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noIn April 2022, the resurgence of Covid-19 appears to have gone unchecked through the financial hub of Shanghai. The government has imposed a strict lockdown, locking millions at home, triggering mass testing on a scale not seen since the first outbreak and angering urban residents who are increasingly skeptical of China’s zero-covid-19 policy. In an attempt to control public opinion, the government told social media sites including WeChat — the super-app used by two-thirds of China’s population — to delete and scrub posts that were negative or critical of its policies.
But censorship lingered. It was an unprecedented public protest, which became an imaginary protest. A video of the lock’s catastrophic failure began circulating online. The six-minute clip, known as April’s Voice – echoed dozens of audio recordings of the cries of children separated from their parents during the quarantine, residents begging for food and a child pleading for medical attention for his terminally ill father. Millions in Shanghai and more across the country. The video was quickly flagged as banned content and pulled from social media platforms in China. Even the word “April” on Twitter-equivalent Weibo was temporarily banned from search results.
Many considered the video a neutral but important document of the human toll of the Shanghai lockdown. A backlash ensued as recalcitrant users repeatedly shared the video in ways that circumvented the site’s censorship. Some uploaded the video, others uploaded words or images or included other footage. The WeChat censors tried to delete posts sharing the video, but it was like a multi-headed hydra: one would pop up without delay. This seminal moment involved the dynamic between the Chinese government and the country’s tech giants. On the front line was entertainment and technology company Tencent, which owns WeChat.
For the better part of three decades, Beijing has tolerated and even celebrated entrepreneurship. As the country moves into the digital age, China produced one company worth $1 billion every 3.8 days in 2018, a year after Tencent overtook Facebook as the world’s fifth largest company. China-focused venture and private equity funds raised quadrupled to $120 billion. That bounty has helped transform China from an industrial backwater to the planet’s most dynamic and sought-after market.
In addition to generating revenue, companies like Tencent obeyed government orders while monitoring their citizens. For a totalitarian regime that rules over a population spread over a territory the size of the US, an app that controls all aspects of life is very useful. Some say WeChat should be called WeCheck, such is its mass tracking capability.
The early days of Chinese technology also saw the construction of the Great Firewall of China. One in five people on the planet uses the internet with a filter that obscures Facebook, Twitter, Snap, and Instagram. New York Times and YouTube. In a sense, it’s a parallel universe where nearly a billion people live and thrive—much to the surprise of Westerners—on par with such major mirrors in China. There is Meituan for Deliveroo, Didi Chuxing for Uber, WeChat for WhatsApp and Facebook.
The services are usually better in comfort and design. A Swiss army knife of super apps, WeChat is very adept at integrating the functions of various Western platforms to allow people to chat, buy or take orders. Domestically, WeChat is known as Weixin, and the company emphasizes that it functions as two apps inside and outside the mainland. China’s lack of privacy controls has an edge when it comes to collecting data that gives its companies and government the power to filter, track, anonymize, and sometimes even imprison its citizens.
The dynamic between China’s tech companies and officials is unlike any other. Before the pandemic, I once sat down with an executive to talk about the ups and downs startups and entrepreneurs endure. “No matter how hot a shot you are, we’ll always have a way to show you who’s boss,” the man said of Tencent owner Pony Ma. “Don’t think we can’t do anything about you because you’ve managed a billion users and moved to Singapore or some other overseas country. The official told me that when regulators feel Tencent needs to learn, they step up censorship efforts, blocking or shutting down Web services until the company gets the message. The strategies were not always obvious. WeChat’s overseas ambitions at the time sometimes disrupted service for international users, delaying messages or transactions for half a minute. “That little retention is more than enough to drive users away and cause people to abandon the app altogether,” the person said. “That’s how you show them some color.”
The tower doesn’t just exist in China. When Chinese people travel abroad, the tower follows them through their telecom providers. Anyone using a China Mobile SIM card is banned from Google. Authoritarian governments in Africa, South-East Asia and Russia see the model’s appeal. They want to create their own internet. As the Internet bifurcates itself between American and Chinese models, Tessant’s story presents an alternative vision of what a global online sphere could be.
Tencent’s products are very convenient and intuitive; Yet in every human mind there is knowledge that every movement, place and utterance is recorded and scrutinized. Nowhere is this contradiction more apparent than at Tencent’s headquarters in the heart of Shenzhen’s southern hi-tech district.
Tencent’s office took five years and more than half a billion dollars to build. Handpicked by NBBJ, the architect responsible for the headquarters of Amazon, Google and Samsung. But the billionaire wanted it to be more than just a financial statement. The twin gleaming glass and steel towers make the building one of the world’s laboratories for new Internet services and connected devices. It features holographic tour guides, conference rooms that adjust temperature based on availability, and alerts for better parking spots before passengers arrive.
What struck me was that the influence of the Communist Party was everywhere in the lobby of a building that was so important to the future and business. In her open reading room, alongside books on the cosmos and the ancient Greek and Roman empires, a book by Chinese President Xi Jinping — charting his speeches and ideas on how to govern — sits on the most prominent shelves. QR codes in the gym bring up links to stories chronicling the battle victories recorded during the Long March.
Even these displays of loyalty are not enough. He suggests that the Communist Party supports companies like Tencent and encourages their overseas expansion as a good idea. But Xi has chosen to ensure that the ambitions of a growing group of ultra-rich entrepreneurs are curbed before they return to politics. It was only a matter of time that followed these national championships.
In the year The invasion, which began in 2020 in the financial technology industry, has spread rapidly, covering every sector from online education to gaming, and ride-hailing to food. With its investments in 800 companies across all these sectors, Tencent has felt the pinch.
Despite Pony Ma’s reputation for being the most low-key and cautious of all Chinese tech moguls, Tencent is not spared. China has suspended app releases for a month at the end of 2021, limited gaming time for under-18s, ordered an overhaul of its financial divisions, fined disclosure violations of investment treaties and blocked new game approvals this year.
The shift in the technology sector has been fueled by Xi’s shift in priorities. It reflects attacks on other sectors, including property. As China’s economy slows and Xi tries to boost the country’s birthrate, the policies show the Communist Party’s determination to respond to public discontent over escalating accumulated wealth and narrowing avenues for growth.
A catchphrase associated with the massacre is “shared prosperity,” which refers to China’s goal of becoming a modern socialist society. The implications for China’s tech industry are far-reaching, and could shape the playbook for the next few decades.
There is a Chinese saying “Li yu tiao long men” – “carp jumping at the dragon’s gate”. Legend has it that if a carp can swim up and place an arch over a waterfall on the Yellow River, it will become the Dragon of the East, a serpent-like creature that symbolizes the power of the emperor. The story of China’s internet tycoons like Pony Ma over the past two decades is one of carp generation dragons. The twist is that these idealistic geeks who tried to change the world are now imprisoned and part of the system they want to change. Once self-made dragons achieve the level of success they have in China, the most important question seems to be: when and how can they be worshiped without harm?
The subtitle of this article was amended on 24 July 2022 to correctly refer to Jack Ma, not Tencent’s Pony Ma.
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