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Chinese President Xi Jinping says Beijing just wants win-win solutions for the world. Right now, global affairs must look like a sea of chaos.

Beijing has tried to position itself as a mediator to end the war in Ukraine — if only everyone would follow the peace blueprint it rolled out early last year.

Not only is that broad outline pretty much forgotten now, the situation in Ukraine seems to be escalating daily. Kyiv’s forces just carried out their first strike on a Russian border region using US-supplied long-range missiles, and Russian leader Vladimir Putin stepped up his threat of a nuclear response to conventional attacks.

North Korea is resisting whatever leverage China has over it by sending troops to aid Russia’s fight and is apparently ready to commit as many as 100,000.

China’s support for Russia dismays Europe. That doesn’t help Beijing when it seeks cooperation with the European Union on things like rethinking tariffs levied on its electric vehicles.

Then there is the looming US presidency of Donald Trump, who is packing his Cabinet with China hawks and has threatened to raise tariffs on Chinese shipments to a level that would devastate trade between the world’s two biggest economies.

WATCH: Bloomberg News’ Executive Editor John Liu discusses Xi’s statement that he’s ready to work with Trump to improve relations with the US.  Source: Bloomberg

At the same time, policies put in place by President Joe Biden are curtailing China’s efforts to make high-end semiconductors needed for smartphones and artificial intelligence.

These challenges couldn’t come at a worse time for China, which is just now seeing signs that its economy is stabilizing from the blows dealt to it by the pandemic and a long property crisis.

Xi is returning home from a pretty successful trip to South America for APEC and Group of 20 summits. When he gets back to his office, the work is only beginning. — Philip Glamann

People wait for Xi’s motorcade at Ipanema Beach in Rio de Janeiro. Photographer: Ludovic Marin/AFP/Getty Images

Russia said it’s ready to talk with Trump about a potential cease-fire with Ukraine, stoking speculation about the conflict that has intensified on all fronts. The comments were in response to a Reuters report that Moscow could be open to negotiations on roughly halting the war along current front lines. But Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said today “freezing this conflict will not work for us,” the state-run Tass news service reported.

As Ukraine struggles to recruit enough soldiers to repel Russia’s invasion, brigades often funded by the wealthy are using slick marketing campaigns to lure volunteers seeking to avoid being randomly sent to the front as a conscript. One example is Khartiia, founded by a multimillionaire, that says it offers Western-style command and training in contrast to the rest of the army that is still struggling to shake off the legacy of the Soviet era.

Khartiia Brigade members carry out mortar operations in the Kharkiv region. Photographer: Gian Marco Benedetto/Anadolu/Getty Images

Iran signaled it may be ready to resolve a standoff with the West over its atomic activities by agreeing to stop producing uranium enriched close to the level required for nuclear weapons. Monitors from the International Atomic Energy Agency said that Tehran has begun taking steps “aimed at stopping the increase of its stockpile,” according to a 12-page report seen by Bloomberg News.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz brushed aside mounting speculation he could be replaced as the Social Democrats’ candidate for February’s snap election by his more popular defense minister, Boris Pistorius. The opposition conservatives are leading in opinion polls with more than 30% of the vote, while Scholz’s SPD is stuck in third place on around 16%, behind the far-right Alternative for Germany.

Billions of dollars of sanctioned Iranian oil is finding its way to China each year even though the country officially hasn’t imported a drop in more than two years. A Bloomberg analysis of nearly five years of satellite images of a gathering point for dark-fleet tankers 40 miles east of the Malaysian peninsula shows the vast size of the shadow industry that’s developed as the US has tightened restrictions on Iran.

The US will provide Ukraine with antipersonnel land mines to blunt the advance of Russian troops, a source says, as the Biden administration tries to bolster support for Kyiv ahead of Trump’s January inauguration.

Israel will pay $5 million to any Gaza resident who returns a hostage and provide safe passage out of the war-ravaged territory, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.

Taiwanese Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung started his weeklong trip to Europe with a stop in Brussels as part of Taipei’s efforts to counter Beijing’s campaign to isolate it diplomatically.

Ugandan opposition leader Kizza Besigye is being held in a military jail after being detained in neighboring Kenya’s capital over the weekend and moved to Kampala, his wife says.

Trump’s second term in office will have repercussions for US policy on Russia, Ukraine and NATO. Tune in to our Live Q&A today at 9 a.m. ET, where Bloomberg reporters will answer questions on what that might look like.

The House Ethics Committee, facing demands to release the conclusions of its investigation of former Representative Matt Gaetz, plans to meet today even while Trump allies try to advance his selection as attorney general.

House Speaker Mike Johnson has urged the panel to keep its findings confidential. Gaetz resigned from Congress days before the committee was scheduled to deliberate on how to handle the results of its inquiry into sexual misconduct allegations against him. Gaetz, a Florida Republican, has denied any wrongdoing.

Vice President-elect JD Vance is arranging meetings between Republican senators and Gaetz as well as Pete Hegseth, whom Trump chose to run the Defense Department, sources say. Trump, in Texas for the launch of Elon Musk’s Starship rocket yesterday, was asked if he was reconsidering the Gaetz nomination. “No,” he said.

One thing to watch today: Federal Reserve Vice Chair for Supervision Michael Barr will testify before the House Financial Services Committee.

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Alphabet’s Chrome browser could go for as much as $20 billion if a judge agrees to a Justice Department proposal that the business should be sold, in what would be a historic crackdown on one of the top tech companies. Owning the world’s most popular browser is key for Google’s ads business as the company is able to exploit web data to target the promotions that generate the bulk of its revenue.

Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza has sparked boycotts against Israeli artists, cut cooperation with its scientists and raised possible arrest warrants against its officials. But nothing has made Israelis feel more isolated than the massive drop-off in flights to and from the country. Direct routes to dozens of major cities like Washington and New Delhi have been suspended, reducing face-to-face business meetings as well as cargo reliant on passenger flights. The number of planes and passengers into Ben Gurion Airport fell by 40% in the first nine months of the year.

Passengers wait to check in for their flights at Ben Gurion airport on Aug. 7. Photographer: Kobi Wolf/Bloomberg

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