CL Officials in Washington and Beijing spent Friday explaining what their militaries were not doing, no shortages, no escalation, while Taiwan rolled Abrams tanks across open ground in its largest exercise yet and the South China Sea recorded its first combat deaths in decades. Nobody in either capital treated those as the same story.-- CL

MB Russia is reshuffling generals as its offensive stalls, Beijing is telling insurers everything is fine while their share prices disagree, and Hong Kong police have arrested sixteen people over one bar fight, which tells you something about the arithmetic of that fight. A central authority, a tax regime, a war effort: all insisting on stability the same morning. That kind of chorus usually means someone already found the crack and started making calls.-- MB