It was not an arduous assignment. Shaoxing is indeed pleasant. An ancient capital built around canals, it is known today for its rice wine, a fragrant tipple, and as the home of Lu Xun, China’s most famous writer of the 20th century. Cartoonish versions of him, emphasising his thick moustache, are everywhere, delighting throngs of domestic tourists. By contrast, his role as an acerbic critic of Chinese norms a century ago is muted in official displays —a taste of the government’s pruning of daily existence. For locals, Shaoxing combines the ease of a smaller city (a population of 5m makes it “second-tier” by Chinese standards) and the prosperity of the Yangtze River Delta. For some residents it serves as a commuter town for the high-tech mecca of Hangzhou, an hour away by metro. Despite all its finer points, Shaoxing also reveals the economic and academic pressures that course through an ultra-competitive country, never far from the seemingly placid surface. These are the inescapable caveats to China’s good life. Many people like what is on offer in Shaoxing. Its average resident makes about 73,000 yuan ($10,800) annually after tax, four-fifths of the average in nearby Shanghai. But the average home in Shaoxing is one-quarter of the price in Shanghai. Its population is steadily growing, pulling in about 30,000 people annually from elsewhere in the country. Chen Niuqun, a Fujianese salesman, has lived in Germany, so has some basis for comparison when he declares his preference for Shaoxing. Business culture is more relaxed than in many Chinese cities: he works an eight-hour day and takes his daughter to school in the mornings. Shaoxing shows the physical improvements in Chinese urban spaces over the past decade. The city shaved down a pair of unsightly 12-storey towers to less than half their original height, transforming them into a meteorology museum. It cleaned polluted rivers and opened squares and paths among old lanes. More darkly, there is also pervasive surveillance. Cameras dot the city. Yet many residents approve, viewing them as a trade-off for safety. A 24-hour fishing shop recently opened downtown: unstaffed overnight, it relies on cameras inside and outside to ensure no one steals rods or bait. “This is why
we are a harmonious society,” chuckles the man behind the desk, quoting a dated slogan. Where Shaoxing distinguishes itself in the Chinese context is its mix of opportunity and relative openness. With a big textile industry, high-tech companies and tourism, it offers plenty of jobs. But unlike China’s biggest cities, Shaoxing is welcoming to domestic migrants. In its ranking of China’s 57 most comfortable cities, Southern Weekly, an influential newspaper, has given top marks to Shaoxing for four straight years after considering housing costs, incomes and commutes. A couple on average local wages needs to work ten years to get a home in Shaoxing versus 30 in Shanghai. Hence its selection of the smaller city as China’s best, a paragon of a “high-income, low-pressure” life. None of this can insulate Shaoxing from national problems. Mr Ruan, a former construction engineer, estimates that a third of homes built in recent years are empty. There was no more work for him in his chosen profession, so he moved to a textile firm. He is stung by the fall in property prices— about 25% in his area. “You feel poorer, you don’t want to spend,” he says. His expectations for the future are more modest. “We just want stability,” he says. Shaoxing is open to migrants partly because of its sharply declining births. Fertility rates have collapsed nationally and are especially low in wealthier places. Mr Liu, owner of a small café, is married and in his 30s but he and his wife have decided against having children. “The cost is just too high,” he says. He has also seen the struggles of other people, from students overwhelmed by exams to young women in bad relationships. “I’ve had quite a few customers come in and cry. They just sit there drinking coffee and weeping,” he says. The controlled narrowness of urban China also comes through in Shaoxing. It is a vision of the good life dictated by ageing cadres who leave little to chance. National officials have deemed Shaoxing a model city for public safety. Among its touted achievements, local police are automatically notified when unregistered, suspicious individuals enter hotel rooms. City managers have designated 66 residential neighbourhoods as quiet zones,
complete with decibel-monitoring systems, and have stamped out open-air bars and unlicensed food stalls in such places. Landscaped parks are full of pensioners playing cards, while high-school pupils cram in their classrooms until late into the evening. “It’s just boring,” mutters a young woman with a pierced lip. Yet for a China seeking not thrills but comfort and control, the Shaoxing model beckons. Although the national population will decline, the city aims to increase its numbers to 6.5m by 2035. The new arrivals will not find refuge from the stresses around them. But they will get a managed, manicured place for growing old—which is exactly what the rest of China will be doing. ■ 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//china/2026/06/15/comfort-meets-constraint-in-chinas- most-liveable-city
War has strengthened the Islamic Republic. Peace could split it A flimsy deal will stop the bombing and restart the oil Iran’s battered economy will take years to recover from the war The end of the war in Iran threatens “glorious failure” for Israel The Iran war meant an economic crisis for Africa Is the staple meal in Nigeria and Ghana becoming a luxury?
