Daily Buzz: 9 March 2026

China Urges Path of Peace, Global Oil Prices Surge Past US$100

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said "might does not make right" and called the Middle East conflict "a war that shouldn't have happened and does not benefit anyone." Speaking at a news briefing on the sidelines of the National People's Congress in Beijing on Sunday, he said, "All parties should return to the negotiating table as soon as possible." He said China is "the world's most important force of peace and stability," and rejected the idea of "co-governance" whereby Washington and US would determine the world order. Wang urged the US to follow the path of multilaterism and peace.

Washington, however, wasn't moving in that direction as it continued intense bombing of Iran into a second week. President Donald Trump promised the "complete destruction" of Iran as clerics chose Mojtaba Khamenei, son of the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as new supreme leader. His father was killed by US-Israeli missiles on the first day of the war. Israel has vowed to kill any successor. However, the Washington Post cited US military intelligence warning that a long war is unlikely to topple the regime in Tehran.

Iran continued to attack what it said are US military facilities in the Gulf states, though its drones and missiles often hit civilian sites. The UAE, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait all reported Iranian attacks over the weekend, including a strike near Dubai International Airport, damage to a desalination plant in Bahrain and a tower block set on fire in Kuwait. The US and Israel targeted Tehran oil depots and refineries, blackening the skies over the capital. Israel continued to pound Hezbollah strongholds in Beirut and southern Lebanon.

Crude oil prices surged past US$100 per barrel when the global market reopened on Sunday evening, after Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates announced cuts in production, and Iraq's output effectively collapsed. Oil tanker traffic has been halted through the critical Strait of Hormuz amid Iran threats. Benchmark Brent crude jumped 15 percent in early trading to US$107.50 a barrel, after surging about 35 percent last week – the steepest gain since the oil crisis of 1983. Dow futures initially plunged about 2 percent on the news. Prices at the gas pump are surging around the world, hurting consumers. Trump told ABC News that the spike in gas prices is "a little glitch." An NPR/PBS/Marist poll released on Friday showed 56 percent of Americans opposed to the US military action against Iran.

Top Business

AI 'Lobster' Craze Spreads in China

China's fast-growing consumer AI market is spawning a new craze around autonomous AI agents, with tech firms, regulators and users all getting involved quickly as interest surges. Xiaomi has begun a limited closed beta test of Xiaomi Miclaw, an AI agent built on its MiMo large language model. Founder Lei Jun, commenting on the project online, called it a "phone lobster." Unlike traditional chatbots, the AI tool gives smartphones the capability of interpreting user intent and operating applications like managing files or emails. The craze was begun by Austrian coder Peter Steinberger's AI OpenClaw tool, a name derived from Anthropic's Claude AI system.

The growing popularity of such tools has raised security concerns. China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology recently warned that some deployments of open-source OpenClaw could pose cybersecurity risks if improperly configured, potentially exposing systems to data leaks or unauthorized access. That hasn't dented popularity. In Shenzhen, long lines formed outside Tencent's headquarters this week when the company offered free installation services for OpenClaw, helping users configure the software and connect it with messaging platforms and other tools. OpenClaw can be difficult for ordinary users to install, spawning a market for paid installation services costing up to 500 yuan (US$72).

Ctrip Drops AI Hotel Pricing Tool

Ctrip, China's largest online travel platform, said it will remove an automated hotel-pricing tool used by merchants on its e-booking system, saying the tool was initially aimed at improving pricing efficiency but has instead intensified price competition. The company said removing the feature aims to reduce irrational price wars and give hotels greater autonomy in setting room rates. Analysts say automated repricing can sometimes trap hotels in algorithm-driven price competition, where prices continually adjust downward as platforms respond to each other.

China Warns of Chip Disruption as Nexperia Dispute Flares

China's commerce ministry warned of the possibility of another disruption in global chip supplies after "new conflicts" flared between Dutch-based chipmaker Nexperia and its Chinese subsidiary. The warning on Saturday came after the Chinese unit, which packages chips, accused Nexperia headquarters in the Netherlands of disabling office accounts for Chinese employees. "This has created new difficulties and obstacles for negotiations," China's commerce ministry said in a statement. "Nexperia Netherlands has seriously disrupted the company's normal production." Dutch officials in October seized control of Nexperia from its Chinese-based parent Wingtech Technology, in response to a tightened US blacklist of Chinese companies and their subsidiaries. The action disrupted supplies of Nexperia chips used in auto electronics systems. The Dutch and Chinese units of the company have since been involved in a legal battle over corporate control.

