Inside China Tech

The world is witnessing an unprecedented growth and transformation of online services and consumption as a result of the Covid-19 crisis – are online services taking over the globe completely, and what changes will stick around? Further, will the rollout of ultra-fast 5G networks enhance this trend?

People around the world are adapting how they mourn their loved ones amid the coronavirus pandemic. Live-streaming funerals are being organised, while social media accounts of the dead are being transformed into virtual memorial pages. However, one's digital presence can be vulnerable. On this episode, we look into how technology has changed the way we die and mourn.

Music courtesy of DK (Unfinished Farewell)

Cover design courtesy of Jiabao Li

SCMP reporters dissect why Chinese telecoms giant Huawei has found itself in Washington's cross-hairs and where matters might go from here. You can read more about Huawei in a series of in-depth articles from the Post.

In China, one way or another, at least 260 million students and 15 million teachers had to migrate their entire offline learning and teaching activities online.

Digital educational centres, applications and tools have seen a surge in demand. National curriculum classes are being recorded by teachers across all forms, and are being broadcasted on TV for free. We look into the technologies that facilitate this migration and ask: are we closer to education equality in China?

We're digging deep into China's version of TikTok called Douyin. How different is Douyin from its international version TikTok? Why are there two almost-identical apps out there? And how are Chinese people using Douyin differently from users of TikTok?

To truly understand Douyin, we attended a weekend class that costs about US$1,400 in Shenzhen, China, about how to get rich on the app.

The impact of the countrywide lockdown on the economy has the potential to cut China’s GDP growth in the first quarter from 6 to 4.5 per cent. However, new tech opportunities and markets are emerging under the pressure of the public health emergency and tech companies in China are pulling out all the stops in helping the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of the disease as well as facilitating the continuation of people’s daily life under the lockdown.

Two of the Post's tech reporters are among the hundreds of millions of people whose lives have been directly affected by the coronavirus lockdown. Reporter Celia Chen, who’s based in Shenzhen, China, and couldn’t go back home to Wuhan, the capital city of Hubei province and the epicentre of the outbreak, talks about how her family spent this Lunar New Year bonding over news and mobile apps. Another tech reporter, Jane Zhang is going to tell us about being trapped in her hometown Enshi, Hubei.

To better understand how TikTok works in domestic and international markets, our producer Yang Yang went to visit TikTok stars with millions of followers - one is a 16-year-old who initially moved to Los Angeles to develop an acting career; the other, coming up in the next episode, is a family of toddler triplets living on the outskirt of Zhuhai, a city in Southern China.

China is no stranger to vegetarian food. If anything, the Chinese have invented countless vegetarian dishes that imitate meat throughout their centuries-old history of Buddhism.

In this episode, we try Impossible Meat, we try its counterpart in China, we talk to people who sell it and who study the market, and we ask - how should companies introduce, or perhaps reintroduce, meatless meat to China?

E-commerce giant Alibaba started trading on the Hong Kong stock exchange on November 26, 2019. The company raised a whopping US$13 billion, making it the largest share launch of the year, beating out Uber and Lyft. On the back of its listing, we got a chance to speak to Daniel Zhang, executive chairman and chief executive of Alibaba, while he was in Hong Kong.

 

Zhang spoke about how technology is transforming companies and reshaping consumer buying habits, with increased consumption now…