meeting with her. But the Trump administration seems to have given higher- level access to Lu Shiow-yen, the KMT mayor of Taichung city, when she visited in March. Ms Lu, another potential KMT presidential candidate, pushed for a bigger special defence budget. So did Han Kuo-yu, the KMT parliamentary speaker, who is due to visit America on June 21st and could also run for president. As for Mr Trump’s suggestion that he is using arms sales to Taiwan as leverage in negotiations with China, Ms Cheng says the island should not be a bargaining chip. But whatever he decides, she thinks Taiwan still has the strength to negotiate with China on an “equal footing”. Whether Mr Xi sees it that way is another question. ■ For exclusive coverage of Asian politics, economics and security, sign up to Asia Bulletin, our weekly subscriber-only newsletter. This article was downloaded by zlibrary from https://www.economist.com//asia/2026/06/18/taiwans-opposition-leader-faced-a-tough- crowd-in-america
The problem with Narendra Modi’s airport- building frenzy Build it and they will come. But how will they leave? June 18th 2026 AS MARKETING SLOGANS go, “the difference 4,399 days can make” is unlikely to win many Cannes Lions. Nor is #LongestServingElectedPMModi the sort of hashtag that will set social media on fire. But the actual achievement highlighted alongside the fluff in an X post by India’s official publicity department is genuinely impressive. When Narendra Modi became prime minister 12 years ago, the country had just 74 operational airports. Today, his government boasts, that number is 164. It is planning to open another 50 in the next five years. The newest one started operations on June 15th. Designed to be a second hub for the capital, Delhi, Noida International Airport can handle up to 12m
passengers a year, with plans to expand to 70m by 2040, or as many as passed through Singapore’s Changi last year. It actually sits in neighbouring Uttar Pradesh, a vast state with as many people as Nigeria and the income per head of Mali. Over the course of his prime ministership Mr Modi has inaugurated ten new airports or terminals in that state alone, including six on a single day in early 2024. The fact that elections followed within a month was no doubt just one of those strange cosmic coincidences. A year later many of the new facilities were in terminal decline. Airports in places that most Indians could not find on a map either never saw a single flight or hosted a handful and then faded away. It was always an act of extreme optimism to think Saharanpur, an overgrown town of mostly poor people, could support an airport. Mr Modi’s critics seized on the failures as evidence of the government’s obsession with vote-winning optics over governing substance. The criticism is misguided. Not all airports are created equal. Many of those that failed were no-frills sheds designed to handle only one or two flights a day. Saharanpur’s annual capacity is just over 50,000 passengers. It cost $5.7m to build—about the price of a luxury flat in Mumbai. And the government paired the infrastructure with a subsidy scheme for airlines to deepen connectivity into India’s interior. The policy, now in its fifth iteration, has produced many flops but has delivered some marquee successes, too. The airports were not built in isolation. At least not metaphorically. Literally, though, it is exactly what India does. Delhi’s new airport is 80km from the city centre—a 90-minute car ride on a good day. On the morning it opened, there was no way to get there except by private vehicle or an expensive cab ride. A government press release promised “a multimodal transport hub with seamless integration across road, rail, metro and regional transit systems”. It fantasises that Delhi’s “two airports will function as an integrated aviation system”. In reality there are two modes at the new airport: you can drive, or you can walk. The city’s two hubs are integrated in the way that North and South Korea are integrated. It is unfair to pick on Noida. Mumbai’s second airport, which opened at Christmas, was similarly hyped. Passengers complain that they have to wait up to an hour to get a taxi—the only way in and out. And even that is a
challenge. For months after the terminal opened there was no phone reception with which to summon an Uber, and the airport Wi-Fi was buggy. Build it and they will come, the government believes. But how will they leave? Noida and Mumbai can at least argue infancy. But the airports serving Bangalore and Hyderabad are 18 years old. Neither has a metro line. Another excuse is bad co-ordination between states and the centre. That should not apply to Noida; Mr Modi’s party has been in power in Uttar Pradesh since 2017. It is true that building rail connections is expensive. Yet few airports even have public buses. And high capital costs have not stopped the government from commissioning metro lines in provincial outposts across the country, many of which have a small fraction of their planned ridership. Like airports, metros signal modernity. Governments plonk down vast amounts of cash to fund them and politicians line up to inaugurate them. Many are world-class, giving citizens a glimpse of India as it could be. But just like airports, what happens before and after a commuter gets to the station is neglected. There are rarely feeder bus routes, decent pavements or connecting services, discouraging people from using them. Mr Modi has spent 4,399 days building the airports and metro lines India badly needs. Connecting them would be an even greater achievement. ■ Subscribers to The Economist can sign up to our Opinion newsletter, which brings together the best of our leaders, columns, guest essays and reader correspondence. This article was downloaded by zlibrary from https://www.economist.com//asia/2026/06/14/the-problem-with-narendra-modis-airport- building-frenzy
