Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple – in the past decades, major US tech companies have collected a gigantic treasure trove of user data. Every Google search, every conversation with Siri, every Amazon order and every post on Facebook is stored and can potentially be accessed forever. In everyday life, we have almost come to terms with this. But what happens when a Chinese company also forces its way onto our smartphones? Many young people can hardly imagine everyday life without TikTok. The company, which has a Chinese parent company, taps into users’ data on a massive scale, as Marcel Grzanna reports.
After all, user information could end up in the hands of the Chinese government, as technical analyses show. Cynics might argue that the US NSA already has all the data, so why should we be more careful about China? But that would be a false lesson from Edward Snowden’s revelations. In the digital age, data protection should not be an inconvenient responsibility of users, it should be the task of the government.
Several major powers have already burned their fingers on Afghanistan. A year ago, the Western military and many civilian organizations withdrew from the country. After that, many observers thought that China would step into the vacuum and protect its interests in the Hindu Kush, exploit raw materials and extend the Silk Road into the region.
But the situation turned out differently, as Christiane Kuehl reports. The country sank into chaos after the Western withdrawal: Sanctions against the Taliban made trade with Afghanistan difficult. In addition, a hunger crisis followed a drought. Leaders in Beijing are currently still acting very cautiously in their exchanges with the Taliban. They do not want to be drawn into the chaos.
Hourly location tracking, unrestricted access to personal calendars, and persistent requests to view a user’s contact list: The video app TikTok digs so deeply into users’ privacy that not even Facebook & Co dare to do. This is why TikTok has set a clear priority in its public relations work: To create distance from its Chinese parent company ByteDance. Two internal guidelines from TikTok’s PR department indicate that the company’s close relationship with ByteDance is a source of concern for the PR staff.
The list of bullet points found in a 53-page document titled “TikTok Master Messaging” gives the company’s press departments a clear line on what their central message must be when talking to journalists: They are to emphasize that TikTok is an independent brand while explicitly downplaying its ties to ByteDance and the People’s Republic of China. This was reported by the tech blog Gizmodo, which received these leaked guides from TikTok employees.
The documents dated last year are by no means enough to brand TikTok as a direct tool of Chinese political interests. But at the very least, they prove how problematic the Chinese origin is for a tech company that has gained the trust of users outside the People’s Republic. Especially since the legal situation in China does not help to increase the credibility of the company.
TikTok is accordingly eager to emphasize its autonomy and independence from ByteDance. In a 15-page manual called “TikTok Key Messages” from February 2021, the company provides formulations for PR employees to use. Gizmodo lists three examples. “There’s a lot of misinformation about TikTok right now. The reality is that the TikTok app isn’t even available in China,” reads a standard response. “We have not and will not share user data with the Chinese government, and would not do so if asked,” is another.
But in fact, cybersecurity or national security laws have granted the government extensive powers to access data from the private sector. The Chinese state has established mechanisms and power structures to ensure access to domestic and foreign data by government agencies, according to a legal study for the European Data Protection Board (EDPB), an independent body for the uniform application of data protection rules in the EU.
TikTok’s spokespeople are also said to downplay the use of artificial intelligence. The company’s algorithms have come under fire for censoring certain content – in the past at least. Australian research institute Aspi found in an investigation that TikTok had suppressed videos depicting human rights crimes in Xinjiang or the 2019 Hong Kong protest movement from a China-critical perspective. Hashtags on LGBTQ content were also censored in at least eight languages.
The latest controversy surrounding the video platform was sparked by an analysis from cybersecurity firm Internet 2.0, also based in Australia. It found that TikTok’s data collection methods include access to the user’s calendar, contact list and location, as well as the technical capability to scan the device’s internal storage.
“For the TikTok application to function properly most of the access and device data collection is not required,” the report states. The application would function just as smoothly without this data. “This leads us to believe that the only reason this information has been gathered is for data harvesting,” the authors conclude.
