COVER STORY This issue: The 100 Most Influential People. Resolute leader. President Tsai Ing-Wen is a signal lamp casting out China’s looming shadow, conveying to the world that Taiwan will not acquiesce to the Chinese Communist Party. While Taiwan stands a mere 100 miles from mainland China, under President Tsai’s leadership, it is neither adrift nor dawn in. Freedom is its North Star, which has been clear in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic…To understand the world we live in, read TIME.

A trailblazing jurist leaves a vital legacy. On March 15, 2019, LEgions of Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s admirers celebrated her 86th birthday by testing their core strength, doing plank poses on the steps of courthouses around the country. The gritty determination that had shaped Ginsburg’s legal career had also made her workout regimen famous, but neither could go on forever. Ginsburg died on Sept. 18 at the age of 87 of complications from metastatic pancreatic cancer…

The world will miss Abe’s defense of the global order. A Surprising announcement that poor health was forcing his resignation has brought the Shinzo Abe era of Japanese politics to an end. The race to succeed the country’s longest serving Prime Minister is on. A front runner has emerged as the dominant Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) chooses a new leader. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga looks like the man who will get the job…