The Californication of middle-class Chinese diets How China still outworks the West News extortion is rife in China Comfort meets constraint in China’s most “liveable” city
The Californication of middle-class Chinese diets China wants more healthy, clean and even foreign food June 18th 2026 DAI JIANJUN, an organic restaurateur in the eastern city of Hangzhou, was ahead of his time. For more than 20 years his buyers have obsessively sourced ingredients, paying farmers in Zhejiang province above-market rates not to use chemical fertilisers or pesticides. The trouble paid off: his Dragon Well Manor restaurant has a Michelin star. His grandmother believed that the first rich generation buys homes, the second knows how to dress and the third knows how to eat. As China’s almost 500m-strong middle class—with at least $15,000 in annual disposable income—grows richer and larger, its members are changing what they put into their shopping baskets. They want to eat more healthily, safely and simply. China’s food system is trying to keep up with
their developing tastes. Farms are producing more proteins and fruit familiar in Western countries, grocers are selling more organic produce and restaurants are compiling healthier menus. The composition of Chinese plates is changing (see chart). Though pork is king, fish and seafood together are the second most popular proteins. In fact, middle-class diets appear to be turning more Californian. Salmon, blueberries and avocados are among foods growing in popularity. Throughout their history Chinese often worried whether they could get enough staples, such as rice and noodles, to eat. In a nation of farmers, agriculture still employs one in five workers. It is no mean feat to feed 17% of the world’s population with 9% of its arable land. Accordingly, China relies on vast imports of agricultural products and the government wants to boost self-sufficiency. Most Chinese enjoy plenty of good fare. In less than four decades, the country has gone from rationing food to reining in waistlines: more than half of its adults are now overweight or obese. Many now fret more about what they are eating than whether they will get enough. The desire to eat better is common as countries prosper. But given China’s history of food-safety problems, a dearth of trust also explains the shift. A scandal involving tainted milk powder that sickened more than 300,000 babies in 2008 shook the country. More recent controversies over dirty
cooking oil and restaurants serving pre-made meals have also ignited outrage. To understand the Californication of middle-class diets, start by considering how demand for certain foodstuffs is changing. In 2022 government guidelines recommended salmon as a healthy source of omega-3 for the first time. For years it was only eaten by the very rich. Now the pink, meaty flesh has grown popular across the country. An army of delivery drivers whizz cuts from grocers, specialist shops and livestreamers with sashimi-grade processing factories to the country’s growing middle class. China became the second-biggest salmon market in the world this year, explains Sigmund Bjorgo from the Norwegian Seafood Council. Companies such as Nordic Aqua want to catch some of the booming fish business. In aquarium-sized tanks on the edge of Ningbo in Zhejiang province, the Norwegian company is raising 8,000 tonnes of salmon each year and wants to expand to 20,000 (about 4m fish) by 2030. By then China’s salmon market could reach 300,000 tonnes annually, reckons Ragnar Joensen, the firm’s boss. Harvested in the morning, the company’s salmon can be served 300km away in Shanghai by the afternoon. With government help it is building one of the world’s largest land-based farms for Atlantic salmon at its Zhejiang facility. Its water systems should keep fish healthy even without antibiotics. China has boosted imports and domestic production of other delicacies loved in California. Avocados and blueberries, for instance, have rocketed in popularity and plunged in price. Both the creamy fruit and a 125-gram punnet of the berries have fallen to about $1, a fraction of the prices they fetched a decade ago. The south-western province of Yunnan has become the centre of China’s blueberry- and avocado-growing. The country’s bumper crop of blueberries—the world’s biggest, at nearly 1m tonnes last year— means the fancy fruit is now enjoyed by many more Chinese. As part of the Californication, food is also being produced in different ways. Organic items are rising in popularity. By 2024 China’s organic farming areas had doubled in size from a decade before, comprising 0.7% of the country’s total farmland. Organic sales have more than tripled in the same time to $16.7bn in 2024—they were up by 19% from 2023 alone.