Good morning, happy Friday and welcome back to FirstFT Asia. In today’s newsletter:

• Trump wades into Japan’s election

• Syngenta weighs potential Hong Kong IPO

• Can Thailand’s establishment keep defying voters?

Donald Trump has endorsed Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi ahead of Sunday’s general election in which her Liberal Democratic Party hopes to win an outright majority.

What to know: The US president wrote on Truth Social that Takaichi “deserves powerful recognition for the job she and her Coalition are doing” and offered his “Complete and Total Endorsement”. Trump added that he would welcome Takaichi, a hardline conservative, at the White House on March 19.

Japanese voters head to the polls on Sunday after Takaichi last month announced that she would dissolve parliament and hold a snap election with the shortest campaign since the end of the second world war. The LDP is hoping to win enough seats to form a government without the Japan Innovation Party, its current coalition partner.

The Trump-Takaichi bond: US presidents have historically refrained from endorsing candidates in foreign elections. But Trump has frequently broken that tradition by offering support for conservative candidates in elections from Argentina and Honduras to Romania.

Trump and Takaichi enjoyed a very strong rapport during the president’s visit to Tokyo last October, though Japan became frustrated with Washington’s light public support for the Japanese prime minister as she came under pressure from China over comments she made later in the year.

• More US foreign policy: The US and Russian militaries are resuming high-level talks after more than four years, which could be a step towards normalising relations between Washington and Moscow.

Here’s what else we’re keeping tabs on today and over the weekend:

• Economic data: Vietnam publishes January inflation data, trade balance and industrial output.

• Companies: Toyota and Tata Steel report quarterly results.

• Monetary policy: The Reserve Bank of India announces its interest rate decision.

• Elections: Japan and Thailand vote on Sunday. Scroll down to today’s in-depth story for more on the Thai election.

How well did you keep up with the news this week? Take our quiz.

Five more top stories

1. Swiss agricultural chemicals company Syngenta is seeking advisers for a blockbuster listing that could be Hong Kong’s largest in years. The Chinese-owned company previously scrapped plans to float in Shanghai amid poor economic conditions in mainland China, tighter regulatory scrutiny of IPOs and a tough outlook for the agricultural sector.

2. Most Chinese provinces are targeting lower economic growth this year, in what many economists believe is a signal Beijing will set a historically low range of 4.5—5 per cent for its official goal in 2026. Analysts said that if Beijing set this target it would signal leaders’ willingness to tolerate a “gradual slowdown” in economic growth. Read the full story.

3. US tech stocks fell yesterday, as weak jobs data piled further pressure on a market reeling from a big sell-off in the software sector. A private labour market survey for January showed job cuts in the US jumped last month, the worst start to the year since 2009.

• Tech news: Amazon shares slumped 10 per cent yesterday after it announced plans to spend $200bn on capital expenditure in 2026, roughly a third more than Wall Street had forecast.

• Cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin sank below $65,000 yesterday for the first time since 2024, wiping out all of the gains it had made since Trump was elected to his second term as US president.

4. Anthropic has launched a powerful new AI model aimed at businesses, pressing its advantage in enterprise software at a time when the start-up’s technology has rattled markets. The San Francisco-based group yesterday unveiled Claude Opus 4.6, described by the company as its “most capable” model for businesses and knowledge work.

5. Rio Tinto and Glencore have abandoned plans for a $260bn megamerger that would have created the world’s largest mining group amid a scramble for metals such as copper that are fuelling the AI boom. Here’s how the deal fell apart.

News in-depth

The favourites ahead of Thailand’s election this weekend want to do something many winners before them have failed to do: translate success at the polls into power. The country has been mired in a decades-long cycle of political paralysis, with the conservative royalist-military establishment blocking a series of reformist parties from forming a government. Will this vote be any different?

We’re also reading . . . 

• China seizes Sony’s TV halo: The Japanese company’s planned joint venture with China’s TCL marks a historic global shift, writes John Gapper.

• Bonfire of the Murdochs: A thin new book by Gabriel Sherman manages to condense the family feud to its essence, writes Henry Mance.

• Monopoly money: A Kremlin-linked business has become a leading player in Russia’s efforts to keep money flowing across its borders to circumvent sanctions, with the help of imitation banknotes.

Chart of the day

Chinese carmaker Leapmotor’s no-frills, low-cost EVs have proved a hit with many domestic consumers. The company has ambitions to go global and is regarded by some industry experts as the next BYD.

Take a break from the news . . . 

A road trip through South Africa’s Eastern Cape takes Sophy Roberts far from the tourist trail and to a former leper colony that has been reborn as a dreamy retreat.