Also striking is TikTok’s persistence to access user data. Although the application doesn’t need it, TikTok asks for certain access rights over and over, presumably in the hope of users’ carelessness or resignation, who, after dozens of rejections, are tired of being asked all the time. “If you tell Facebook you don’t want to share something, it won’t ask you again. TikTok is much more aggressive,” said Robert Potter of Internet 2.0’s executive team, one of the study’s authors.
The investigation also revealed that TikTok servers outside the People’s Republic connect to servers in the People’s Republic via subdomains at regular intervals – at least on the iPhone. After a short period, these connections would automatically close, and then reconnect under a different IP address. However, it is not clear why they are established in the first place.
The situation in Afghanistan has apparently developed differently than many observers expected a year ago. It was believed that China would step in to fill the vacuum left by the withdrawal of the US and its allies. Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with a group of Taliban leaders in Tianjin in late July 2021. They asked China to play a “greater role in Afghanistan’s reconstruction and economic development.” When the Taliban took Kabul, the People’s Republic kept its embassy open. Many analysts said China was very interested in Afghanistan’s raw materials – especially oil and copper.
But in reality, China’s involvement has been rather modest so far. A Chinese project at the Mes Ajnak copper mine has been on hold for years because of the poor security situation and other obstacles. Nothing has changed here. “Although China has spoken of Afghanistan as part of its ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and some recent trade has started,” writes Raffaelo Pantucci, a South Asia expert at Britain’s Royal United Services Institute and co-author of a book on China’s role in the Hindu Kush.
“In reality, the tangible economic links between China and Afghanistan amount to the export of Afghan pine nuts to China and the construction of a fiberoptic cable down the Wakhan Corridor to help Afghanistan get on the internet.” The Wakhan Corridor is the “handle” on the Afghan map in the northeast of the country; at its end is the only border between Afghanistan and China.
“In public discourse, there has always been an exaggerated image of how important China is to Afghanistan,” Pantucci told China.Table. To date, Beijing has not officially recognized the Taliban government. Without decisive action by the holy warriors against the Uyghur militant group East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) feared by China, this is not up for debate, Beijing’s diplomats repeatedly stressed. However, the fight against the ETIM is obviously not a priority for the Taliban right now. China does have individual specific concerns and issues related to Afghanistan, Pantucci said. “But the reality is that these are not existential for China.” Right now, the biggest concern is that the country could cause problems for Pakistan and Central Asia – as well as that the US could maintain a close relationship with the Taliban. “Economic interests are limited.”
Beijing’s paranoia about Washington is said to be so great that it fears the Taliban could turn on China, Pantucci says. The conflict with the US currently overrides everything in China’s foreign policy. “What is actually going on in Afghanistan is secondary to concerns about what the US is up to.” Indeed, according to Pantucci, there is evidence that suggests some cooperation between Washington and the Taliban. And China’s atheist communists are inherently distrustful of the holy warriors of this radical religious movement.
Even during the first Taliban rule at the turn of the millennium, Beijing feared a rise of the ETIM. In the 1990s, Chinese workers were repeatedly killed or kidnapped in Afghanistan. Over the years, Beijing hosted a series of peace talks between the government and the Taliban – sometimes more, sometimes less enthusiastically. But it was only a host, not a mediator, as Pantucci says.
During this time, China quietly regarded the US as a security guarantor in Afghanistan and the surrounding area – also in order not to have to take responsibility itself. Beijing was not pleased that this security umbrella suddenly disappeared a year ago. It repeatedly criticized the West’s hasty withdrawal.
China’s anger began when Washington removed the Uyghur ETIM from its list of terrorist organizations a few months before the withdrawal. From Beijing’s perspective, this was a hostile act. And yet, for Beijing, the region is not just about the ETIM. In 2021, there were several attacks on Chinese and Silk Road projects in Pakistan. For instance, nine Chinese engineers died in an attack on a bus last July. Today, the Pakistani arm of the Taliban is considered to be the perpetrator of the attack – and not the ETIM. Despite all this, however, China does not want to play a major role in the conflict, Pantucci writes in his book: “China is doomed to play a significant role in the country, but is studiously avoiding it.”
