China’s leaders recognise the importance of symbolism. Decisions such as the positioning of officials at public events, even the order in which names are read out on news bulletins, delineate relative power relationships. Those who can interpret the arcane signals of communist protocol have built careers out of it. The discipline even has a name: tea-leaf reading. In this light, ...

With pollsters predicting that Donald Trump will soon be out of the picture, global investors can finally breathe a big sigh of relief. Foreign policy could become more predictable, so they can start buying Chinese government bonds, which actually pay interest. They can also invest in the mainland, where a successful Covid-19 containment strategy has allowed businesses to resume. Money ...

Bloomberg Amazon.com’s two-day Prime Day sale kicked off on Tuesday, which is expected to give the world’s largest e-commerce company an early advantage over brick-and-mortar rivals still contending with pandemic-spooked consumers wary of battling Black Friday crowds. With Prime Day delayed to October from July this year, Amazon single-handedly could yank the pivotal holiday season forward — a long-predicted “Christmas ...