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China’s Official 2026 Holiday Schedule

Notice of the General Office of the State Council on the Arrangements for Certain Holidays in 2026

State Council Telegram [2025] No. 7

Is the gold bull catching its breath, or is it over?

Gold is generally considered a safe-haven asset, typically shining when the economy runs too hot or too cold.

By Xu Xiaoqing Chief Macro Strategist, Dunhe Asset Management Co., Ltd.

Since the start of 2025, gold has climbed steadily from around $2,600 an ounce, at one point approaching $4,400 — a peak gain of nearly 69% for the year. But from October 20, it slid to as low as $3,900 within six trading days, a drop of 11%. Either this gold bull market has ended, or this is merely a pause for breath.

Light and Fatigue in the Short Drama Factory

It was raining in Xi’an that day.

Autumn had just arrived. The wind on the Bailu Plain location was cold, and the rain refused to stop. A crew of nearly forty was stuck inside a faux-antique courtyard. The slate said it plainly: twenty-two scenes had to be finished that day.

I went back to my hometown today. Desolation everywhere — autumn wind, autumn rain, the season grinding the spirit down. Hardly any of the shops along the street were still open, the neon-and-liquor glow of years past has vanished who knows where, and the elementary school I once attended has been shut down.

The real China is not on the evening news, nor in the movies and TV dramas. It lives in the county towns and townships whose names you have never even heard. There are no spectacles there, only ordinary days.

To My Fellow Shareholders:

I will no longer be writing Berkshire’s annual report or talking endlessly at the annual meeting. As the British would say, I’m “going quiet.”

Sort of.

Greg Abel will become the boss at yearend. He is a great manager, a tireless worker and an honest communicator. Wish him an extended tenure.

I will continue talking to you and my children about Berkshire via my annual Thanksgiving message. Berkshire’s individual shareholders are a very special group who are unusually generous in sharing their gains with others less fortunate. I enjoy the chance to keep in touch with you. Indulge me this year as I first reminisce a bit. After that, I will discuss the plans for distribution of my Berkshire shares. Finally, I will offer a few business and personal observations.

The core theme of this issue of The Economist is an interesting one — “Rebalancing the World” — but after finishing the whole magazine, the picture that popped into my head was something else entirely: a mahjong table with four players. One has just won a big hand, one is still bitterly waiting to draw the winning tile, one is counting tiles, and one is getting ready to flip the table and walk away.

The President’s Contradictory Posture

In public, President Trump has spent weeks deriding Zohran Mamdani as an extremist, a communist, and a threat to New York City. He has also insisted that he is “much better looking” than the 34-year-old Mamdani.

But in private, according to two people who disclosed the president’s remarks on condition of anonymity, Trump has described the New York City mayor-elect as a talented politician — sharp-minded and quick with an argument.

The Rare-Earth War

—— China’s strategic confidence and resource sovereignty amid the reshaping of global geopolitics

Preface

I studied geology at China University of Geosciences. As an undergraduate, as part of an academic activity organized by the university, I wrote a short paper titled “The Rare-Earth War.” Back then, the “war” was mostly a metaphor in the academic sense, an exploration of the relationship between resource competition and technological rivalry. Many years on, the world has shifted beyond recognition, and the scenarios once argued on paper are now playing out in reality. Taking up the pen again to rewrite “The Rare-Earth War” fills me with emotion.

TikTok Meets Trump: All the Wrong Moves, Somehow Still Alive

Driven to the edge, TikTok found its way to survive: hand the stage, the applause and the glory to Trump, as lavishly as possible

TikTok: the most watched piece on the geopolitical chessboard.

In Washington it is seen as a Trojan horse from the East, poised to gather intelligence for China and lay the groundwork for manipulating public opinion; in other eyes it is a pitiful sacrificial pawn, trembling under the crush of the superpowers, waiting for judgment at the negotiating table.