Taiwan’s government proposed its highest level of military spending ever at over $35 billion, in a $123 billion budget for 2027 unveiled on Thursday www.wsj.com/world/china/...

Bamboo viper surprise on my walk home. Think it was dead, but I didn’t get close enough to find out

Trendspotting in Wanchai

PLA Navy corvette Suqian (pennant number 666) sailing through Victoria Harbour, with a Star Ferry crossing behind

By comparison, here's a 2017 photo of the promotion of five officers to the rank of general. You can make out a few near smiles. And a lot more people in the room www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2017-0...

PLA Navy frigate Hengyang sailing through Victor Harbour in Hong Kong this morning. The destroyer Nanning was just ahead of it

In 2019 they got some sort of purple flower. Bougainvillea?

Xi and Kim met in Pyongyang over a bed of roses? www.news.cn/world/202606...

Good news, colleagues. We now have our own action figures

That’s a different ship

National Security Law anniversary stickers handed out at kindergartens in Hong Kong

Approaching peak Keung To

Also Grok and Google's AI Overview are treating it as real

Then in the Indian newspaper Business Today: www.msn.com/en-in/money/...

Trying to track down this alleged letter from Chinese Defense Minister Dong Jun to the White House. Doesn't appear in any Chinese official sources, and it seems to be fake. No clarification yet from Chinese authorities. First mention I can find is this post on X:

RIP Sinosphere tedalcorn.github.io/nyt/

HK scenes this week

possibly this in Cheung Sha Wan

Lotsa smoke over TST this afternoon

But in October on the Hugh Hewitt show he said exactly that, adding that Lai would be "easy to get out." In the latest interview Trump also seemed to endorse Beijing's view of Hong Kong in 2019, describing "a very nasty period of time in the history of China." hughhewitt.com/former-and-f...

Trump in an interview with Fox News on Thursday said he would "do everything I can to save" Jimmy Lai. But there was some backpedaling. Trump denied ever saying he would get Lai freed: "I didn’t say 100% I’d save him." radio.foxnews.com/2025/08/14/p...

Line of people waiting outside the West Kowloon Courts in Hong Kong to see closing arguments of Jimmy Lai’s national security trial. The city just announced a black rain signal, the highest. Mercifully everyone was let into the building shortly after this

Lots of posts in recent days on Chinese social media supporting the Chinese Navy and Coast Guard crews whose ships collided, blaming the Philippines and highlighting US Navy accidents at sea. Still no official word on any casualties

Was trying to understand why Trump hammered India with tariffs for buying Russian oil but not China, the bigger buyer. This from the Washington Post's WorldView offers a clue www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/0...

A longer video of the collision between PLA Navy destroyer Guilin and a Chinese coast guard ship as they pursued a Philippines coast guard patrol vessel about 10 miles east of Scarborough Shoal

Best value for money was Green Veggie. Veg place, very plain but surprisingly good and cheap. 48 HK for three dishes with rice and soup

Post-typhoon commute

Also top of the print edition

Pickleball diplomacy on the top of People’s Daily English-language site right now