Extreme weather in Henan + TikTok’s unrivaled monetization concept
Heavy rain and heatwaves reach China
TikTok: limitless growth?
EU announces chip alliance
Taiwan opens diplomatic office in Lithuania
Cyberattack on Microsoft: China denies involvement
CRRC launches world’s fastest maglev train
Profile: Fei Lu – a pioneer in photovoltaics
Shocking images of the flood disaster in the regions of western and southern Germany continue to dominate headlines. Now disturbing images are reaching us from Chinese regions: people trapped in subway trains in Zhengzhou, surrounded by masses of water. Cars washed away, floating in brown torrents. In Inner Mongolia and Henan, thousands of people have already been brought to safety because of flooding. Infrastructure, agriculture, and factories have been damaged.
And meteorological forecasts predict more heavy rain. Authorities are preparing for the worst. While some provinces are hit by heavy rain, others are suffering from heatwaves. It sounds familiar to Europeans. The same repeating patterns of extreme weather once again demonstrate: the climate crisis knows no national borders and is already affecting billions of people worldwide.
Feature
Heavy rain and flooding in Henan and Inner Mongolia
Terrifying images surfaced on social media yesterday out of Zhengzhou, the capital of Henan: people standing in a flooded subway line, anxiously waiting for rescue. Others are stuck in their cars, masses of water around them. In total, more than 140,000 people have been affected by extreme rainfall in Henan. More than 10,000 people had been evacuated by Tuesday, according to authorities. Large parts of the province also experienced heavy rainfall at the beginning of the week.
In Zhengzhou, the capital of Henan province, police officers brace themselves against the flooding with road barriers.
Meanwhile, water levels at 31 large and medium-sized reservoirs have “risen above the alert level, Reuters reports. According to news agency Xinhua, the province’s meteorological bureau has made “preparations for possible natural disasters“ as a result of the heavy rain. The streets in some cities are already severely flooded, as videos posted on Twitter show. State media have not reported any deaths so far. The floods have so far devastated more than 9,000 hectares of farmland. Economic infrastructure has also been destroyed. According to media reports, an aluminum factory experienced a massive explosion as a result of the floods, but the staff was evacuated beforehand. “The flood prevention situation is serious,” Li Guoying, minister of water resources, said, according to China Daily.
Heavy rain in Henan and Inner Mongolia
Forecasts on Monday announced continued heavy rainfall for the provinces of Henan, Yunnan, and Guangdong. The Ministry of Natural Resources warned of landslides and landslides in the autonomous regions of Anhui, Henan, Yunnan, and Guangxi Zhuang. Flooding of the Yellow River, Songhua River, and Haihe River is expected to continue into August due to heavy rainfall, the Ministry of Water Resources stated. Regional flooding is expected at the Yangtze and Pearl rivers.
The inner city of Zhengzhou was flooded heavily.
In Inner Mongolia, two dams had already burst on Monday after heavy rainfall. People living downstream had to be evacuated. In total, 16,660 people had to be brought to safety. More than 50,000 hectares of land were flooded, and bridges and infrastructure disappeared in the water.
China has nearly 100,000 dams – but 80 percent of them were built 40 or more years ago. Some are no longer safe, according to government investigations. China’s capital Beijing has also been hit by heavy rain in the last few days. Last summer, millions of people across China had already been hit by the consequences of extreme rainfall and flooding. The floods of 2020 are considered the worst in several decades.
Extreme weather threatens power grids
At the same time, heat waves are affecting the power grid in other parts of the country. Several Chinese cities have warned factories and households of power outages due to heatwaves. Grid operators in cities such as Beijing and Xi’an were struggling to maintain overloaded grids, as Bloomberg reported. There will be planned interruptions in the power supply. According to the report, the reason for the impending overload is the increased power consumption due to heatwaves and the economic boom after the Covid pandemic.
Eleven provinces, including eastern economic hubs, reported a record demand and peak loads on the power grid, the report stated. Last week, China’s daily electricity consumption climbed to a new high. On July 14, 27 billion kilowatt-hours were consumed – a ten percent increase to last summer’s record, according to business portal Caixin. In turn, flooding in coalfields curtailed “coal production and transportation from mines and to ports,” according to Bloomberg. This has caused shortages at coal-fired power plants, Bloomberg said.
