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This week, the market value of Tencent, China's biggest video game company, nosedived after a state media outlet suggested that online gaming was as addictive and destructive as opium. Tencent immediately pledged to cap the number of hours people can play, and to keep minors off its platforms.
It's the latest example of a months-long crackdown on major Chinese technology firms that until recently were viewed as some of the world's most powerful and successful companies, as well as a source of national pride. Beijing's about-face on its own tech titans could have big implications for China, and beyond.
Who's being targeted? First they came for billionaire Jack Ma, who was fined a whopping $2.8 billion for alleged antitrust violations and stopped from launching Ant Group, part of his Alibaba empire, as the world's biggest IPO. The value of its stock has plummeted since.
Then Beijing imposed sweeping restrictions on cryptocurrency trading, perceived as being too volatile... right as China (wink-wink) is pushing its own digital yuan as a reliable alternative.
After that, it was the turn of ride-hailing app Didi, which — on the eve of its American IPO — had its offices raided by state security agents for collecting more data on passengers than Beijing was comfortable leaving in the hands of a private firm. Next, for-profit tutoring giants were taken offline for skewing college admission odds towards the kids of rich families who can afford the help.
Now, it's the gamers' turn.
Why all the fuss? Beijing has all these companies in its crosshairs because they do at least one of three things Xi Jinping doesn't seem to like: they've become too big too fast, have gathered too much data, or are making too much money at the expense of social stability.
At a time of rising inequality in China, being rich is no longer, in Deng Xiaoping's own words, "glorious."
Here are two ways to understand what's going on.
One prevailing narrative — especially in the West — is that Xi is bullying large, rich companies because he is simply an authoritarian party boss who wants to stop any tech mogul or company from becoming too influential for the ruling Communist Party. Some argue that Xi would rather put the likes of Alibaba, Didi, or Tencent in their place — and perhaps out of business altogether — than let them become rival power centers. That's especially true if US stock market listings open up sources of financing and influence for these companies from Beijing's number one rival.
But another reading is that he is using his terrible powers for an understandable purpose. After decades of breakneck growth and corporate enrichment, China is reining in companies in the interest of social harmony over infinite growth. From this perspective, Xi is astutely flexing the one-party state's (considerable) muscle to nip social ills like inequality, monopoly, or gaming-induced apathy in the bud before they become horrific political problems like in the West.
In fact, at a time when many countries want to regulate tech firms but can't do so expediently as democracies, Beijing is — as far as this argument goes — ahead of the curve. In other words, by cracking down on tech behemoths Xi's acting less like Joseph Stalin than like trust-buster Teddy Roosevelt.
Xi has found an unexpected ally in Chinese youth, who are otherwise tired of their parents and the government ganging up on them over playing video games. There's a #MeToo angle — Tencent is one of several tech firms linked to Kris Wu, a famous singer accused of sexually assaulting multiple women. In cancelling him, young Chinese and the CCP have found common ground: the youth hate Wu for being a sexual predator, while the party generally despises the celebrity obsession culture tech companies rake in billions from.
What do you think? Is Xi using his power for good or bad reasons? Let us know here.
Additional reporting by Ziyu Wu.
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Hard Numbers: Endangered penguins, Chinese bots strike again, Athens choking, Nigeria targets Biafran separatists
August 05, 2021
80: If polar ice caps continue to melt at their current pace due to climate change, 80 percent of all emperor penguins will be wiped out by the end of the century because they need the ice for breeding and keeping their offspring safe. American authorities want to list emperor penguins, which only live in Antarctica, as an endangered species so that US fishing vessels will be required to protect them when operating in their habitat.
350: A network of over 350 fake accounts is amplifying pro-China propaganda on Western social media, according to a new study. Although there's no concrete evidence that the Chinese government is behind it, the matrix resembles previous ones taken down by Facebook and Twitter, and its bots have posted cartoons mocking enemies of Beijing like exiled tycoon Guo Wengui and whistleblower virologist Li-Meng Yan.