China prefers a collective approach. Since August 2021, the People’s Republic has been present at all regional meetings of neighboring countries, including Iran, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. “When Beijing says it seeks to build regional consensus and management of Afghanistan, it does not mean for all countries to work together,” explains Niva Yau, a Tajikistan-based Afghanistan expert.
“Rather, it means setting up an agreed list of activities all regional countries should look to implement on their own, given individual capacity differences,” Yau said. She believes China wants to use this to present itself as a benefactor to the battered country, unlike the United States. Yau also considers it likely that China will ultimately want to position itself as a central player after all, “pushing and organizing regional, and soon, global management of Afghanistan affairs.” For example, China has sent humanitarian aid a dozen times to those in need, including internally displaced individuals or victims of natural disasters – most recently wheat and rice for 1,100 households in August.
In late 2021, China launched a bilateral working group with the Taliban on humanitarian aid and economic reconstruction. Between April and June 2022, representatives of the Chinese Embassy met with various Taliban ministers to discuss projects to rebuild the country. Several Chinese entrepreneurs are also said to be in the country, looking for business opportunities. This could well lead to closer cooperation at some point. But this stands and falls with the security situation.
Sinolytics is a European research-based consultancy entirely focused on China. It advises European companies on their strategic orientation and concrete business activities in the People’s Republic.
So far, 2022 has been a disastrous year for Asia’s richest woman: Yang Huiyan has lost more than half of her fortune, which once totaled nearly $24 billion. And now her real estate company Country Garden is also facing serious liquidity problems.
The story of the just 41-year-old entrepreneur is symbolic of the drastic transformations of Chinese society under Xi Jinping. And her rise and fall also show that, while the “Chinese dream” has led many people to unimaginable wealth in the blink of an eye, it can melt away just as quickly.
Born in Shunde in southern China, Yang Huiyan became one of the youngest billionaires at the age of 24. Her father, a former migrant worker who founded the construction company Country Gardens in the booming Pearl River Delta in the 1990s, bequeathed 70 percent of the company shares to Yang just one year after she received her bachelor’s degree.
The business model was as simple as it was ingenious: It provided the Chinese middle class, which grew by several million every year, with modern apartment buildings. While the economy was growing at double-digit rates and the population experienced the dynamics of the market economy for the first time, real estate developers seemed to know only one direction for decades: faster, higher, stronger.
Construction projects grew more and more ambitious, and banks loosened their lending policies for companies. And for the population, which on average invests up to three-quarters of their savings, real estate was formerly considered a safe bet. Prices rose steadily, eventually reaching a level where the dream of owning a home has long been out of reach for the broad middle class, especially in the East Coast metropolises. But alternative investment opportunities are virtually non-existent: Prices on the domestic stock markets resemble a roller coaster ride, and the Chinese are not allowed to invest their money outside China because of strict capital controls.
Due to the persistent real estate boom, Yang Huiyan reached her entrepreneurial zenith at the beginning of 2018. In the first four days of the year alone, increased stock prices had added $2 billion to her wealth. At the time, it was a sensation: A Chinese woman suddenly shot to the top of Asia’s male-dominated rich lists.
But in Xi Jinping’s China, this distinction is a double-edged sword. “When you’re at the top of the annual rich list, you’re already in line to be the next to be slaughtered,” says Desmond Shum, a former building contractor who now lives in exile in London. “Xi Jinping is transforming all aspects of society. This process is scary for entrepreneurs,” says the 57-year-old
And indeed, Xi Jinping propagates few ideas as prominently as his vision of “common prosperity”; virtually no speech by the head of state is complete without this slogan. In an effort to make Chinese society more egalitarian, Xi also targeted the real estate industry last year: Housing should no longer be a speculative commodity in China, and real estate should once again be affordable for the middle class. Under Xi, regulation has been massively tightened: Since then, construction companies have had to meet much stricter requirements in order to obtain bank loans.
