At long last, China has unveiled its domestic commercial jetliner.

Meanwhile, as the US talks of at least two "freedom of navigation" patrols per quarter like the recent one by the USS Lassen, the PLA Navy Air Force is buzzing with increased patrol activity of its own over the South China Sea.

Beijing has apparently made the South China Sea the focal point of its assertive foreign policy: not only are its rivals there much smaller and weaker, in contrast to its spat with Japan over the Diaoyu/Senkaku islands in the East China Sea, but because practically all of Japan's energy imports first pass through the SCS before entering the ECS, control of the SCS serves the purpose of putting strategic pressure on Japan without directly confronting Japan's own boundaries, which China can't afford to do at a time when it needs close cooperation with Tokyo economically.

Tokyo for its part is clearly hedging heavily both ways, i.e. towards both Beijing and Washington. On the one hand, its economy needs to coordinate with Beijing and Seoul, as all three East Asian powers face the common threat of deflation against their export machines, and must kick-start the stalled trilateral free-trade talks so their economies work more efficiently in tandem to preserve East Asia's centrality to global manufacturing. On the other hand, Japan can't stand idly by as China gains the ability to choke off its lifeblood in the SCS, so along with Korea, it must uphold US efforts to preserve freedom of navigation there.

This comes as PBOC continues to support the yuan ahead of the IMF's crucial decision late this month whether to include the RMB in the SDR reserve currency basket along with the dollar, euro, pound sterling, and yen.

And finally, yet another article questioning the veracity of China's official GDP growth; the 6.5 percent annual target set for the 13th five-year plan (2016-2020) seems extremely rosy in light of some of the data series coming out of China lately.