Chang Che was The China Project’s Business & Technology staff writer. His work has been published in The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Foreign Affairs, Nikkei Asia, and The LA Review of Books. You can follow him on Twitter at @changxche.
“Investment is not a virtual game,” a commentary in state-run Chinese media said earlier this month, warning investors to avoid augmented and virtual reality “metaverse” products. Investors did not listen — Beijing-based Nreal, an augmented reality technology company, just completed a Series C funding round of over $100 million.
From ironworker to China’s richest man, Xu Jiayin personified the freewheeling, dealmaking China of former decades. But now he and his debt-ridden business empire must reckon with cooling growth, and a Chinese leader on a mission to root out decadence from society.
Ant Group knows how its customers spend their money, and can target them for loans if they are profligate spenders. That practice may be about to end, according to a new report on upcoming regulator actions.
The government ban on Chinese companies making a profit from extracurricular tutoring has been widely covered by English-language media because it affects listed companies that foreign investors have backed. But an even more ambitious campaign to rein in and transform private primary and secondary schools is underway. What is the government trying to achieve?
China dominates the mining and refinement of rare earths, which are needed for almost all of the electronic devices that power our 21st-century lives. But contrary to popular perception, China neither can nor wants to weaponize the global supply.
The Chinese government is tightening its control over Chinese technology companies in dramatic ways: There will be a sea change in 2021: Capital flows between the U.S. and China will in some cases reverse, and the incentives that have driven the Chinese economy for the last two decades have changed.
Investors are fleeing Chinese education stocks and pricing in risks across a range of industries as Beijing heats up a long-brewing regulatory storm.
Its loudmouth founder is a deadbeat debtor in China, but his American electric car company has just raised a boatload of cash.
New draft rules circulated today would force China’s private education companies to turn nonprofit. Share prices of tutoring companies plummeted, and some see the end of a highly lucrative industry.