Our daily trip around the world

🇨🇳 Chinese President Xi Jinping held a surprise meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday. The impromptu discussion came at the end of Blinken’s two-day visit to Beijing, where he also met with two of China’s top-ranked diplomats. The US and China reportedly made little progress on their main topics of disagreement – including trade, Taiwan, human rights, and Russia’s war against Ukraine – but promised to find common ground on increasing flights between the US and China and combating the flow of fentanyl into America.

🇷🇺 Russia reportedly tried to assassinate a CIA informant on US soil in 2020. The unsuccessful attempt targeted former Russian intelligence officer Aleksandr Poteyev, who disclosed information leading to the capture of 11 Russian spies living under deep cover in suburbs and cities on the East Coast, per multiple reports. This is the first publicly known attempt by Russia to kill a suspected US government informant on American soil – and it led the US to retaliate. America expelled 10 Russian diplomats in 2021, including the head of Moscow’s foreign intelligence agency.

🇮🇱🇩🇪 Intel announced a pair of record-setting investments in Israel and Germany. On Sunday, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu said the American chipmaker agreed to spend $25 billion on a new plant in central Israel; this represents the country’s largest-ever international investment. But Intel wasn’t done making money moves. Yesterday, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced a new $33 billion investment from Intel to build two chip-making plants in Magdeburg – which also represents his country’s largest-ever international investment.