It’s Not Just Facebook: China’s Biggest Tech Company Is Getting Crushed

Daniel Shane
CNN
Tencent (TCEHY) -- the company often referred to as China's Facebook -- has lost more than $70 billion in market value over the past week.

T-Minus One Week until China’s Space Lab Crashes to Earth. Here’s What It Will Look Like.

Cleve R. Wootson Jr. and Amy B Wang
Washington Post
The out-of-control space lab is expected to plummet to earth in a week.

China Needs More Water. So It's Building a Rain-Making Network Three Times the Size of Spain

Stephen Chen
South China Morning Post
China tests weather modification system to bring more rain to Tibet.

Alibaba Opens Car Vending Machine in China That Gives Free Test Drives for People with Good Social Credit

Thuy Ong
Verge
Alibaba and Ford signed a deal to form a partnership last year that would see both companies working together on new technological opportunities.

The Battle for Digital Supremacy

The Economist
Economist
“DESIGNED by Apple in California. Assembled in China”. For the past decade the words embossed on the back of iPhones have served as shorthand for the technological bargain between the world’s two biggest economies: America supplies the brains and...

China Tech Titan Alibaba Plans Stock-Market Homecoming

Julie Steinberg and Liza Lin
Wall Street Journal
Technology giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. is working on a plan to list on a stock exchange in its home market, China, according to people familiar with the matter, more than three years after its blockbuster initial public offering in New York.

Facebook, Amazon Handicapped as They Follow China Playbook

Louise Lucas
Financial Times
Amazon and Facebook grabbed headlines with groundbreaking moves last week: segueing into bank accounts and music, respectively. Groundbreaking, that is, for the west—such moves are business as normal in China.

Trump Takes the Bait from Musk, Attacks China Auto Import Duties

Dana Hull and Justin Sink
Bloomberg
President Donald Trump may not follow Elon Musk on Twitter, but the Tesla Inc. chief’s posts decrying China’s automotive trade practices managed to catch his attention.

China Protectionism Creates Tech Billionaires Who Protect Xi

Shelly Banjo
Bloomberg
China’s tech giants will add star power to the country’s political festivities this week, paying homage to President Xi Jinping and endorsing constitutional changes for him to remain president indefinitely.

China Could Be the World’s First All Electric Vehicle Ecosystem

Salvatore Babones
Forbes
China’s big cities are famously polluted. Air pollution is responsible for as many as one million excess deaths per year in China, according to estimates from the World Health Organization.

China Tests Giant Air Cleaner to Combat Smog

David Cyranoski
Nature
A 60-metre-high chimney stands among a sea of high-rise buildings in one of China’s most polluted cities.

Blockchain Is a Surprisingly Hot Topic at China’s Annual Political Gathering

Josh Horwitz
Quartz
Thousands of China’s elites are currently gathered in Beijing for the “two sessions,” the annual meetings for members the National People’s Congress (or NPC, China’s rubber-stamp legislative branch) and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative...

Why Chinese State Media Love Elon Musk’s Latest Tweets

Jethro Mullen
CNN
The Tesla CEO tweeted out a link to a video about a Chinese rail station that was built in less than 9 hours.

China Spends $279 bln on R&D in 2017: Science Minister

Reuters Staff
Reuters
China’s total spending on research and development is estimated to have hit 1.76 trillion yuan ($279 billion) last year, China’s science minister said on Monday, a year-on-year increase of 14 percent.

Chinese Capital Dangles Carrots to Lure Foreign Talent to Its Silicon Valley

Reuters Staff
Reuters
Beijing, a major hub for artificial intelligence (AI) and semiconductors in China, is touting a new list of incentives to try and bait foreign talent for its equivalent of Silicon Valley in the Chinese capital.

China: Big Data Fuels Crackdown in Minority Region

Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch
Chinese authorities are building and deploying a predictive policing program based on big data analysis in Xinjiang, Human Rights Watch said today. The program aggregates data about people – often without their knowledge – and flags those it deems...

Viewpoint

02.15.18

A Clash of Cyber Civilizations

Geoffrey Hoffman
There has been little need for the term “cyber sovereignty” among democratic states: the Internet, by its nature, operates under an aegis of freedom and cooperation. However, as the international system slips away from American unipolarity, a...

China’s All-Seeing Social Control Network Brings an End to Fugitives’ Festive Fun

Nectar Gan
South China Morning Post
With most of China getting into the swing of the Lunar New Year holiday, two crime suspects in the southern city of Guangzhou could have been forgiven for thinking the local police force was taking a break too.

China Wants to Make a Mark in Space—but It’ll Need a Little Help

Sarah Scoles
Wired
In a China Global Television Network video from 2003, taikonaut Yang Liwei leans back in his orbital capsule, the overstuffed stripes of his spacesuit legs filling the frame. His helmet shield is up, so the viewer can gaze into his eyes as he speaks...

China and Russia Are Catching up with Military Power of US and West, Say Leading Defence Experts

Kim Sengupta
Independent
China and Russia are challenging the military supremacy of America and its allies and the West can no longer rely on the strategic advantage it has enjoyed until now, a leading think tank states in its annual report.

