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France has proposed a ‘forward deterrence’ plan that would let French nuclear forces operate from allied European soil, with Germany as a key partner. Paris frames the initiative as complementary to NATO and a hedge against doubts about U.S. reliability, but the move has raised legal, operational and non‑proliferation concerns at home and abroad.

Iran’s IRGC said it struck a U.S. air base in Bahrain on March 3 using 20 drones and three missiles, claiming destruction of the base’s headquarters and a fuel depot. If verified, the attack would be a notable escalation with tactical and strategic implications for U.S. force posture, Gulf security, and regional stability.

Steep, symbolic price cuts at a central Shenzhen development highlight how China’s property downturn has moved into core urban districts. Despite repeated policy easing, structural headwinds — stagnant incomes, high household leverage and a falling population — are keeping demand weak and complicating recovery efforts.

A sudden escalation of attacks between the United States, Israel and Iran has spread across the Gulf, disrupting energy and shipping and threatening higher inflation. At the same time, U.S. courts have ordered the rollback and likely refunding of large parts of President Trump’s tariff regime, removing a key foreign-policy and economic lever and exposing the administration to significant fiscal and political strain.

Asian markets plunged after drone attacks on U.S. diplomatic sites in the Middle East prompted fears of wider conflict and a U.S. military response. South Korea’s market experienced an abrupt sell-off that triggered circuit-breakers amid heavy foreign selling and rapid hedge-fund deleveraging, while Japan’s Nikkei also fell sharply.

China’s A‑share markets fell broadly on Tuesday, with major indices down across the board and small‑cap benchmarks hit hardest. Higher turnover accompanied the selloff, while oil, coal and financials outperformed as tech and defence‑related stocks led declines.

A sudden escalation of hostilities across the Gulf has disrupted flights, ports and last‑mile services, stranding Chinese businesspeople and delaying shipments. Firms are scrambling to reroute cargo, protect staff and absorb higher costs, while the episode forces a reassessment of how resilient China’s commercial ties to the Gulf must be.

Generative AI has made convincing face‑swap videos cheap to produce but costly to contest, creating widespread harm to celebrities, IP owners and ordinary people. Legal, technical and market remedies are emerging, yet enforcement remains complex and slow, leaving victims exposed while platforms and model builders search for a workable balance between innovation and rights protection.

Transsion reported a sharp drop in 2025 profits as soaring memory prices and intensified competition from Chinese brands squeezed margins in its low‑end, Africa‑focused business. The firm is pursuing a Hong Kong listing and a strategic shift toward an ecosystem model, but that transition will be capital‑intensive and slow while market pressure persists.

Meta is testing a shopping feature inside its AI chatbot that delivers personalised product recommendations via a carousel with merchant links but no native checkout. The move joins similar efforts by Google and OpenAI to monetise chatbots, and comes amid a wider industry push toward AI-driven commerce and platform integration.

Lens Technology has started mass shipments of enterprise‑grade NVMe SSDs assembled for DERA from its Xiangtan facility and is pushing customer validation of glass substrates for HAMR hard drives exceeding 30TB. The move broadens Lens’s business beyond consumer glass into core storage components, with implications for China’s domestic supply chain autonomy and the global storage market.

Alibaba has open‑sourced four small Qwen3.5 models (0.8B–9B parameters), completing a family that now spans 0.8B to 397B parameters and is tailored for edge deployment. The move, amplified by Elon Musk’s praise, strengthens Alibaba’s push to integrate software and hardware and accelerates competition over device‑level AI.

GigaDevice and Tuya Smart have formed a deep partnership to create integrated AI+IoT hardware‑and‑software solutions for developers and customers worldwide. The alliance aims to accelerate device development by bundling chips, reference designs and cloud AI services, reinforcing a trend toward vertical integration in China’s tech ecosystem.

Apple’s iPhone 17e upgrades its internal hardware — notably the A19 chip and base storage doubled to 256GB — while keeping the Chinese launch price unchanged. With USB‑C, the return of MagSafe, robust battery claims and likely eligibility for a 15% national subsidy, the 17e is positioned to compete strongly in the mid‑market.

Claims that the US strike on Iran was an autonomous AI ‘kill‑chain’ are overstated. Open sources indicate Anthropic’s Claude was used as an intelligence‑analysis tool to synthesise data and model scenarios, while humans retained final command authority. The episode exposed a growing tension between tech firms’ safety guardrails and military demands, and highlights the strategic need for clearer governance, supplier resilience and operational safeguards.

At MWC2026 vendors portrayed mobile networks as the foundational platform for AI, pushing 5G‑Advanced and early 6G work while unveiling edge compute to host large models. Huawei, Ericsson and Qualcomm outlined complementary strategies — integrated super‑nodes, an Intelligent Fabric and end‑to‑end device–network–cloud architectures — as operators and regulators grapple with spectrum, security and vendor dominance.

Sensor Tower recorded a dramatic spike in ChatGPT uninstalls and one‑star reviews on February 28 after OpenAI announced a deal with the U.S. Department of Defense, while rival Anthropic’s Claude rose to the top of the U.S. App Store. The shift illustrates how defence partnerships can quickly fracture consumer trust and reshape competition in the AI market.

China’s industrial and environmental ministries have issued a six‑agency plan to raise green production standards for solar modules, expand the use of recycled materials, and build the recycling infrastructure and standards needed to process retiring PV panels. The policy targets 250,000 tonnes of cumulative module reuse by 2027 and sets out technical, regulatory and financial measures to scale dismantling, separation and material recovery ahead of a larger decommissioning wave by 2030.

CICC’s Two Sessions preview frames the 2026 meetings as a policy inflection point: Beijing will prioritise industrial modernisation, domestic demand and market unification while continuing to address property and local‑debt risks. The bank recommends investors favour technology‑growth and cyclical resource sectors, but cautions that implementation and financial stability risks will shape outcomes.

Renewed Middle East tensions have driven oil prices up more than 6% and sent tanker rates to record highs, creating acute short-term disruption to crude logistics. Markets traded unevenly as investors weighed inflationary implications against selective risk-taking, while Beijing pressed for de-escalation and moved to cushion domestic industry through policy measures.