A monthly round-up of China’s technology news for September 2022.
This month’s China technology news round-up looks at the country’s giant livestreaming e-commerce industry, China’s semiconductor troubles, Huawei’s attempts to reposition with the impact of US sanctions, communist propaganda and disinformation on Twitter, and more.
Items listed are China’s technology news headlines, with each linked to the associated article, in full, online – one click access to the China technology news that interests you most.
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Accenture Chinese Consumer Insights 2022
- Microsoft discovered high-severity vulnerability in TikTok Android app, potentially allowing hackers to compromise users’ accounts with just one click
- US tech firms receiving gov’t funding face ban from building advanced tech facilities in China for a decade as part of plan to boost domestic semiconductor industry, reduce reliance on China-produced components
- China: Social media firm increasingly adding hidden watermarks to screenshots, making images traceable wherever shared, likely a bid to identify users posting censored content outside the ‘Great Firewall’
- Overseas WeChat users notified ‘personal data [including] likes, comments, browsing and search history…uploads etc’ will be transmitted to China, 12 months after data-storage separation claim
- In just one day in October 2021, two of China’s top live-streamers, Li Jiaqi and Viya, sold $3BN worth of goods. That’s roughly three times Amazon’s average daily sales.
US-China: Mid-Decade Challenges to National Competitiveness
- Foreign investment vs sanctions: “Chinese investment in Mexico jumped from $154 million in 2016 to $271 million the following year, when Donald Trump took office threatening a trade war.”
- China: 3 autonomous driving companies to trial 10 robocars on Henqin island in Guangdong province, with major backers including Baidu, Meituan, Softbank and Bytedance
- China: Shiseido cosmetics giant launches Fibona Co-Creation with Startups program, delivered by Plug and Play China, seeking startups in ‘medical beauty tech’ and ‘holistic beauty tech’
- China: Huawei unveils new flagship Mate 50-series smartphones, minus 5G capability due to sanctions on the company, but instead featuring ability to connect with BeiDou satellite navigation system
- China’s third-party payments business is withering, with at least 20 operators reselling or giving up their licences, which once fetched billions of yuan in the second-hand market.
Bain & Co: 2022 Technology Report
- China: Baidu’s text-to-image AI is unveiled, claiming better Chinese-focused generation than other AIs – but built-in censorship filters out politically-sensitive words, places, individuals and events
- ICYMI: “…in China…housing price-to-income ratio is ‘much higher’ than the international average of 3 to 6 times. In 2021, average housing prices were 12 times more than average incomes…”
- China: Huawei boosts moves from core business activities with release of ‘Digital First Economy Whitepaper – Asia Pacific’, aiming for ICT infrastructure and policy role
- ICYMI: US Federal Comm’s Commission adds China’s Pacific Networks, ComNet subsidiary and China Unicom to ‘Covered List’, citing national security concerns over company control, data access and more
- China: “As many as 3,470 [chip-related] firms…deregistered between January and August…That number surpassed the 3,420 such firms that closed in 2021 and the 1,397 that went defunct in 2020…”
- China: & big tech: Local gov’t authorities and Communist Party propaganda offices for cities, provinces, districts buying ads on Twitter – banned in China – pushing propaganda to global audiences
- Following China’s lead…majority of SCO members, as well as other authoritarian states, are quickly trending toward more digital rights abuses…mass digital surveillance…censorship and controls on individual expression.
- China: Nio electric car firm moves on Europe’s growing EVs market, launching network of battery leasing and swapping stations, seeing opportunities in swapping vs on-site charging
- China: TechCrunch takes a brief look at aspects of the country’s semiconductor and chip manufacturing moves
- China: Central bank completes digital yuan trial, handling 160+ cross-border payments and for-ex transactions totalling over $21M, with Hong Kong, Thailand and UAE taking part
- ICYMI: Binance recently held a workshop for the Securities and Exchange Regulator of Cambodia, aiming to ‘deepen SERC officials’ understanding of the digital asset space’
- ICYMI: UK’s Imperial College to shut down two major research centres sponsored by Chinese aerospace and defence companies over concerns over China military use of research
- India: Tata Group is reportedly in discussions with US-based Wistron to establish a manufacturing JV for assembling iPhones in India, continuing trend of moving production away from China
Chinese Cybercrime in Neighboring Countries / Report
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