For decades, engineers have been working on technical solutions to filter CO2 from the air. Nevertheless, the capture and trapping of CO2 is still in its infancy. Theoretically, it could be used to capture a large amount of greenhouse gas before it enters the atmosphere. But the technology is still very expensive and technically complex. Even the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that the technology must make an important contribution to achieving climate targets.
China now wants to promote carbon capture technology and bring it to market maturity. The catch: So far, it is mainly the oil and gas industry that uses the process to increase production volumes and thus pump more CO2 into the atmosphere.
Elon Musk knows a thing or two about future technologies. The co-founder of Tesla and PayPal and CEO of SpaceX has his eye on Twitter. Frank Sieren analyzes what Musk might be up to with the social media app. The tech billionaire raves about WeChat, the miracle app that makes everyday life easier for hundreds of millions of Chinese. Musk praises its versatility, saying it can help users in almost any situation in life – be it calling a cab, paying at the supermarket, or even buying a property. Will Twitter therefore become a global WeChat clone in the future? There is definitely a gap in the market for such a “super app”.
Whichever app you read us on: We hope you find today’s issue insightful!
It is a dream of many managers working on a better environmental balance: Simply separating the CO2 from the other exhaust gases at the end of the production process and disposing of it. It would be much easier to achieve the climate targets that way. This would require a technology that effectively separates CO2 from other gases. Companies are not the only ones who would find this option a good fit. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), part of the emissions must be filtered out of the atmosphere in order to limit global warming to 1.5 to 2 degrees.
This is already possible today, but it is currently still very expensive and thus hardly practical. In recent years, dozens of carbon capture utilization and storage (CCUS) projects have been put on hold due to high costs. Worldwide, there are only approximately two dozen large industrial plants using CCUS.
China now wants to push CCUS technologies more strongly. This emerges from the guiding strategy for achieving national climate targets. The People’s Republic wants to research CCUS, but also realize “industrial application on a large scale”.
So far, there are only a few CCUS projects in China. The technology is not only used for climate protection. Most of the large-scale applications to date are in oil and gas production. Sinopec built a new plant earlier this year (China.Table reported). The project is expected to capture one million tons of CO2 annually, which is generated by refineries and in chemical plants. The climate gas will then be pumped into nearby oil and gas fields. According to the company, this will increase production of the climate-damaging raw materials by almost three million tons. Other oil and gas companies also want to use CCUS technology to expand production.
To be sure, there are other uses of CCUS technology in China. But “in terms of project financing, its use to boost oil production is currently the biggest part of the story,” write analysts at consulting firm Trivium China. They warn that the technology could serve goals other than climate change mitigation. For example, to achieve energy security.
In recent months, the political leadership has frequently stressed that last year’s power outages must not be repeated. Moreover, the country does not want to risk too great a dependence on energy imports. CCUS technology could be used to increase oil and gas production nationwide. The producers are thus giving their fossil fuel activities a greenwash approach.
This would make application in industry and fossil-fuel power plants all the more important. In order for China to achieve its climate targets, the People’s Republic must capture climate gases before they enter the atmosphere. It will be particularly difficult for the chemical and cement industries to reduce emissions. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change therefore calls capturing emissions in these sectors an “important option” for reducing emissions.
According to analysts, China’s climate goals “cannot be achieved without technological breakthroughs.” This includes technology to capture CO2. The problem is that so far these technologies are not economically viable. The costs still far exceed the benefits. This is also stated in a report by the Chinese Ministry of Ecology and Environment. So far, CCUS technology has only been used in very small projects. According to the report, only 40 CCUS demonstration projects are in operation or under construction across China.
But the ministry is optimistic: “As the technology evolves, there is scope for costs to come down in the future.” According to the Trivium analysts, the state must take action: “Government support and technological innovation are critical to the realization of a CCUS industry,” the analysts write.
China’s emissions trading could show the economic benefit of CCUS. As soon as the price of a CO2 allowance is higher than the cost of capturing the CO2 at the end of the production process, CCUS becomes worthwhile. But at present, CO2 pollution rights in China are still far too cheap and CCUS technology is still far too expensive. So in the short term, emissions trading will not provide an incentive for the installation of CCUS plants.
