Risk, Parties, Coffee and Crypto Are In: Saturday Asia Briefing

Global financial markets are gripped with euphoria, “even though the Fed is kind of pulling away the punch bowl,” says Emily Roland. Even China’s gloom-laden stocks managed a gain, though its citizens are grumbling. Elsewhere, American executives are using burner phones in Hong Kong, US officials are fretting about China’s space program, and crypto is winning over old enemies. More of that later, but first, let’s have coffee.

Southeast Asia’s two big coffee-growing powerhouses, Vietnam and Indonesia, are increasingly having to import beans from Brazil to satisfy the caffeine cravings of their own populations.