China

On August 12, the Pinglu Canal launched a live-ship trial using vessels in the 1,000-, 3,000-, and 5,000-ton classes to validate navigation conditions along its 134.2-kilometer route, with construction more than 98% complete. Guangxi maritime authorities timed the opening to coincide with the China-ASEAN Expo on September 17-21, 2026, though no official pass/fail threshold, trial end date, or formal opening declaration has been published. The canal is designed for an annual one-way throughput of 89 million tonnes and is intended to cut southwest China's sea-route distance by roughly 560 kilometers while connecting inland ports to Beibu Gulf and ASEAN shipping lanes.

China's National Bureau of Statistics will release its July economic activity data on August 17, 2026, covering industrial production, retail sales, fixed-asset investment, and real-estate figures. The release follows a July NBS manufacturing PMI of 49.2, down 1.1 points from June's 50.3, while June baselines showed industrial output up 5.3% year on year and real-estate development investment down 18.0% for the first half. The August 17 data will indicate whether modest industrial momentum held, the small June retail rebound continued, and deep investment and property weakness stabilized.

VulnCheck's August 5 disclosure identified ENDLESSDOORS, a modified open-source tool embedded in firmware across 20 Zbtlink router models, which boots automatically, runs as root, and phones out to hard-coded command infrastructure every 35 seconds over unencrypted, unauthenticated connections. CVE-2026-66747 received a CVSS 4.0 score of 9.3 CRITICAL, and an estimated 100,000 devices may be affected worldwide, though no verified count or geographic breakdown exists. As of August 12, no fixed firmware build has been confirmed, CISA has not added the CVE to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog, and no U.S. regulatory action specifically targeting Zbtlink or ENDLESSDOORS has been announced.