can,” Mr Humpert says. Arctic navigation requires training and operational experience, and “China and South Korea are building that expertise now.” For the moment, Sea Legend admits, the tight seasonal window and limited capacity of its Arctic service make it hard to compete with conventional routes. But it is already planning to expand the navigational window to four months by 2028 and eventually to the entire year. Further conflict in the Middle East could provide incentives for it and other companies to invest in larger, ice-strengthened ships. And if temperatures in the Arctic continue to rise three times faster than the global annual average, then doubts about the viability of the NSR may recede as fast as China’s ambitions for the region grow. ■ Subscribers can sign up to Drum Tower, our new weekly newsletter, to understand what the world makes of China—and what China makes of the world. This article was downloaded by zlibrary from https://www.economist.com/china/2026/08/20/the-promise-and-the-pitfalls-of-chinas- new-arctic-shipping-route
Will China ever learn to love chocolate? Local chocolatiers are raising the bar Aug 20th 2026 CHINA HAS more coffee-shop brands and more KFC branches than anywhere else on Earth. But chocolate has never hit the spot, with the average Chinese eating just 100g a year—a mere hundredth of what a French person guzzles. A few mass-market foreign brands—Mars, Ferrero, Nestlé and Hershey—account for four-fifths of Chinese consumption. “Of all the chocolate eaten worldwide, only 2% caresses Chinese tastebuds. This may now be changing, thanks to a handful of Chinese chocolatiers springing up around the country. Most are artisanal shops, but some are investing in supply chains and building big businesses. Take Choc Revive. Based in Shanghai, the firm was founded in 2023 by Xie Liang, a fresh- produce trader. He cannot open shops quickly enough. From 80 outlets now
he hopes to have 300 by the end of the year. Mr Xie says that his company had 160m yuan ($23.7m) in sales last year and hopes to quadruple that, or more, this year. Choc Revive is trying to take chocolate local. It sources its own beans from Africa, but has set up an R&D unit in China and does its own roasting and grinding. Its big investments are intended to produce economies of scale, but the know-how it is accruing may spread and give rise to competitors. Another local chocolate company, Nibbo, has been winning international awards for its creamy sweets. Saturnbird, which started as a coffee grower in south-west China, is now planting its own cacao trees there. Mr Xie’s concoction is 58 yuan for a 100g chunk—equivalent to a cheap meal for two. It is an awkward time to be selling premium products to belt- tightening consumers. Churning out the cheapest possible goods to undercut rivals is the usual formula. Milk-tea brands are a case in point. Why are people paying out for chocolate? Mr Xie says that making chocolate with Chinese flavours such as longan, which is like a large lychee, seems to go down well. A simpler explanation is that, at long last, Chinese people are learning to love the most delectable flavour in creation. ■ Subscribers can sign up to Drum Tower, our new weekly newsletter, to understand what the world makes of China—and what China makes of the world. This article was downloaded by zlibrary from https://www.economist.com/china/2026/08/20/will-china-ever-learn-to-love-chocolate
A glum China pines for the 1990s Back then, leaders delivered and opportunity beckoned–or so the story goes Aug 20th 2026 THE 1990s ARE alive again. Over the past few days viewers of state television in China have feasted on scenes from that decade. A 12-part documentary has aired in prime time to celebrate the centenary of the birth of the late Jiang Zemin, the country’s leader throughout the period. What a decade it was, bookended, in 1989, by the blood of Tiananmen and, in 2001, by all the promise of China’s entry into the World Trade Organisation. This progression, which may seem inevitable in retrospect, was never anything but fraught. But what captivates viewers is less Jiang’s accomplishments than a common touch and a panache that seem nearly inconceivable among China’s leaders and their tightly scripted public
comportment today. There he is in one scene in 1989, four months after the crackdown on the Tiananmen pro-democracy protests, hugging babies in Beijing. In another, Jiang slams a forehand in table tennis before telling national-team athletes that he hopes they win gold at the upcoming Asian Games. “Let me take that back. You shouldn’t have too much pressure,” he says with a big smile, laughter erupting in the room. In a third, Jiang is belting out Beijing opera at a formal dinner in California, a study in contrast with the buttoned-up nomenklatura of today’s China, Xi Jinping above all. Then, as the documentary ran, a cosmic coincidence: on August 12th Jiang’s essential partner, Zhu Rongji, died at the age of 97. If Jiang was the political maestro, Zhu, his prime minister, was the one who got his hands dirty. Online commentary praised Zhu’s blunt, effective approach—an implicit rebuke of today’s more cautious officials. The day he died, the documentary happened to feature Zhu explaining how he cajoled cadres into tough reforms: “I’m not here to talk about pros and cons. I am here