logo
episode-header-image
Aug 2021
21m 45s

Value-free investing: China and Afghanis...

The Economist
About this episode

The Taliban’s takeover is a boon for China’s propaganda machine: America is tired, its policies disastrous, its values a distraction. Meanwhile China has its own interests in the country. New research may explain rising covid-19 cases among the vaccinated: jabs’ effectiveness wanes with time, and “breakthrough” infections appear more contagious. And the case for working, a bit, while on holiday.

For full access to print, digital and audio editions of The Economist, subscribe here www.economist.com/intelligenceoffer


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Up next
Yesterday
Wage against the machine: the distortions of minimum pay
<p>For decades governments have found minimum-wage rises a politically expedient means of redistribution. But the onward <a href="https://www.economist.com/leaders/2025/11/20/why-governments-should-stop-raising-the-minimum-wage?utm_campaign=a.io&utm_medium=audio.podcast.np&utm_so ... Show More
22m 16s
Nov 24
Emission creep: a contentious COP closes
<p>It is telling and troubling that the annual climate talking-shop’s <a href="https://www.economist.com/international/2025/11/22/cop30-ends-with-a-whimper?utm_campaign=a.io&utm_medium=audio.podcast.np&utm_source=theintelligence&utm_content=discovery.content.anonymous.tr_shownote ... Show More
25m 51s
Nov 21
Flee country: Britain seeks to slash migration
<p>Britain’s home secretary Shabana Mahmood proposed a big shift in <a href="https://www.economist.com/britain/2025/11/20/will-britain-copy-asylum-policy-from-a-place-with-poor-integration?utm_campaign=a.io&utm_medium=audio.podcast.np&utm_source=theintelligence&utm_content=discov ... Show More
23m 22s
Recommended Episodes
Sep 2021
Reeling and dealing: how to engage the Taliban
<p>In some ways America has more leverage now that its forces have left; we ask how diplomatic and aid efforts <a href="https://www.economist.com/asia/2021/08/30/the-wests-withdrawal-from-afghanistan-is-complete?utm_campaign=the-intelligence&utm_medium=podcast&utm_source=third-pa ... Show More
21m 29s
Jan 2023
Inside China’s global propaganda machine – with Joshua Kurlantzick
With China’s military and economic power continuing to grow, Katie Stallard speaks to Joshua Kurlantzick, a journalist and fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations, about Beijing’s ambition to become an information superpower. They discuss his new book, Beijing’s Global Media O ... Show More
20m 57s
Sep 2021
Is Xi Jinping moving China into a new era of Maoism?
<p><strong>Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com</strong></p><p><a href="https://www.ft.com/content/7a545b87-55eb-4dbd-b9a0-c80def4bdcf8" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.ft.com/content/7a545b87-55eb-4dbd-b9a0-c80def4bdcf8</a></p><br><p>Pfizer’s chief s ... Show More
10m 43s
Apr 2021
Computer chip shortage, corporate America caught between US and China
<p>The boom in Bitcoin mining is having an unintended consequence: it has driven up the cost of computer chips. Plus, the FT’s US-China correspondent, Demetri Sevastopulo, explains how China’s repressive treatment of its Uyghur Muslims is affecting Western brands who do business ... Show More
8m 46s
Apr 2024
The Intelligence: Surveilling China’s diaspora
<p>There are fears about TikTok, but it’s not the only social media platform that the Chinese state might be using to monitor the rest of the world. That’s especially worrying for those in its <a href="https://www.economist.com/china/2024/02/26/living-outside-china-has-become-mor ... Show More
23m 3s
Sep 2023
Drum Tower: Inside Fortress China
Panzhihua used to be a state secret. The steel-making city, buried deep in the mountains of Sichuan, formed part of Mao Zedong’s Third Front, a covert plan to move core industries inland in case America or the Soviet Union attacked. David Rennie, The Economist’s Beijing bureau ch ... Show More
42m 1s
Apr 2024
China's tech battle to control the future
Chinese President Xi Jinping's new slogan, "develop new productive forces," aims to bolster the expansion of high-tech sectors to drive economic growth. China already dominates the world of electric cars and controls more than 80 percent of the global solar panel manufacturing ma ... Show More
29m 19s