These conditions seem understandable. But they triggered a painful chain reaction that caused not only the world’s most indebted company, Evergrande, to stumble, but the entire sector. Many of the market leaders suddenly found themselves unable to repay their debts.
The explosive power of the real estate crisis for Chinese society was most recently demonstrated in July: In more than 90 cities, apartment buyers halted their mortgage payments because construction work on their half-finished apartment blocks came to a standstill (China.Table reported). Thousands of them have voiced their frustration on social media. For Beijing’s party cadres, who value nothing more than social stability, the looming real estate bubble is one of the biggest challenges.
Yang Huiyan’s company, Country Garden, at first seemed to emerge from the crisis year unscathed. But at the end of July, the real estate developer also caused shockwaves – by selling shares at a 13 percent discount to raise capital. Some of it was said to be needed to service outstanding debts. The markets reacted strongly: Compared to four years ago, the share price of Country Garden is now only one-seventh.
It is safe to assume that Yang Huiyan has already managed to secure her fortune in view of the radical changes in the real estate industry. According to media reports, she acquired Cypriot citizenship years ago, which the island state offered to wealthy investors. It seems that under Xi Jinping, the wealthy no longer consider their prosperity to be safe. Fabian Kretschmer
“Who changed our film?” – “Well, the authorities in China,” “Really?”. As posts and screenshots on the Chinese microblogging site Weibo show, the US animated film “Minions: The Rise of Gru” has been given an alternative ending in China.
Freeze frames and captions during the end credits sequence in the changed version for the Chinese market tell us that the main character Gru goes from being a villain to a good “father of three daughters” in the end, while his mentor, the super villain Wild Knuckles, winds up in “prison for 20 years”. A happy ending, just the way the CP likes it.
In the international version, Knuckles gets away by faking his death. He sets off on new adventures with Gru.
Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple – in the past decades, major US tech companies have collected a gigantic treasure trove of user data. Every Google search, every conversation with Siri, every Amazon order and every post on Facebook is stored and can potentially be accessed forever. In everyday life, we have almost come to terms with this. But what happens when a Chinese company also forces its way onto our smartphones? Many young people can hardly imagine everyday life without TikTok. The company, which has a Chinese parent company, taps into users’ data on a massive scale, as Marcel Grzanna reports.
After all, user information could end up in the hands of the Chinese government, as technical analyses show. Cynics might argue that the US NSA already has all the data, so why should we be more careful about China? But that would be a false lesson from Edward Snowden’s revelations. In the digital age, data protection should not be an inconvenient responsibility of users, it should be the task of the government.
Several major powers have already burned their fingers on Afghanistan. A year ago, the Western military and many civilian organizations withdrew from the country. After that, many observers thought that China would step into the vacuum and protect its interests in the Hindu Kush, exploit raw materials and extend the Silk Road into the region.
But the situation turned out differently, as Christiane Kuehl reports. The country sank into chaos after the Western withdrawal: Sanctions against the Taliban made trade with Afghanistan difficult. In addition, a hunger crisis followed a drought. Leaders in Beijing are currently still acting very cautiously in their exchanges with the Taliban. They do not want to be drawn into the chaos.
Hourly location tracking, unrestricted access to personal calendars, and persistent requests to view a user’s contact list: The video app TikTok digs so deeply into users’ privacy that not even Facebook & Co dare to do. This is why TikTok has set a clear priority in its public relations work: To create distance from its Chinese parent company ByteDance. Two internal guidelines from TikTok’s PR department indicate that the company’s close relationship with ByteDance is a source of concern for the PR staff.
The list of bullet points found in a 53-page document titled “TikTok Master Messaging” gives the company’s press departments a clear line on what their central message must be when talking to journalists: They are to emphasize that TikTok is an independent brand while explicitly downplaying its ties to ByteDance and the People’s Republic of China. This was reported by the tech blog Gizmodo, which received these leaked guides from TikTok employees.
