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Good morning. China has formally eliminated Li Shangfu as defence minister and cupboard member, virtually two months after he disappeared amid a sweeping purge of senior navy leaders.
The standing committee of the Nationwide Individuals’s Congress, the nation’s rubber stamp parliament, additionally stripped former international minister Qin Gang of his rank as state councillor, or cupboard member, three months after his dismissal following an identical absence from public view.
The downfall of two high-profile cupboard members has underscored the rising opacity of Chinese language politics below President Xi Jinping. Here’s more on the mysterious shake-up and how it could affect China’s military dialogue with the US.
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Cross-Strait relations: Taiwan’s main presidential candidate has blasted China over a probe of Apple provider Foxconn, accusing Beijing of unfairly concentrating on the Taiwanese firm forward of an election subsequent 12 months.
Right here’s what else I’m holding tabs on at the moment:
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State go to: US president Joe Biden hosts Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese on the White Home. The 2 leaders are anticipated to announce plans to co-operate on important minerals and Pacific Islands infrastructure. (Reuters)
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Hong Kong: The Chinese language territory’s high official John Lee will ship the annual coverage handle.
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Outcomes: Meta, IBM, Boeing, Deutsche Financial institution, Moody’s, Porsche, Kering and Mattel are amongst these reporting.
5 extra high tales
1. UN chief António Guterres condemned “clear violations of worldwide legislation” in Gaza in his hardest remarks thus far in regards to the conduct of the warfare between Israel and Hamas. Guterres additionally mentioned that Hamas’ lethal assault on Israel “didn’t occur in a vacuum”, although he added that their grievances couldn’t justify the “appalling assaults”. His remarks triggered a furious response from Israeli officials.
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‘I went by hell’: 85-year-old Yocheved Lifshit was one in every of 200 folks captured and brought to Gaza by Hamas militants within the October 7 assault. Hours after her launch, she told her story to a bank of reporters.
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‘No plan’: Israel has yet to agree a detailed plan for postwar Gaza, elevating fears {that a} land invasion in opposition to Hamas might start with out ample preparation for its aftermath.
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‘Davos within the Desert’: Saudi Arabia’s flagship funding convention is steering clear of the Israel-Hamas conflict, as Riyadh hopes to ship a business-as-usual message that it stays open for funding.
2. Donald Trump has torpedoed Tom Emmer’s bid to change into Speaker of the Home of Representatives, simply hours after fellow Republicans chosen the Minnesotan as their latest candidate to guide Congress’s decrease chamber. The previous US president mentioned voting for Emmer can be a “tragic mistake”, in an intervention that leaves the Republican social gathering with no clear path forward to select a new congressional leader.
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Trump’s civil fraud trial: Michael Cohen, the one-time fixer and private lawyer of Donald Trump, testified that he had been instructed by the previous US president to “reverse engineer” his financial statements.
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Georgia election interference case: Former Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis has struck a plea deal with Georgia prosecutors within the sprawling conspiracy case.
3. Greater than three dozen US states have sued Meta, alleging the social media platform intentionally deployed manipulative and addictive options as a way to hook younger customers of their hunt for revenue, whereas deceptive the general public about their precise harms. The lawsuit comes amid rising concern over a teen mental health crisis that some researchers have attributed to social media usage.
4. SenseTime, as soon as the darling of China’s synthetic intelligence sector, seems stymied by the US-China “chip warfare” in its effort to diversify away from its surveillance enterprise. The Hong Kong-based firm’s transfer into knowledge centres filled with cutting-edge AI chips now seems doomed by the latest round of US export controls stopping Nvidia and its rivals from promoting the highly effective chips to Chinese language prospects.
5. The chief govt of a number one Hong Kong property group has declared the top of a “golden period” for the territory’s residential builders as the federal government takes an more and more lively hand in boosting housing provide. “Hong Kong actual property is not a completely free market,” mentioned Chinachem’s Donald Choi. Read the full interview.
Information in-depth
![‘The Pillar of Shame’, a sculpture by Danish artist Jens Galschiøt, at the University of Hong Kong before it was removed in 2021](https://www.ft.com/__origami/service/image/v2/images/raw/https%3A%2F%2Fd1e00ek4ebabms.cloudfront.net%2Fproduction%2Fec1fe85f-a7dc-4626-8c6b-2c9a2af1b829.png?source=next-article&fit=scale-down&quality=highest&width=700&dpr=1)
Final 12 months, 361 teachers left Hong Kong’s eight public universities, a turnover price of seven.4 per cent and the very best mark in additional than 20 years, in keeping with official knowledge. The territory has lengthy been an mental hub for western teachers and a haven for liberal Chinese language students. However researchers mentioned shrinking academic freedoms and fears of falling foul of a sweeping security law have been encouraging some to depart.
We’re additionally studying . . .
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‘Axis of evil’: The phrase provides an excessive amount of credit score to a grouping as free and putative as Russia, China, Iran and North Korea, writes Janan Ganesh.
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Oil ‘arms race’: Chevron’s $53bn deal for US operator Hess has sparked hypothesis that BP and Shell might really feel pressured to reply.
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Battle in Ukraine: With the battle dragging on, Kyiv is racing to build its own arms industry to satisfy what Ukraine’s prime minister mentioned was a “enormous deficit of ammunition”.
Chart of the day
China’s general commerce stays sturdy regardless of US commerce restrictions launched below Donald Trump and continued below Joe Biden. Martin Wolf argues that the most important questions on China’s financial future are political, because it wrestles with the relationship between communism and capitalism.
Take a break from the information
Do you know Seoul has probably the most cafés per capita on the planet? The singer-songwriter Eric Nam highlights the South Korean capital’s vibrant café tradition and way more in this insider’s guide to Seoul.
![Eric Nam in Namsan Baekbeom Square park](https://www.ft.com/__origami/service/image/v2/images/raw/https%3A%2F%2Fd1e00ek4ebabms.cloudfront.net%2Fproduction%2Feacdfdc4-33cb-4d8f-a395-5bc6c6a69655.png?source=next-article&fit=scale-down&quality=highest&width=700&dpr=1)
Further contributions from Grace Ramos and Gordon Smith