Middle East & Africa | What comes next? War has strengthened the Islamic Republic. Peace could split it For now, the hardliners are in the ascendant June 18th 2026 It proved to be the regime, not the people, that triumphed. The Iranians in whose name Binyamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump launched their war, repressed by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (irgc), scarcely seem to matter. The authorities still hang people in twos—like the serpents on the shoulders of Zahak, the tyrant of Persian myth, who demanded two human brains daily to sate them. Memories of the massacres after the protests of January have dulled any appetite to rise up. Mr Trump, meanwhile, is cursed for bringing penury, not liberation. War steadied a wobbling regime, but the peace will bring challenges. Gone is the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who arbitrated among rival
factions. Gone too, for now, are the foreign attackers that helped keep the elite united. In its place comes Mr Trump’s offer: a deal that could bring the Islamic Republic its biggest windfall in decades. For an impoverished country, the prospect is tantalising—and is dividing pragmatists from purists. The leading pragmatist is Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the parliamentary speaker, a former irgc commander and ally of Iran’s oligarchs. Alongside Masoud Pezeshkian, the president, and Abbas Araghchi, the foreign minister, he has championed the deal as “a great stride to final victory”. Mr Ghalibaf, together with J.D. Vance, America’s vice-president, signed it remotely on June 14th before Mr Trump and Mr Pezeshkian put their names to it. Mr Ghalibaf’s political evolution has been striking. As an irgc commander, he boasted of clubbing protesters from his motorbike in 1999. Yet since first running for president in 2005 he has courted the middle classes, seeking support from a public that has never trusted him. He now hopes to inherit the mantle of Hassan Rouhani and Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, former presidents who sought to open Iran to the West, says an Iranian analyst. Allies of Mr Ghalibaf argue that economic realities leave little alternative. Another war, they warn, could see Iran’s oil infrastructure destroyed. State finances have been crippled by collapsing oil-export revenues. Mr Pezeshkian’s government has exceeded expectations in maintaining electricity and water supplies, but summer blackouts are expected. Many security people now operate from their cars for lack of functioning police stations. Any further weakening of central authority could trigger unrest. Mr Ghalibaf’s allies also suggest he has bigger aims. With Khamenei’s death, the generals have taken the lead, sidelining the long-dominant clerics. Even before the war, mandatory veils for women were enforced ever less. In affluent parts of Tehran, shorts and tank-tops are common. Comparisons with Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Muhammad bin Salman, who defanged the religious police and relaxed conservative social norms, abound. Some speak optimistically of a political opening. Reformers have proposed breaking up the vast bonyads, the clerics’ tax-exempt foundations—a latter-
day dissolution of the monasteries. Veteran dissidents abroad say they have had personal invitations to return. After the war last June, the regime ignored calls to harness the wartime spirit of unity with efforts to reconcile and reform. Mass protests followed. This time, insists one dissident invited home, the lesson may have been learnt. They may be disappointed. For now, at least, the hardliners dominate, euphoric from what they hail as their victory against America and Israel. Their zealous base came out at the start of the war with loudspeakers, rallying recruits and guarding against the return of the protesters, and have stayed ever since. To them, Mr Ghalibaf’s bargain with the man they hold responsible for killing their rahbar—their political and spiritual leader—is treachery. At rallies they denounce him by name and mock him as naive for still trusting Mr Trump. The deal, they warn, is another Trumpian trick. This time, says one, the president wants Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and replenish depleted global oil reserves. Once markets are resupplied, they fear, Mr Trump will strike again. Why settle now, they ask, when America is over a barrel? Which faction prevails will probably depend on figures now largely hidden from view. Under velayat-e faqih, the Islamic Republic’s rule of the jurist, the supreme leader was designed to be the representative of the Hidden Imam whom Shias believe entered occultation in the ninth century. Mojtaba Khamenei, the late leader’s son and successor, is hidden too. One hundred days after assuming power, not even a photo has emerged as proof of life. Ahmad Vahidi, the irgc chief, and several senior generals remain underground. For now, Mr Ghalibaf and his dealmakers appear to enjoy their backing. Mr Ghalibaf secured re-election as speaker last month with more than 80% of mps’ votes. Saeed Jalili, standard-bearer of the hardliners, has reportedly been removed from the Supreme National Security Council, the republic’s wartime decision-making body. A permanent ceasefire would allow the leadership to emerge from hiding and consolidate control. “You can play with nine men in extra time,” says one analyst, “but not match after match.” If America offers serious financial relief, it may prove difficult to resist.