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Tesla’s January 2026 push of 5‑year 0% and 7‑year low‑interest purchase plans has spurred competitors to extend similar financing, making new EV purchases cheaper per month and prompting buyers to favour new cars. That shift has weakened demand for secondhand electric cars, forced dealers to cut prices or offer short-term interest‑free loans, and highlighted structural risks to EV residual values driven by rapid technological obsolescence and battery concerns.

Ji Xinhua, chairman of cloud firm UCloud and a Shanghai municipal delegate, has urged the city to fast‑track “space compute” by creating a dedicated funding programme, a national key laboratory, in‑orbit testbeds and industry alliances. His proposals span hardware, software standards for domestic GPUs, an AI‑for‑Science compute pool and regional cooperation to position Shanghai as a hub for a strategically important, fast‑growing sector.

At SEF2026 in Sharjah, venture capitalists signalled that Gulf countries — buoyed by low energy costs, proactive regulation and growing AI education — are entering a new phase of technology investment. Saudi Arabia led the region in deal value in 2025 and has launched funds targeting early-stage biotech, reflecting its Vision 2030 diversification agenda.

OpenClaw, an open‑source agent platform created by Peter Steinberger, has gone viral by turning chat messages into executable commands across multiple model APIs, accelerating demand for inexpensive, high‑throughput models and simple local hardware like the Mac Mini. The surge highlights opportunities for Chinese model providers such as Minimax and Kimi, while raising acute security, deployment and governance challenges.

An open‑source agent called OpenClaw has popularized always‑on, self‑executing AI workflows by running locally with broad control over devices and services. Its rapid spread exposed a new paradigm—delegated, 24/7 digital labour—that big cloud providers are racing to productize while security experts warn of multi‑layered, systemic risks.

China’s leading internet groups are spending hundreds of billions of yuan on AI, each following a different industrial logic: Alibaba is doubling down on cloud and commerce integration, Tencent is turning AI into immediate revenue uplifts inside WeChat and games, and ByteDance is attempting to seize the system‑level gateway on phones. The contest has moved from model architecture to ecosystem control, but talent, chips and capital patience are emerging chokepoints that will determine who converts investment into durable advantage.

NIO opened its first national-authorised showroom in Uzbekistan on 31 January, introducing models from its premium NIO line and launching Le Dao’s L90 and L60 — the sub‑brand’s first overseas models. The company also announced a tie-up in Costa Rica, signalling simultaneous expansion into Central Asia and Latin America as Chinese EV makers chase growth beyond a crowded domestic market.

Maotai prices swung sharply around the Lunar New Year, with single‑bottle quotes briefly rising to about ¥1,830 before retreating to ¥1,740–¥1,780. Wholesale boxed vintages saw modest declines while single‑bottle retail prices remained comparatively stable, underscoring festival demand and speculative trading pressures that strain small merchants.

China’s local governments saw land‑sale revenues fall for a fourth straight year in 2025, dropping to about ¥4.15 trillion and roughly halving since the 2021 peak. The slump has tightened municipal budgets, increased debt pressure and cut land‑related spending, prompting proposals for central fiscal backstops and targeted measures to stabilise the housing market in 2026.

Vanke reported an expected RMB82 billion net loss for 2025 and disclosed urgent liquidity pressures, prompting a subsidised rescue loan from majority shareholder Shenzhen Metro Group. The collapse highlights alleged off‑balance liquidity channelling and structural incentives that rewarded senior managers even as shareholders and creditors suffered, reviving questions about the limits of the manager‑led corporate model in China.

China’s major stock indices fell more than 2% as widespread selling pushed 123 companies to daily limit-downs and over 4,600 stocks lower. Liquor and some power-equipment shares bucked the trend, while non-ferrous metals and memory-chip related names suffered steep losses amid declining turnover.

A dramatic sell-off on February 2 sent gold and silver tumbling and forced exchanges in China and abroad to raise margins and restrict trading. Regulators cited abusive trading and liquidity risks, while analysts warn the move reflects sentiment-driven flows and policy-related uncertainty rather than purely fundamentals.

Flight-tracking evidence that a U.S. MC-130J entered Azerbaijani airspace on 29 January has fuelled claims that American special forces could be preparing operations against Tehran. While the presence of a special-operations transport is significant, concrete plans for a decapitation raid remain unproven; nonetheless, the movement complicates regional security, risks pulling Azerbaijan into a confrontation, and heightens the chance of miscalculation between Tehran, Washington, Moscow and Tel Aviv.

The United States has combined public threats and naval deployments with discreet offers to negotiate with Iran, a strategy Washington has kept deliberately ambiguous. Tehran has responded with guarded engagement through intermediaries while reaffirming core red lines, raising the odds that any agreement will be limited and that miscalculation could still spark wider regional conflict.

Popular mall-based nut chains in China have been selling ordinary snacks at premium prices by packaging them as high-end, freshly roasted products and leveraging mall footfall and influencer marketing. Rising customer complaints about high bills and questions about the authenticity of “same-day roasting” have slowed expansion and exposed risks to the brands’ pricing logic.

Iran’s Supreme Leader warned that U.S. military action would precipitate a “regional full-scale war,” intensifying concerns about how local incidents could balloon into broader conflict. The statement raises the political and strategic cost of strikes in the region, with implications for regional proxies, energy markets and global diplomacy.

A Chinese outlet reported that Iran has integrated about 1,000 strategic unmanned aerial vehicles into its combat formations, marking a significant expansion of Tehran’s drone capabilities. The development heightens regional security tensions by enhancing Iran’s ability to conduct long-range surveillance, strikes and saturation attacks while raising proliferation risks through exports to proxies.

Japan’s leading domestic peace group has condemned Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s comments and policy direction on nuclear options and expanded offensive capabilities, warning they breach postwar consensus and could heighten regional tensions. The group also urged Tokyo to confront its wartime past to avoid repeating historical aggression.

Eight foreign ministers — from Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the UAE, Qatar, Indonesia, Pakistan, Egypt and Turkey — issued a joint denunciation of Israeli violations of a Gaza ceasefire, blaming the incidents for over 1,000 Palestinian casualties. The uncommon cross-regional statement warns that continued breaches could derail the ceasefire's second phase, undermine reconstruction and escalate regional tensions, while renewing calls for Palestinian self-determination and a political solution.

A PLA naval brigade in the Eastern Theater took recently decorated servicemen and their families on a cultural tour of local museums and heritage sites to strengthen morale and family support. The event illustrates how the Chinese military uses recognition, traditional values and family engagement as tools of personnel management and political work.