AI Agent Reportedly Goes Rogue, Triggering Alarm

An AI agent went rogue and started a side hustle mining cryptocurrencies and opening covert network tunnels without authorization., according to a research paper published by an unidentified Alibaba-affiliated team, Axios news service reported. Researchers building a new AI agent called Rome said internal security alarms sounded when they found "unanticipated" behavior emerging "without any explicit instruction." Cryptopolitan website said news of the rogue action was contained in a technical report Alibaba issued earlier this year, brought to light more recently by Alexander Long, founder of AI research firm Pluralis, who said an "insane sequence of statements were buried in an Alibaba tech report." Alibaba didn't respond to requests for comment.

Economy & Markets

China's Forex Reserves Rise in Month

China's foreign-exchange reserves in February rose 0.85 percent from a month earlier to US$3.43 trillion, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange announced, citing an increase in the value of the US dollar. The combined effects of exchange rate conversion and changes in asset prices contributed to the increase, the administration said. The nation's gold reserves increased by 30,000 ounces in the 16th consecutive month of gold buying.

Deutsche Bank Sells Largest Foreign Issue of Panda Bonds

Deutsche Bank said it has successfully completed the sale of 5.5 billion yuan (US$796 million) in panda bonds on the China interbank market --the first panda bonds issued by an EU financial institution this year and the largest single issuance by a foreign bank. Panda bonds are debt denominated in yuan and issued in the domestic market by foreign sellers. The transaction attracted 8.66 billion yuan in orders, with the three-year and five-year tranches oversubscribed about 1.6 tries. The final coupon rates were 1.95 percent for the 3-year portion and 2.13 percent for the 5-year portion.

BlackRock Fund Limits Withdrawals, Private Equity Concerns Rise

US-based BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager, said it has limited withdrawals from a flagship credit fund after a surge in redemption requests, Reuters reported. The move escalated concerns among investors about the financial stability of the private equity sector, which started earlier when withdrawal problems arose at smaller credit provider Blue Owl. Many private credit funds are heavy investors in the software industry. Blackrock's US$26 billion HPS Corporate Lending Fund received withdrawal requests valued at US$1.2 billion in the first quarter, hitting the 5 percent threshold that is a standard point in the industry for restricting further withdrawals. The fund paid out US$620 million. BlackRock shares fell 6.7 percent in New York on Friday.

IMF Official in China Outlines Growth Drivers

Marshall Mills, the International Monetary Fund's senior resident representative in China, told China Daily that a comprehensive reform package for the country could lift annual growth by 0.5 percentage point. He said demand, supply and reform can jointly drive China's economic growth,

On the demand side, he cited China's vast pool of savings as a potential trigger for higher consumer spending; on the supply side, he said deeper reforms could improve resource allocation, advancing productivity gains across broad sectors of the economy.

Corporate

UK Proposes Compensation for China's Jingye

The UK has proposed compensation for Jingye Group after the government last year seized operational control over British Steel, which the Chinese steelmaker owns, Sky News reported. The offer, which is reportedly less than 100 million pounds (US$134 million) comes six months after the then business secretary said British Steel's equity was essentially worthless. The government stepped to take over operations amid fears that Jingye was poised to permanently close the UK's last-remaining blast furnaces, with the loss of thousands of jobs. Beijing-based Jingye has been seeking legal compensation of 1 billion pounds, which it claims is the amount invested in British Steel since it acquired it out of solvency in 2020. A government spokesperson said discussions with Jingye are continuing.

Chinese AI Chipmaker Tsing Micro Seeks IPO

Beijing-based AI chip startup Tsing Micro has begun the process toward an initial public offering, according to filings published by China's securities regulator. Founded in 2018, the company is developing reconfigurable dataflow AI chips and currently produces more than 10 chip models across the TX5 series for edge computing and the TX8 series for cloud applications. Its flagship TX81 chip supports deployment of trillion-parameter large models. No financial details on the size of the IPO have been released. Tsing Micro has completed seven funding rounds since its founding, attracting investors that include Baidu, Ant Group and SenseTime-linked funds.

Boeing Reportedly Nears Major Aircraft Order From China

US aerospace giant Boeing is close to landing an order from China for up to 500 737 Max jets, which would be its first major aircraft order from the country in nearly a decade, Bloomberg News reported, citing people familiar with the matter. The order is expected to be announced when and if President Donald Trump visits China this year. China was once the major market for sales in the Boeing-Airbus international battle for orders, but orders have dropped sharply in recent years. China's aviation industry has reportedly been in talks with Airbus for two years on a separate 500-jet order.

Deepseek, Tencent Join University in AI Design Development

Chinese start-up DeepSeek is collaborating with researchers from Tencent Holdings and the University of Hong Kong on a new AI-based method that can improve the accuracy of three-dimensional design, the South China Morning Post reported. Development of the Pointer-CAD model, a framework built on Alibaba Qwen AI 2.5 model, aims to help designers select edges, or faces, of a 3D object, increasing the accuracy and efficiency in computer-aided design used in engineering, manufacturing and architecture.