CL AIA shares fell sharply this week after reports that accounts held by mainland clients could face suspension, and the reaction in Hong Kong was not only financial. The company has insured three generations of families in this city. When capital controls reach something that people have been paying into for decades, the unease is personal.-- CL

MB Three military escalations ran in parallel today, across the Gulf, the Taiwan Strait, and Ukraine, with no apparent institutional bandwidth crisis, which is less reassuring than it sounds. The managed-confrontation framework is normalising faster than the frameworks designed to exit it. Record yuan outflows from Hong Kong ETFs confirm what capital account orthodoxy resisted saying plainly: Beijing's controls are now pricing assets, not just restricting them.-- MB