Another method of storing CO2 also has its pitfalls. The concept called “Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage” (BECCS) involves using biological processes. In this process, plants are grown to draw CO2 from the atmosphere. They are used in biogas plants or burned to generate electricity. The CO2 is captured and stored in rock layers. In China, BECCS is expected to play a major role. This is according to two scenarios from high-ranking Chinese research institutions on how to achieve climate targets.
But what sounds so simple has two big catches: BECCS would require large areas of high-quality land to grow the plants. In China, this poses the threat of conflicts with agriculture. The People’s Republic has only ten percent of the world’s arable land, but must feed 20 percent of the world’s population with it (China.Table reported). The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change also doubts whether BECCS makes sense. “The speed and scales required for limiting warming to 1.5 °C pose a considerable implementation challenge,” the IPCC said.
So far, carbon capture and storage has therefore not played a major role in the fight against the climate crisis. According to Bloomberg data, global investment in CCUS projects in the last two years has been just $3 billion (2020) and $2.3 billion (2021). However, that may change in the future. “A CCUS industry is slowly but surely developing in China. We see consistent forward movement at all levels – including policy, academia and in corporate investment,” write Trivium China analysts.
But too few projects to capture and store CO2 are currently being implemented. The number of new projects is far below the figures researchers have assumed in their climate models for achieving the 1.5 degree target, writes the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. To have any benefit, investment in CCUS projects would have to increase massively. China’s efforts to build a national CCUS industry, however, could benefit the climate in the medium term. The state is not afraid of large investments and has a long planning horizon. If CCUS is also understood as an industrial policy, China could secure a good position on the world market at an early stage. Collaboration: Renxiu Zhao
The fact that WeChat is among the world’s most popular apps is now a matter of course for the tech scene. Among the big fans of the Chinese universal app is well-known US entrepreneur Elon Musk, co-founder of Tesla and PayPal and CEO of SpaceX. Musk now thinks the whole world needs a universal app like WeChat that covers life completely. And that seems to be exactly his plan with Twitter, if the acquisition of the social platform still goes through. As a billionaire, however, Musk often gets exactly what he wants. He is offering $44 billion for the platform.
But even if he doesn’t get Twitter, he could pursue his dream of Western WeChat in another way. He wants to counter the “outstanding” Chinese “super app” with something that is equivalent or even better: “It does everything – sort of like Twitter, plus PayPal, plus a whole bunch of things, and all rolled into one, with a great interface,” he explains. Anyone living in China does virtually everything with WeChat, Musk says.
In WeChat’s home country, his comments immediately went viral. Tech experts had already expected that WeChat would also find prominent supporters outside the People’s Republic. Such an app “would be really useful,” Musk explained further. Payments could also be “very useful” within such an app, he said – going back to his roots at PayPal.
WeChat itself is hardly used in the West. This is mainly because the app is associated with state surveillance. Even if in reality no data flows to Chinese services, an uneasy feeling would remain. It is this mistrust that is holding back the app from spreading. True, it is technically possible to keep the handling of international customers’ data separate. But Musk sees an opportunity in China’s image as a data octopus alone. After all, WeChat is incredibly successful despite government surveillance – simply because the app takes over so many practical applications in everyday life. It makes daily life noticeably easier.
WeChat has 1.29 billion monthly users. In its eleventh year of existence, the user base is still growing, with the most recent year-on-year increase at 3.9 percent. By comparison, Twitter has 217 million users. Facebook 2.93 billion. WeChat is ubiquitous in China. 78 percent of all Chinese between the ages of 16 and 64 use the service, which is available on Android, iPhone, and also as a desktop version.
Originally, WeChat was only intended as a messenger service in the style of Whatsapp or QQ. But the parent company Tencent from Shenzhen continuously expanded the range of functions. Today, you can organize your everyday life almost completely with WeChat. Users can hail cabs, make doctor’s appointments, take out loans, buy real estate and order food. And of course, you can still make phone calls, send messages, videos, and stickers, as well as inform yourself about God and the world in group channels.
