A handful of Chinese rare earth suppliers have stopped shipping to American customers since early August. No export ban was announced and no licence was formally revoked. The suppliers simply declined the business, out of concern that filling those orders would put them on the wrong side of Beijing. The trigger was China’s decision in early August to sanction the Responsible Business Alliance, the American body behind a widely used supply chain auditing framework.

Nike’s removal from the S&P 100 on September 21 has put a number back in circulation that deserves more scrutiny than it is getting. The company has shed roughly 80% of its market capitalisation since November 2021, somewhere near $215 billion depending on whether you measure against the closing high of $169.74 or an intraday print. The interesting part is what did not happen alongside it. Fiscal 2022 revenue, the year containing the peak, was $46.

The photograph is CeBIT, Hanover, 2015. A suspended ring of blue neon the size of a small building, two levels of stand, screens promising to depict the future of a city with technologies, and a crowd thick enough that people are shuffling rather than walking. This was ZTE at full extension: a Chinese vendor buying floor space in Germany at the scale of a national pavilion, on the assumption that it would be selling infrastructure to European carriers for the next twenty years.

Beijing moved on four fronts on Wednesday and only one of them made the headlines. Exports of drones, their key components and related technologies now face case-by-case scrutiny when the destination is the United States, effective immediately, with no access to the licence facilitation measures that normally speed shipments through. Six American entities went onto the countermeasures list. A seventh was added under a separate justification. An investigation opened into imported office equipment running foreign system software.

Two disclosures in the same session establish where the Chinese AI and semiconductor stack is being priced. Moonshot AI closed $3.5 billion at a $35 billion valuation against an initial target of $1 billion to $2 billion, with a Hong Kong listing possible this year. CXMT’s IPO prospectus revealed that Alibaba holds nearly 5%, worth more than $20 billion, against a closing market capitalization of approximately $464 billion on 28 July.

Moonshot AI closed a $3.5 billion round at a $35 billion valuation, having initially targeted somewhere between $1 billion and $2 billion, and plans a Hong Kong listing as early as this year. CXMT’s IPO prospectus disclosed that Alibaba holds a stake of nearly 5%, now worth more than $20 billion, against a closing market capitalization of roughly $464 billion on July 28. One model developer and one DRAM manufacturer, heading for the same venue, at valuations set almost entirely by domestic capital.

China held $1.04 trillion in U.S. Treasury securities as of December 2021. By December 2025, that position had declined to $683.5 billion — a reduction of roughly $357 billion, or 34%, over four years. China remains the third-largest foreign holder of U.S. federal debt, but its share of total foreign holdings fell from 13.4% to 7.4% over the same period. The trajectory is unambiguous and sustained. The decline has been both nominal and relative.

The Department of Defense is exploring a range of emerging biometric technologies and biometric applications, including AI techniques that could identify individuals in low light or otherwise obscured conditions, and laser techniques that could identify individuals at distances of around 200 meters. Such techniques could be employed in covert and clandestine operations without an individual’s knowledge or consent. Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems In the future, biometric technologies could be integrated into lethal autonomous weapon systems (LAWS)—weapons capable of selecting and engaging targets without the need for manual human control or remote operation.

WASHINGTON, Dec. 30, 2023 - Following is a statement from Eileen O’Reilly, president of the National Press Club, and Gil Klein, president of the National Press Club Journalism Institute, on the extended detention of Chinese journalist Yuyu Dong. “We have learned through the family of Chinese journalist Yuyu Dong that his unjust detention has been extended two months. We had expected a verdict Dec. 27. This extension will now push Yuyu’s detention beyond the anniversary date of his arrest in 2022.