Consequences of climate change
Just recently, a Greenpeace report outlined that heatwaves in China’s metropolises will become more frequent and more severe. Weather experts are certain that heatwaves and heavy rainfall are linked. The trend has been accelerating since the 1990s, and climate change is believed to be the cause. The frequency and duration of torrential rainstorms also increased in Shanghai and Guangzhou-Shenzhen. Over the study period, periods of extreme precipitation alternated with periods of relative drought. If global emissions do not peak until 2040, the average temperature in parts of Beijing would increase by 2.6 degrees by 2100. Summers would then become 24 to 40 days longer in the three regions covered by the study. Extreme heatwaves are already claiming lives today. According to estimates, 45,000 to 70,000 people died in Europe during the hot summer of 2003.
China’s coastal regions also need to prepare for rising sea levels as a result of the climate crisis. In terms of population, Shanghai is the city most affected by rising sea levels in the world. With a temperature rise of two degrees, about 40 percent of the population would be threatened by the floods (as China.Table reported). Sea levels off China’s coasts are rising even faster than the global average. If the events of the last few days and weeks have made one thing clear once again, it is that climate change knows no national borders.
Climate
Henan
Storm
TikTok’s triumph attracts imitators
A few days ago, the Chinese short video app TikTok passed the milestone of three billion total downloads worldwide. Simultaneously, the app also achieved the most downloads and the highest revenue in the non-gaming category in the first half of 2021. So far, this success has only been achieved by Facebook’s WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram, and the Facebook app itself.
TikTok is the first social media app from China’s parallel Internet universe to make a leap to the “global” web and thus also to the West. The app allows you to create short videos, add filters and music, and then share them via hashtags. The handling from shooting to editing is intuitive, and with its share and like function, videos quickly go viral. In the meantime, TikTok has developed its own culture, with spontaneous challenges, duets, live streams, its own stars, well-paid influencers and virtual currency. With the help of artificial intelligence, users mainly get to see clips that suit their own tastes.
If its Chinese version, Douyin is included, TikTok reached nearly 383 million unique installations on devices in the first half of 2021. Although the number of downloads decreased compared to the same period last year – downloads were just under 619 million. But users generated around $919.2 million via in-app purchases.Since the app’s launch in 2016, users have spent more than $2.5 billion in total. Only four other non-gaming apps have achieved this so far: Tinder, Netflix, YouTube and Tencent Video.
TikTok succeeds with monetization
TikTok has succeeded where many apps fail: monetization of its high user numbers. More and more partnerships with brands and stars have been established. The platform is constantly improving its e-commerce tools. Unlike Facebook, TikTok has been able to integrate its own economy including currency into its apps. Users exchange money for coins and then send them directly to content creators. With its own digital wallet function called DouyinPay, TikTok intends to compete with big Chinese digital payment services like WeChat Pay and Alipay.
Facebook still has a larger monthly active user base: TikTok currently has 732 million active users worldwide, while Facebook reaches 2.85 billion users. The decline in TikTok’s downloads is likely because the app was banned in the middle of last year in India, up to then the second-largest market, as a result of political tensions between India and China. Nevertheless: neither the ban in India nor the distrust in the US seems to be able to stop the global triumph of TikTok.
Role model for western tech companies?
TikTok’s parent company ByteDance is one of the most valuable tech companies in the world, with a valuation of around $400 billion. Its largest shareholders include US financial investors Sequoia Capital and KKR & Co, which also owns Germany’s Springer Verlag. In December 2020, the valuation was still around $180 billion.
The Beijing-based company was founded in 2012 by Zhang Yiming (38), who studied microelectronics and used to work at Microsoft. In 2017, his company bought the rival app Musical.ly for a sum of $1 billion and merged it with TikTok in the summer of 2018. The start-up Musical.ly was also founded in China, but already had an office in California and could show some success in the US market. TikTok was thus installed on millions of smartphones in one fell swoop.
There was another popular app in the West called Vine, which specialized in short video content. But in terms of spontaneity, functionality and social media connectivity, TikTok was miles ahead of Vine. The widespread stereotype that Chinese companies only copy their competitor’s products is not only proven wrong in TikTok’s case, its huge success also proves that Western companies are forced to adopt the Chinese model.
With “Reels,” Facebook is trying to establish a new short video service on Instagram after its failed TikTok clone “Lasso”. Facebook also added a channel for short videos last August. Google’s YouTube has also announced plans to introduce the short video feature “YouTube Shorts” in more than 100 countries after it was initially available in 26 countries.
Competition never sleeps
But even in China, big tech companies are fighting for a piece of the pie. Tencent launched a WeChat channel in January where users can share short videos. Another serious competitor from China is Kuaishou, known overseas as Kwai. In March, Kuaishou, which is backed by companies like Tencent, recorded more than one billion monthly active users for the first time, including more than 100 million in South America and Southeast Asia.
