A diplomatic crisis between China and Japan hits Tokyo's stocks.
It's World Business Express from the BBC World Service.
I'm Leanna Byrne.
Bitcoin dips and wipes off hundreds of billions in value.
And one of Britain's most successful movie franchises gets a statue in London.
Start with a geopolitical row that's quickly turning into an economic one.
China is threatening real retaliation against Japan, from sanctions to squeezing tourism, after comments by Japan's Prime Minister about Taiwan.
Chinese TV has already warned people about going to Japan.
Recently, Japanese leaders have openly made blatantly provocative remarks concerning Taiwan, which has seriously worsened the atmosphere for exchanges between Chinese and Japanese people and posed significant risks to the personal safety and lives of Japanese citizens in Japan.
The Ministry of Culture and Tourism of China solemnly reminds Chinese tourists to avoid travelling to Japan in the near future.
But Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Hikaru spoke against the warning by China.
I believe that this announcement, which seems to curtail the exchange of people between the two countries, including study abroad and tourism, is incompatible with the broad direction of promoting a strategic, mutually beneficial relationship, confirmed by the leaders, and building a constructive and stable relationship.
The BBC's Asia business correspondent, Nick Marsh, is out and about in Singapore and he told me this flare-up cut everything from holidaymakers to global supply chains.
This is all to do with Japan's fairly new Prime Minister still, Tsunaya Takeuchi.
She is viewed as a bit more hawkish when it comes to foreign relations.
So that means open to reviewing Japan's traditionally pacifist constitution.
She was asked last week what her response would be if China acted on its longstanding ambition to take over Taiwan.
Ms.
Takeuchi basically said that there is always the possibility of Japan using a military response to this.
So this provoked a lot of anger in Beijing.
The Chinese government is telling its own citizens not to travel to Japan.
And Chinese airlines are even offering refunds to passengers who are planning to travel to Japan and who don't want to.
And that's not very good for the Japanese economy.
Chinese citizens make up the largest contingent of foreign tourists.
Why is Taiwan such a sore spot for China?
China doesn't recognise Taiwan's legitimacy.
Very few countries in the world do.
And the Chinese government.
The Communist Party has always said it is its aim to reunify with Taiwan.
When a Japanese prime minister starts talking about responding with any kind of military force to any potential conflict unification between China and Taiwan, that really, really hits a nerve in China.
And up until now, has Japan and China's economic relationship been OK?
Japan needs China, and to a certain extent, China needs Japan.
And there's a huge amount of money that goes between these two countries.
And so we've seen already even though this is just a diplomatic spat at the moment we've already seen these anxieties reflected in the stock market.
That was Nick Marsh speaking to me there.
Meanwhile, fresh data shows Japan's economy has slipped backwards for the first time in 18 months.
GDP shrank nearly 2 in the three months to September, hit by a slowdown in real estate investment and those steep US tariffs on Japanese goods, especially cars.
Those duties have now been eased under a new trade deal with Washington, but the damage is already showing.
Meanwhile, Bitcoin has taken a hit.
It's lost more than $600 billion in market value since October.
This despite Wall Street backing record inflows to crypto EFTs and political support in Washington.
Carol Alexander is Professor of Finance at Sussex University in the UK, an expert in risk and crypto markets.
And she tells me what's behind the slide.
The root cause is lack of regulation.
And the price formation of Bitcoin is really quite complex compared with Apple stock or something like that, in that it is driven by the sort of trading that you find on exchanges would put people trading Apple stock on a New York stock exchange in prison or liable to very heavy fines.
Professional traders are able to put very, very highly what we call leveraged and then use special strategies, which we call spoofing, to move the price in whatever direction they want.
And these professional traders collaborate against advanced retail like not the likes of you and me, but people, particularly in Asia and so forth, where trading is a little bit more normalised.
You'll find a lot of people making their life to trade on things like Bitcoin.
So when the price of Bitcoin goes up, more and more of these people think well, I should buy Bitcoin and get into this.
The more retail traders that come in, the more profits.
These professional traders who don't trade against each other, they collaborate.
They don't mind whether it goes up or down.
They make money when it's volatile.
But as soon as the price goes down like it is, there's no doubt it's going to be going back up again.
So essentially, it's the regulation that needs to be brought in before...
It's not as volatile anymore.
That's right.
Yeah.
More regulation will reduce the volatility.
But at the moment, what we could see is ordinary stocks like Apple becoming more volatile because they're moving on to these places where professional traders can play their games.
It's like a football team without a referee.
And what they want is not to play against another good football team.
They want to play against people that really don't know how to play, which is what happens when they drive the price up.
That was Carol Alexander from Sussex University.
With me now, Rachel Winter, Partner and Investment Manager at Killick & Co.
Rachel, where is Bitcoin?
What's the price at now?
Well, it was up this morning.
It's down a bit this afternoon.
There have been a lot of headlines recently about how much it's dropped since October.
So I suspect a lot of people are just watching it and wondering where it's going to go next.
Oh yeah, watch and wait, wait and see.
Another one, Alphabet, parent company of Google.
Its shares are up after it came out over the weekend.
The Berkshire Hathaway... quietly built a nearly $5 billion stake in the company.
Rachel, what's your take on that?
Well, these shares have had a really good run.
They've more than doubled since March.
I think the new AI product, Gemini, has been taken very well by the market.
And this news over the weekend that Warren Buffett's company Berkshire Hathaway has bought a stake has only added to this positive sentiment.
But it is worth noting it is a fairly small stake at the moment.
Berkshire Hathaway has invested less than 2 of its capital into Alphabet and that compares to its stake in Apple, which is currently worth about 20 of its capital.
I remember reading somewhere that Warren Buffett one of his regrets was not actually ever investing in Google.
Maybe he's done it now.
Rachel Winter, thank you so much.
Now, Bridget Jones is joining the likes of Harry Potter and Paddington today.
She's been immortalised with a statue in London's Leicester Square as part of a trail celebrating a century of British cinema.
Bridget, you're a widow with two wonderful children.
My advice to you is put your own oxygen mask on first.
That's the fourth film, Mad About the Boy, which pushes the franchise's total global box office haul past the 850 million mark.
Renee Zellweger, who plays Bridget Jones, says it's the character's authenticity that keeps people watching.
Well, her relatability, you know, her vulnerability, her humanness.
I don't know.
We recognize ourselves in her.
We recognize ourselves in her struggles, you know.
Sort of makes it okay for the rest of us to be authentically who we are.
Imperfect.
There you go.
Renee Zellweger, there just telling us for the rest of the week be authentic, be yourself.
You don't have to be perfect.
Take that into your work week.
And that's it from World Business Express with me, Leanna Byrne.
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Thanks for listening.
