The Chinese Communist Party’s state television @CCTV really has a "remarkable" talent for staging reality. A netizen in Sichuan noticed that the river near his home had turned muddy yellow after heavy rain. But on the live broadcast from CCTV, the same river appeared crystal clear and even bluish. Do you know how they managed to do that?

👀 As soon as Trump left, the CCP started playing the "balancing" game again. Xinhua News Agency hurriedly pinned a top headline on its front page: “Xi Jinping and Russian President Putin Send Congratulatory Messages to the 10th China-Russia Expo Respectively.” When you click in, there’s only one sentence: “Xinhua Flash: On May 17, President Xi Jinping and Russian President Putin sent congratulatory messages to the 10th China-Russia Expo respectively.” When the spokesperson for the CCP’s Ministry of Commerce answered questions about the outcomes of the China-U.S. economic and trade consultations, he listed five results: 1. Both sides will continue to implement the outcomes of previous consultations and have reached a positive consensus on relevant tariff arrangements. *(My two cents: This is basically meaningless boilerplate.) 2. Both sides agreed to establish a Trade Council and an Investment Council to discuss each side’s respective concerns in the fields of trade and investment. Through the Trade Council, they will discuss issues such as tariff reductions on certain products and have in principle agreed to reduce tariffs on products of equivalent scale that each side is concerned about. (Comment: Too vague, too general, lacks details.) 3. Both sides will resolve or substantially promote the resolution of certain non-tariff barriers and market access issues for agricultural products. The U.S. side will actively promote the resolution of China’s long-standing concerns regarding automatic detention of dairy and aquatic products, medium-sized potted landscape plants exported to the U.S., and the recognition of Shandong as a poultry influenza-free zone, etc. The Chinese side will also actively promote the resolution of U.S. concerns such as beef facility registration and poultry meat exports from certain states to China. (Comment: Still lacks details. Basically, it means China is going to buy more U.S. beef and poultry?) 4. Both sides agreed to promote the expansion of two-way trade in areas including agricultural products through mutual tariff reductions on a certain range of products and other arrangements. (Too vague, too general, lacks details, and overlaps with the previous two points.) 5. Both sides have reached arrangements regarding China’s purchase of aircraft from the U.S. and the U.S. ensuring the supply of aircraft engines and parts to China, and agreed to continue advancing cooperation in related fields. (China will purchase aircraft from the U.S.) So overall, it boils down to this: China will buy some American planes, and that’s about it. Nothing else of substance. Also: When Xi Jinping accompanied President Trump in reviewing the CCP’s military honor guard, Trump solemnly returned the military salute, while Xi showed no reaction at all. Some people joked: “If you didn’t know better, you’d think Trump was the commander-in-chief of the PLA.” And honestly, it really did look that way. On one hand, it reflects Xi Jinping’s arrogance toward his own military. He simply does not show the kind of respect for service members that Trump does. On the other hand, perhaps after previously embarrassing himself by saluting troops with his left hand during an inspection, he no longer dares—or no longer wants—to give military salutes.

The New York Post @nypost says that Melania @FLOTUS did not accompany Trump to China because she wanted to focus on promoting children’s charity projects in the United States. Do you believe that? I don’t. During Trump’s visit to China this time, both sides appeared very friendly on the surface, but secretly they were wary of and competing with each other. Xi Jinping’s wife, Peng Liyuan, did not appear even once. In contrast, when Belarusian President Lukashenko visited China in June 2025, although he also did not bring his wife, Xi Jinping not only had Peng Liyuan come out to receive him, but even had his daughter Xi Mingze appear to accompany them. Therefore, this Trump-Xi meeting was mostly about surface-level pomp and show; there wasn’t much substantive content. To Xi Jinping, he gained a little more legitimacy, and that is it.

Ethereum is for shipping. Here are 22 things the Ethereum ecosystem launched, upgraded, and announced over the past month. 0/ Ethereum hit a new all-time high of 72.8 Million monthly transactions, the highest in network history. 1/ @ethereumfndn, @chainlink, and @Nethermind launched a $1M audit subsidy program to help Ethereum builders access high-quality security reviews. 2/ South Korea’s largest crypto exchange, Upbit, announced plans for GIWA Chain, an Ethereum L2 built on @Optimism. 3/ @AragonProject introduced Permissions Audits to help protocols secure roles, multisigs, and admin systems. 4/ @fileverse shipped Comments v2, improving the collaboration experience, with privacy by default. 5/ The Ethereum Applications Guild (@EthAppsGuild) launched to support Ethereum-native apps and real-world adoption. 6/ Privacy went live on @Optimism with confidential computing support on OP Mainnet. 7/ @StarkWareLtd brought native proof verification to Starknet mainnet with Shinobi, enabling private trading flows and OTC settlement. 8/ @worldcoin launched World ID 4.0, expanding proof of human credentials across apps, enterprises, and AI agents. 9/ Applications on Ethereum hit ~$310B in user deposits. 10/ @l2beat released a new interactive interoperability map showing how value moves across Ethereum’s expanding ecosystem. 11/ @AlchemixFi launched V3, the latest version of its self-repaying, non-liquidating loan product, with higher capital efficiency and improved peg mechanics. 12/ @OfficialMoonDAO raised $172k + from 157 contributors to send the man who coined the “overview effect” to space. 13/ @ethereumfndn announced the Road to @EFDevcon 8 Academic Program, supporting regional research and academic events ahead of Devcon. 14/ Ethereum core contributors gathered in Svalbard for Soldøgn Interop, a week-long event focused on hardening Glamsterdam implementations to help scale Ethereum securely. 15/ @basepaint_xyz hit 1,000 straight days of onchain art creation, with 121M+ pixels painted and $1.5M + distributed to 4,000+ artists. 16/ New Ethereum community hubs launched in Hong Kong and Floripa, growing local coordination and ecosystem activity across Asia and Latin America. 17/ The EF’s ETH Rangers public goods security program wrapped after helping recover or freeze $5.8M, reporting 785+ vulnerabilities, and identifying ~100 North Korean IT workers targeting Web3 teams. 18/ @centrifuge launched a tokenized S&P 500 fund on @base, bringing 24/7 onchain index exposure to non-U.S. users. 19/ @0xcatalysis launched Covered Vaults on Ethereum, DeFi vaults with built-in onchain risk coverage backed by delegated capital. 20/ @Uniswap processed $3T in all-time volume on Ethereum mainnet. 21/ @RAILGUN_Project hit $5 billion of total all time private volume.

Worst-to-best reasons to be known as an influencer: F: Meme status - Hawk Tuah girl D: Lifestyle - Bryan Johnson C: Looks - Sydney Sweeney B: Content - Lex Fridman A: Talent - Magnus Carlsen S: Ideas - Steven Pinker