Stephanie Kleine-Ahlbrandt and Andrew Small, in a related article, wonder how far China would be willing to go in withdrawing unconditional support for “pariah” regimes like Burma, North Korea, and Sudan. John L. Thornton studies what Chinese leaders mean when they talk of democratisation—local elections, for instance, and checks on corruption.

The December 22 double issue of The Economist endorses America’s way of selecting presidential candidates through the primaries: “Americans will soon make a freer and better-informed choice than citizens in other democracies ever can.” The holiday issue has Mao on the cover, with an article on “Mao and the art of management” included in an eclectic mix of special articles.

Time (December 31) has Vladimir Putin as its person of the year (“A tsar is born”). An article on Qiu Xiaolong, a Chinese writer of crime, shows how the detective genre allows writers to address issues that may otherwise be proscribed in China. (54-year-old Qiu’s Shanghai-based Inspector Chen novels, like Red Mandarin Dress, have also been translated into English to great success.) As he tells Time: “A cop walks around and knocks on people’s doors, asks questions. It’s become a convenient way to write about things I want to explore.” In the December 31 issue of Newsweek, Melinda Liu tells a personalised history of China over the last 30 years (‘Mao to now’) to show how individual lives have been transformed.

Meanwhile: In the New Statesman Richard Dawkins writes on Isaac Newton. The New Yorker has a short story (‘Natalie’) by Anne Enright who won this year’s Booker Prize for The Gathering.