465: Clouded in smoke as multiple fires rage across the island, the Greek capital of Athens is reporting 465 micrograms of fine dust per cubic meter (35 cubic feet) in the city center, almost 10 times the level deemed safe by the EU. Thousands of residents have been evacuated due to the blazes, the worst seen in decades, amid a blistering heatwave that has also hit neighboring countries Turkey, North Macedonia, Albania, and Italy.
115: Amnesty International says Nigerian security forces have killed at least 115 people in the year leading up to June 2021 in their campaign against Biafran separatists in the country's southeast. Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the pro-independence Indigenous People of Biafra movement, was extradited last month from Kenya to face trial for treason, which carries the death penalty.
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Jon Lieber, Managing Director of the United States for Eurasia Group, shares updates on recent COVID-19 policy developments:
The Biden administration extended an eviction moratorium even after the Supreme Court said they couldn't, what's next?
Well, the CDC imposed a nationwide eviction moratorium in light of increased risk from evicted people because of the coronavirus pandemic. The Supreme Court in June ruled that they (CDC) overextended their authority in doing so and mandated that the moratorium expire on schedule in July. A group of progressive activists weren't happy about this and raised a huge stink in Congress, but Congress recessed for their August vacation before they could solve the problem, putting big pressure on President Biden to extend the moratorium even though he said he didn't think that it would pass constitutional muster. The CDC did it anyway, extending the moratorium until October 3rd, which is a time that's short enough to probably avoid it being overturned by lawsuits, but long enough that Congress has time to figure out how to either extend it on a bipartisan basis or put more money into a rental assistance fund that few people have taken advantage of so far. This whole incident shows the power of progressive activists in the Biden administration who were able to elevate the profile of this issue and potentially prevent millions of people from losing their homes this summer.
The CDC recommended indoor masking even for vaccinated people, but few jurisdictions are following suit. What gives?
Officials at the CDC are very worried about the spread of the Delta variant of the coronavirus, which they say is more infectious and spreads more easily, including from vaccinated people to the rest of the population. CDC guidance now says that areas where there's significant or high levels of transmission should wear masks while they're indoors. But very few jurisdictions are following suit, with only a handful of states that have mask mandates not creating exemptions for vaccinated people. After a year of mixed messages and reversals from the CDC, it looks like some of their authority to deal with and be listened to in the pandemic has gone away, which could be a very big problem for future public health crises. Even the Biden administration went out of their way to counter the message, the implicit message from the CDC that vaccinations were not effective at stopping the coronavirus, by emphasizing the 164 million Americans who are fully vaccinated and the incredibly rare number of breakthrough infections there are in that group. The Biden administration also urged Americans to get vaccinated and they really want to hit this message that once you're vaccinated, you're protected and in theory, you no longer need masks. Vaccines are going to be the only way out of this pandemic for President Joe Biden, these mask mandates aren't effective anymore, partially because people aren't following them. And the CDC is going to have a very tough time going forward.
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On GZERO World, Ian Bremmer takes a look at the yin and the yang of alcohol's role in high-level diplomacy and society at large. Alcohol can bring people together just as easily as it can tear them apart. From a 1995 Clinton/Yeltsin Summit where a drunk Yeltsin almost derailed Bosnian peace talks, to Obama's Beer Summit and the recent G7 Summit, booze plays a part in how world leaders interact. Globally, alcohol consumption has been steadily increasing, by over 70 percent between 1990 and 2017, according to one report. . Low and middle-income nations like Vietnam, India, and China are a driving force behind that trend, with drinking in Southeast Asia rising by over 34 percent between 2010 and 2017. And yet, amidst this global booze boom, the world has only grown more and more divided.
Watch the episode: The (political) power of alcohol
Equestrian jumpers, and their horses, are disciplined species. They don't appreciate surprises very much.
