US-China in Trump 2.0; January Politburo meeting; Getting ready for Spring Festival; TikTok

Today’s newsletter is a bit truncated, as I was distracted by the Trump inauguration and had to spend several hours at the vet with a sick dog. Tuesday’s newsletter I hope will be back to normal and I will try to backfill some of the things I missed.

Xi Jinping may be relatively comforted by the events of the last several days. He had a call with President Trump Friday and they agreed to “establish strategic communication channels and maintain regular contact on major issues of common concern”. Vice President Han Zheng, Xi’s emissary to the inauguration, met with then Vice President-elect JD Vance, members of the US business community with the US-China Business Council and the US Chamber of Commerce, and also individually with Elon Musk and John Thornton.

The TikTok law went into effect Sunday, and while the service went offline in the US for several hours it returned later Sunday as Oracle decided they were comfortable with violating US law because Trump really wanted the service rest…