All these functions give WeChat enormous economic and social significance in China. Even senior citizens now pay with WeChat when buying vegetables at the market. The app has achieved nothing less than making cash almost completely disappear from daily life. Even credit cards have become superfluous.
Its central position in the world’s largest market has made the operating company one of the most important tech companies. Tencent’s market value is almost $590 billion, ahead of Facebook in the top 10 most valuable tech companies in the world. Along with chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), it is the only Asian one on the list.
Brands, celebrities, political institutions, and even the police, to whom you can report traffic violations via WeChat, for example, present themselves on millions of verified official accounts. Besides Alipay, the app is the most important platform for proving one’s vaccination and health status during the Covid pandemic. Without a “green health code,” you still won’t get far in China. PCR tests also run very efficiently via the app – so it is also the Chinese equivalent of the German Covid warning app.
In fact, WeChat had already started expanding into other markets. In 2013, the group opened an office in the United States. Advertising contracts with global stars such as Lionel Messi were also intended to help raise the global profile.
However, with political skepticism in the West in mind, Tencent first wanted to gain a foothold in emerging markets with WeChat. Tencent initially focused on Indonesia, India and Brazil. But skepticism spread in these countries as well. In Indonesia, for example, WhatsApp and, among young people, the Japanese competitor application Line are particularly popular today.
WeChat is probably the most striking example of how China’s political system severely hinders the international expansion of its tech companies. However, the same political system has favored the emergence of the app by excluding Western competitors from accessing its own market.
All the more reason for Musk to tackle the issue. In fact, WeChat has already influenced some Western apps. Snapchat and Instagram, for example, have been increasingly relying on QR codes again for some time. On WeChat, the scannable black-and-white pixel squares had become an integral part of everyday use. And PayPal rolled out an app update in September that integrated a number of other services, including an online shopping center, a savings account, and a fundraising platform.
The downsides of WeChat are as much a part of the app as the upsides: By accessing data from the indispensable super app, the government can monitor citizens’ activities with unparalleled compactness. Instead of cell phone numbers, WeChat accounts are also linked to ID cards, which makes them even more flawlessly traceable to the individual user. Messages that the government doesn’t like are rigorously deleted.
Last year, Beijing also criticized WeChat for data privacy violations and temporarily froze all app updates. In addition, Chinese regulators are said to be planning to split off the Fintech arm WeChat Pay from the actual app, in part to better monitor money laundering and gambling, which actually makes sense again. In 2021, WeChat Pay processed about 40 percent of total mobile payments in China. But Alibaba’s financial arm Alipay has already come under Beijing’s scrutiny as well. The party doesn’t want to let domestic tech companies become too powerful. That’s especially true if they operate in the financial sector.
Musk already has such risks in mind. He said his proposed super app should be a “maximally trusted and broadly inclusive” platform where people can complete various digital tasks and discuss important ideas. “We just want something that’s incredibly useful and that people love using. It does need to happen somehow.”
Influencers on Chinese social media frequently experience an incredibly steep rise in fame. Li Jiaqi became famous overnight in 2019 because, as a young man, he managed to market lipsticks with high credibility on his livestream. The ease with which Li promoted the products in self-test in front of the camera made him a perfect advertiser for many companies.
Cosmetics was just the beginning. He also whips frying pans, pillows, food or consumer electronics through his infomercials. Even foreign companies like Apple or Shisheido use Li’s popularity.
The high point of his career so far came in October last year at the start of Alibaba’s so-called Singles Day. The Chinese equivalent of Black Friday in the US is a sales marathon that promises consumers super bargains. During the duration of a single stream within twelve hours, Li generated sales of $1.7 billion. His stream was viewed 250 million times that day.
The chances that Li Jiaqi will break this record again have sunk deeply since last weekend. For as steeply as his career led him to the top, his path may now be leading him downhill again. Last Friday, June 3, the influencer broke the country’s biggest political taboo. Li introduced an ice cream cake in the shape of a tank on his show. With this, the Influencer referred to the bloody events in Tiananmen Square in 1989 just before the anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre.
