China

For the first time ever, Chinese State television has aired construction work on the artificial island known as the Fiery Cross, or Yongshu, Reef in the Nansha Islands, located in the contested territory inside the South China Sea.

Fiery Cross is also claimed by the Philippines, Vietnam and Taiwan however China has been the fastest in actually settling the reef which it converted into a man-made island in 2014 to which it has deployed hundreds of troops.

While markets remain relatively subdued ahead of tomorrow's nonfarm payrolls report, after several days of losses in US stocks, which have taken "sell in May" to heart and pushed the S&P500 to three week lows, overnight markets ignored the latest weak data out of China where the Caixin Services PMI was the latest indicator to disappoint (dropping from 52.2 to 51.8), and instead focused on crude, which rebounded from yesterday's post inventory-build lows and briefly printed above $45/bbl over uncertainty related to the impact of Canada wildfires on production and how long will last.

As we detailed recently, in addition to its sub-prime debt crisis, China is dealing with an issue that is just as troubling, if not more so: Porkflation. Due to a drop in global production of pig meat, pork prices in China have been skyrocketing at both the wholesale and retail levels.

Retail prices

And wholesale prices

As we also noted previously, Pork's role in CPI is also being felt (factors heavily into the CPI basket), as China's broad-based CPI is creeping up.

Speaking through its mouthpiece Global Times, China has published its first reaction to "unpredictable" Trump's position as presumptive Republican nominee and their expectations of a Trump vs Clinton fight for The White House...

China's military is out with a new recruiting video, although it isn't what some may envision. The People's Liberation Army (incidentally the world's largest military force, with a strength of approximately 2,285,000 personnel, or 0.18% of China's population) released an online recruiting video, which however was anything but your average, army stock filler with a beating bass line or a cherubic choir in the background: it was just the testament to demonstrate China's militant yet "cultured uniqueness" as it sets off to dominates the world.