China | Chaguan

A new children’s film about Zhou Enlai reveals a lot about China today

It is a deeply conservative country, even as it prepares to celebrate its revolution

COUNTRIES HAVE to make revealing choices as they craft patriotic messages for children. To put it kindly, young minds are tiny treasure-houses that deserve to be stocked with only a nation’s most precious beliefs. To be more blunt, small children are easily distracted, so are best taught only a few important things.

This article appeared in the China section of the print edition under the headline “A century-old party woos the young”

The new geopolitics of big business

From the June 5th 2021 edition

Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents

Explore the edition

More from China

On a round table near the doorway to a kitchen where members of the Sinaloa drug cartel cook fentanyl, finished fentanyl can be seen, in Culiacan, Mexico.

Donald Trump’s new trade war on China is also an opioid war 

The president claims that drugs are poisoning geopolitics

Chinese Communist Party members pose for photos with a sculpture of the party flag outside the party museum in Beijing

China needs its frightened officials to save the economy

After years of being hounded by anti-graft authorities, many are too afraid to act


A worker is working on a drug production line  of a pharmaceutical company in Meishan, Chin

The bad side-effects of China’s campaign to cut drug costs

Poor quality is one. An angry public is another


America and China are talking. But much gets lost in translation

How linguistic differences complicate relations between the great powers

It’s a good time to be an astrologer in China

In the face of hardship, the country’s youth are embracing superstition

The early days of the Trump administration, as viewed from China

A good start, but it could get worse quickly