Politburo meeting; BlackRock-CK Hutchinson deal in trouble; Xi on S&T; DeepSeek opens up OpenAI

Summary of today’s Essential Eight:

1. March Politburo meeting - The Politburo met on Monday and the agenda according to the readout was to “review the ‘Regulations on Ecological Environment Protection Supervision Work; and the ‘Comprehensive Report on the Fourth Round of Central Inspections of the 20th CPC Central Committee’." There was no news about CMC vice chair He Weidong.

2. Xi on Science and Technology - The April 1st issue of Qiushi leads with Xi Jinping’s June 2024 speech at the National Science and Technology Conference, the National Science and Technology Award Conference, and the Academicians' Assembly of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering. In that speech - 朝着建成科技强国的宏伟目标奋勇前进 Forge Ahead Towards the Grand Goal of Building a Technological Powerhouse - he outlined China's strategic goal of becoming a global science and technology power by 2035. I have posted a full translation here.

Xi emphasized that Chinese-style modernization requires scie…