Don Weinland

Millions of people are waiting for homes that may never be built

As soon as the Huawei Mate 60 Pro handset went on sale on August 29th, technologists raced to smash it open and see how it worked. The Chinese telecoms-equipment maker had somehow succeeded in creating a new 5G smartphone—something few thought it could accomplish. Huawei had been forced to give up making such devices in 2020 after American sanctions blocked it from buying advanced semiconductors or the equipment needed to make them. Sales of Huawei smartphones, which at one stage even outsold Ap…

In the span of a few days in September 2023, word spread that two businessmen working for global firms were not permitted to leave China. One of them, the head of a Chinese investment-banking division at Nomura, a Japanese bank, appeared to have been snagged in a corruption investigation. He had been hit with an “exit ban”, meaning he could travel within the country but could not leave. Days later news broke that a senior executive at Kroll, a due-diligence firm, was subject to similar condition…

The city is littered with abandoned testing sites and obsolete QR codes

The rest of the world is watching its experiment closely

The industry is a vital battleground in their geopolitical rivalry

Rotting cabbage, digital breadlines and bossy drones

By re-writing the rules, the president is resetting an entire industry. As big firms adjust, their value to investors will inevitably be lower

Regulators in Beijing have fewer ways to meddle as Chinese companies learn to decentralise global business