The company has been around since 2011 and is today worth more than $110 billion. The Beijing-based company raised $5.4 billion through an IPO in Hong Kong in February. In China, Kuaishou’s average user tends to live in medium-sized to small cities and in the countryside, unlike Douyin’s users. However, even here monetization is still struggling. In 2020 Kuaishou made €7.7 billion in revenue – and €15.3 billion in losses. Since the IPO, its stock has lost about 30 percent of its value. This could be one reason why ByteDance is still hesitant at the moment.
Economy
Facebook
Kuaishou
Society
Technology
Tencent
Tiktok
WeChat
News
EU reveals alliances for microchips and cloud technologies
The European Union continues to work on reducing its dependence on Asia – above all China – in semiconductor manufacturing and cloud technology. The EU Commission has now unveiled two corresponding alliances to “advance the next generation of microchips and industrial cloud/edge computing technologies”. Through these new initiatives, intended to unite representatives of member states, research, and industry, Brussels wants to assess and eliminate “bottlenecks, needs and dependencies” in the semiconductor industry.
The EU has set an ambitious goal in the area of semiconductor manufacturing: By 2030 the EU’s share in global semiconductor production is to be increased to 20 percent, roughly doubling its current share. Through this alliance, the EU wants to formulate concrete steps to reach this goal.
The “European Alliance for Industrial Data, Edge and Cloud” was also revealed on Monday. It is intended to promote the emergence of disruptive cloud and edge technologies that are secure as well as energy- and resource-efficient and interoperable within the EU. A focus is also to be placed on the processing of highly sensitive data for military and security purposes. ari
EU
Semiconductor
Technology
Taiwan opens diplomatic mission in Lithuania
Only 15 countries still recognize Taiwan as an independent state and maintain official diplomatic relations. Two years ago, states like Kiribati and Vanuatu turned their backs on the de facto independently governed island republic and instead established diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic. In Europe, apart from the Vatican, not a single state has recognized Taiwan as a sovereign nation for 18 years. But now, for the first time, Taiwan is once again receiving diplomatic representation in Europe.
On Tuesday, Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry announced that a diplomatic office will be established in Lithuania, which will be called the “Taiwan Representative Office.” Taiwan’s Foreign Minister Joseph Wu called it a “very important” step. “Lithuania is a good partner for Taiwan,” Wo said. Both sides share the same values in terms of “freedom and democracy” and are “on the strategic frontline of defending democratic systems.” Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen also expressed her gratitude. “We look forward to working even more closely with like-minded partners and friends.“
Thanks to increased pressure by China, most countries, including Germany, harbor only Taiwanese representative offices which are officially designated as trade offices and are also only allowed to carry the city name “Taipei” in their title. That is why the term “Taiwanese” in particular is likely to vex the leadership in Beijing. Zhao Lijian, China’s foreign office spokesman, labeled these plans as a provocation and an attempt to make Taiwan independent. “China rejects any form of formal relations between other countries and Taiwan and calls on the Baltic nation to follow the one-China policy.”
China has been clashing with some Baltic as well as a few Central European countries for some time now. In May, Lithuania announced its withdrawal from the so-called 17+1 format, within which China and Central and Eastern European countries were to cooperate. Hopes for greater economic cooperation had been unsuccessful. They also criticized China for its treatment of Hong Kong and the Uighur Muslim minority in Xinjiang. The government in Vilnius has already announced that it will donate some 20,000 COVID-19 vaccine doses to Taiwan. Lately, Slovakia and the Czech Republic are also seeking closer ties with Taiwan. However, Lithuania does not intend to cut diplomatic relations with Beijing.
The US applauds the agreement. “All countries should be free to pursue closer ties and greater cooperation with Taiwan, a leading democracy, a major economy, and a force for good in the world,” said the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) – the US government’s non-official representative in Taipei. flee
Diplomacy
Lithuania
Taiwan
Tsai Ing-wen
China rejects cyberattack allegations
China has rejected accusations of hacker attacks on US software company Microsoft. The Mission of the People’s Republic of China to the European Union condemned these allegations as “groundless accusations and irresponsible” and spoke of “slander.” Several Chinese embassies also rejected the allegations on Tuesday, calling the US government a “world champion of malicious cyberattacks,” local media reported. The accusations in statements from the EU and NATO were “not based on facts and evidence, but on speculation and baseless accusations,” said the Chinese mission in Brussels.
