This week’s cover

THIS WEEK we had one worldwide cover. China’s famously industrious workforce is shrinking, its property boom has ended and the system of free trade that helped it grow rich is disintegrating.

However, Xi Jinping, China’s president, has a master plan. Branded “new productive forces”, this sets out to boost advanced manufacturing, in order to create high-productivity jobs, make China self-sufficient and put it beyond reach of American sanctions. There’s just one problem. It won’t work.