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“China is more influential today than at any point in modern history. Its economy drives global growth, its technology shapes industries everywhere, and under Xi Jinping, an increasingly confident China is challenging the established world order.”

“But behind that rise lies a country in the throes of social change, with a slowing economy, an aging population, and widening inequality. Understanding the rhythms of life in China has never been as important.”

“I am currently sitting in Yihang's flying taxi, which is about to take off. I am slightly nervous. I'm Sarah Wu, the Economist China correspondent, based in the capital of Beijing after years in Taipei and Hong Kong.”

“From the party's agenda to advances in AI. I've seen what's happened over the past 20 years, and I think China still has the ability to surprise us on this front.”

“The conflict in the Middle East is evolving with incredible speed, creating a landscape where the complexities of understanding both immediate and long-term outcomes have never been greater.”

“That's why we're launching a new limited series, the Iran Conflict Brief. It's a rapid response podcast hosted by Daniel Sternoff and other experts from the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs.”

“In conversations with other leading voices, we're going to help answer the biggest questions of the day in 30 minutes or less. From the latest on policy shifts to global energy markets and geopolitical dynamics, we're tracking it all.”

“We will still be here every Tuesday for our deep-dive conversations on the global energy landscape. But the speed of events in Iran and across the region demands a different kind of coverage.”

“So there are always two questions with these American companies. Data, which is what we've traditionally worried about, can they read our private data? But I'm more worried about the second question, which is sovereignty and control and The US's ability, you know, president Trump's ability to say to Google, I'm switching off the accounts of the head of the International Criminal Court, and Google complies.”

“Karp surrounds himself by Germans. A lot of his staff are either Germans or Norwegians, and he talks. He spends about half the day talking in German. He's also obviously somebody who is very driven by fear. He's somebody who believes that the world is out to get him and out to get the West, and he particularly felt this after October 7.”

“And, of course, the most powerful people pointing out that those people are evil are those people themselves. So Musk points out that Altman's evil. Altman points out Musk is evil. They all point out Zuckerberg's evil. A huge amount of what Alex Karp does is attack Facebook and Zuckerberg. So quite a lot of what's going on is I have to get there first because I'm good, and all the others are evil.”

“Front office has quietly closed its unit responsible for tracking potential breaches of international law, including by Israel and Gaza and most recent 11. First obvious thing to say in relation to Gemma, I think, is that this is a cut that's not gonna save much money. And it's interesting that of the things they chose to cut, they chose to cut this. And I wonder whether it isn't that it's a little bit uncomfortable having a whole section whose job is to keep telling ministers, this may be against international humanitarian law, so you can't sell these weapons, you can't allow these overflights, etcetera, and that maybe not having someone saying that might be a bit convenient.”

“81% are rooted patriots. So what that says to me is that the red wall that we often gets portrayed as homogeneous, sort of like, Farage, populism, Brexit, etcetera, probably because of their lived experience of family or self, they are the the keenest or the strongest believers that we have to do more on mental health.”

“The medication I'm on now, or sertraline, is probably the sixth medication that I've been on, and some of them have been terrible side effects. You have to keep keep experimenting. You do, and you have to kind of this is why the relationship's so important. And I had this this David who was so wonderful, because he wouldn't say this is gonna work, he'd say let's give this a go. And you give it a go and eventually you find something. And I find too many people give up too soon on the talking therapy and they give up too soon on the medication.”

“I think that's I think that's how you create a good death. Another great book about this, Philip Gould, another I've had so many close friends who've died, and he wrote a book called when I die because he knew he was going to die. And I just think we don't talk about death enough. We don't think about it enough. We're scared of it.”