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Tongling city in Anhui province is building 'living digital archives' for veterans by linking multiple government databases, using automated alerts to identify hardship and triggering rapid, door‑to‑door verification and support. The system has updated tens of thousands of records, enabled automatic benefit delivery, and shifted veteran services from reactive to proactive while highlighting trade-offs between efficiency and data governance.

In Xinjiang’s remote northwest, a Chinese border unit relies on military horses to patrol harsh terrain during the Lunar New Year period. The patrol—through sand ridges, marshes and blizzard—highlights the continued operational value of horses, the human cost of frontier service and Beijing’s messaging about persistent readiness.

Ahead of scheduled talks between Tehran and Washington, Iran’s foreign minister met with Oman’s top diplomat, highlighting Oman’s continued role as a mediator. The meeting signals preparatory diplomacy aimed at narrowing gaps and managing expectations, but entrenched domestic and regional constraints make a substantive breakthrough uncertain.

China’s military media describe an unrelenting training tempo across air, land, sea, cyber and space domains, with realistic blue‑force opposition and data‑driven evaluation mechanisms. The portrayal signals both domestic reassurance and an international message of deterrence as the PLA prioritizes joint, high‑intensity readiness.

Iran and the United States held indirect talks in Muscat on 6 February, hosted by Oman and attended by Iranian foreign minister Araghchi and a U.S. delegation including a presidential envoy and Jared Kushner. The session underscores Oman's long‑standing role as a discreet intermediary and opens a cautious channel for pragmatic, limited diplomacy amid significant domestic and regional constraints.

China's MIIT has instructed the construction of regional and industry interconnection nodes to standardise and accelerate the sharing of computing power across the country. The policy sets capital and licensing thresholds that channel build-and-operate roles to well‑funded construction entities and licenced telecom or cloud operators, shaping which firms will supply national AI and industrial compute services.

China’s commodity futures closed mostly lower, with Shanghai silver plunging about 15% and several industrial metals dropping sharply. Energy contracts were mixed, with LPG and fuel oil rising modestly while crude oil broadly held small gains. The moves highlight volatile, leverage-sensitive market dynamics that could strain producers and prompt regulatory scrutiny.

The White House said it would withdraw about 700 federal immigration officers from Minnesota and shift enforcement tactics away from visible street operations toward custody-based measures. Officials called the move a tactical de-escalation while maintaining that aggressive removal objectives remain intact, drawing criticism from Democrats who say the reduction is too limited.

Beijing authorities fined Kuaishou ¥119.1 million for failing to stop a coordinated surge of pornographic live streams that exploited technical vulnerabilities on December 22, 2025. The penalty, imposed under China’s Cybersecurity Law, highlights both Kuaishou’s short-term security lapses and deeper strategic strains amid fierce competition from Douyin and Video Accounts.

China published a draft national standard for pre-made dishes and implemented new e‑commerce livestreaming rules that treat influencer endorsements as advertising, tightening the regulatory environment for platforms and brands. The announcements came as regulators fined major platforms and a viral promotional campaign ran into distribution controls, while markets reacted with volatility and China achieved a milestone test flight of an aerospace-made eVTOL.

Journalistic investigations have connected Aier Eye Hospital's chairman, Chen Bang, through a chain of affiliates to seven psychiatric hospitals that repeatedly billed China's public health insurance illegally. The pattern—duplicate billing, split charges and fictitious treatments—mirrors earlier concerns about Aier-linked charitable funds flowing back into affiliated providers, raising systemic governance and regulatory questions.

Yahui Long said it received a formal CSRC filing notice on 6 February 2026 alleging suspected information-disclosure violations, triggering an official investigation. The move fits a broader regulatory tightening by Chinese authorities aimed at improving market governance and could provoke short-term share-price volatility and closer scrutiny of the company.

Foshan has recorded consecutive periods of GDP contraction, driven by an export slump and a deepening property downturn that hit its furniture and building‑materials industries. Dongguan, by contrast, is growing faster after a concerted pivot toward higher‑value electronics, advanced manufacturing and cultural IP, narrowing the two cities' GDP gap to its smallest level since 2006.

A June 2025 rule forcing internet platforms to report merchant transaction data, combined with China’s Gold Tax Phase IV, has enabled tax authorities to reconcile platform receipts with restaurants’ declared sales. Small eateries that historically underreported income through cash sales and shared food‑court licensing now face retroactive tax bills, forced licensing, and a surge in compliance costs. The policy aims to broaden the tax base and curb unhealthy price competition but risks short‑term closures and consolidation in the sector.

A recent Rmb100m stake by investor Duan Yongping in Kweichow Moutai has prompted debate about whether to follow. Despite Moutai’s brand strength, industry-wide baijiu output has fallen for seven years and Moutai’s profit growth is decelerating amid demographic declines and changing younger-consumer preferences. These structural trends make high valuations and dividend-based investment arguments riskier.

A cluster of more than twenty psychiatric hospitals in parts of Hubei has prompted allegations that some facilities operate as profit-driven long-stay institutions, admitting people for low upfront fees and billing per bed-day while presenting routine chores as therapeutic rehabilitation. Provincial authorities have launched an investigation into hospitals in Xiangyang and Yichang, highlighting broader problems with incentives, oversight and community mental-health provision in China.

Muyuan Foods, China’s largest hog producer, completed a secondary listing in Hong Kong, giving it an A+H capital platform and an opening market value of about HK$226 billion. The IPO strengthens capital access for the company as it cements a roughly 10% share of China’s pork market and prepares for overseas expansion amid broader Henan‑based IPO activity in the food sector.

Changfei Advanced has raised over ¥1 billion in an A+ round led by provincial and industry funds to expand its silicon‑carbide power‑semiconductor capabilities across the value chain. The financing reflects strategic backing from both public capital and an automaker‑linked fund, underscoring China’s push to localise a critical EV and renewable‑energy component.

Tesla has opened an AI training centre in China to perform local model training for its driver‑assist and China‑specific AI features, a step aimed at improving product fit and regulatory compliance. The company did not disclose the facility’s compute capacity, leaving open how extensively it plans to scale local training.

Elon Musk warned that skyrocketing GPU production could outpace electricity supply, potentially leaving large AI clusters unable to power up. He suggested that space-based data centres might become economically attractive if terrestrial power capacity fails to keep pace, a claim that highlights broader tensions between AI compute demand and grid capabilities.