The pandemic has prompted governments to take a more active role in managing their economies. Politicians are giving out generous loan guarantees and subsidising wages to reduce the risk of a wave of bankruptcies and mass unemployment. The next step is taking over companies directly. After a spree of recent acquisitions — from payment systems to airlines — Italy appears ...

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 ...