Plus: Deleted tweet of the day
IN TODAY’S EDITION
1️⃣ Jack Ma’s surprise appearance in China |
2️⃣ Why Singaporeans are googling ‘Pritam Singh’ |
3️⃣ Deleted tweet of the day |
Hi Intriguer. On the flight back from the Munich Security Conference this weekend, I binged the quite excellent show Say Nothing about the most violent years of The Troubles in Northern Ireland.
Look, I’m not saying I’m all sunshine and chuckles to sit next to on a plane, but I once sat next to an adult who watched Spongebob Squarepants take off to landing so I think the lady in 37B could have had things worse.
I highly recommend Say Nothing and while it’s undoubtedly bleak, I also found it surprisingly hopeful. No matter how intractable The Troubles appeared to be, I just kept thinking that the Good Friday Agreement will be 27 years old this April.
Anyhoo, while we continue to track the US-Russia talks in Saudi Arabia this week (see our special update below), important doings are also transpiring elsewhere. For example, in China, where Xi Jinping is performing a remarkable about-turn and embracing the private sector. Or so he says. That’s our top story today.
The latest on Russia-US talks.
Direct talks between the US and Russia kicked off in Saudi Arabia today (Tuesday). Here’s a quick wrap of where things are at:
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Europe
After an emergency summit in Paris overnight, European leaders failed to come up with a united strategy forward — a key sticking point is around whether to deploy European troops to Ukraine as a security guarantee to prevent Russia from invading again, and if so, how (command, logistics, costs, etc).
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Ukraine
Meanwhile, President Zelensky has reiterated he won’t accept a deal Ukraine didn’t negotiate, prompting US special envoy Keith Kellogg to deny one will be imposed. And speaking of deals, it turns out the one proposed by US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent (and rejected by Zelensky) featured US demands to hand over half Ukraine’s mineral wealth, with no real new security guarantees in return.
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Russia
Moscow’s tone remains triumphant — that reflects not so much any realities in Ukraine, but rather this new US approach including a break in isolation, plus Defense Secretary Hegseth’s comments last week that a) ruled out Ukraine’s NATO membership, b) acknowledged Russia’s territorial gains, and c) foreshadowed reduced US support.
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The United States
As for the US? Delegation lead Marco Rubio has emphasised that these talks aren’t the start of formal negotiations, but just to work out if Russia is serious about ending its war.
Meanwhile, Israel remains in southern Lebanon past deadline.
Israeli troops will remain in five strategic locations in southern Lebanon overlooking Israeli border communities, beyond today’s negotiated withdrawal deadline. Lebanese authorities have criticised the move, which Israel argues is “so we can continue to defend our residents and to make sure there’s no immediate threat”.
Australian central bank cuts rates.
The Reserve Bank of Australia has cut its key rate for the first time since 2020, noting inflation has eased but still expressing caution about the outlook.
Delta plane crashes in Toronto.
Heavy winds have caused a Delta jet from Minnesota to flip upside down upon landing in Toronto, leaving at least 18 injured, but all 80 people on board survived.
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TOP STORY
Is China’s communist party getting business-friendly?
Pictured: Jack Ma clapping, and Xi Jinping leading a business forum
After China’s Deepseek AI bot rocked the world’s markets and capitals last month, China’s private sector is now throwing the kind of party you just can’t ignore. How big? A $1.3 trillion rally. Big enough to attract the VVVVVVVIP himself, China’s leader, Xi Jinping.
Xi hosted China’s top business leaders at a forum in Beijing yesterday (Monday), and the highly choreographed affair is already being heralded as a turning point.
Why? Aside from Xi himself, cameras were all trained on Jack Ma, the billionaire Alibaba co-founder clapping cheerfully in the front row. And to recall why that’s such a striking image, it’s worth a quick refresher on Ma — the 60-year-old founded Alibaba in the late 1990s, and by the 2010s, he was a household name: the US had Bezos, China had Ma.
He was on a winning streak, too, expanding into new sectors and amassing a personal fortune that peaked at over $60B by 2020. But that’s also when Ma made a mistake.
Speaking at a summit in Shanghai, Ma famously dunked on China’s regulators as risk-averse and ruthless, strangling China’s innovation and growth. And sure enough, within a month, those same regulators then axed Ma’s plans for the world’s biggest-ever IPO, wiping $850B off Ma’s empire and cutting his personal wealth in half. More ominously, he then basically disappeared from public life, making only a few fleeting appearances since.
Why? Ma’s comments seem to have jolted China’s rulers, who responded with a series of crackdowns aimed at putting tycoons back in their place, while Xi emphasised a new focus on ‘common prosperity’ aimed at curbing tycoon excess and spreading the spoils.
So Ma’s problem became everyone’s problem:
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Authorities hit tech giants like Alibaba, Tencent, and Didi with antitrust fines
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Sectors like online education, gaming, and ride-hailing got their wings clipped, and
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That was after Beijing already started buying ‘golden shares’ in key tech firms like ByteDance and Weibo, furthering the Communist Party’s presence across the economy.
The net result of all this was trillions in wiped value and heightened uncertainty among the private sector, with up to a third of China’s estimated 1,200 billionaires then quietly leaving the country from 2021 and bringing their cash with them.
So to now see Ma smiling and clapping in the front row? That suggests:
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a) Xi has now forgiven Ma, and/or
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b) Xi needs the tycoons again.
And there are reasons to believe it’s probably both a) and b).