What followed were classic reflexes of Chinese censorship. The stream stopped shortly after and was not continued. Li later apologized on Weibo for the fact that there had been technical problems. Since then, his 64 million followers have been waiting for another message. Li did not go live with his otherwise almost daily livestreams in the following days, nor did he thank them over the weekend for the numerous birthday wishes that reached him on Weibo.
There is now speculation that Li himself may have been completely unaware of what he was showing his viewers. Perhaps he was even lured into the trap by disgruntled employees who were envious of his success. By his own account, he now employs around 100 people. He has long since stopped deciding on his own what to advertise and what not to. His team checks the quality of the products in advance and picks out the most lucrative from the mass of offers. His reaction gives the impression that he himself was surprised by an ice cream cake in the shape of a tank, and apparently did not attach any value to the deeper meaning. “What, a tank?” he asked in surprise.
It is quite conceivable that Li did not directly associate a tank and June 4. Born in 1992, he belongs to a generation that was systematically kept away from information surrounding the tragic events. Chinese parents also put a cloak of silence over the massacre to prevent their children from starting to talk about it unthinkingly. His on-camera assistant, on the other hand, who handed him the plate with the tank, seemed to understand immediately. “Let’s see if Li Jiaqi and I will still be here at 11 PM,” she said.
So far, Li has not contacted the world since the stream was interrupted. What happens next for him is completely unclear. Numerous advertising partners are likely to be following with great interest whether their top salesman returns to the screen. In the global influencer scene, it is common to sign longer-term contracts with companies to regularly feature their items. Because partnerships pay off for both sides, e-commerce giant Alibaba had already invested in an incubator for key opinion leaders (KOL) several years ago. There, aspiring influencers receive training in optimal marketing strategies.
Marketing an ice cream cake tank right before June 4 proved to be a clever strategy for possible string-pullers in the background of Li Jiaqi’s livestream. Whoever wanted to commemorate the tragedy of that time instigated a lively discussion among young people on social media, some of whom are now wondering what this tank is all about. Marcel Grzanna
Not only breathtaking in terms of scenery – the region around the Wuyi Mountains in Fujian Province is home to a variety of archaeological sites and is the habitat of a large number of wild animals.
For decades, engineers have been working on technical solutions to filter CO2 from the air. Nevertheless, the capture and trapping of CO2 is still in its infancy. Theoretically, it could be used to capture a large amount of greenhouse gas before it enters the atmosphere. But the technology is still very expensive and technically complex. Even the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that the technology must make an important contribution to achieving climate targets.
China now wants to promote carbon capture technology and bring it to market maturity. The catch: So far, it is mainly the oil and gas industry that uses the process to increase production volumes and thus pump more CO2 into the atmosphere.
Elon Musk knows a thing or two about future technologies. The co-founder of Tesla and PayPal and CEO of SpaceX has his eye on Twitter. Frank Sieren analyzes what Musk might be up to with the social media app. The tech billionaire raves about WeChat, the miracle app that makes everyday life easier for hundreds of millions of Chinese. Musk praises its versatility, saying it can help users in almost any situation in life – be it calling a cab, paying at the supermarket, or even buying a property. Will Twitter therefore become a global WeChat clone in the future? There is definitely a gap in the market for such a “super app”.
Whichever app you read us on: We hope you find today’s issue insightful!
It is a dream of many managers working on a better environmental balance: Simply separating the CO2 from the other exhaust gases at the end of the production process and disposing of it. It would be much easier to achieve the climate targets that way. This would require a technology that effectively separates CO2 from other gases. Companies are not the only ones who would find this option a good fit. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), part of the emissions must be filtered out of the atmosphere in order to limit global warming to 1.5 to 2 degrees.
This is already possible today, but it is currently still very expensive and thus hardly practical. In recent years, dozens of carbon capture utilization and storage (CCUS) projects have been put on hold due to high costs. Worldwide, there are only approximately two dozen large industrial plants using CCUS.
China now wants to push CCUS technologies more strongly. This emerges from the guiding strategy for achieving national climate targets. The People’s Republic wants to research CCUS, but also realize “industrial application on a large scale”.
