The Wall Street Journal reports: "China's exports surged anew last month on the back of resilient demand, defying many economists' expectations for a slowdown from the trade fight with the U.S. Demand for Chinese goods grew in developed and developing markets, from the U.S. to India, according to customs data released Thursday. 'It's not just the U.S., wherever you look, especially the emerging markets, demand is solid,' said Liu Yaxin, an economist at China Merchants Securities. The performance, economists said, suggested China is getting a boost from surprisingly healthy global demand and perhaps from a weaker yuan. Many economists attributed the export boom of recent months to businesses frontloading shipments before tariffs take effect, and they had expected that trend to fade. China's total exports rose 15.6% from a year earlier, the customs administration said, which tops the 14.5% year-over-year increase in September. Economists expected 11% growth. Exports to India, Hong Kong and Brazil all grew by more than 20% last month from year ago, according to calculations by The Wall Street Journal based on customs data. Exports to the U.S. and the European Union also held up, rising 13% and 15% respectively. Meanwhile, China's appetite grew for global commodities, boosting imports 21.4% in October from a year earlier, compared with a 14.3% increase the previous month. Imports of crude oil jumped 89% on year."

The Washington Post reports: "Taiwan's president on Thursday commissioned a pair of guided missile frigates that are expected to boost the island's ability to counter Chinese submarines amid rising military threats from Beijing. President Tsai Ing-wen attended the ceremony for the Ming Chuan and Feng Chia at a navy base in the southern port of Kaohsiung and reiterated Taiwan's determination to resist all threats, her office said. The ships' commissioning 'again sends a clear signal to the world and international society from the people of Taiwan,' Tsai said, according to a text of her speech. 'And that is, we will not back away one step when it comes to safeguarding the Republic of China Taiwan and protecting our democratic way of life,' Tsai said. The Republic of China is Taiwan's official name derived from the government established by the Nationalist Party in China which relocated to the island amid civil war in 1949. China claims Taiwan as its own territory, to be conquered by force if necessary, and has recently stepped up its threats by staging military exercises near the island, flying bombers and fighter jets in loops around it and sending its aircraft carrier through the Taiwan Strait."

TIME reports: "Fighters aren't usually the blushing type. But Xu Xiaodong can't hide his embarrassment when asked about his latest battle scar, a three-inch crimson railroad track that snakes over his right eyebrow. It was caused, he says, by an overzealous opponent's knee at a recent training session, during which Xu grappled with four younger mixed-martial-arts (MMA) fighters in quick succession. 'I was tired by the end and bam!' Xu tells TIME in his Beijing gym. 'Twenty-six stitches!' It's by far the most obvious of the 40-year-old's war wounds, eclipsing even cauliflower ears and a catalog of creaking bones. But it's nowhere near the deepest. Xu has spent a lifetime fighting, first at school and later channeling a red-hot adolescent temper into competitive MMA. But the fiercest blows he suffered were far from the ring, when he took on practitioners of traditional Chinese martial arts, known officially as wushu but more colloquially as simply kung fu. The dispute started with an argument on social media. Xu wanted Wei Lei, a kung fu master in the discipline of tai chi, to account for the outlandish powers he claimed to possess. Wei boasted of using an invisible force field to keep a dove on his hand, and pulverizing a watermelon's innards without damaging its skin."