Lingling Wei: "Earlier this year, I put a blunt question to an adviser to China’s central bank: With the property bust grinding into its fourth year, how likely was it that the country’s strained financial system would finally crack into a full-blown crisis?"

We've seen this movie before. Motorola. Apple. Tesla. One after another, US companies helped China build industries only to be cut out later. Now even blueberries. "For just about everyone in the blueberry business, though, it has been a knife fight, plagued by intellectual-property theft and tanking profits." A fascinating read by @JonathanEmont via @WSJ

I asked an adviser to China's central bank how close the country was to a financial crisis. His answer: depends on your definition -- by some Western metrics, China's already had several. New WSJ CHINA column, an interview with @michaelxpettis: Beijing can prevent the panic. It can't avoid the cost. via @WSJ

Xi Jinping has purged Zhong Shaojun, his personal secretary of 20+ years and his overseer inside the PLA. Every Party “core” leader since Deng kept that man safe. Zhong is the first to fall. New for @ChinaBriefJT, with thanks to @Arranjnh @JamestownTweets for the edit:

A full page on Taiwan in this weekend’s @WSJ. My travel essay, “Awestruck Among Gods” — on Taipei’s temples, and what their open, everyday faith stirred in me.

"AI safety" means two different things in Washington and Beijing. One side worries the technology could endanger humanity; the other worries it could endanger the Party. Read Chen Yixin -- Beijing's top security official -- on AI:

Todd Beamer was the passenger on United Airlines Flight 93 who rallied fellow passengers to fight back against the 9/11 hijackers with the phrase "Let's roll" and stopped it from reaching Washington, DC. This is his daughter, Morgan, who was born 4 months after his death and went on to play women's soccer at his alma mater, Wheaton College. Imagine how proud he would be. 🇺🇸 #neverforget#

Our paper's four-page wraparound section this morning. I found this copy of the paper in our archives (there aren't many of them available, surprisingly), and our art director made a nice choice.

“Consumed by the War on Terror, the U.S. had less capacity to address other global priorities such as the pivotal rise of China and an increasingly hostile Russia.” @johncbussey

How Chinese AI Firms Tried to Clone U.S. AI Models—New allegations of how DeepSeek and Moonshot tried to ‘distill’ Anthropic’s Claude come in a threat report highlighting dangerous biological queries @bobmcmillan @AmrithRamkumar

"Looking back, China probably did its trading partners a favor by exploiting the chokepoint it spent decades establishing. Dependence on China for critical minerals has been a national-security vulnerability for those trading partners for decades." China Overplayed Its Hand on Critical Minerals by @ScoMo30 via @WSJopinion

"A currency accord, enforced with tariffs, might be the only way to get China to act. The time may be ripe. Frustration with China is boiling over, especially in Europe." @greg_ip via @WSJ

“During the meeting, we sensed that the US understands China's position, values China's concerns, and, like the international community, neither recognizes nor accepts Taiwan's path to independence,” China’s foreign minister. H/T @Kubota_Yoko

Day 1 of the Trump-Xi summit is over. Here are my key takeaways from the readouts, interviews, and the banquet. (1) New Chinese Formulation: Most interesting takeaway for me is that China is out with a new frame for the relationship: “I have agreed with President Trump on a new vision of building a constructive China-U.S. relationship of strategic stability. This will provide strategic guidance for China-U.S. relations over the next three years and beyond.” Beijing appears to me to wish to lock in a "truce" favorable to them, and they want to do so beyond Trump, with this post-trade war detente setting the baseline. Presumably, any U.S. actions to reckon with excess capacity or deter conflict could be framed by Beijing as a violation of this new frame. Beijing acknowledges the relationship as competitive - as they did with us in 2023 - but talks about keeping it within acceptable limits. (2) Rare Earths, Export Controls: Surprisingly absent from both readouts despite their centrality to the current detente. (3) Taiwan: China emphasizes mishandling it could cause "clashes and even conflicts," elevated public language, while the U.S. doesn't mention it. (4): Artificial Intelligence: Nothing in readouts, but Bessent said to CNBC after (1) there will be talks and (2) that U.S. leadership in AI is the reason why China is willing to talk at all: "The two AI superpowers are gonna start talking. We’re gonna set up a protocol in terms of how do we go forward with best practices for AI to make sure non-state actors don’t get a hold of these models....The reason we are able to have wholesome discussions with the Chinese on AI is because we are in the lead. I do not think we would be having the same discussions if they were this far ahead of us." (5) Iran and Characterizing Xi: Normally we don't say, "Xi Jinping said X" in a readout, because that's for them to say. But the White House readout does so over Iran: "President Xi also made clear China's opposition to the militarization of the Strait and any effort to charge a toll for its use, and he expressed interest in purchasing more American oil to reduce China's dependence on the Strait in the future. Both countries agreed Iran can never have a nuclear weapon." (6) Chinese Investment in the US. This is mentioned in the White House readout. Bessent then said on television, "we’re going to talk about a board of investment that will be responsible for investment in nonsensitive areas." (7) Fentanyl. The US readout emphasizes "the need to build on progress in ending the flow of fentanyl precursors into the United States. No mention in the Chinese readout. (8) Mil-Mil Channels: Notably, the Chinese readout calls to "make better use of communication channels in the political and diplomatic and military-to-military fields." No mention in the U.S. readout, and historically something the US - not China - keeps in the foreground. (9) Xi Visit: At the banquet, Trump invited Xi to visit in September. Seems like it may align with the UN General Assembly, which Xi hasn't addressed in some time.