The People’s Republic is a victim of cyberattacks, the Chinese Mission added. And it went further: “For years, a certain country in the West has abused its technological advantages for massive and indiscriminate eavesdropping across the world, even on its close allies…,” the statement continued. On Monday, the US and its Western allies accused China of “malicious” cyber activities and threatening their national security (China.Table reported). ari
Cybersecurity
Geopolitics
Hacker
Microsoft
Security
USA
CRRC builds world’s fastest maglev train
The maglev train of the Chinese state-owned CRRC left the production line in the eastern Chinese city of Qingdao on Tuesday, as state news agency Xinhua reported. The train is said to be capable of reaching a speed of 600 kilometers per hour. This makes it the fastest train in the world, according to the news agency. The completion is “a great achievement in the development of the country’s rail transportation,” China’s State Council announced. The train is to be tested for several years before being put into service. In addition, maglev lines would have to be built first. The first trains could be in service in five to ten years. China’s first maglev train, the Transrapid, began operations in Shanghai in 2002. (In Monday’s issue of China.Table you will find a detailed interview with Transrapid planner Hartmut Heine). ari
Picture of the prototype of the magnetic levitation train
Technology
Profile
Fei Lu – a photovoltaics pioneer
Fei Lu remembers it well: he went off to college in the Chinese city of Taizhou and the German government revised its Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG) in 2004. Around the same time Chinese photovoltaic pioneers were returning from abroad and were setting up their first companies in China. “The press here at the time was talking about solar energy as the energy of the future,” Fei Lu recounts. “The photovoltaic industry was still taking its first steps, but it was called a ‘game changer’, an industry with huge potential.” That’s when Lu decided to work in this field. Today he is Vice President of Factory Services at the Photovoltaic Institute (PI) Berlin – and works from Shanghai with colleagues in Germany and the USA.
No other country produces and exports as many solar modules as China: According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), about 60 percent of all solar panels installed worldwide are manufactured there. That is why PI Berlin created Fei Lu’s position at its Shanghai Branch last year. CEO Sven Lehmann founded PI Berlin AG in 2006 with Stefan Krauter and Paul Grunow. Today, the company’s 60 engineers and scientists advise manufacturers of photovoltaic power plants around the globe on planning, construction, and operations. Fei Lu coordinates the management of all services offered by the company. He also advises PI Berlin as senior technology consultant.
Fei Lu besitzt großes Interesse an neuer Technologie
The advantages of solar energy for the climate were not initially the main reason for his decision, Fei Lu explains. “As an engineer, I actually saw the potential and the possibilities of this new technology. There were a lot of interesting things to do: build new machines, develop new material, develop new concepts for the technology. I wanted to learn about a new subject and wanted to discover my own talents.”
However, Chinese universities hardly offered any courses on solar energy. So after graduating as an electrical engineer, he decided to go abroad. He gained his master’s degree in photovoltaic technology at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. He then worked at the Solar Energy Research Institute (SERIS) in Singapore. During this time, he spent three months as a visiting researcher at the Fraunhofer Center for Silicon Photovoltaics in Halle.
Fei Lu soon reached the limits of scientific work: certain problems could not be solved this way. He decided on a more practical approach and began to work as a product developer at REC Solar in Singapore. He then moved back to China, where he worked as technology director at Jiangsu Linyang Energy. Fei Lu now owns more than ten patents on photovoltaic products.
In July 2020, he began working in his position in the twelve-member Shanghai Operation Team of PI Berlin. Fei Lu’s first impression is very positive: “I think PI Berlin operates on a very professional level”
Unlike his colleagues in Europe, he lives in China under very different dimensions than in Berlin: Shanghai is home to more than 20 million people. Fei Lu knows the city well. His hometown of Taizhou is about two hours away by car. “Shanghai is very modern and many young and active people live here,” he says. Life in Shanghai is very pleasant, but it is also expensive: “The costs of living are simply too high. Many young people have to work very hard because of that.”
Today Fei Lu also sees his work as an important contribution in the fight against climate change: “The world needs to generate one additional terawatt of solar power per year to win the race against climate change. The better the quality of solar power plants, the higher their energy output.” Leonie Düngefeld
Renewable energies
Solar
Technology
Executive Moves
The former head of China investment banking at major Swiss bank Credit Suisse, Tang Zhenyi, has been appointed vice-chairman of Chinese AI startup, SenseTime. The 47-year-old looks back on ten years at the Chinese Ministry of Finance and a four-year stint at the World Bank.
Dessert
Building brand loyalty at an early age with an off-road vehicle in the city park – the miniature edition of the Mercedes G63 AMG 6×6 is fully electric and will therefore leave a much lower CO2 footprint than the original, which weighs several tons.