The documents dated last year are by no means enough to brand TikTok as a direct tool of Chinese political interests. But at the very least, they prove how problematic the Chinese origin is for a tech company that has gained the trust of users outside the People’s Republic. Especially since the legal situation in China does not help to increase the credibility of the company.
TikTok is accordingly eager to emphasize its autonomy and independence from ByteDance. In a 15-page manual called “TikTok Key Messages” from February 2021, the company provides formulations for PR employees to use. Gizmodo lists three examples. “There’s a lot of misinformation about TikTok right now. The reality is that the TikTok app isn’t even available in China,” reads a standard response. “We have not and will not share user data with the Chinese government, and would not do so if asked,” is another.
But in fact, cybersecurity or national security laws have granted the government extensive powers to access data from the private sector. The Chinese state has established mechanisms and power structures to ensure access to domestic and foreign data by government agencies, according to a legal study for the European Data Protection Board (EDPB), an independent body for the uniform application of data protection rules in the EU.
TikTok’s spokespeople are also said to downplay the use of artificial intelligence. The company’s algorithms have come under fire for censoring certain content – in the past at least. Australian research institute Aspi found in an investigation that TikTok had suppressed videos depicting human rights crimes in Xinjiang or the 2019 Hong Kong protest movement from a China-critical perspective. Hashtags on LGBTQ content were also censored in at least eight languages.
The latest controversy surrounding the video platform was sparked by an analysis from cybersecurity firm Internet 2.0, also based in Australia. It found that TikTok’s data collection methods include access to the user’s calendar, contact list and location, as well as the technical capability to scan the device’s internal storage.
“For the TikTok application to function properly most of the access and device data collection is not required,” the report states. The application would function just as smoothly without this data. “This leads us to believe that the only reason this information has been gathered is for data harvesting,” the authors conclude.
Also striking is TikTok’s persistence to access user data. Although the application doesn’t need it, TikTok asks for certain access rights over and over, presumably in the hope of users’ carelessness or resignation, who, after dozens of rejections, are tired of being asked all the time. “If you tell Facebook you don’t want to share something, it won’t ask you again. TikTok is much more aggressive,” said Robert Potter of Internet 2.0’s executive team, one of the study’s authors.
The investigation also revealed that TikTok servers outside the People’s Republic connect to servers in the People’s Republic via subdomains at regular intervals – at least on the iPhone. After a short period, these connections would automatically close, and then reconnect under a different IP address. However, it is not clear why they are established in the first place.
The situation in Afghanistan has apparently developed differently than many observers expected a year ago. It was believed that China would step in to fill the vacuum left by the withdrawal of the US and its allies. Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with a group of Taliban leaders in Tianjin in late July 2021. They asked China to play a “greater role in Afghanistan’s reconstruction and economic development.” When the Taliban took Kabul, the People’s Republic kept its embassy open. Many analysts said China was very interested in Afghanistan’s raw materials – especially oil and copper.
But in reality, China’s involvement has been rather modest so far. A Chinese project at the Mes Ajnak copper mine has been on hold for years because of the poor security situation and other obstacles. Nothing has changed here. “Although China has spoken of Afghanistan as part of its ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and some recent trade has started,” writes Raffaelo Pantucci, a South Asia expert at Britain’s Royal United Services Institute and co-author of a book on China’s role in the Hindu Kush.
“In reality, the tangible economic links between China and Afghanistan amount to the export of Afghan pine nuts to China and the construction of a fiberoptic cable down the Wakhan Corridor to help Afghanistan get on the internet.” The Wakhan Corridor is the “handle” on the Afghan map in the northeast of the country; at its end is the only border between Afghanistan and China.