to talk about how to get things done.” Even before the documentary and Zhu’s death, nostalgia for the 1990s had been building. A viral trend last summer spoke of “the beauty of the boom years”, with people sharing images of youthful exuberance in the 1990s and the early 2000s. A recent television hit, “Blossoms”, about Shanghai in those days, captures the mood. At one point the narrator says: “Everyone stands equal before opportunity. Seize it, and you could change your life.” Some have echoed the sentiment as they remember Zhu. “Back then people had a spark in their eyes, certainty in their hearts and a tomorrow they could actually see,” wrote Zhao Jian, an economist, in a widely shared piece— before it was scrubbed from the internet. What to make of all this? A cynical take is that memory is playing its usual tricks. If the 1990s now look like a decade of possibilities opening up, recall that China was so much poorer then, on the cusp of high-speed development. In 1990 its GDP per person, adjusted for inflation, was just $920; today it is 15 times higher. Or consider the rise in university graduates: 12m a year now, up from about 700,000 in the 1990s. In the Jiang-Zhu era nearly three- quarters of China’s population still lived in the countryside, which was mired in poverty. No wonder urbanites lucky enough back then to get a good
education felt that destiny was theirs to chart. Yet for most in China, the path ahead was one struggle after another. So the nostalgia should not be read as a rigorous account of history. Rather, it acts as the reflection of a malaise today. Most obviously, people are down about the economy. Job opportunities are pinched, property has slumped and many entrepreneurs are struggling. Yet to dwell on these issues carries consequences, with, for instance, censors erasing posts about the economy that lack “positive energy”. For some, harking back to how good things were in the 1990s is a way round such controls. For others, it may simply be a longing for a better life. There is also great frustration about politics in China today. Scholars debate whether Jiang and Zhu really deserve their “reformist” labels. Political reformers they certainly were not: Communist Party elders chose them to reinforce party will and pick up the pieces following the Tiananmen trauma. As economic liberalisers, there were also limits. Their signature overhaul of state-owned companies was to “grasp the large and let go of the small”, hiving off useless businesses while modernising the important ones in finance, infrastructure and heavy industry. The aim, as Jiang put it, was to retain control of “the lifeline of the national economy”. Above all, they aimed to strengthen the state and entrench party rule. For all that, Jiang and Zhu were certainly daring, taking bold risks against real resistance. Conservatives (ie, leftists) opposed their market-driven policies, worried that opening China to trade with the world would suck in toxic political ideas. Many reforms also exacted a vast human toll, with more than 30m workers laid off—though the eventual benefits were larger. Do today’s leaders have similar vision and courage? True, they have been in charge during some high-tech advances. Yet a trade war with America drags on, while property remains stuck in its years-long funk. Tributes to Zhu came not just from ordinary people but from universities, legal associations, financial groups and think-tanks. It is hard not to see their veneration as a plea for wiser leadership. Beyond that is something unquantifiable about the style of the leaders in the 1990s—about the frankness with which they spoke, their sense of warmth and real humanity, their ease when out and about among the public.
Certainly, people were also wary of Jiang and Zhu; under them, China was hardly free. But they were admired and even loved. Today, when people talk of Mr Xi, the dominant emotion is often fear. Many Chinese are so circumspect as to avoid mentioning his name altogether. He is the paramount ruler, not a chap who cracks jokes or bursts into song. ■ This article was downloaded by zlibrary from https://www.economist.com/china/2026/08/17/a-glum-china-pines-for-the-1990s
Why the world’s richest country can’t defend vital infrastructure The problem with Republican fundraising Oklahoma offers America a lesson in manners Why conservatives can’t stop talking about women’s basketball Obamacare is becoming even more frail The real covid-19 scandal is still unfolding
Why the world’s richest country can’t defend vital infrastructure Washington continues to move more slowly than hackers Aug 20th 2026 WATER IS A strategic vulnerability, a fact that is not news to military commanders. When the Ostrogoths wanted to cripple Rome in 537, they destroyed its aqueducts. More recently, water infrastructure has been an important target in America’s conflict with Iran, despite international laws classifying such attacks as potential war crimes. In March Donald Trump threatened to “completely obliterate…possibly all” of Iran’s desalination facilities, which are essential to life in the country’s arid southern provinces. Iran says that one such facility was bombed on Qeshm island. Bahrain, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates have had their own water plants struck by missiles, presumed to have come from Iran.