Cyberattack on Microsoft: China denies involvement
CRRC launches world’s fastest maglev train
Profile: Fei Lu – a pioneer in photovoltaics
Shocking images of the flood disaster in the regions of western and southern Germany continue to dominate headlines. Now disturbing images are reaching us from Chinese regions: people trapped in subway trains in Zhengzhou, surrounded by masses of water. Cars washed away, floating in brown torrents. In Inner Mongolia and Henan, thousands of people have already been brought to safety because of flooding. Infrastructure, agriculture, and factories have been damaged.
And meteorological forecasts predict more heavy rain. Authorities are preparing for the worst. While some provinces are hit by heavy rain, others are suffering from heatwaves. It sounds familiar to Europeans. The same repeating patterns of extreme weather once again demonstrate: the climate crisis knows no national borders and is already affecting billions of people worldwide.
Feature
Heavy rain and flooding in Henan and Inner Mongolia
Terrifying images surfaced on social media yesterday out of Zhengzhou, the capital of Henan: people standing in a flooded subway line, anxiously waiting for rescue. Others are stuck in their cars, masses of water around them. In total, more than 140,000 people have been affected by extreme rainfall in Henan. More than 10,000 people had been evacuated by Tuesday, according to authorities. Large parts of the province also experienced heavy rainfall at the beginning of the week.
In Zhengzhou, the capital of Henan province, police officers brace themselves against the flooding with road barriers.
Meanwhile, water levels at 31 large and medium-sized reservoirs have “risen above the alert level, Reuters reports. According to news agency Xinhua, the province’s meteorological bureau has made “preparations for possible natural disasters“ as a result of the heavy rain. The streets in some cities are already severely flooded, as videos posted on Twitter show. State media have not reported any deaths so far. The floods have so far devastated more than 9,000 hectares of farmland. Economic infrastructure has also been destroyed. According to media reports, an aluminum factory experienced a massive explosion as a result of the floods, but the staff was evacuated beforehand. “The flood prevention situation is serious,” Li Guoying, minister of water resources, said, according to China Daily.
Heavy rain in Henan and Inner Mongolia
Forecasts on Monday announced continued heavy rainfall for the provinces of Henan, Yunnan, and Guangdong. The Ministry of Natural Resources warned of landslides and landslides in the autonomous regions of Anhui, Henan, Yunnan, and Guangxi Zhuang. Flooding of the Yellow River, Songhua River, and Haihe River is expected to continue into August due to heavy rainfall, the Ministry of Water Resources stated. Regional flooding is expected at the Yangtze and Pearl rivers.
The inner city of Zhengzhou was flooded heavily.
In Inner Mongolia, two dams had already burst on Monday after heavy rainfall. People living downstream had to be evacuated. In total, 16,660 people had to be brought to safety. More than 50,000 hectares of land were flooded, and bridges and infrastructure disappeared in the water.
China has nearly 100,000 dams – but 80 percent of them were built 40 or more years ago. Some are no longer safe, according to government investigations. China’s capital Beijing has also been hit by heavy rain in the last few days. Last summer, millions of people across China had already been hit by the consequences of extreme rainfall and flooding. The floods of 2020 are considered the worst in several decades.
Extreme weather threatens power grids
At the same time, heat waves are affecting the power grid in other parts of the country. Several Chinese cities have warned factories and households of power outages due to heatwaves. Grid operators in cities such as Beijing and Xi’an were struggling to maintain overloaded grids, as Bloomberg reported. There will be planned interruptions in the power supply. According to the report, the reason for the impending overload is the increased power consumption due to heatwaves and the economic boom after the Covid pandemic.
Eleven provinces, including eastern economic hubs, reported a record demand and peak loads on the power grid, the report stated. Last week, China’s daily electricity consumption climbed to a new high. On July 14, 27 billion kilowatt-hours were consumed – a ten percent increase to last summer’s record, according to business portal Caixin. In turn, flooding in coalfields curtailed “coal production and transportation from mines and to ports,” according to Bloomberg. This has caused shortages at coal-fired power plants, Bloomberg said.