“In public discourse, there has always been an exaggerated image of how important China is to Afghanistan,” Pantucci told China.Table. To date, Beijing has not officially recognized the Taliban government. Without decisive action by the holy warriors against the Uyghur militant group East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) feared by China, this is not up for debate, Beijing’s diplomats repeatedly stressed. However, the fight against the ETIM is obviously not a priority for the Taliban right now. China does have individual specific concerns and issues related to Afghanistan, Pantucci said. “But the reality is that these are not existential for China.” Right now, the biggest concern is that the country could cause problems for Pakistan and Central Asia – as well as that the US could maintain a close relationship with the Taliban. “Economic interests are limited.”
Beijing’s paranoia about Washington is said to be so great that it fears the Taliban could turn on China, Pantucci says. The conflict with the US currently overrides everything in China’s foreign policy. “What is actually going on in Afghanistan is secondary to concerns about what the US is up to.” Indeed, according to Pantucci, there is evidence that suggests some cooperation between Washington and the Taliban. And China’s atheist communists are inherently distrustful of the holy warriors of this radical religious movement.
Even during the first Taliban rule at the turn of the millennium, Beijing feared a rise of the ETIM. In the 1990s, Chinese workers were repeatedly killed or kidnapped in Afghanistan. Over the years, Beijing hosted a series of peace talks between the government and the Taliban – sometimes more, sometimes less enthusiastically. But it was only a host, not a mediator, as Pantucci says.
During this time, China quietly regarded the US as a security guarantor in Afghanistan and the surrounding area – also in order not to have to take responsibility itself. Beijing was not pleased that this security umbrella suddenly disappeared a year ago. It repeatedly criticized the West’s hasty withdrawal.
China’s anger began when Washington removed the Uyghur ETIM from its list of terrorist organizations a few months before the withdrawal. From Beijing’s perspective, this was a hostile act. And yet, for Beijing, the region is not just about the ETIM. In 2021, there were several attacks on Chinese and Silk Road projects in Pakistan. For instance, nine Chinese engineers died in an attack on a bus last July. Today, the Pakistani arm of the Taliban is considered to be the perpetrator of the attack – and not the ETIM. Despite all this, however, China does not want to play a major role in the conflict, Pantucci writes in his book: “China is doomed to play a significant role in the country, but is studiously avoiding it.”
China prefers a collective approach. Since August 2021, the People’s Republic has been present at all regional meetings of neighboring countries, including Iran, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. “When Beijing says it seeks to build regional consensus and management of Afghanistan, it does not mean for all countries to work together,” explains Niva Yau, a Tajikistan-based Afghanistan expert.
“Rather, it means setting up an agreed list of activities all regional countries should look to implement on their own, given individual capacity differences,” Yau said. She believes China wants to use this to present itself as a benefactor to the battered country, unlike the United States. Yau also considers it likely that China will ultimately want to position itself as a central player after all, “pushing and organizing regional, and soon, global management of Afghanistan affairs.” For example, China has sent humanitarian aid a dozen times to those in need, including internally displaced individuals or victims of natural disasters – most recently wheat and rice for 1,100 households in August.
In late 2021, China launched a bilateral working group with the Taliban on humanitarian aid and economic reconstruction. Between April and June 2022, representatives of the Chinese Embassy met with various Taliban ministers to discuss projects to rebuild the country. Several Chinese entrepreneurs are also said to be in the country, looking for business opportunities. This could well lead to closer cooperation at some point. But this stands and falls with the security situation.
Sinolytics is a European research-based consultancy entirely focused on China. It advises European companies on their strategic orientation and concrete business activities in the People’s Republic.
So far, 2022 has been a disastrous year for Asia’s richest woman: Yang Huiyan has lost more than half of her fortune, which once totaled nearly $24 billion. And now her real estate company Country Garden is also facing serious liquidity problems.
The story of the just 41-year-old entrepreneur is symbolic of the drastic transformations of Chinese society under Xi Jinping. And her rise and fall also show that, while the “Chinese dream” has led many people to unimaginable wealth in the blink of an eye, it can melt away just as quickly.
