Event: China Orders

The attendees at U.S. President Donald Trump’s second inauguration included a typical cast of government officials, legislators, and cabinet nominees. What was not so typical was the crew of billionaires who also attended—and took center stage. The Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, the Google CEO Sundar Pichai, and the Tesla/SpaceX CEO Elon Musk were all seated one row behind Trump’s children and in front of many of his cabinet nominees, including Pete Hegseth, Robert Kennedy, Jr., and Kristi Noem. To many, the billionaires’ prominent placement—and the overtures they seemed to be making in anticipation of Trump’s swearing in—signified a new bargain between U.S. business elites and the president. Such a bargain is not just dangerous for a country’s democracy but also for the business elites who make it. And it brings the United States much closer to other countries in which alliances between government leaders and business tycoons are more typical.With good reason, many observers in the United States saw in Trump’s inauguration the enshrining of a new oligarchy. The term “oligarch” is more commonly associated with post-Soviet Russia. In the late 1980s, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s major economic reforms, known as perestroika, allowed once nationalized and state-run industrial assets to increasingly make their way into the hands of politically connected managers and a nascent entrepreneurial class of business executives. The fall of the Soviet Union accelerated this transition, as economic mismanagement by Kremlin officials led to chronic cash shortages and forced the government to borrow money from private banks. As collateral, private bankers demanded stakes in major state-owned enterprises. When the government invariably defaulted, the banks gained control of the commanding heights of the Russian economy.The owners of these banks—favored insiders such as Roman Abramovich, Boris Berezovsky, and Mikhail Khodorkovsky—used these bargain-basement takeovers to consolidate…

The Manus decision comes just weeks before China’s Xi Jinping and the U.S. president are scheduled to meet at a high-profile summit. | Bloomberg Meta cut the deal for Manus as part of its effort to catch up with rivals such as Alphabet’s Google, OpenAI and Anthropic. | Bloomberg China has sought for years to exert influence over business deals beyond its home turf. Still, its decision to press Meta Platforms to unwind a $2 billion acquisition of AI startup Manus marks a step unlike anything it’s tried before.The country’s powerful state planner decreed Monday that the deal must be canceled — four months after it was sealed. In doing so, it’s targeting a U.S. tech juggernaut with little to no business operations in China and a startup that, while originally from China, had legally moved to Singapore.The two companies have spent months operating on the assumption that the deal was wrapped up. The startup’s employees have already moved into Meta offices in Singapore, while its executives have joined the U.S. firm’s high-profile AI team. Investors in Manus, including Tencent Holdings, ZhenFund and HongShan, have already received their payouts, according to people familiar with the matter. In a time of both misinformation and too much information, quality journalism is more crucial than ever.By subscribing, you can help us get the story right. SUBSCRIBE NOW

Nissan Motor shares climbed the most in more than two months after the Japanese carmaker raised its earnings outlook, avoiding what could have been its first annual operating loss in five years.The stock rose as much as 6.5% in early morning trading in Tokyo, the most since Feb. 17 on an intraday basis, after the company estimated it posted a full-year operating profit of ¥50 billion ($314 million) compared with its previous forecast for a ¥60 billion loss.Nissan cited the removal of U.S. emissions-related charges, a favorable foreign-exchange impact and improved cost performance.It’s a rare bright spot for a carmaker that’s been struggling to reshape itself after failing to keep up with the industry’s shift to electric vehicles and hybrids in Japan, China and the U.S. Even so, the revision mainly reflects noncore factors rather than a rebound in underlying demand. Nissan’s management expects further gains from cost discipline, better cash flow in the second half and incremental benefits from a refreshed product lineup."Earnings are solid, thanks in part to stronger-than-expected progress in restructuring,” Kazunori Maki, an analyst at SMBC Nikko Securities, wrote in a note.Manufacturers selling cars in the U.S. had set aside funds to pay federal fines, including Greenhouse Gas compliance penalties, and will now no longer need to do so after the Trump administration shifted policies. That’s translating into a short-term boost for foreign automakers in the market. Apart from Nissan, Toyota Motor and Honda Motor stand to benefit, although to different degrees given their variance in scale and profitability.Final results are scheduled to be released May 13.

