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Asia and Australia Edition

Michael Flynn, North Korea, Rohingya: Your Monday Briefing

Good morning.

Here’s what you need to know:

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Credit...Zach Gibson for The New York Times

• The White House is whipsawing between scandal and success.

President Trump made an extraordinary attack on the F.B.I., lashing out after the special counsel’s investigation into Russian election meddling secured the cooperation of Mr. Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael Flynn.

The president’s inner circle is now under heightened scrutiny, and new evidence that multiple campaign officials knew of Mr. Flynn’s pre-inauguration contacts with Russia has emerged.

The developments cast a shadow over Mr. Trump’s first major legislative victory: Senate passage of the largest tax cut in years, which lawmakers appear ready to send rapidly forward for the president’s signature.

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Credit...Aly Song/Reuters

• China’s hugely influential but little-seen Communist Party theoretician, Wang Huning, stepped out of the shadows with a call for security and order on the internet.

Delivering his first speech since joining the Politburo Standing Committee at a conference created to showcase the country’s technological strengths, Mr. Wang outlined an authoritarian future for China’s cyberspace before an audience that included Tim Cook of Apple and Jack Ma of Alibaba.

“Global cyberspace governance has no onlookers — we are all participants,” Mr. Wang said, adding that “all parties” should have a say over how the internet is managed across the world.

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Credit...Adam Dean for The New York Times

Pope Francis defended his decision to not use the word “Rohingya” while in Myanmar, saying that doing so “would have been a door slammed in the face.”

He argued that his caution enabled him to have a private meeting with Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, the architect of the brutal campaign against the Rohingya, and make it clear that the horrors of the past were no longer viable. Above, a Rohingya woman and child returning to a camp for the displaced.

But Myanmar is systematically eradicating the Rohingya’s long history in the country. As one prominent Rohingya said, “Soon we will all be dead or gone.”

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In Australia, contrasting assessments from the Turnbull government and the prominent defense strategist Hugh White have set off a raging debate over whether China has already displaced the U.S. in the region.

Two main factors have shaken Australia: China’s assertive behavior in the South China Sea, and President Trump’s abandonment of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the trade deal meant to counterbalance China’s economic might.

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Credit...Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press, via Associated Press

Canada appears ready to take up the role the newly protectionist U.S. is abandoning, that of global champion of free trade. Justin Trudeau, the Canadian prime minister, is in China for a five-day trip focused on expanding trade.

He meets today with the Chinese premier, Li Keqiang, and will also meet with President Xi Jinping — even as Canada seeks to revive the T.P.P.

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• President Trump’s first big trade fight with China could be over solar panels, our Shanghai bureau chief writes.

• Globally, the Disney hit “Coco” held has grossed $100 million, with huge audiences in China, Europe and Mexico.

• Disney resumed talks to buy at least part of 21st Century Fox. The Murdochs, who control Fox, are expected to make a decision by the end of the year.

• The American health care industry will be reshaped by a deal expected to be announced shortly: the drugstore giant CVS is buying the insurer Aetna for about $69 billion.

• China’s poor, remote areas are catching up to cities and connecting to the economy in new ways that will benefit the region and the world.

Here’s a snapshot of global markets.

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Credit...Prakesh Elamakkara/European Pressphoto Agency

• Cyclone Ockhi has killed at least 19 people in India. The authorities there said they had rescued 690 fishermen, but 96 are still missing. [Times of India]

• The White House national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, said that the potential for war with North Korea was “increasing every day.” [CNN]

• In Indonesia, Mount Agung appears calmer, but more than 55,000 people remain in evacuation camps. Some are sneaking back to the volcano’s danger zone to tend homes and livestock. [The New York Times]

• Nearly 2,000 pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong, led by Joshua Wong, marched to oppose “authoritarian rule.” [South China Morning Post]

• A court in Okinawa sentenced a former U.S. Marine to life in prison for the rape and murder of a 20-year-old Japanese woman . [The New York Times]

• In South Korea, at least 13 people were dead and two others missing on Sunday after a fishing boat collided with a refueling vessel. [A.P.]

• The Australian Dictionary Center picked “kwaussie” as its word of the year. It’s a “dual citizen of Australia and New Zealand, a New Zealander living in Australia, or a person of Australian and New Zealand descent.” [ABC]

Tips, both new and old, for a more fulfilling life.

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Credit...Illustration by Ping Zhu

• Rethink that activity tracker.

• A bonding activity for parents and children that builds joy and character: baking.

• Recipe of the day: Start the week with a stellar farro salad.

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Credit...Illustration by Zhao Chuang

• A Chinese paleontologist discovered hundreds of fossilized pterosaur eggs in the Gobi Desert. The find may advance our understanding of the fearsome flying reptiles, some of which had wingspans as wide as fighter jets.

• Our “36 Hours in …” travel series takes you to Shanghai, where a flashy night life and brash attitude sometimes overshadow the city’s smooth sophistication.

Voting ends today for the readers’ choice of Time Magazine’s “Person of the Year,” with the winner announced on Wednesday.

While the selection has been criticized as non-news, it is already getting attention from last year’s recipient, Donald Trump, who was then the U.S. president-elect.

Mr. Trump recently said that Time editors had called to tell him he would “probably” be named again, but that he “took a pass” because “probably” wasn’t good enough. (The magazine said the president was mistaken.)

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Credit...Nadav Kander/TIME, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

If it is Mr. Trump, he would be the second person to be named for two consecutive years. The other was Richard Nixon, who was named in 1971 and 1972, when he shared the honor with Henry Kissinger.

The decision is based on impact, rather than good deeds. Previous selections have included Hitler and Stalin.

Most recipients have been white men, starting with the first, the American aviator Charles Lindbergh, in 1927. In 2015, Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, became only the fourth woman to be named on her own.

The computer won the title in 1982, and Earth was picked in 1988.

In 2006, the traditional cover photo of the winner was replaced by a reflective panel, honoring “You” and the online contributions of millions of internet users.

Patrick Boehler and Jennifer Jett contributed reporting.

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Your Morning Briefing is published weekday mornings and updated online. Browse past briefings here.

We have briefings timed for the Australian, Asian, European and American mornings. And our Australia bureau chief offers a weekly letter adding analysis and conversations with readers. You can sign up for these and other Times newsletters here.

What would you like to see here? Contact us at asiabriefing@nytimes.com.

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