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At the Foreign Ministry’s last press briefing before the Lunar New Year, spokesman Lin Jian extended festive wishes and highlighted a four-year consular campaign to support and engage overseas Chinese. The initiative combines welfare visits and cultural events run by embassies and consulates to foster people-to-people ties and bolster China’s soft power abroad.

Pinduoduo has launched a holiday‑period campaign combining subsidies for essential foods with stricter food‑safety and live‑stream governance. The platform has tightened seller licence checks, expanded AI‑enabled monitoring of advertising and images, mandated detailed permits for specific categories, and stepped up lab sampling and IP protections to reassure consumers during the Lunar New Year.

A volunteer "small cart" team of retired servicemen in Bengbu now prepares and delivers hot meals to passing military units, addressing manpower shortfalls in China’s shifting logistics needs. The project is a small-scale example of municipal-level civil–military cooperation that boosts surge capacity while raising questions about standardization and long-term governance.

Yingshi Innovation posted a 76.9% jump in 2025 revenue to Rmb9.858 billion, yet net profit attributable to shareholders fell 3.1% to Rmb964 million, producing a puzzling divergence between sales growth and profitability. The numbers suggest rapid expansion accompanied by margin pressure or increased investment, and investors will be looking for management’s explanation and guidance on cost control.

Tianfeng Securities has received penalty and regulatory notices from the CSRC tied to historical violations under its former private owners. Since Hubei Hongtai Group became the controlling shareholder in 2023, Tianfeng has cooperated with investigators, recovered misused funds and overhauled governance—moves the company and market observers say effectively close the book on legacy risks and position the broker for renewed growth under tighter compliance standards.

Chairman Wei Jianjun of Great Wall Motor has acknowledged that efforts to advance a project involving a GWM MPV in the United States are proceeding smoothly, responding to reports that intermediaries in the U.S. are handling operations. While not a formal market entry, the comment suggests the company is testing paths into a challenging and politically sensitive market using lower-profile channels.

China's tobacco regulator has prohibited new e‑cigarette plant investments and largely barred capacity expansion through relocations or technical upgrades, while imposing strict compliance, environmental and export rules. The policy aims to rein in unlicensed production, enforce product and environmental standards, and constrain overall industry output without halting technological upgrades that meet regulatory conditions.

China’s market regulator has released a comprehensive antitrust compliance guide for internet platforms, targeting exclusivity (‘choose‑one’) practices, algorithmic coordination and other forms of dominance abuse. The non‑binding but detailed document presses platforms to institute robust risk assessment, algorithm audits and governance measures, signalling steadier and more technical antitrust enforcement ahead.

OpenAI has shared an open‑source voice‑to‑instruction model with two Pentagon‑selected defence firms competing in a prize to produce voice‑controlled drone‑swarm prototypes. The move highlights the tension between commercial AI innovation and the risks of rapid diffusion of components that can enable more autonomous and potentially weaponised systems.

Xiaomi delivered the final first‑generation SU7 and has ceased that model’s production while promising long‑term maintenance and spare‑parts support. The company says it will focus on domestic consolidation and product upgrades rather than immediate U.S. expansion.

The US Federal Trade Commission has escalated an investigation into Microsoft, issuing civil investigative demands to at least six rivals to examine whether licensing and product-bundling practices have impeded competition in cloud computing and AI. The probe targets licensing changes from 2019, questions about bundling AI, security and identity services, and seeks detailed data on AI training costs and data-centre operations.

A Crew Dragon mission has delivered a new team of astronauts to the International Space Station, highlighting the operational success of NASA’s commercial crew model. The flight reinforces U.S. access to low‑Earth orbit while raising strategic questions about competition, resilience and the future of orbital infrastructure.

A swift U.S. special-operations raid on 3 January captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, in an operation that combined precise intelligence, electronic warfare and a substantial maritime posture. Analysts see the mission as both a display of U.S. operational reach and a strategic move aimed at reshaping Venezuela's political economy, with significant regional and great-power implications.

County-level Chinese towns are exhibiting a paradox of rising prices in some categories alongside ongoing discounts in others, driven by income gains, lower housing pressure and a bifurcated consumer appetite for both value and upgraded goods. The trend creates opportunities for brands but also exposes risks from distribution costs and uneven development.

Ahead of the Lunar New Year, many Chinese regional and rural banks have raised deposit rates — in some cases to around 2.15% for three‑year large‑denomination products — to capture maturing term deposits. The moves are largely tactical, driven by over 50 trillion yuan of fixed‑term deposits rolling off and by deposit concentration at large banks, and they risk raising funding costs without changing the industry’s longer‑term downward trend in deposit yields.

China’s A‑share market ended the lunar year with a broad decline as liquidity remained thin and sector rotations produced mixed outcomes. Memory prices and semiconductor equipment demand provided focused strength, while material cost rises and data‑security policy continued to reshape investment themes.

The administration is preparing to exempt selected steel and aluminum products from high tariffs introduced last summer, aiming to cool consumer prices and regain voter support. The shift narrows broad, politically contentious levies in favour of targeted national‑security probes, easing pressure on exporters in Europe and North America but preserving future legal and lobbying battles.

A leaked Taiwanese note, published in the Financial Times, describes three close encounters in which PLA J-16s used flares, tailing maneuvers and radar masking to intimidate and control F-16s during last year’s drills. Analysts say these incidents reflect a tactical shift by Beijing from symbolic demonstrations to coercive control that raises the risk of miscalculation and complicates deterrence for Taiwan and its partners.

Donald Trump criticized Israeli President Isaac Herzog for not pardoning Benjamin Netanyahu, after a White House meeting between Trump and Netanyahu. Herzog’s office said a legal review is ongoing and that any pardon decision will be made independently and in the national interest, underscoring tensions between political pressure and judicial process in Israel.

A border policeman in Yunnan, Yang Rui, was moved to tears when his family surprised him with homemade food during a New Year duty shift after years of absence. His story — marked by multiple drug busts and official commendations — highlights both the operational challenges of policing the Golden Triangle and the personal sacrifices of China’s frontier security forces.