China Tech Talk

The coronavirus epidemic doesn't show any signs of getting any better just yet. While the future of the outbreak is still unclear, the winners and losers of this are clear. In this episode, Matt and John discuss how the coronavirus is changing the face of tech in China.

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This episode, Matt and John embark on a wide-ranging discussion about China tech in 2019. Using Bytedance as a lens, they explore the disruptive power of new companies, Bytedance's successes and challenges outside of China, as well as what the world is learning from China tech.

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China's social credit system (SCS) gets a lot of attention outside of China yet it's still very misunderstood. Many scholars and China watchers have shed light on the topic, but none have done it so concisely and accessibly as Kendra Schaefer and her team at Trivium China. She joins us this week to explain how the SCS is a broad framework for better regulation and enforcement and how it applies to companies, individuals, an...

After an extended hiatus, John and Matt are back! This week, they look at the increasingly effective trend of private traffic. Powered by WeChat and its mini programs, marketers and brands are increasingly creating and driving organic traffic to their shops. Like owned traffic in the West, this is a direct response to the rising costs of reaching fans and followers. Matt delivered a presentation on the topic during the ChinaChat 20...

Just weeks after Facebook announced their Libra cryptocurrency project, the People's Bank of China has become quite vocal about their on-going project. Most recently, the PBOC announced that China's digital currency is "nearly ready." Following on from our previous conversation about Libra and QQ Coin, this week we're joined by Zennon Kapron, director of Kapronasia, to look at what Libra means in a global contex...

At the end of 2018, Connie Chan of Andreesen Horowitz, wrote about how podcasts in China monetize. However, what she calls podcasts aren't really what we call podcasts: they're more like paid-for educational audio content. Podcasting, like what we do at China Tech Talk, is actually still very immature in China. But that doesn't mean there aren't content creators following the "traditional" podcasting model.

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In the tech and startup ecosystem, there's always another conference to attend. The landscape isn't all that clear, however, with some conferences getting more public hype and others keeping it low-key. After organizing and attending many of them, John and Matt sit down this week to go over what's out available, what makes certain conferences different, and which are some of the best to attend and why.

Key questions

In June, Carrefour sold 80% of its China operations to electronics retailer Suning. The news is representative of a much broader shift in the new retails space. When we first covered new retail in 2018, unmanned stores were gaining traction and it was unclear if Alibaba was going to win. In 1.5 years, unmanned stores are almost dead and Alibaba is a clear winner.

To discuss this shift, we're happy to welcome Michael Norris, re...

On June 18, Facebook announced the Libra cryptocurrency, a solution to their P2P payments conundrum. As to be expected, this move has gotten a lot of attention. In China, that attention has taken the form of comparing Libra to Tencent's breakthrough Q Coin as well as how WeChat has integrated payments.

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Facial recognition has taken off in China. Perhaps the most widely implemented use case, facial recognition is used to deter jaywalkers, track attention and behavior in schools, catch criminals, monitor live streamers, and more. Unlike Western countries, China's privacy protections laws are almost non-existent, but that is changing with draft legislation soon to be released

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Last week, the White House announced a ban on US companies doing business with companies deemed a security risk. Over the weekend, Google announces that they must suspend Huawei's access to Android. This episode, Matt and John have a short discussion about what the announcement means for Huawei and what the company may be able to do about it.

Correction: In this episode, John says that "HongMeng OS" could be translated ...

China’s online peer-to-peer lending industry has been in turmoil for the last three years as financial regulators have clamped down as part of “de-risking” efforts. Tuandai.com, a top P2P lender, collapsed in March due to turnover problems. As of February, the platform had more than 220,000 investors with RMB 14.5 billion ($2.15 billion) in outstanding loans. The company is under investigation for illegal fundraising, leading to th...

With the number of English speakers around the world, it's no surprise that Chinese AI experts and engineers are keeping up with developments across the Pacific. However, the same is not true when it comes to the Chinese language. Indeed, Andrew Ng, former Chief Scientist at Baidu and co-founder of Coursera, made this exact point years ago when interviewed about China's AI progress. Jeffrey Ding, China lead for the Center f...

Free cash flow is cash a company can use for whatever they want. If Pinduoduo is free cash flow positive they’ll likely be able to continue their growth spend and get even larger. If its free cash flow negative, the growth plan will put too much strain on their cash position and, it will eventually fail. To say it simply: the stakes are high.

This week, we're joined by James Hull, professional investor and co-host of the China...

One of the earliest companies to get into bitcoin mining, Bitmain makes and sells mining equipment and manages one of the world's largest bitcoin mining pools. A controversial company in the space (as are most), Bitmain backed the Bitcoin Cash fork as well as the subsequent fork into Bitcoin Cash ABC.

This week we are joined by Nishant Sharma, International PR and Communications Director at Bitmain, to talk about the company, s...

All of China's most visible mobility players have undergone significant change over the last 12 months. Ofo is on the verge of collapse, Mobike is now Meituan Bike, and Didi is grappling with how to move past their existential safety problem.

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Early last year, the central government put a freeze on gaming approvals, shutting out many big titles from making money, including PUBG and Fortnite. However, in December, they reopened approvals only to find themselves with a 6-month backlog, leaving giants Tencent and Netease still unable to monetize their biggest hits.

Daniel Ahmad, analyst at Niko Partners, joins us again to talk gaming regulation in China, the role of mini ga...

This week saw a multitude of messaging app announcements. First was WeChat's Open Class PRO featuring a four-hour speech from Allen Zhang. Then, on the same day, Bytedance announced their own messaging app (Duoshan 多闪), what appears to be a clone of Snapchat, and Bullet Messenger announced their upgrade and rebrand to Liaotianbao (聊天宝). All three events, and the recent update to WeChat 7.0, raise interesting questions about the...