Mr Peters (pictured) first entered Parliament nearly five decades ago. Now 81 years old, he is the founder (and to date the only leader) of the populist New Zealand First party. Since the late 1990s he has drawn heavily on anti- Asian gibes, usually dressed up as anti-immigration rhetoric, to keep his small party in Parliament. And he has done well out of that, positioning himself as a kingmaker in both centre-right and centre-left coalition governments and serving as foreign minister three times, including in Jacinda Ardern’s first government from 2017 to 2020. Christopher Luxon, the prime minister and leader of the centre-right National Party, has kept Mr Peters as foreign minister despite telling reporters that he regarded his words as racist. The prime minister said Mr Peters was speaking as the leader of New Zealand First rather than in his role as the country’s foreign minister. But Mr Luxon must be counting the days until October 1st, when parliament is due to be dissolved before a general election in November. At those polls he is hoping to tout a still- unratified free-trade agreement with India as the centrepiece of his government’s trade policy. Mr Peters has loudly opposed the deal, calling it lopsided and objecting in particular to a provision that would allow a few thousand skilled migrants to enter New Zealand. That has forced Mr Luxon to rely on Labour’s support to pass an enabling bill. Mr Peters cuts an unusual figure at the Beehive, as New Zealand’s parliamentary complex is known, where the dress code is stubbornly business casual. Once considered a natty dresser, Mr Peters still wears the boxy pinstriped and double-breasted suits, topped off with a brocaded tie and silk handkerchief, that became his signature in the 1990s. Neither they nor his politics have changed much since then. But while Mr Peters looks like a throwback, his protectionist and anti-immigrant politics are now in fashion around the world. He will hope that gives him yet another chance to play kingmaker when November comes around. ■ 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/2026/08/06/new-zealands-foreign-minister-sparks-ire- with-a-detestable-taunt
India’s monsoon is getting weirder Expect more extreme weather Aug 6th 2026 DEATH. AND taxes. And the south-west monsoon. Had Benjamin Franklin, the most peripatetic of America’s founding fathers, ever ventured east of Europe he might have added India’s rainy season to his famous dyad of life’s certainties. For the 150-odd years that India has been collecting data the monsoon has hit the peninsula in early June, dumped roughly similar amounts of water over India and started retreating in late September. It did much the same thing before modern humans started measuring it, too. For centuries the rains have dependably watered the fields, offering mostly stable harvests to premodern societies. Ancient trade routes worked to its rhythms. The monsoon allowed Gujarati merchants on India’s west coast to
sail out to Arabia and east Africa on the back of its winds and to return home when the pattern reversed. In April India’s meteorological department issued its forecast for this year’s season. It predicted a weak monsoon at 92% of the “long-period average” of 1971-2020—below normal though not deficient. In the past that would have prompted hand-wringing about the effect on food production and prices of staples. But irrigation now covers more than half the country’s farm area, and a few points are not the make-or-break variation they used to be. It is instead how the season’s rainfall is distributed that keeps forecasters up at night. The monsoon is getting weirder. Take Mumbai, where it usually starts raining around June 10th and begins to peter out in late September. Last year it rained from May until well into October. This monsoon it barely even drizzled until late June, followed by a whole July’s worth of rain in just the first week of the month. Gujarat, a dryish state, has been battered by heavy downpours in short periods, with parched spells in between. On the other side of the country, in the agrarian eastern state of Bihar, farmers have gazed up at clear skies. Farther east, in Assam, a state suffering a 30% rain deficit this season, 900 villages were submerged and at least 80 people were killed last month by some of the worst flooding in decades. This year may be especially unusual because of El Niño, a climate pattern that messes around with weather patterns. But the trend is well established. Across India rain is coming harder and in shorter spurts. The effects are felt most severely in agriculture, which employs 43% of India’s workers. Farmers plan their sowing on the basis of the approaching rains. Both flooding and extended breaks from rain play havoc with their crops. Urban areas are not immune. Compared with even just a decade ago, India is more built-up and its cities more populous, magnifying the economic and physical damage wrought by extreme weather. Water shortages are another concern. Long dry periods harden the soil and deplete the ground’s ability to soak up moisture and replenish its aquifers. Rain runs off into streams or simply evaporates. The weirdening of the rainy season has a lot to do with climate change. The basic mechanics of the monsoon remain unchanged: the Indian land mass
heats up in the scorching months of April and May, pulling in cooler, moisture-laden winds from the Indian Ocean. The ocean has been warming quite quickly as a result of global warming. The land, curiously, has not warmed as much. This dynamic means both that monsoon winds are slightly weaker—because the pressure difference between the land and sea is not as strong as it used to be—and that rains are fiercer, because warmer air holds more moisture. As Earth continues warming, the monsoon will become less predictable. India cannot change the weather but it can handle it better. The meteorological department has built an impressive data-collection apparatus and is investing in improving the models that drive its forecasts. In June the government identified 111 poorly irrigated districts that might see rain shortfalls and took measures such as strengthening local water storage, boosting fodder supply and promoting hardier crops. Yet regional and local variation in rainfall patterns means that there is only so much the national government can or indeed should do. States, cities and even villages need to plan for sudden heavy downpours, including through better irrigation and infrastructure. Meteorologists expect the monsoon’s fasting-feasting tendencies to grow only more acute. To death, taxes and the monsoon, add extreme variability, too.■ This article was downloaded by zlibrary from https://www.economist.com/asia/2026/08/02/indias-monsoon-is-getting-weirder
Why ever fewer young Chinese study abroad To some, reviled former leaders don’t look so bad China’s superstitious mayors China won’t apologise for overcapacity
Why ever fewer young Chinese study abroad Those who do are more likely to return home afterwards Aug 6th 2026 WHEN YANG FAN, a consultant in Beijing advising students and their parents on overseas education, first joined the industry 15 years ago, those who studied abroad were held in high regard. Parents wanted their children to see the world, hoping they would pick up valuable experience and skills along the way. That is much less the case today. Parents, Ms Yang says, “feel that the quality of domestic universities isn’t so bad, so they ask: ‘why should I spend so much money to go abroad?’” The number of students a country has abroad in part reflects its engagement with the world. After 2001, when China joined the World Trade Organisation, Chinese exports to the world boomed; so, too, did the number studying overseas. At first only exceptional or privileged students tended to
make the move. Many then stayed, taking up positions in academia and industry; those who returned to China enjoyed high status and offers of plum jobs. Later, as general incomes rose, increasing numbers of young men and women set off in search of a Western education in the hope of a brighter future. Yet since 2019, the pandemic, trade wars and rising geopolitical friction have driven a wedge between China and the rest of the world. Partly as a consequence, the number of students going abroad has fallen. In 2025 some 570,000 young Chinese went to study overseas, down from a peak of 700,000 in 2019 (see chart); that was the lowest level since 2016. Studying abroad has been made harder by some receiving countries. In 2025 the administration of President Donald Trump announced that it would “aggressively revoke” visas for Chinese studying in unspecified “critical fields”. It has also tied the lottery for the H-1B visa—the main path for skilled workers, including new graduates, to remain in America—to salaries, which disfavours entry-level workers; anecdotally, Chinese workers are hurt more than most. Ms Hao, a 25-year-old Chinese woman, was working for a startup in America but recently chose to return to China because her visa status made it almost impossible to switch employers.