📰 Latest News

Tencent’s Yuanbao launched a RMB1 billion red‑packet promotion that briefly flooded social networks and propelled the app to the top of China’s app charts. The campaign aims to replicate WeChat’s 2014 red‑packet playbook to seed Yuanbao as a mainstream AI assistant, but faces steeper challenges: lower natural frequency of AI usage, stronger competition, model quality concerns and the well‑documented difficulty of turning paid acquisition into long‑term retention.

The US Department of Justice has begun releasing millions of pages of Jeffrey Epstein-related documents that implicate a range of prominent figures, including Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Prince Andrew and Elon Musk. The material increases pressure for testimony, litigation and reputational fallout, while highlighting how wealth and networks may have shielded Epstein’s activities.

January 2026 sales data show Xiaomi Auto leading China’s electric‑vehicle upstarts with over 39,000 deliveries while BYD retained dominance with roughly 210,000 NEV sales. Facing soft seasonality and fading tax incentives, automakers have shifted from price cuts to long‑tenor, low‑interest finance offers — a developing “financial war” that stimulates demand but raises credit and regulatory risks.

SpaceX's proposal to deploy up to one million satellites would dramatically increase low Earth orbit congestion and shift the balance of technological and geopolitical power in space. The plan promises expanded connectivity and orbital computing but also raises acute risks around debris, spectrum management and strategic dependence.

Hamas and multiple Palestinian factions accused Israel of violating a ceasefire after the formation of a Palestinian technocratic committee, reporting dozens of airstrikes, scores of civilian casualties and destruction of homes. The statement warned such actions aim to block the ceasefire’s second phase and called for protection of the Rafah crossing and Gazan freedom of movement.

Israeli airstrikes across Gaza on 31 January killed at least 28 people and prompted Palestinian factions to accuse Israel of breaching a ceasefire. The strikes threaten to destabilise fragile truces, worsen humanitarian conditions, and complicate mediation efforts by regional actors.

A newly released 47‑minute interview with former Unit 731 member Sato Hideo offers a detailed, first‑person account of how the unit cultivated plague at industrial scale, tested its lethality on animals and prepared biological munitions for aerial dispersal. The testimony strengthens the historical record of the Japanese army’s biological warfare program and highlights enduring questions about accountability, memory and biosecurity.

Jin Chenglong, a 26‑year‑old former naval sailor and medical student, drowned on 23 January 2026 while attempting to rescue a father and son who fell through the ice on the Hun River near Shenyang. His death has reverberated nationally because it encapsulates themes of military service, volunteerism and civic duty, while also prompting practical questions about winter safety and emergency preparedness.

On 31 January, thousands of Danish veterans and civilians held a silent march to the U.S. embassy in Copenhagen to protest President Trump’s recent remarks belittling NATO allies’ soldiers. The demonstration, led by former service members, signals popular offence in a committed NATO state and highlights the diplomatic strain that hostile rhetoric can impose on alliance cohesion.

A Guangxi detachment of China’s People’s Armed Police conducted a concentrated logistics instructor training course focused on battlefield first aid, supply operations, field cooking and weapons handling. The programme fits a wider effort to professionalize logistics across Chinese security forces, enhancing adaptability for both disaster response and military sustainment.

SpaceX has applied to the FCC to deploy up to one million satellites as an "orbital data centre" for AI inference, a proposal that reframes space infrastructure as a compute frontier. Chinese brokerages, responding to domestic launch advances, have identified commercial space as a likely market theme for 2026, spotlighting investment opportunities and strategic competition.

A 36% intra‑day slide in spot silver on 31 January triggered a cross‑market cascade that led to roughly $544 million of crypto liquidations in 24 hours. Tokenised silver futures were the largest single source of losses, underscoring how 24/7 trading, high leverage and thin liquidity can turn a traditional safe‑haven asset into a crypto‑market ‘‘bomb’’.

Xpeng's humanoid robot IRON fell during a public walk demonstration in Shenzhen. CEO He Xiaopeng framed the mishap as part of the development process, comparing it to a child's learning to walk. The incident highlights the technical and reputational challenges facing automakers and tech firms entering humanoid robotics.

Tencent launched a RMB 1 billion Yuanbao campaign on February 1 that uses shareable red envelopes and limited 10,000‑yuan reward cards to drive viral engagement on WeChat. The mechanics are designed to pull users back into existing social networks, accelerating distribution for Tencent’s new AI‑oriented app while raising questions about spam, abuse and regulatory attention.

Tencent has launched a 1 billion yuan red‑envelope campaign to promote its Yuanbao AI assistant and new social features, aiming to recreate WeChat’s viral momentum. The stunt forms part of a broader New Year push by Chinese tech giants to capture AI users, with long‑term winners likely to be those with superior models and practical use cases rather than the biggest marketing budgets.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang hosted nearly 40 senior Taiwanese supply‑chain executives in Taipei, using the occasion to thank partners, apologise for recent production disruptions around the Grace Blackwell platform, and warn that 2026 will be "extremely tight" for memory and packaging supply. He confirmed Nvidia’s participation in OpenAI’s next financing round, reaffirmed the company’s full‑stack strategy versus ASIC competition, and underlined Taiwan’s indispensable role in Nvidia’s success.

BYD sold over 4.6 million vehicles in 2025, securing both China’s top automaker and brand positions and a fourth straight global new‑energy vehicle sales crown. Strong domestic demand, rapid overseas growth (1.05 million units exported), and advances in driver‑assist data capabilities underpin the performance, but expansion raises operational and regulatory challenges abroad.

China will raise the VAT per‑transaction threshold to 1,000 yuan from January 2026 and extend formal VAT threshold relief to registered small‑scale taxpayers (annual sales ≤5 million yuan). The rules preserve higher monthly/quarterly thresholds for periodic filers, carve out exceptions for sustained commercial activities, and strengthen withholding obligations for payers.

Leapmotor delivered 32,059 vehicles in January, a 27% year‑on‑year increase, signaling early‑year demand momentum for the Chinese EV maker. The rise is encouraging for a smaller independent rival, but sustaining growth while protecting margins will be the key challenge amid intense domestic competition.