China is shoring up the great firewall for the AI age - The Economist | In Turkey, Erdogan’s charges of Western hypocrisy stick - The Economist | How the young Winston Churchill escaped from a prisoner-of-war camp - The Economist | Britain’s cost-of-living squeeze will leave an enduring mark

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China is shoring up the great firewall for the AI age - The Economist

China faces a problem familiar to dictatorships throughout history: how to strike a balance between growth-boosting innovation, which thrives in a free society, and the paranoia of an authoritarian state. Its leader, Xi Jinping, wants the country to become a hyper-advanced economy. His government is aggressively promoting the commercialisation of high technologies it likes, from electric vehicles to quantum computing.

At the same time, it is tightening the screws on those it disapproves of. In 2021 it regulated a booming online-tutoring industry into oblivion almost overnight, apparently out of fear that high tuition fees were making children’s education so expensive that Chinese were put off the idea of parenthood. On December 22nd the government took a wrench to the video-gaming industry, introducing rules to, among other things, limit how much players can spend on in-game purchases—and so how much developers can make. The market value of Tencent, one of China’s most innovative firms that also has a big gaming business, tumbled by 12%.

Nowhere is this tension clearer than in the hottest technology of 2023—artificial intelligence (AI). In many countries, command of AI is seen as both economically and strategically important. Politicians everywhere fret about machines going rogue or, more realistically, being harnessed by human mischief-makers. In Beijing the added worry is that the technology, which thrives on unlimited data and, at its current stage of development, in unregulated spaces, could prove subversive if not kept in check. It is therefore busily shoring up its “great firewall” for the AI age.

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In Turkey, Erdogan’s charges of Western hypocrisy stick - The Economist

NOTHING makes Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s day like a chance to claim the moral high ground, cast himself as the leader of the Muslim world, and stick it to the West. For nearly three months, the war in Gaza has allowed Turkey’s president to do just that. At a recent conference, Mr Erdogan was in his element, taking swings at Israel for bombing northern Gaza into the ground, and at Western duplicity. “A journalist is killed each day,” he said, referring to the 68 media workers killed in Gaza since the start of Israel’s bombing campaign. “But none of the institutions who preach to us about press freedom for years says even a single word.”

That of course is an exaggeration. Human-rights watchdogs have been slamming Israel for the killings of Palestinian civilians and journalists since the start of the war. But in Turkey, the charges Mr Erdogan now levels against Western countries at nearly every public appearance tend to stick. With the Gazan authorities saying that the death toll from Israel’s bombardment has passed 20,000, criticism of Western policy and accusations of double standards in Turkey are reaching new heights. Speak not just with officials in Ankara, but with opposition politicians, dissidents, and ordinary Turks, and you will hear that Western governments that sanctioned Turkey for using disproportionate force in northern Syria ought to, but refuse to, sanction Israel for doing much worse in Gaza; that those that criticise Turkey for banning anti-government protests lose the moral right to do so when they ban pro-Palestinian marches at home; and so on.

Similar sentiments have been widespread in many parts of the global south, even before Gaza. But Turkey is a Muslim country whose human-rights record invites considerably more scrutiny than most, because of its membership of NATO and its aspirations to join the EU; its relationship with the West is immensely important. Hence accusations of Western hypocrisy leave a bigger mark than in most other parts of the world. They play into Mr Erdogan’s hands, reinforcing his argument that Turkey should have no patience for Western values and should chart its own course. They weaken his democratically-minded opponents. And they sap outside attempts to promote human rights.

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How the young Winston Churchill escaped from a prisoner-of-war camp - The Economist

The future prime minister sat at the bottom of a coalmine, clutching a bottle of whisky. He had fled from a prisoner-of-war camp, stowed aboard a train and jumped off in the middle of nowhere. The enemy were hunting for him. If caught, he would be locked up again; those who had helped him would be shot.

Escape would be tricky. He was absurdly conspicuous: a red-headed Englishman in Africa, who knew none of the local languages. “Wanted” posters mocked his “stooping gait” and “almost invisible moustache”.

Yet Winston Churchill did escape, and spun his exploits during the second Anglo-Boer war of 1899-1902 into a tale of derring-do that launched his political career. This improbable story reveals a great deal about war, journalism and history.

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Britain’s cost-of-living squeeze will leave an enduring mark - The Economist

THE WORST of Britain’s most sustained period of high inflation since the 1970s is coming to an end. The headline rate of consumer-price inflation in November fell to an annual pace of 3.9%, its lowest reading in more than two years. That is welcome news for everyone, not least Rishi Sunak, the prime minister, who is set to fulfil his pledge to halve the pace of price rises this year. But the cost-of-living squeeze is not over yet, and some of its effects are likely to endure.

Inflation has been above the Bank of England’s target of 2% every month since August 2021; the bank’s monetary policy committee, which sets interest rates, does not expect to hit that target until the end of 2025 (although the lower-than-expected November figure may presage a faster fall). Wages have been growing quickly in cash terms, helping to cushion the blow to incomes, but the hit to households has still been severe. Although real weekly earnings have been broadly flat since the spring, they are still 3.6% below their level in December 2021.

What’s more, real wages do not capture the full picture. Real household disposable income per person, which captures the impact of changes in taxation and the welfare system, is a better measure of living standards. The Office for Budget Responsibility, the government’s fiscal watchdog, estimates that this will still be 3.5% below its pre-pandemic level by the end of the financial year 2024-25, the longest drop in living standards since comparable records began in the 1950s.

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