Consequences of climate change
Just recently, a Greenpeace report outlined that heatwaves in China’s metropolises will become more frequent and more severe. Weather experts are certain that heatwaves and heavy rainfall are linked. The trend has been accelerating since the 1990s, and climate change is believed to be the cause. The frequency and duration of torrential rainstorms also increased in Shanghai and Guangzhou-Shenzhen. Over the study period, periods of extreme precipitation alternated with periods of relative drought. If global emissions do not peak until 2040, the average temperature in parts of Beijing would increase by 2.6 degrees by 2100. Summers would then become 24 to 40 days longer in the three regions covered by the study. Extreme heatwaves are already claiming lives today. According to estimates, 45,000 to 70,000 people died in Europe during the hot summer of 2003.
China’s coastal regions also need to prepare for rising sea levels as a result of the climate crisis. In terms of population, Shanghai is the city most affected by rising sea levels in the world. With a temperature rise of two degrees, about 40 percent of the population would be threatened by the floods (as China.Table reported). Sea levels off China’s coasts are rising even faster than the global average. If the events of the last few days and weeks have made one thing clear once again, it is that climate change knows no national borders.
Climate
Henan
Storm
TikTok’s triumph attracts imitators
A few days ago, the Chinese short video app TikTok passed the milestone of three billion total downloads worldwide. Simultaneously, the app also achieved the most downloads and the highest revenue in the non-gaming category in the first half of 2021. So far, this success has only been achieved by Facebook’s WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram, and the Facebook app itself.
TikTok is the first social media app from China’s parallel Internet universe to make a leap to the “global” web and thus also to the West. The app allows you to create short videos, add filters and music, and then share them via hashtags. The handling from shooting to editing is intuitive, and with its share and like function, videos quickly go viral. In the meantime, TikTok has developed its own culture, with spontaneous challenges, duets, live streams, its own stars, well-paid influencers and virtual currency. With the help of artificial intelligence, users mainly get to see clips that suit their own tastes.
If its Chinese version, Douyin is included, TikTok reached nearly 383 million unique installations on devices in the first half of 2021. Although the number of downloads decreased compared to the same period last year – downloads were just under 619 million. But users generated around $919.2 million via in-app purchases.Since the app’s launch in 2016, users have spent more than $2.5 billion in total. Only four other non-gaming apps have achieved this so far: Tinder, Netflix, YouTube and Tencent Video.
TikTok succeeds with monetization
TikTok has succeeded where many apps fail: monetization of its high user numbers. More and more partnerships with brands and stars have been established. The platform is constantly improving its e-commerce tools. Unlike Facebook, TikTok has been able to integrate its own economy including currency into its apps. Users exchange money for coins and then send them directly to content creators. With its own digital wallet function called DouyinPay, TikTok intends to compete with big Chinese digital payment services like WeChat Pay and Alipay.
Facebook still has a larger monthly active user base: TikTok currently has 732 million active users worldwide, while Facebook reaches 2.85 billion users. The decline in TikTok’s downloads is likely because the app was banned in the middle of last year in India, up to then the second-largest market, as a result of political tensions between India and China. Nevertheless: neither the ban in India nor the distrust in the US seems to be able to stop the global triumph of TikTok.
Role model for western tech companies?
TikTok’s parent company ByteDance is one of the most valuable tech companies in the world, with a valuation of around $400 billion. Its largest shareholders include US financial investors Sequoia Capital and KKR & Co, which also owns Germany’s Springer Verlag. In December 2020, the valuation was still around $180 billion.
The Beijing-based company was founded in 2012 by Zhang Yiming (38), who studied microelectronics and used to work at Microsoft. In 2017, his company bought the rival app Musical.ly for a sum of $1 billion and merged it with TikTok in the summer of 2018. The start-up Musical.ly was also founded in China, but already had an office in California and could show some success in the US market. TikTok was thus installed on millions of smartphones in one fell swoop.
There was another popular app in the West called Vine, which specialized in short video content. But in terms of spontaneity, functionality and social media connectivity, TikTok was miles ahead of Vine. The widespread stereotype that Chinese companies only copy their competitor’s products is not only proven wrong in TikTok’s case, its huge success also proves that Western companies are forced to adopt the Chinese model.
With “Reels,” Facebook is trying to establish a new short video service on Instagram after its failed TikTok clone “Lasso”. Facebook also added a channel for short videos last August. Google’s YouTube has also announced plans to introduce the short video feature “YouTube Shorts” in more than 100 countries after it was initially available in 26 countries.
Competition never sleeps
But even in China, big tech companies are fighting for a piece of the pie. Tencent launched a WeChat channel in January where users can share short videos. Another serious competitor from China is Kuaishou, known overseas as Kwai. In March, Kuaishou, which is backed by companies like Tencent, recorded more than one billion monthly active users for the first time, including more than 100 million in South America and Southeast Asia.