Tesla’s China Dream Threatened by Standoff over Shanghai Factory

Bruce Einhorn, Yan Zhang, Keith Zhai,...
Bloomberg
Tesla Inc., the biggest-selling electric carmaker in the U.S., is in danger of being relegated to an expensive niche in China because Elon Musk can't clinch a deal to open a factory there.

Alibaba's ‘Digital Free Trade Zone’ Has Some Worried about China Links to Malaysia

Nyshka Chandran
CNBC
Alibaba e-commerce platform in Malaysia raises concerns over impact on local firms.

This Week in China Tech: Xiaomi’s 460 Investments, Tencent’s Gamble and a New ‘Blockchain Academy’

Bay McLaughlin
Forbes
China’s technology scene is always shifting, and this week we’ve seen big news coming from Xiaomi, Tencent, Wanda, Baidu, among others. Here are the some of the most interesting tech stories out of China you might not have heard about.

An Indian-Russian Supersonic Missile Could Be a Problem for China

Nyshka Chandran
CNBC
BrahMos Aerospace, a joint venture between India and Russia, has developed what it calls the world’s fastest supersonic cruise missile. The namesake rocket may now be exported globally — a potentially concerning development for the world’s second-...

Racing to Match China’s Growing Computer Power, U.S. Outlines Design for Exascale Computer

Robert F. Service
Science
In 1957, the launch of the Sputnik satellite vaulted the Soviet Union to the lead in the space race and galvanized the United States. U.S. supercomputer researchers are today facing their own Sputnik moment—this time with China.

China’s Didi Chuxing Signs Deal with 12 Car Groups

Charles Clover and Sherry Fei Ju
Financial Times
Chinese ride-hailing group Didi Chuxing has signed partnership agreements with 12 car companies to help them market auto-sharing services and electric vehicles.

China Is Rapidly Closing the US’s Lead in AI Research

Dan Kopf
Quartz
Every year, hundreds of researchers gather at the annual conference of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) to hear presentations on the latest developments in AI. Increasingly, that means learning about the work of...

China Smartphone Sales down for First Time since 2009

Louise Lucas and Edward White
Financial Times
Sales of smartphones in China — the world’s biggest market, responsible for roughly one in every three shipments — declined last year for the first time since 2009, slumping 4.9 per cent year on year according to preliminary data from research group...

China to Stamp out Cryptocurrency Trading Completely with Ban on Foreign Platforms

Xie Yu
South China Morning Post
Offshore platforms targeted after recent efforts to shut down domestic exchanges failed to eradicate trading.

Chinese Capital Controls Hit Silicon Valley Tech Investors

Leslie Hook
Financial Times
Chinese technology investors in Silicon Valley are being thwarted by the country’s capital controls, in a sign of the unintended consequences of Beijing’s move last year to curb cash outflows.

How WeChat Came to Rule China

Shannon Liao
Verge
China’s most popular messaging app, WeChat, has always had a close relationship with the Chinese government. The app has been subsidized by the government since its creation in 2011, and it’s an accepted reality that officials censor and monitor...

Conversation

02.01.18

Should Pacific Island Nations Be Wary of Chinese Influence?

Jenny Hayward-Jones, Graeme Smith & more
British Prime Minister Theresa May’s three-day visit to China, from January 31 to February 2, has amplified ongoing debates in Europe about the costs and benefits of engagement with China and of Chinese investment. Attention to China’s role in...

China Creates Nuclear Powerhouse

Wayne Ma
Wall Street Journal
China is putting two of its largest nuclear-power firms back together as it seeks to bolster its state-owned enterprises and create a corporate powerhouse that can better compete for contracts in other countries.

China “Gifted” the African Union a Headquarters Building and Then Allegedly Bugged It for State Secrets

Abdi Latif Dahir
Quartz
In an investigation published by French newspaper Le Monde, China, which also paid and built the computer network at the AU, allegedly inserted a backdoor that allowed it to transfer data.

China's Eight-Year-Long Smartphone Growth Comes to an End

BBC
The decline ends eight years' growth in the world's largest mobile phone market.

Chinese Wind Turbine Firm Found Guilty of Stealing U.S. Secrets

Sherisse Pham
CNN
A top Chinese wind turbine maker has been found guilty in the U.S. of stealing trade secrets -- an act that “nearly destroyed” an American tech firm, according to prosecutors.

Yes, They’ve Cloned Monkeys in China. That Doesn’t Mean You’re Next.

Gina Kolata
New York Times
Researchers in China reported on Wednesday that they have created two cloned monkeys, the first time that primates have been cloned with the technique that produced Dolly the sheep more than 20 years ago.

US-China Biotech Startup XtalPi Lands $15m from Google, Tencent and Sequoia

Jon Russell
TechCrunch
Google continues to increase its presence in China after it joined Sequoia China and Tencent in a $15 million investment for XtalPi, a U.S.-China biotech firm that uses artificial intelligence and computing to accelerate the development of new drugs.

Conversation

01.18.18

Are China’s Blue Skies Here to Stay?