But many participants were caught off guard during this week's individual jumping qualifiers in Tokyo by a very daunting statue of a sumo wrestler on the hurdle course (which is dotted with statues paying homage to traditional Japanese culture, like geisha kimonos, cherry blossoms, and taiko drums).
Jumpers had to clear 14 hurdles, and the sumo, stationed at hurdle 10, caused quite a stir. "Hunched over and seemingly ready to attack, the wrestler is facing away from approaching riders, meaning that when they complete a sharp turn to take on the jump, the first thing horse and human see is the wedgie created by the wrestler's mawashi," the Washington Post wrote.
The statue spooked several horses, and jumpers incurred penalty points as a result. Fun fact: American rider Jessica Springsteen, daughter of a certain famed musician called Bruce, was knocked out of the event after her horse knocked down a rail after confronting the sumo statue.
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For Dick Pound, the longest serving member of the International Olympic Committee, protesting at the Games is fine — as long as it doesn't "interfere" with the competition itself or awards ceremonies. The Olympics, in his view, are an oasis of calm in the middle of an increasingly tense world, and "we shouldn't be spoiling that by pointing out the obvious , which is that there are social and political problems." Watch his interview with Ian Bremmer on the latest episode of GZERO World on US public television.
What We're Watching: India's rape problem, Iranian antics at sea, Guatemala has another anti-corruption prosecutor
August 04, 2021
India's rape problem: Hundreds of protesters have flocked to the streets of New Delhi for four days straight after a 9-year old girl was raped and murdered in a small village outside the capital while going to fetch water for her family. Some demonstrators burned effigies of India's PM Narendra Modi, saying that the government has not done enough — or anything, really — to address the country's abysmal rape problem: there were more than 32,000 rapes recorded in 2019, certainly a vast undercount given the stigma associated with reporting sexual assaults in India. The scourge of sexual violence against women and girls in India was brought to light in 2012 when a 23-year-old woman was gang raped and murdered while traveling on a bus in the nation's capital, prompting international outrage. Four men have been arrested in connection with this week's attack, though they have not been charged. The city of New Delhi, meanwhile, has ordered an inquiry to probe events surrounding the young girl's death, though Indians who have been sounding the alarm on violence against women for decades aren't expecting much to come of it.
Iranian antics in the Arabian Sea: Iran has upped the ante in the ongoing maritime wars: last week, an Iranian drone attack on an Israeli-linked tanker operated by a British company, killed a Briton and a Romanian, prompting British PM Boris Johnson to warn of "serious consequences." Now, this week, the Brits said another tanker off the coast of the United Arab Emirates had been hijacked, likely by Tehran, though the ship has since been declared safe. What's Iran's strategy here? The drone attack fits into the pattern of the ongoing Israel-Iran shadow war (Israel has targeted several Iranian vessels bound for Syria, transporting oil and weapons.) But some observers wonder whether all these high-seas shenanigans could also be an attempt by Iran's powerful and ultra-hardline Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps to scuttle ongoing negotiations on a return to the 2015 nuclear deal. The last round of talks in Vienna adjourned in June, and while the Biden administration says it's committed to returning to the negotiating table, trust between Washington and Tehran is extremely low.
Guatemala appoints possible fox to mind hen house: Guatemala has appointed a new anti-corruption prosecutor, just weeks after the dismissal of his predecessor provoked street protests and drew a stern rebuke from los yanquis. The Central American country ranks a lowly 149th on the Corruption Perceptions Index, and recent efforts to change that have been less than inspiring. Back in 2019, the government kicked out a UN body that was probing graft, creating its own local anti-corruption team instead. In July, the government of President Alejandro Giammattei sacked the leader of that group, who fled to neighboring El Salvador and claimed he'd been ousted for finding out things that Giammattei didn't want him to know. Protesters then hit the streets and the Biden administration, which is trying to stamp out corruption in the region, called foul. The new guy, Rafael Curruchiche, is a former prosecutor focused on electoral crimes. But critics point out past allegations that he too has used his power to protect corrupt politicians, including former president Jimmy Morales.
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