How Xi went from admiring Putin to managing him

1. FROM MY DESK

Inflation is back in focus this morning, with new CPI data and major bank earnings offering a dual look at how Americans are keeping up.

Elsewhere, we are monitoring the escalating standoff between the U.S. and Iran over the Strait of Hormuz. We’re also looking ahead to this week’s World Cup semifinals, where England and Argentina prepare to renew one of sport’s greatest—and most volatile—rivalries on the pitch.

And I highly recommend our deep dive into the shifting power dynamic between China’s Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin. Our chief China correspondent, Lingling Wei, takes you through how this reporting came together—and what this shift means for the global balance of power.

This is an edition of The 10-Point newsletter, a guided tour to the best coverage in The Wall Street Journal. If you’re not subscribed, sign up here. If you’re reading this in your inbox, tap the headline above for online and audio versions of this newsletter.

2. TODAY’S HEADLINES

Oil markets and Middle East producers appear to be aligning around a new reality: The Strait of Hormuz is no longer expected to return to a prewar norm.A wave of nationalist fervor in Iran is creating a difficult atmosphere for the country’s diplomats, making it harder to agree to U.S. terms to permanently end the fighting.Darline Graham, the sister of the late Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, was selected to finish out her brother’s term in the Senate. Here’s what to know about her.Gov. Kathy Hochul is banning large data-center construction for up to a year, making New York the latest state to confront the rollout of sites powering the AI boom.

3. LIVE FROM THE MARKETS

📈 Follow our live financial coverage all day.

A dozen blue states, led by California, are seeking to block the Paramount-Warner merger, arguing the tie-up is anticompetitive, would harm theaters and would raise prices for TV bundles.Corporate bonds have the best yield in years—but higher long-term yields might not compensate for the higher risks, writes Telis Demos.

4. READ IT HERE FIRST

Data-center builders are racing to offload stakes worth billions.

Across the U.S., data-center developers and operators are working with bankers to sell majority equity stakes worth tens of billions of dollars in their companies this summer, according to people familiar with the efforts. Shortages of everything from electricians and plumbers to gas turbines and memory chips have driven up the cost of building new centers. Bankers are pitching private-equity firms on a hot asset class benefiting from unrelenting demand for computing power, reports Anissa Gardizy.

5. REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK

Chief China Correspondent Lingling Wei: I’ve covered China and Xi Jinping for 15 years, and in that time I’ve watched his relationship with Vladimir Putin evolve from an equal partnership into something far more complicated. But it was a photograph that sparked this story.

When Putin visited Beijing in May, Chinese state media published images of him standing before a giant portrait of the two leaders. Viewed from the side, Xi appeared to loom over Putin in the picture. Chinese diplomats told me the staging wasn’t meant to belittle Putin; viewed from the front, they said, the two figures take roughly equal share of the picture’s frame. People who know Putin say he is acutely sensitive to exactly that kind of symbolism. Xi took care to tend to his counterpart’s feelings.

Still, beneath the public warmth is a relationship increasingly shifting in China’s favor—with Xi extracting concessions from Putin across areas ranging from energy to a new regional development bank.

What surprised me most in the reporting: how openly some foreign-policy experts now use words like “vassalage” to describe Russia’s trajectory—language that would have seemed extreme just a few years ago. The biggest challenge was capturing the tensions beneath a partnership both sides insist has “no limits,” especially when reporting on two of the world’s most secretive governments. My colleague Thomas Grove and I spent weeks reporting this out.

The timing feels especially urgent. Putin has staked his legacy on projecting strength. And yet the man Xi once admired is now, in ways large and small, the one being managed.

Go inside the U.S.-China relationship.

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6. SEE THE STORY

Shut out of the U.S., Cubans are building a ‘new Miami’ in southern Brazil.

Curitiba, one of Brazil’s most prosperous and orderly—some would say boring—cities, has become an unlikely outpost of the Cuban diaspora as tougher U.S. immigration policies coupled with the Trump administration’s squeeze on the island’s Communist government force many to build new lives farther south.

7. HAPPENING TODAY

World Cup: France and Spain meet in a huge semifinal clash in Dallas.Economic data: The Labor Department releases the June consumer price-index.Earnings: Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup📰 Today’s paper

8. THE NUMBER

This is the magic number that makers of everyday goods are obsessed with. Companies are redesigning packaging and slashing marketing budgets to keep product prices under this psychologically important threshold. Maintaining prices under $10 has long been a tried-and-true strategy used by U.S. retailers—and it is more important than ever with many Americans feeling stretched by inflation—but it is getting harder.

9. AND FINALLY…

The superrich aren’t just buying mansions—they want the entire block.

The ultimate billionaire flex is no longer buying a mansion, or even two. Deep-pocketed buyers are increasingly snapping up neighboring properties to create private compounds, with amenities from parking to padel. “Landmaxxing”—the quest to optimize one’s land holdings by acquiring more acreage—drove the luxury market during the first part of the year, according to a new midyear report from Coldwell Banker.

10. BEYOND THE NEWSROOM

Opinion: President Trump told the truth about Iran’s lying regime. Now let him act on it—and stick to the strategy.WSJ | Buy Side: The best financial adviser companies have low fees and access to highly credentialed financial advisers and planning professionals.

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