So far, there are only a few CCUS projects in China. The technology is not only used for climate protection. Most of the large-scale applications to date are in oil and gas production. Sinopec built a new plant earlier this year (China.Table reported). The project is expected to capture one million tons of CO2 annually, which is generated by refineries and in chemical plants. The climate gas will then be pumped into nearby oil and gas fields. According to the company, this will increase production of the climate-damaging raw materials by almost three million tons. Other oil and gas companies also want to use CCUS technology to expand production.
To be sure, there are other uses of CCUS technology in China. But “in terms of project financing, its use to boost oil production is currently the biggest part of the story,” write analysts at consulting firm Trivium China. They warn that the technology could serve goals other than climate change mitigation. For example, to achieve energy security.
In recent months, the political leadership has frequently stressed that last year’s power outages must not be repeated. Moreover, the country does not want to risk too great a dependence on energy imports. CCUS technology could be used to increase oil and gas production nationwide. The producers are thus giving their fossil fuel activities a greenwash approach.
This would make application in industry and fossil-fuel power plants all the more important. In order for China to achieve its climate targets, the People’s Republic must capture climate gases before they enter the atmosphere. It will be particularly difficult for the chemical and cement industries to reduce emissions. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change therefore calls capturing emissions in these sectors an “important option” for reducing emissions.
According to analysts, China’s climate goals “cannot be achieved without technological breakthroughs.” This includes technology to capture CO2. The problem is that so far these technologies are not economically viable. The costs still far exceed the benefits. This is also stated in a report by the Chinese Ministry of Ecology and Environment. So far, CCUS technology has only been used in very small projects. According to the report, only 40 CCUS demonstration projects are in operation or under construction across China.
But the ministry is optimistic: “As the technology evolves, there is scope for costs to come down in the future.” According to the Trivium analysts, the state must take action: “Government support and technological innovation are critical to the realization of a CCUS industry,” the analysts write.
China’s emissions trading could show the economic benefit of CCUS. As soon as the price of a CO2 allowance is higher than the cost of capturing the CO2 at the end of the production process, CCUS becomes worthwhile. But at present, CO2 pollution rights in China are still far too cheap and CCUS technology is still far too expensive. So in the short term, emissions trading will not provide an incentive for the installation of CCUS plants.
Another method of storing CO2 also has its pitfalls. The concept called “Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage” (BECCS) involves using biological processes. In this process, plants are grown to draw CO2 from the atmosphere. They are used in biogas plants or burned to generate electricity. The CO2 is captured and stored in rock layers. In China, BECCS is expected to play a major role. This is according to two scenarios from high-ranking Chinese research institutions on how to achieve climate targets.
But what sounds so simple has two big catches: BECCS would require large areas of high-quality land to grow the plants. In China, this poses the threat of conflicts with agriculture. The People’s Republic has only ten percent of the world’s arable land, but must feed 20 percent of the world’s population with it (China.Table reported). The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change also doubts whether BECCS makes sense. “The speed and scales required for limiting warming to 1.5 °C pose a considerable implementation challenge,” the IPCC said.
So far, carbon capture and storage has therefore not played a major role in the fight against the climate crisis. According to Bloomberg data, global investment in CCUS projects in the last two years has been just $3 billion (2020) and $2.3 billion (2021). However, that may change in the future. “A CCUS industry is slowly but surely developing in China. We see consistent forward movement at all levels – including policy, academia and in corporate investment,” write Trivium China analysts.
But too few projects to capture and store CO2 are currently being implemented. The number of new projects is far below the figures researchers have assumed in their climate models for achieving the 1.5 degree target, writes the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. To have any benefit, investment in CCUS projects would have to increase massively. China’s efforts to build a national CCUS industry, however, could benefit the climate in the medium term. The state is not afraid of large investments and has a long planning horizon. If CCUS is also understood as an industrial policy, China could secure a good position on the world market at an early stage. Collaboration: Renxiu Zhao
The fact that WeChat is among the world’s most popular apps is now a matter of course for the tech scene. Among the big fans of the Chinese universal app is well-known US entrepreneur Elon Musk, co-founder of Tesla and PayPal and CEO of SpaceX. Musk now thinks the whole world needs a universal app like WeChat that covers life completely. And that seems to be exactly his plan with Twitter, if the acquisition of the social platform still goes through. As a billionaire, however, Musk often gets exactly what he wants. He is offering $44 billion for the platform.
