☕️ Good morning, friends,

a Dutch man with Chinese roots says he always gets 20% off his manicures.

Reason: he was born without thumbs. He loves it that way and wouldn’t trade places with anyone. From us, that’s two thumbs up 👍🏻👍🏻

Have a great weekend!

P.S. We don’t have a manicure discount code, but we do have one for the best China travel guides out there — written by humans for humans. Use the code asiabitsfriends for 10% off.

Asia’s markets pause between weak data and deal fever

Asian stocks were mixed on Thursday as investors weighed weak Chinese retail data against new deal activity and AI optimism. Shanghai Composite was up 1.3% and the CSI 300 up 1.5%, supported by expectations for upcoming policy signals from Beijing.

Stock highlights:

SoftBank stole the show, jumping 13% after announcing a $5.4 billion deal to buy ABB’s robotics arm — a bold bet on “physical AI” that lifted the Nikkei and reignited Japan’s tech momentum.

In Hong Kong, JD Logistics climbed 3.5% after revealing plans to acquire a local instant-delivery business from its parent JD.com for $270 million to expand its last-mile network.

TOP BIT

🧠 Chinese AI star leaves Anthropic over “China” rhetoric

A rare shake-up in the AI power game: Chinese physicist and AI researcher Yao Shunyu has left Anthropic after less than a year to join Google DeepMind.

In a blog post, he cited Anthropic’s characterization of China as an “adversarial nation” — along with its ban on subsidiaries of Chinese companies — as the key reason for his departure. At DeepMind, Yao will join the core Gemini team.

The Details

🇨🇳 The trigger: Anthropic had blocked access for subsidiaries of Chinese firms and labeled China an …