Keir Starmer says Britain and China’s relationship is in a “strong place” after “productive” talks in Beijing with Xi Jinping. The PM announced that Britons can now have visa-free travel to China for trips under 30 days, and signed a series of agreements on closer economic co-operation. Britain has also agreed to share intelligence with Beijing for the first time in a bid to stop Chinese-made small boat equipment being used to ferry migrants across the channel. Iran’s foreign minister says his country has “fingers on the trigger” to “powerfully respond” to a potential American attack, after Donald Trump said yesterday a “massive armada” was heading towards the Islamic Republic. The US president is demanding that Tehran abandons its nuclear programme and threatening a “far worse” attack than last year’s strikes on its nuclear facilities if it doesn’t oblige. Driverless taxis could begin operating in London as soon as September. Waymo, which is owned by Google’s parent company Alphabet, is launching a pilot robotaxi scheme in April and hoping to roll them out across the capital in the autumn.

Ursula von der Leyen hailed this week’s EU-India trade agreement as the “mother of all deals”, says Serafin Reiber in Der Spiegel. And although the accord is still pending approval, the European Commission president isn’t far off the mark. The agreement will allow free trade of goods between the bloc of 27 European states and the world’s most populous country, which together account for 25% of global GDP and a market of some two billion people. Delhi is significantly slashing tariffs on vehicles, machinery, alcohol and various food products, and both partners have committed to tightening security and defence co-operation. The signing of the deal is a much-needed reminder that “Europe can still do trade policy”.

Crucially, it sends all the right signals to Donald Trump, says Le Monde. Although negotiations for this “strategic partnership” began nearly 20 years ago, there’s no doubt that the US president’s trade war has been a catalyst for its completion. Indian exports to America have been hit with 50% tariffs – enough to effectively shatter two decades of good relations – and the EU has seen its main ally repeatedly “turn away”. As a result, both Brussels and Delhi are desperate to strengthen their respective strategic autonomy, and this deal is an impressive result of that effort. What really stands out – perhaps more than the welcome boost to trade volumes – is the “pragmatic realism” and careful avoidance of contentious issues. Agriculture, for example, is largely swerved to the benefit of both partners, and the focus on free trade allows the EU to overlook India’s awkward dependence on Russian oil. It’s an admirable response to the new world order.

You’ve almost certainly read – perhaps in this very newsletter – about a revival of Christianity in the UK. But it may all be an illusion, says Kaya Burgess in The Times. The Pew Research Centre has crunched the numbers and says there is “no clear evidence” of the trend. Most of the surveys commonly cited were commissioned by Christian groups and conducted as “opt-in”, where respondents actively volunteer to fill them out. More randomised research, such as the British Social Attitudes survey, suggests that churchgoing is still in decline: rather than regular attendance among young people quadrupling between 2018 and 2024 – as one Bible Society study found – it actually appears to have more than halved.

Twice in recent weeks, says The New York Times, China has quietly mobilised thousands of fishing boats in the East China Sea to form “massive floating barriers” at least 200 miles long. Experts say the extraordinary manoeuvres, involving 1,400 and 2,000 vessels respectively, are probably a practice run for a blockade of Taiwan. The fishing fleet couldn’t itself enforce a blockade, but it could potentially obstruct foreign warships and overwhelm drone and radar sensors. Jason Wang, the data analyst who spotted the formations on satellite imagery, says he has seen Chinese boats forming up before, “but nothing of this scale”.

The latest round of Tory defections to Reform UK makes one thing perfectly clear, says James Kirkup in The Daily Telegraph: Kemi Badenoch’s party needs to stop trying to win back Reform voters. Why would right-wing voters choose a “zero-alcohol version of Farage’s Best” when they can have the real deal instead? Far better to appeal to the many affluent voters, mostly in the south, who switched to the Lib Dems at the last election. These are the most business-friendly voters in the country, and they would welcome a return to traditional Tory values: lower taxes, sound money and support for wealth creation. Yes, centrism has a bad name nowadays. But a centrist Conservative Party would surely do well among the many moderate voters who feel increasingly “politically homeless”.

Dream on, says pollster James Johnson in The Critic. The Tories lost a quarter of their vote to Reform at the last election, with only 7% switching to the Lib Dems, and since then another 23% have also switched to Reform. How on earth are the Tories going to win without those 4.5 million people? As for the idea that all those Cameroon middle class voters can be brought back into the Tory fold, that’s for the birds: those people left the party over Brexit, and they are now “solidly voters of the left”. Pursuing them would be a “15% strategy, at best”. Winning back the Reform folk won’t be easy, of course. It will probably require some sort of “unforced error” from their rivals: a descent into infighting, perhaps, or Farage packing it in for some reason. If that happens, the Tories need to be ready to welcome back their old supporters – not fluttering their eyelashes at a few disgruntled remainers in southwest London.

One of the best-kept secrets in corporate America is how to make WD-40, says Jennifer Williams in The Wall Street Journal. The formula for the trusty lubricant was jotted down in a spiral notebook 70 years ago, along with the 39 previous attempts to get it right, and is now kept in a lockbox at an undisclosed Bank of America location in San Diego. It has been removed only three times in the past 30 years, and the handful of executives granted access have to sign multiple non-disclosure agreements. CEO Steve Brass, who joined the exclusive club in 2024, says it was “like getting into Fort Knox”.

Keir Starmer’s critics have been queuing up to lambast him for re-heating Chinese-British relations, says Hugo Gye in The i Paper. But he’d be mad not to. Complaining about Beijing’s contempt for the rules-based international order was all very well when there was a rules-based international order. Today, we are outside the EU, allied to a dysfunctional US, and can reasonably expect that Germany and France will soon be run by the hard right. Britain has to “spread its bets”, not just with China, but also with the Gulf kingdoms, the rising economies of southeast Asia and the Indian subcontinent. Some may not share our values, but we all share interests. In this new dispensation, that’s all there is.

They’re Xiao Xiao and Lei Lei, says BBC News, two giant pandas who were returned to China from Japan on Tuesday. The move is part of Beijing’s “panda diplomacy” – China has used the black-and-white bears as a “gesture of goodwill” towards international allies since 1949, loaning them to foreign countries for an annual fee of around $1m per pair. The twins’ departure from Ueno Zoo in Tokyo comes amid deteriorating China-Japan relations over Taiwan, and leaves the poor Japanese bereft of pandas for the first time since the two nations normalised diplomatic ties in 1972.