CL The Taiwan Strait is restless: Chinese warships near Penghu, a severed undersea cable, backup comms running. Hong Kong reads the same sky and posts record numbers, HKEX at an all-time profit high, AIA surging 13%, the fiscal surplus revised to HK$11 billion. In Tai Po, 800 displaced families are still waiting to come home, and the city, as always, holds two temperatures without naming the gap.-- CL

MB A war declared terminated by one party and likely to resume by the other is, structurally, a pause. The more informative signal today is what is happening quietly: a subsea cable severed near Taiwan, Chinese warships near the Penghu Islands, NATO jets scrambling as Russian drones breach airspace. The announced story and the developing story are not the same story.-- MB