But even if he doesn’t get Twitter, he could pursue his dream of Western WeChat in another way. He wants to counter the “outstanding” Chinese “super app” with something that is equivalent or even better: “It does everything – sort of like Twitter, plus PayPal, plus a whole bunch of things, and all rolled into one, with a great interface,” he explains. Anyone living in China does virtually everything with WeChat, Musk says.
In WeChat’s home country, his comments immediately went viral. Tech experts had already expected that WeChat would also find prominent supporters outside the People’s Republic. Such an app “would be really useful,” Musk explained further. Payments could also be “very useful” within such an app, he said – going back to his roots at PayPal.
WeChat itself is hardly used in the West. This is mainly because the app is associated with state surveillance. Even if in reality no data flows to Chinese services, an uneasy feeling would remain. It is this mistrust that is holding back the app from spreading. True, it is technically possible to keep the handling of international customers’ data separate. But Musk sees an opportunity in China’s image as a data octopus alone. After all, WeChat is incredibly successful despite government surveillance – simply because the app takes over so many practical applications in everyday life. It makes daily life noticeably easier.
WeChat has 1.29 billion monthly users. In its eleventh year of existence, the user base is still growing, with the most recent year-on-year increase at 3.9 percent. By comparison, Twitter has 217 million users. Facebook 2.93 billion. WeChat is ubiquitous in China. 78 percent of all Chinese between the ages of 16 and 64 use the service, which is available on Android, iPhone, and also as a desktop version.
Originally, WeChat was only intended as a messenger service in the style of Whatsapp or QQ. But the parent company Tencent from Shenzhen continuously expanded the range of functions. Today, you can organize your everyday life almost completely with WeChat. Users can hail cabs, make doctor’s appointments, take out loans, buy real estate and order food. And of course, you can still make phone calls, send messages, videos, and stickers, as well as inform yourself about God and the world in group channels.
All these functions give WeChat enormous economic and social significance in China. Even senior citizens now pay with WeChat when buying vegetables at the market. The app has achieved nothing less than making cash almost completely disappear from daily life. Even credit cards have become superfluous.
Its central position in the world’s largest market has made the operating company one of the most important tech companies. Tencent’s market value is almost $590 billion, ahead of Facebook in the top 10 most valuable tech companies in the world. Along with chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), it is the only Asian one on the list.
Brands, celebrities, political institutions, and even the police, to whom you can report traffic violations via WeChat, for example, present themselves on millions of verified official accounts. Besides Alipay, the app is the most important platform for proving one’s vaccination and health status during the Covid pandemic. Without a “green health code,” you still won’t get far in China. PCR tests also run very efficiently via the app – so it is also the Chinese equivalent of the German Covid warning app.
In fact, WeChat had already started expanding into other markets. In 2013, the group opened an office in the United States. Advertising contracts with global stars such as Lionel Messi were also intended to help raise the global profile.
However, with political skepticism in the West in mind, Tencent first wanted to gain a foothold in emerging markets with WeChat. Tencent initially focused on Indonesia, India and Brazil. But skepticism spread in these countries as well. In Indonesia, for example, WhatsApp and, among young people, the Japanese competitor application Line are particularly popular today.
WeChat is probably the most striking example of how China’s political system severely hinders the international expansion of its tech companies. However, the same political system has favored the emergence of the app by excluding Western competitors from accessing its own market.
All the more reason for Musk to tackle the issue. In fact, WeChat has already influenced some Western apps. Snapchat and Instagram, for example, have been increasingly relying on QR codes again for some time. On WeChat, the scannable black-and-white pixel squares had become an integral part of everyday use. And PayPal rolled out an app update in September that integrated a number of other services, including an online shopping center, a savings account, and a fundraising platform.
The downsides of WeChat are as much a part of the app as the upsides: By accessing data from the indispensable super app, the government can monitor citizens’ activities with unparalleled compactness. Instead of cell phone numbers, WeChat accounts are also linked to ID cards, which makes them even more flawlessly traceable to the individual user. Messages that the government doesn’t like are rigorously deleted.
