whose tyranni-cal nature and love of adulation were so great that he blithelyled the country into the frenzy and violence of the CulturalRevolution. Although some older Chinese squirm at a style ofpolitics so reminiscent ofdays long past, there is no suggestionthat Chin
27、a is on the brinkofanother such horror.ButMrXi doesnotneed to be asextreme asMao for hiscon-centration of power to cause harm. He has been fighting dis-sent with even more ruthlessness than he has been wagingwar on graft. Not since the dark days after the TiananmenSquare protests in 1989 has there b
28、een such a sweeping crack-down on critics of the party. Internet censors have been busydeleting messages posted on social media by outraged citizensin response to the vaccine scandal. These have included postsreminding Mr Xi of his words in 2013 about the partys fitnessto rule. Police have also been
29、 investigating the appearance ear-ly in March ofan anonymous letteron a government-aliatedwebsite callingon MrXi to resign (raising, amongseveral trans-gressions, the personality cult and his stifling of the media).Some 20 people have been arrested. Yetthisworkisnever-end-ing. Even now citizens are
30、pushing back. With the help of theinternet, no matter how heavily it is blocked and censored,their voices keep crying out. No liberal, XiBycrackingdown and punghimselfup, MrXi isneither buy-ing himselfsecurity nor helping to keep China stable. He is us-ing the partys own thuggish investigators to ta
31、ke on graft. Butthey have a greater interest in settling political scores than inensuring laws are applied fairly. That gets in the way of goodadministration, ifonlybecause ocialsare scared of spendingmoney in case it attracts a probe. By cowing the media, Mr Xicreated a press reluctant to challenge
32、 ocials by exposing thedodgy-vaccine trade as soon as it was discovered at least a yearago. By the time such scandals eventually come to light, theypose even greaterthreats to the partys, and MrXis, credibility.Mr Xi has pledged to give market forces a “decisive role”,and put “powerin a cage” by est
33、ablishingthe rule oflaw. Butheis providing neither the country with prosperity and freedom,nor reassuring the rest of the world with stability. Abroad,anxieties about him keep growing: his muscular eorts to as-sert control in the South China Sea have been driving coun-tries across Asia closer to the
34、 American camp.Earlier in Mr Xis rule, observers had wondered whether,afterestablishinghimself, he would turn to carrying outthe re-forms that he says he wants. But hopes are fading that a big re-formist push will ever materialise. Mr Xi appears to have littletime for the politically irksome busines
35、s of making the partyfollow the law, closing down loss-making state-owned firms,or bringing about much-needed social changes, such as scrap-ping restrictions on access by rural migrants to urban publicservices. The taskofpreserving his power is a full-time job. In the past 66 years of Communist rule
36、 in China, the mosttroubled times have usually come about when tensions breakout within the elite. MrXis style ofrule is only serving to stokethem. The more Mr Xi tries to fight oenemies using scare tac-tics and brute force, the more enemies he is likely to make. 7BewarethecultofXiXi Jinping is stro
37、ngerthan his predecessors. His poweris damaging the countryLeaders10 Leaders The Economist April 2nd 2016IN 2011 Ronnie Dunn, a countrysinger, recorded “Cost ofLivin”,a poignant song about a formerfactory workers search for a job.Sensing there will be many morejobseekers than job openings, hiscan-do
38、 pitch gives way to despera-tion: “Bank has started calling/And the wolves are at my door”. Similar refrains can be heard allover Americas industrial heartland: almost 6m manufacturingjobs were lost between 1999 and 2011.The scale of these job losses is not itself surprising: Ameri-cas dynamic econo
39、my creates and destroys around 5m jobseach month. But a recent set of studies by economists at lead-ing American universities has found something disturbing. Afifth ofthat1999-2011decline in factoryjobswascaused by Chi-nese competition, and those who lost jobs generally did notfind new ones nearby (
40、see page 35). Nor did the newly unem-ployed go in search of work elsewhere. Instead there was al-most a one-for-one increase either in unemployment or, morefrequently, in people leaving the workforce entirelyoften toclaim disability benefits, which 5% of Americans aged 25-64now receive.The anxieties
41、 that such findings stoke have made trade atouchstone issue in Americas presidential election. DonaldTrump, the Republican front-runner, promises to slap prohib-itive taris on imports from China and Mexico. Bernie Sand-ers, the rival to Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democraticcandidate, wears his
42、 opposition to trade deals as a badge ofpride. Mrs Clinton has herself backed away from her previoussupport for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a trade deal ne-gotiated by Barack Obama. Freer trade was one of the enginesof the prosperous decades following the second world war, inAmerica and bey
43、ond. Yet mainstream politicians are now notonly afraid to champion it, they pour fuel on the fire. That is la-mentable. Free trade still deserves full-throated support, evenifgreater care needs to be taken ofthose it hurts.Toxic topicAdvocates of freer trade have always known that some loseout even
44、as the great majority benefit. In moving for repeal ofthe Corn Laws in 1846 (a campaign which this newspaper wasfounded to support), Sir Robert Peel acknowledged concernsabout the harm this might do to agricultural labourers. “I wishit were possible to make any change in any great system oflawwithou
45、t subjecting some persons to distress,” he said. Yet healso argued, correctly, that no one suered more from taris oncorn than the poorest farm workers.What the latest research makes clear, however, is that inAmericas case the losses from free trade are more concentrat-ed and longer-lasting than had
46、been assumed. In large part,that reflects the speed of Chinas rise: its share of world manu-facturing exports soared from 2% in 1991 to 19% by 2013. Theshockcaused by Chinas emergence also exposed fault lines inAmericas economy. Workers seem less willing to switch jobsor move states than in the past
47、. Part ofthe explanation may berising home ownership, by anchoring people to declining ar-eas orpricingthem out ofvibrant ones. Whatever the explana-tion, free trade can impose big costs on a few places. The worst possible response to such fears is the protection-ism that Mr Trump is peddling. The s
48、urge in cheap imports ofclothing, shoes, furniture, toys and electronics from China hasgreatly increased the spending power of those on low in-comes. Ithasalso added to the varietyofgoodsthey are able tobuy. One study by economists at the University of California,Los Angeles, and Columbia University
49、 calculated that medianincome earnersin America would lose 29% oftheirpurchasingpower if America was closed to trade, but that the poorestwould forfeit as much as 62%, because they spend proportion-ately more on goods that are traded. Add to the reckoning theeventual benefits of a richer Chinese market for exporters, thespur to innovation in America from global competition andthe low-cost inputs for consumer goods, such as the iPhone,that raise the productivity of American designers, and the ar-guments in favour offree trade are ov
