Tag: E-Commerce

Daniel Zhang Steps Down From Alibaba

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Daniel Zhang, the departing chief executive and chairman of the Chinese tech giant Alibaba, has stepped down as head of the tech company’s cloud division, a position he held for mere months. The company announced in June that Mr. Zhang, would give up the chairman role this month to Joseph Tsai, a co-founder of Alibaba, and that Eddie Yongming Wu, another founder, would became the chief executive. But Mr. Zhang had been widely expected to continue to lead Alibaba’s cloud computing division, a position he assumed in March as part…

Congress Spotlights Forced Labor Concerns With Chinese Shopping Sites Shein and Temu

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Lawmakers are flagging what they say are likely significant violations of U.S. law by Temu, a popular Chinese shopping platform, accusing it of providing an unchecked channel that allows goods made with forced labor to flow into the United States. In a report released Thursday, the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party said Temu, a rapidly growing site that sells electronics, makeup, toys and clothing, had failed “to maintain even the facade of a meaningful compliance program” for its supply chains and was likely shipping products made with…

Bipartisan Bills Would Change a 100-Year-Old Trade Law

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But Shein has faced scrutiny for some of its business practices, such as claims that it has copied designs and used cotton in its clothes from Xinjiang, a region in China where U.S. officials say Uyghurs have been abused by the government. Investors anticipate an initial public offering from Shein this year, which has only increased questions about the company. The bill introduced Thursday does not mention the company, but “Shein is probably the most obvious example of a company that has exploited the de minimis loophole the most,” Mr.…

Alibaba, Baidu and Tencent Signal First Steps in Bumpy Recovery

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Eight months ago, the future of China’s largest internet companies looked grim. Covid-era lockdowns crushed sales and Beijing’s harsh tech regulations had spooked even audacious China investors. Shares of Alibaba, Baidu and Tencent dropped to some of their lowest levels in several years. With China’s economy now reopen, the tech giants this week released earnings reports that showed initial signs of recovery. But the financial results, the first issued since the end of “zero Covid” restrictions, also reflected the uneven pace of China’s economic rebound and signaled that the companies’ makeovers, while underway, are likely…

The Shining Promise and Dashed Dreams of China’s Live Shopping Craze

Chin@Strategy

A High-Tech New Opportunity Growing up, Taiping could hardly have imagined making a fortune by any means, let alone by talking into his phone. Born in the plains of Inner Mongolia, a region in northern China where temperatures can plummet to minus 20 degrees, he left school after fifth grade, working as a herdsman, security guard and truck driver. He hardly spoke Mandarin, China’s dominant language, as his schoolteachers had taught mostly in Mongolian. In 2015, noticing that his town’s scenic grasslands were attracting tourists, Taiping, then 30 years old, decided…

‘Everything is fake’: how global crime gangs are using UK shell companies in multi-million pound crypto scams

Chin@Strategy

A woman meets a man online. They flirt. Then, after a few weeks, they begin imagining a future together. Fast forward a few months and one of them has had their heart broken and been defrauded of their life savings. It sounds like a classic romance scam, but it isn’t. This is “pig butchering”: a brutal, elaborate and rapidly expanding form of organised crime, often involving criminal syndicates, modern-day slaves and victims around the world. Since it came to prominence in 2021, the fraud – which involves scammers grooming their…

Ant Group Says Its Founder, Jack Ma, Will Relinquish Control

Chin@Strategy

One of China’s most influential tech titans, Ant Group, said on Saturday that its founder, Jack Ma, plans to relinquish control of the company. Ant Group is the fintech sister company of the e-commerce behemoth Alibaba, one of China’s most valuable private companies and the bedrock of the business empire of Mr. Ma, the country’s most famous tycoon. This is a developing story. Chang Che contributed reporting and Zixu Wang contributed research. NYT

Job cuts and falling shares: how did it all go so wrong for the US tech sector?

Chin@Strategy

Amazon announced 18,000 job cuts, Apple’s share price fell below $2tn (£1.7tn) and there was more bad news from Tesla: it has been another tough week for big US tech firms. But this has not been a one-off. The ongoing drama at Twitter since its takeover by Elon Musk in October has taken place against a backdrop of global economic uncertainty, retrenchment from aggressive expansion plans and China’s disruptive transition from Covid lockdowns to rocketing case numbers as restrictions ease. In fact this week’s events have been a continuation of…

Chinese behemoth Pinduoduo to take on Amazon in US – with even worse labor practices

Chin@Strategy

Americans addicted to Amazon could soon be wooed by a Chinese tech giant most of them have never heard of. Pinduoduo is planning to expand its reach to the US next month, according to reports in Bloomberg and Reuters. The company is known for delivering goods at rock-bottom prices – while putting its employees through conditions that a prominent labor activist says should horrify Americans. Described by its founder, the former Google employee Colin Huang, as a cross between “Costco and Disneyland”, Pinduoduo has ridden a wave of meteoric Chinese…

A Game Designer in Beijing Bought Toy Guns. China Imprisoned Him.

Chin@Strategy

China’s strong gun controls mean that fatal shootings are rare, and many citizens support the laws to keep it that way. But there has been a growing debate over the legal definition of a firearm. Experts say China’s regulations — which ban buying, selling or owning weapons above a very low threshold of force — are vague and hard for laypeople, even judges, to understand. The result, critics say, is that unsuspecting buyers of compressed-air and spring-powered toys are turned into criminals. China’s gun control law of 1996 states that…