# gold prices

From Wedding Rules to Winter Sports: How Beijing’s Year‑start Directives, Consumer Frenzy and Platform Policing Are Shaping China’s Early‑2026 Economy

Beijing’s latest No.1 document renewed efforts to rein in excessive rural bride prices and for the first time called for cross‑provincial coordination, even as state media celebrated mass participation in winter sports and officials moved to revive cross‑strait tourism. Markets were volatile: gold jewellery prices surged, bitcoin hit a 15‑month low amid AI‑related software fears, and regulators forced WeChat to block widely shared promotional links that were disrupting user experience.