Last year, Beijing also criticized WeChat for data privacy violations and temporarily froze all app updates. In addition, Chinese regulators are said to be planning to split off the Fintech arm WeChat Pay from the actual app, in part to better monitor money laundering and gambling, which actually makes sense again. In 2021, WeChat Pay processed about 40 percent of total mobile payments in China. But Alibaba’s financial arm Alipay has already come under Beijing’s scrutiny as well. The party doesn’t want to let domestic tech companies become too powerful. That’s especially true if they operate in the financial sector.
Musk already has such risks in mind. He said his proposed super app should be a “maximally trusted and broadly inclusive” platform where people can complete various digital tasks and discuss important ideas. “We just want something that’s incredibly useful and that people love using. It does need to happen somehow.”
Influencers on Chinese social media frequently experience an incredibly steep rise in fame. Li Jiaqi became famous overnight in 2019 because, as a young man, he managed to market lipsticks with high credibility on his livestream. The ease with which Li promoted the products in self-test in front of the camera made him a perfect advertiser for many companies.
Cosmetics was just the beginning. He also whips frying pans, pillows, food or consumer electronics through his infomercials. Even foreign companies like Apple or Shisheido use Li’s popularity.
The high point of his career so far came in October last year at the start of Alibaba’s so-called Singles Day. The Chinese equivalent of Black Friday in the US is a sales marathon that promises consumers super bargains. During the duration of a single stream within twelve hours, Li generated sales of $1.7 billion. His stream was viewed 250 million times that day.
The chances that Li Jiaqi will break this record again have sunk deeply since last weekend. For as steeply as his career led him to the top, his path may now be leading him downhill again. Last Friday, June 3, the influencer broke the country’s biggest political taboo. Li introduced an ice cream cake in the shape of a tank on his show. With this, the Influencer referred to the bloody events in Tiananmen Square in 1989 just before the anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre.
What followed were classic reflexes of Chinese censorship. The stream stopped shortly after and was not continued. Li later apologized on Weibo for the fact that there had been technical problems. Since then, his 64 million followers have been waiting for another message. Li did not go live with his otherwise almost daily livestreams in the following days, nor did he thank them over the weekend for the numerous birthday wishes that reached him on Weibo.
There is now speculation that Li himself may have been completely unaware of what he was showing his viewers. Perhaps he was even lured into the trap by disgruntled employees who were envious of his success. By his own account, he now employs around 100 people. He has long since stopped deciding on his own what to advertise and what not to. His team checks the quality of the products in advance and picks out the most lucrative from the mass of offers. His reaction gives the impression that he himself was surprised by an ice cream cake in the shape of a tank, and apparently did not attach any value to the deeper meaning. “What, a tank?” he asked in surprise.
It is quite conceivable that Li did not directly associate a tank and June 4. Born in 1992, he belongs to a generation that was systematically kept away from information surrounding the tragic events. Chinese parents also put a cloak of silence over the massacre to prevent their children from starting to talk about it unthinkingly. His on-camera assistant, on the other hand, who handed him the plate with the tank, seemed to understand immediately. “Let’s see if Li Jiaqi and I will still be here at 11 PM,” she said.
So far, Li has not contacted the world since the stream was interrupted. What happens next for him is completely unclear. Numerous advertising partners are likely to be following with great interest whether their top salesman returns to the screen. In the global influencer scene, it is common to sign longer-term contracts with companies to regularly feature their items. Because partnerships pay off for both sides, e-commerce giant Alibaba had already invested in an incubator for key opinion leaders (KOL) several years ago. There, aspiring influencers receive training in optimal marketing strategies.
Marketing an ice cream cake tank right before June 4 proved to be a clever strategy for possible string-pullers in the background of Li Jiaqi’s livestream. Whoever wanted to commemorate the tragedy of that time instigated a lively discussion among young people on social media, some of whom are now wondering what this tank is all about. Marcel Grzanna
Not only breathtaking in terms of scenery – the region around the Wuyi Mountains in Fujian Province is home to a variety of archaeological sites and is the habitat of a large number of wild animals.