The company has been around since 2011 and is today worth more than $110 billion. The Beijing-based company raised $5.4 billion through an IPO in Hong Kong in February. In China, Kuaishou’s average user tends to live in medium-sized to small cities and in the countryside, unlike Douyin’s users. However, even here monetization is still struggling. In 2020 Kuaishou made €7.7 billion in revenue – and €15.3 billion in losses. Since the IPO, its stock has lost about 30 percent of its value. This could be one reason why ByteDance is still hesitant at the moment.
Economy
Facebook
Kuaishou
Society
Technology
Tencent
Tiktok
WeChat
News
EU reveals alliances for microchips and cloud technologies
The European Union continues to work on reducing its dependence on Asia – above all China – in semiconductor manufacturing and cloud technology. The EU Commission has now unveiled two corresponding alliances to “advance the next generation of microchips and industrial cloud/edge computing technologies”. Through these new initiatives, intended to unite representatives of member states, research, and industry, Brussels wants to assess and eliminate “bottlenecks, needs and dependencies” in the semiconductor industry.
The EU has set an ambitious goal in the area of semiconductor manufacturing: By 2030 the EU’s share in global semiconductor production is to be increased to 20 percent, roughly doubling its current share. Through this alliance, the EU wants to formulate concrete steps to reach this goal.
The “European Alliance for Industrial Data, Edge and Cloud” was also revealed on Monday. It is intended to promote the emergence of disruptive cloud and edge technologies that are secure as well as energy- and resource-efficient and interoperable within the EU. A focus is also to be placed on the processing of highly sensitive data for military and security purposes. ari
EU
Semiconductor
Technology
Taiwan opens diplomatic mission in Lithuania
Only 15 countries still recognize Taiwan as an independent state and maintain official diplomatic relations. Two years ago, states like Kiribati and Vanuatu turned their backs on the de facto independently governed island republic and instead established diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic. In Europe, apart from the Vatican, not a single state has recognized Taiwan as a sovereign nation for 18 years. But now, for the first time, Taiwan is once again receiving diplomatic representation in Europe.
On Tuesday, Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry announced that a diplomatic office will be established in Lithuania, which will be called the “Taiwan Representative Office.” Taiwan’s Foreign Minister Joseph Wu called it a “very important” step. “Lithuania is a good partner for Taiwan,” Wo said. Both sides share the same values in terms of “freedom and democracy” and are “on the strategic frontline of defending democratic systems.” Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen also expressed her gratitude. “We look forward to working even more closely with like-minded partners and friends.“
Thanks to increased pressure by China, most countries, including Germany, harbor only Taiwanese representative offices which are officially designated as trade offices and are also only allowed to carry the city name “Taipei” in their title. That is why the term “Taiwanese” in particular is likely to vex the leadership in Beijing. Zhao Lijian, China’s foreign office spokesman, labeled these plans as a provocation and an attempt to make Taiwan independent. “China rejects any form of formal relations between other countries and Taiwan and calls on the Baltic nation to follow the one-China policy.”
China has been clashing with some Baltic as well as a few Central European countries for some time now. In May, Lithuania announced its withdrawal from the so-called 17+1 format, within which China and Central and Eastern European countries were to cooperate. Hopes for greater economic cooperation had been unsuccessful. They also criticized China for its treatment of Hong Kong and the Uighur Muslim minority in Xinjiang. The government in Vilnius has already announced that it will donate some 20,000 COVID-19 vaccine doses to Taiwan. Lately, Slovakia and the Czech Republic are also seeking closer ties with Taiwan. However, Lithuania does not intend to cut diplomatic relations with Beijing.
The US applauds the agreement. “All countries should be free to pursue closer ties and greater cooperation with Taiwan, a leading democracy, a major economy, and a force for good in the world,” said the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) – the US government’s non-official representative in Taipei. flee
Diplomacy
Lithuania
Taiwan
Tsai Ing-wen
China rejects cyberattack allegations
China has rejected accusations of hacker attacks on US software company Microsoft. The Mission of the People’s Republic of China to the European Union condemned these allegations as “groundless accusations and irresponsible” and spoke of “slander.” Several Chinese embassies also rejected the allegations on Tuesday, calling the US government a “world champion of malicious cyberattacks,” local media reported. The accusations in statements from the EU and NATO were “not based on facts and evidence, but on speculation and baseless accusations,” said the Chinese mission in Brussels.