Li Shuo, Angel Hsu & more
In mid-January, the environmental group Greenpeace announced dramatic improvements in air quality across China. In 74 Chinese cities, measurements of PM2.5, the fine particles that have been a major contributor to the country’s choked skies,...

Baidu's Robin Li Is Helping China Win the 21st Century

Time
When Robin Li looks back at the question now, he can laugh. But things were different in 1992, when the Baidu CEO was a tongue-tied Chinese student applying for a computer-graphics graduate program in the U.S.

China Escalates Crackdown on Cryptocurrency Trading

Bloomberg
China is escalating its clampdown on cryptocurrency trading, targeting online platforms and mobile apps that offer exchange-like services, according to people familiar with the matter.

China Disrupts Global Companies’ Web Access as Censorship Bites

Yuan Yang and Lucy Hornby
Financial Times
Groups fear being forced to use expensive VPN software surveilled by Beijing.

China’s Shutdown of Bitcoin Miners Isn’t Just about Electricity

Sara Hsu
Forbes
The most critical aspect about cryptocurrency for China to address is criminal activity.

Google Says ‘No Changes’ to Mapping Platform in China after Report

Reuters
CNBC
Google denied a media report that claimed the tech giant was re-launching its mapping functions in China, where many of its services are blocked.

China Chides Tech Firms over Privacy Safeguards

CNBC
China reprimanded three top tech firms on Friday over poor privacy protections, as tech companies face an increasing backlash from consumers and authorities over excessive data collection practices.

China Is Building a $2 Billion Office Park in Beijing Just for AI

Quartz
Last year, China said it plans to be a world leader in AI by 2030. Now its capital is building a massive campus to house the AI firms that will power that rise, according to local media outlet Beijing News (link in Chinese).

Behind the Fall and Rise of China's Xiaomi

David Kline
Wired
The comeback has made Xiaomi a poster child for China’s entrepreneurial dynamism.

Founder of China's Embattled LeEco Placed on Debt Blacklist

Engen Tham, Adam Jourdan
Reuters
The high-profile founder of struggling Chinese tech conglomerate LeEco has been placed on an official blacklist of debt defaulters, a further blow to a firm that had spent heavily to compete in areas from smart cars to online entertainment.

Google to Open Beijing AI Center in Latest Expansion in China

Shelly Banjo and David Ramli
Bloomberg
Google is deepening its push into China as it seeks an edge in one of technology’s most competitive fields: artificial intelligence.

Reports

12.12.17

Central Planning, Local Experiments

Mareike Ohlberg, Shazeda Ahmed, Bertram Lang
Shazeda Ahmed & Bertram Lang
Mercator Institute for China Studies
The “Social Credit System” is designed to monitor and rate citizens and companies in China and to guide their behavior. “It is a wide-reaching project that touches on almost all aspects of everyday life,” the authors Mareike Ohlberg, Bertram Lang,...

China Telecom Picked to Become the Philippines' Third Telecoms Player

Reuters
South China Morning Post
China Telecom Corp could become the Philippines’ third nationwide telecommunications operator, officials of the Southeast Asian country said on Sunday, as the government sought to stir up competition to boost notoriously poor fixed-line broadband...

Four U.S. Engineers Charged with Trying to Steal Chip Designs for a Chinese Startup

Fortune
Four former Applied Materials Inc. (AMAT, +2.37%) engineers have been charged with attempting to steal chip designs from the semiconductor equipment company to sell to a Chinese startup.

Conversation

12.06.17

Apple in China: WTF?

Samuel Wade, Shaun Rein & more
In November, the non-profit watchdog Freedom House called China “the worst abuser of Internet freedom” of the 65 countries it surveyed. And yet, on December 3, Apple CEO Tim Cook keynoted China’s annual World Internet Conference. “The theme of this...

Will Tech Firms Challenge China’s ‘Open’ Internet?

Robin Brant
BBC
China has been smart and ruthless in its control of the internet within its borders. It blocks some foreign sites altogether and it censors - heavily - what Chinese are allowed to see.

Are Alibaba and Tencent Fueling a Tech Bubble? Investors Weigh the Worrisome Question

Polina Marinova
Fortune
Alibaba has spent roughly $1.72 billion buying at least 50 startups and small businesses since 2013, while Tencent has doled out at least $780 million over the same period, according to Nikkei Asian Review.

China Fintech Lending Boom Fuels Risks of Data Theft Black Market in User Details Thrives as Apps Require Borrowers to Grant Access to Phones

Gabriel Wildau and Yizhen Jia
Financial Times
The rise of online consumer loans in China has spawned a thriving black market in stolen user data.

US Charges 3 Chinese Nationals with Hacking, Stealing Intellectual Property from Companies

Evan Perez
CNN
The charges being brought in Pittsburgh allege that the hackers stole intellectual property from several companies, including Trimble, a maker of navigation systems; Siemens, a German technology company with major operations in the US; and Moody’s...

For China’s High-Flying Tycoons, a Precarious Balance

Anthony Kuhn
NPR
Flush with credit, LeEco expanded aggressively overseas. But the company overextended itself, its credit began to dry up — and by May, it had to lay off most of its workers in the U.S.