 A stalled housing construction project in Zunyi, China. Photographer: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg This was supposed to be China's year. The country had finally reopened after three years of strict Covid Zero lockdowns, and as the economy roared back to life, it was going to power stagnating global growth. Instead, halfway through 2023, it's facing a confluence of problems, and President Xi Jinping's government doesn't have great options to fix them. Sluggish consumer spending, a crisis-ridden property market, flagging exports, record youth unemployment and towering local government debt have come together to stymie China's economy. Beijing's typical playbook of using large-scale stimulus to boost demand has led to massive oversupply in property and industry. Plus surging debt levels among local governments means there's rising concern that growth-focused projects will be cut to pay the bills. Exacerbating all this is Xi's more assertive approach to dealing with the US, which has added fuel to American efforts to cut China off from supplies of advanced semiconductors and other technologies set to drive economic growth in the future. The impact of these strains is starting to reverberate around the globe, appearing in everything from commodity prices to equity markets. The risk of Federal Reserve hikes tipping the US into recession has also heightened the prospect of a simultaneous slump in the world's two biggest economies.  The US Supreme Court in Washington, DC Photographer: Nathan Howard/Bloomberg The US Supreme Court closed its session this week with a series of major decisions that will reverberate around the country for decades. The court protected how US elections are conducted, rejecting a fringe political theory that would hand more power to state legislatures. It threw out President Joe Biden's student-loan debt relief plan. It overturned a precedent protecting affirmative action's race-based policies in college admissions, which will almost certainly result in less diverse campuses. As Big Take wrote last week, the US's highest court is being more assertive about its place in government and as much as it sees itself as a source of stability, it's presiding over a historic realignment of the levers of government power.  Russia's President Vladimir Putin Photographer: Gavriil Grigorov/AFP For nearly 25 years, Russian President Vladimir Putin has been the country's strongman — exercising total control. While he may have avoided an attack on Moscow led by Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, the mutiny has shattered his image at home — and exposed divisions in the Russian government. The Big Take podcast explores what happens next for Putin. Subscribe and listen to our podcast on iHeart, Apple and Spotify. | 
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