The People’s Republic is a victim of cyberattacks, the Chinese Mission added. And it went further: “For years, a certain country in the West has abused its technological advantages for massive and indiscriminate eavesdropping across the world, even on its close allies…,” the statement continued. On Monday, the US and its Western allies accused China of “malicious” cyber activities and threatening their national security (China.Table reported). ari
Cybersecurity
Geopolitics
Hacker
Microsoft
Security
USA
CRRC builds world’s fastest maglev train
The maglev train of the Chinese state-owned CRRC left the production line in the eastern Chinese city of Qingdao on Tuesday, as state news agency Xinhua reported. The train is said to be capable of reaching a speed of 600 kilometers per hour. This makes it the fastest train in the world, according to the news agency. The completion is “a great achievement in the development of the country’s rail transportation,” China’s State Council announced. The train is to be tested for several years before being put into service. In addition, maglev lines would have to be built first. The first trains could be in service in five to ten years. China’s first maglev train, the Transrapid, began operations in Shanghai in 2002. (In Monday’s issue of China.Table you will find a detailed interview with Transrapid planner Hartmut Heine). ari
Picture of the prototype of the magnetic levitation train
Technology
Profile
Fei Lu – a photovoltaics pioneer
Fei Lu remembers it well: he went off to college in the Chinese city of Taizhou and the German government revised its Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG) in 2004. Around the same time Chinese photovoltaic pioneers were returning from abroad and were setting up their first companies in China. “The press here at the time was talking about solar energy as the energy of the future,” Fei Lu recounts. “The photovoltaic industry was still taking its first steps, but it was called a ‘game changer’, an industry with huge potential.” That’s when Lu decided to work in this field. Today he is Vice President of Factory Services at the Photovoltaic Institute (PI) Berlin – and works from Shanghai with colleagues in Germany and the USA.
No other country produces and exports as many solar modules as China: According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), about 60 percent of all solar panels installed worldwide are manufactured there. That is why PI Berlin created Fei Lu’s position at its Shanghai Branch last year. CEO Sven Lehmann founded PI Berlin AG in 2006 with Stefan Krauter and Paul Grunow. Today, the company’s 60 engineers and scientists advise manufacturers of photovoltaic power plants around the globe on planning, construction, and operations. Fei Lu coordinates the management of all services offered by the company. He also advises PI Berlin as senior technology consultant.
Fei Lu besitzt großes Interesse an neuer Technologie
The advantages of solar energy for the climate were not initially the main reason for his decision, Fei Lu explains. “As an engineer, I actually saw the potential and the possibilities of this new technology. There were a lot of interesting things to do: build new machines, develop new material, develop new concepts for the technology. I wanted to learn about a new subject and wanted to discover my own talents.”
However, Chinese universities hardly offered any courses on solar energy. So after graduating as an electrical engineer, he decided to go abroad. He gained his master’s degree in photovoltaic technology at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. He then worked at the Solar Energy Research Institute (SERIS) in Singapore. During this time, he spent three months as a visiting researcher at the Fraunhofer Center for Silicon Photovoltaics in Halle.
Fei Lu soon reached the limits of scientific work: certain problems could not be solved this way. He decided on a more practical approach and began to work as a product developer at REC Solar in Singapore. He then moved back to China, where he worked as technology director at Jiangsu Linyang Energy. Fei Lu now owns more than ten patents on photovoltaic products.
In July 2020, he began working in his position in the twelve-member Shanghai Operation Team of PI Berlin. Fei Lu’s first impression is very positive: “I think PI Berlin operates on a very professional level”
Unlike his colleagues in Europe, he lives in China under very different dimensions than in Berlin: Shanghai is home to more than 20 million people. Fei Lu knows the city well. His hometown of Taizhou is about two hours away by car. “Shanghai is very modern and many young and active people live here,” he says. Life in Shanghai is very pleasant, but it is also expensive: “The costs of living are simply too high. Many young people have to work very hard because of that.”
Today Fei Lu also sees his work as an important contribution in the fight against climate change: “The world needs to generate one additional terawatt of solar power per year to win the race against climate change. The better the quality of solar power plants, the higher their energy output.” Leonie Düngefeld
Renewable energies
Solar
Technology
Executive Moves
The former head of China investment banking at major Swiss bank Credit Suisse, Tang Zhenyi, has been appointed vice-chairman of Chinese AI startup, SenseTime. The 47-year-old looks back on ten years at the Chinese Ministry of Finance and a four-year stint at the World Bank.
Dessert
Building brand loyalty at an early age with an off-road vehicle in the city park – the miniature edition of the Mercedes G63 AMG 6×6 is fully electric and will therefore leave a much lower CO2 footprint than the original, which weighs several tons.