U.S. Army Gen. Xavier Brunson (center), commander of U.S. Forces Korea, walks on a pontoon bridge with U.S. and South Korean Army soldiers during a U.S.-South Korea joint river-crossing exercise, part of the annual Freedom Shield joint military training, near the Demilitarized Zone separating the two Koreas, in Yeoncheon, South Korea, on March 14. | REUTERS The head of U.S. Forces Korea has outlined a new concept to potentially link the military capabilities of South Korea, Japan and possibly the Philippines into a “kill web” as a way of enabling a more coordinated response to mounting security challenges from North Korea, China and Russia.The strategy seeks to fuse the strengths of Washington’s regional treaty allies into a single, networked system coordinating across land, sea and air as well as the space, cyber and electromagnetic arenas. “We have to link these complementary capabilities into a kill web that achieves combined, joint, all-domain effects,” U.S. Army Gen. Xavier Brunson, who also heads United Nations Command and Combined Forces Command, told The Japan Times in a recent interview. In a time of both misinformation and too much information, quality journalism is more crucial than ever.By subscribing, you can help us get the story right. SUBSCRIBE NOW

SEOUL – Foreign medical tourists to South Korea, including for aesthetic treatments, surged 71.9% in 2025 from the previous year to some 2.01 million, an all-time high, with Japanese ranking second after Chinese, the South Korean government said.The number of Japanese visitors stood at about 600,000, up 36.0%, to account for 29.8% of the total, according to the Ministry of Health and Welfare. Chinese medical tourists totaled some 620,000.Of the total, 62.9%, the largest share, traveled to South Korea for dermatological treatment and 11.2% for orthopedic treatment.South Korea is enjoying good relations with Japan while exempting Chinese group tourists from short-term visa requirements last September. The popularity of South Korea's pop culture — including K-pop music and cosmetic products from brands in the country — is believed to have led to an increase in visitors to the nation.The government-affiliated Korea Institute for Industrial Economics and Trade estimated that the 2.01 million foreign visitors and those who accompanied them spent about 12.5 trillion won during their stays in South Korea, with medical expenditures accounting for about 3.3 trillion won.The South Korean government has been pushing to attract foreign visitors for medical services since 2009.The government will continue monitoring the situation to ensure the initiative will not negatively affect South Koreans' access to medical services, a Ministry of Health and Welfare official said.

AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTYou have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load.China Orders the Unwinding of Meta’s Acquisition of an A.I. Start-UpThe impact of the ruling was not immediately clear, but it could send a chilling signal to Chinese tech founders seeking to team up with foreign companies.Meta has described the two teams already as “deeply integrated.” Credit...Jason Henry for The New York TimesApril 27, 2026The Chinese government said on Monday that it would require the unwinding of Meta’s acquisition of Manus, a Singapore-based artificial intelligence company with Chinese founders, in a move that could chill other Chinese entrepreneurs from seeking tie-ups with foreign partners.Chinese officials had said in January that they were investigating whether Meta’s acquisition of Manus in December violated the country’s rules on foreign investment. They were also assessing whether the deal violated China’s requirements that companies obtain approval for the export of certain technologies.The National Development and Reform Commission, a high-level ministry that oversees economic planning and plays a central role in setting China’s A.I. policy, said on Monday that it had decided to prohibit foreign investment in Manus, and instructed the parties involved to withdraw the acquisition.It is not clear how such a transaction would be unwound. Meta has described the two teams as “deeply integrated.” Members of the Manus team have been working alongside Meta colleagues at the company’s office in Singapore, according to two people familiar with the operation who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk publicly.In a statement, Meta said the transaction fully complied with law, adding “We anticipate an appropriate resolution to the inquiry.”The Chinese government issued its decision just a few weeks before a planned meeting between President Trump…