Born in Shunde in southern China, Yang Huiyan became one of the youngest billionaires at the age of 24. Her father, a former migrant worker who founded the construction company Country Gardens in the booming Pearl River Delta in the 1990s, bequeathed 70 percent of the company shares to Yang just one year after she received her bachelor’s degree.
The business model was as simple as it was ingenious: It provided the Chinese middle class, which grew by several million every year, with modern apartment buildings. While the economy was growing at double-digit rates and the population experienced the dynamics of the market economy for the first time, real estate developers seemed to know only one direction for decades: faster, higher, stronger.
Construction projects grew more and more ambitious, and banks loosened their lending policies for companies. And for the population, which on average invests up to three-quarters of their savings, real estate was formerly considered a safe bet. Prices rose steadily, eventually reaching a level where the dream of owning a home has long been out of reach for the broad middle class, especially in the East Coast metropolises. But alternative investment opportunities are virtually non-existent: Prices on the domestic stock markets resemble a roller coaster ride, and the Chinese are not allowed to invest their money outside China because of strict capital controls.
Due to the persistent real estate boom, Yang Huiyan reached her entrepreneurial zenith at the beginning of 2018. In the first four days of the year alone, increased stock prices had added $2 billion to her wealth. At the time, it was a sensation: A Chinese woman suddenly shot to the top of Asia’s male-dominated rich lists.
But in Xi Jinping’s China, this distinction is a double-edged sword. “When you’re at the top of the annual rich list, you’re already in line to be the next to be slaughtered,” says Desmond Shum, a former building contractor who now lives in exile in London. “Xi Jinping is transforming all aspects of society. This process is scary for entrepreneurs,” says the 57-year-old
And indeed, Xi Jinping propagates few ideas as prominently as his vision of “common prosperity”; virtually no speech by the head of state is complete without this slogan. In an effort to make Chinese society more egalitarian, Xi also targeted the real estate industry last year: Housing should no longer be a speculative commodity in China, and real estate should once again be affordable for the middle class. Under Xi, regulation has been massively tightened: Since then, construction companies have had to meet much stricter requirements in order to obtain bank loans.
These conditions seem understandable. But they triggered a painful chain reaction that caused not only the world’s most indebted company, Evergrande, to stumble, but the entire sector. Many of the market leaders suddenly found themselves unable to repay their debts.
The explosive power of the real estate crisis for Chinese society was most recently demonstrated in July: In more than 90 cities, apartment buyers halted their mortgage payments because construction work on their half-finished apartment blocks came to a standstill (China.Table reported). Thousands of them have voiced their frustration on social media. For Beijing’s party cadres, who value nothing more than social stability, the looming real estate bubble is one of the biggest challenges.
Yang Huiyan’s company, Country Garden, at first seemed to emerge from the crisis year unscathed. But at the end of July, the real estate developer also caused shockwaves – by selling shares at a 13 percent discount to raise capital. Some of it was said to be needed to service outstanding debts. The markets reacted strongly: Compared to four years ago, the share price of Country Garden is now only one-seventh.
It is safe to assume that Yang Huiyan has already managed to secure her fortune in view of the radical changes in the real estate industry. According to media reports, she acquired Cypriot citizenship years ago, which the island state offered to wealthy investors. It seems that under Xi Jinping, the wealthy no longer consider their prosperity to be safe. Fabian Kretschmer
“Who changed our film?” – “Well, the authorities in China,” “Really?”. As posts and screenshots on the Chinese microblogging site Weibo show, the US animated film “Minions: The Rise of Gru” has been given an alternative ending in China.
Freeze frames and captions during the end credits sequence in the changed version for the Chinese market tell us that the main character Gru goes from being a villain to a good “father of three daughters” in the end, while his mentor, the super villain Wild Knuckles, winds up in “prison for 20 years”. A happy ending, just the way the CP likes it.
In the international version, Knuckles gets away by faking his death. He sets off on new adventures with Gru.