First, Intriguers will know China’s economy has been struggling lately:
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Its population began shrinking in 2022 for the first time in 60 years
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Its ongoing property sector collapse might’ve shredded up to $18 trillion, and
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That’s helped push China into a deflationary spiral that’s now run into its seventh consecutive quarter, matching a record set during the 1990s Asian Financial Crisis
So Xi has no shortage of dash-lights flashing red, which might help explain why…
Second, and heading back to where we started, Xi’s speech at yesterday’s summit emphasised the need for “healthy” private sector growth. He then got a big state-run ‘yeah 🤘’ from both the Global Times, urging firms to seize the day, and the China Daily, which assured readers that “concrete efforts” are coming — even China’s quasi-parliament says it’s now reviewing laws to support the private sector next week.
So all that — plus Ma even getting a handshake from Xi — has offered hope that maybe China’s economy is now back on track with another helping hand from Beijing.
INTRIGUE’S TAKE
While everyone marvels at Ma clapping in the front row, it’s easy to gloss over who was actually presiding over the formalities from up on stage: a guy called Wang Huning.
Wang is basically the Party’s chief ideologue, and Xi’s closest brains trust in pursuing domestic reforms to centralise power. His original claim to fame was actually his 1992 book America Against America on his experiences as a visiting scholar in the US, including observations about America’s decline, but also its strengths.
So… who cares? Well, if you look at this surprise summit, its surprise guest, his surprise front row seat, and surprise handshake, plus Xi’s surprise tycoon rallying cry, you might interpret that all as a signal that China is back in business, with Xi himself cheering on.
But if you then interpret those exact same facts with the extra fact that it all played out under the firm stewardship of Wang Huning himself, the signal starts to appear rather different: yes, Xi wants and needs his private sector, but still at the direction of — and in alignment with — his same Party-led, state-centric vision for China.
Also worth noting:
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Other attendees included Huawei’s Ren Zhengfei, BYD's Wang Chuanfu, Yu Renrong from Will Semiconductor, Wang Xingxing from Unitree Robotics, and Xiaomi's Lei Jun, plus DeepSeek’s own Liang Wenfeng.
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Meanwhile, two notable absences included the CEOs of Baidu (China’s Google) and ByteDance (the owner of TikTok). It’s unclear why they weren’t invited, but their absence has rattled markets with fears the two might’ve fallen out of Xi’s favour, shaving 7% off Baidu in a single day.
MEANWHILE, ELSEWHERE…
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🇰🇷 South Korea: Seoul has announced it’s suspending new downloads of the China-based AI chatbot DeepSeek until South Korean authorities can guarantee it’s complying with local data protection laws. The new app was already the most-downloaded program in 140 countries at the end of January.
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🇵🇱 Poland: The leaders of Poland and Spain have said that, unlike the UK’s Keir Starmer, they won’t send their own troops to Ukraine as part of any future peace deal. Rather, Poland’s Donald Tusk has said he’ll offer continued logistical support to countries willing to send support to neighbouring Ukraine.
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🇲🇲 Myanmar: The ruling military junta has announced it’ll return over 1,000 people it’s rescued from scam centres near Myanmar’s border with Thailand as it seeks to crack down on organised crime. Regional efforts to rescue trafficked people intensified after last month’s kidnapping of an actor from China.
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🇧🇷 Brazil: 15 countries including Brazil, China, Indonesia, South Africa, and Saudi Arabia have asked the UN to discard plans for a new levy on global shipping aimed at raising funds to address climate change. While Brazil will host this year’s COP climate summit, it’s also sensitive to anything that could impact its vast seaborne exports.
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🇪🇬 Egypt: Cairo and Cyprus have signed deals for the development of two Cypriot gas fields, involving the piping of Cypriot gas to Egypt for conversion into LNG before being exported. The agreements are critical for Egypt, which has been pursuing deals with its neighbours to offset a sharp decline in its own output.
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EXTRA INTRIGUE
Here’s what people are googling
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🇸🇬 Singaporeans looked up ‘Pritam Singh’ after a court found the opposition leader guilty of lying to parliament, but stopped short of banning him from running in the next elections due by November.
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Folks in 🇨🇴 Colombia googled ‘Kim Sae-ron’ after news broke the young South Korean actress, known for her roles in ‘A Brand New Life’ and ‘The Man from Nowhere’, has passed away.
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And speaking of the screen sector, film buffs in 🇮🇪 Ireland searched for ‘Baftas 2025’ to check the winners of the British screen industry awards, including ‘Conclave’ and ‘The Brutalist’.
DELETED TWEET OF THE DAY
Translated from the original Spanish by Intrigue
Argentina’s leader Javier Milei is now facing calls for impeachment after he briefly promoted a little-known cryptocurrency by the name of Project Viva La Libertad ($LIBRA).
His tweet claimed the token would “encourage economic growth by funding small businesses and startups”, and LIBRA’s price soared after his endorsement before collapsing more than 90%. Milei deleted his tweet within hours.
Most of the new cryptocurrency seems to have been held by a few individual accounts who made up to $87M dollars each after selling at the top.
That’s led lawyers to file fraud charges, accusing Milei of participating in a classic pump-and-dump or rug-pull scheme. The president denies the allegations, says he has no ties to the project, and deleted the tweet once he became more aware of the details.
DAILY POLL
Who do you think gains most from any defrosting between Beijing and the private sector? |
Yesterday’s poll: Which aspect of VP Vance's speech surprised you the most?
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🇪🇺 Critique of European democracy (29%)
🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🚀 Glossing over the Russo-Ukraine war (14%)
🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🇨🇳 No real mention of China (6%)
🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ 💬 The overall vibe (21%)
🟨🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️ 🤷 Nothing – Trump campaigned on this (27%)
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ ✍️ Other (write in!) (2%)
Your two cents:
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🇪🇺 C.O: “It was just a complete and utter betrayal of U.S. commitments that only suggests to adversaries ‘Europe is now free game, we won't stop you’."
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🤷 S.M.M: “If anyone is surprised, they haven't been paying attention.”
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✍️ M: “Hillbillies gonna elegy.”
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