China indicated a continued slowdown in defense spending growth this year, as President Xi Jinping presses ahead with a sweeping military overhaul.  The defense budget will rise “about 7 percent,” National People’s Congress spokeswoman Fu Ying told a briefing ahead of China’s annual legislative session in Beijing. An actual spending target wasn’t expected until Sunday, when the Ministry of Finance releases its 2017 budget at the start of the 11-day legislative gathering.

Futures for U.S. markets were clearly positive late Thursday as investors cheered a President Trump promise to unveil tax reform in no more than three weeks. The S&P 500 added 0.07% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average and Nasdaq 0.1% at 9:05 p.m. EST.

A recent report from China Beige Book, a survey of the country’s economy, is challenging Wall Street’s prevailing notion about China in 2017. Xi Jinping will want to keep the economy stable so there’s no distraction from his relentless effort to consolidate power.

China will use all necessary means to protect its information security, including the use of its military, striking a hard line in the country’s first strategic report on cybersecurity. Zhao Zeliang, director general of the bureau of cybersecurity for the Cyberspace Administration of China, called for a “secure and controllable” internet at a briefing in Beijing on Tuesday.

The People’s Bank of China will include wealth management products held off bank balance sheets in its framework for gauging risk to the financial system starting in the first quarter, according to a newspaper controlled by the central bank. Rapid growth of the products can pose risks to the economy and stepping up monitoring is necessary to more comprehensively evaluate the potential threat, the Financial News reported Monday, citing an unidentified official at the monetary authority.