In Another Blow To Didi, China Halts Downloads of 25 More of Its Apps. (nytimes.com) 22
In its latest rebuke to the ride-hailing giant Didi, China ordered 25 more of the company's apps removed from mobile stores on Friday, deepening the regulatory maelstrom that has engulfed the company since it went public on the New York Stock Exchange last week. From a report: The country's internet regulator said in its 10 p.m. announcement that the apps -- which include Didi's car-pooling app, its finance app and its app for corporate customers -- showed problems related to the collection and use of personal data. The latest announcement was nearly identical to one the same agency issued on Sunday, ordering a halt to downloads of Didi's main, consumer-facing app for the same reason. That order followed a separate one two days before that told Didi to stop registering new users while officials conducted a checkup of the company's network security practices. None of these recent commands offered any detail about the specific data and security problems that aroused officials" concerns. In a statement that was posted after midnight on Chinese social media, Didi said it would "sincerely accept and resolutely obey" the demands.
Beijing's sudden moves against Didi, which has been celebrated for years in China as a homegrown innovator and industry pacesetter, have jolted the company's new Wall Street shareholders. The clampdown has also spooked investors and start-ups in China, who are wary about what seems to be growing hostility by Chinese officials toward domestic companies that list shares on overseas exchanges. A listing on Wall Street, such as Alibaba's record-breaking one in 2014, was once seen in China as an ultimate validation of a company's business achievements.
Beijing's sudden moves against Didi, which has been celebrated for years in China as a homegrown innovator and industry pacesetter, have jolted the company's new Wall Street shareholders. The clampdown has also spooked investors and start-ups in China, who are wary about what seems to be growing hostility by Chinese officials toward domestic companies that list shares on overseas exchanges. A listing on Wall Street, such as Alibaba's record-breaking one in 2014, was once seen in China as an ultimate validation of a company's business achievements.
Just pay the damn bribe and be done with it (Score:1)
Do these guys not know how business in China works? It would have been cheaper to follow the "rules".
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The state only screws over threats. Again someone didn't know how to do business in China. The right palms didn't stay sufficiently greased.
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Pretty simple (Score:1)
The requirement that thier books be open to list on wall street scares the fuck out of the chinese, because.... well... things aren't exactly kosher over there in the land of spring rolls and General Tsao. And they'd really rather people not see that.
So, the Chinese government just proves that they will do whatever the fuck they want and screw their laws, because they make 'em anyway and can change them at will, or just ignore them.
Re: Pretty simple (Score:2)
There aren't a lot of spring rolls and General Tsao in most of China. The Chinese food most Westerners experience is primarily Cantonese. You would be better off making a joke about Hot Pot and a black kettle if you knew anything about China.
Probably means something different (Score:4, Informative)
"The country's internet regulator said in its 10 p.m. announcement that the apps -- which include Didi's car-pooling app, its finance app and its app for corporate customers -- showed problems related to the collection and use of personal data."
Translation: The Chinese government wasn't being given full access to the data.
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Why is it so hard to believe that they don't want Chinese citizen's data going to the US? The EU doesn't want EU citizen's data going there either, and the US doesn't want us citizen's data going to China.
What the West doesn't understand is that (Score:4, Insightful)
regulation of big tech will spur competition by allowing smaller tech companies to participate in a level field. The Chinese government for what ills it has wrought is also a pragmatic one and it realizes if you allow too much speculation in the market, such as this Didi IPO where one or two founders are getting multi-billion dollar payday is not healthy for the financial markets and guess who agrees? Charles Munger vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway in the USA.
The 97-year-old told CNBC in an interview alongside Berkshire CEO and billionaire investor Warren Buffett that the United States should take a leaf out of China's book and "step in preemptively to stop speculation". [yahoo.com]
"I don't want the, all of the Chinese system, but I certainly would like to have the financial part of it in my own country," he said in the interview aired on Tuesday in the United States.
Re:What the West doesn't understand is that (Score:5, Insightful)
My view from the West is that the Chinese Government doesn't want companies to even have a chance of being bigger than them, therefore large companies are instantly penalized for going outside of China to grow. Or cut off at the legs (so to speak) like that Ma fellow.
Re:What the West doesn't understand is that (Score:5, Interesting)
And that's the point. The company can't be bigger than the CCP because the CCP is about power. Once it goes bigger than the CCP, it can't be controlled by the state. And once the state loses control, all h*ll will break loose in China - you have a population who use your apps widely and who the government cannot control.
Remember, the huge fear the CCP has is democracy and freedom. It's why they're trying to show democracy is bad any way they could and to undermine it as much as possible. A company bigger than the CCP makes this impossible to do.
Jack Ma realizes this, and now DiDi is realizing this.
Change is coming to China, and it's scaring the CCP. It was once thought that western investments will bring western culture to China, except the potential economic power of China with its 1.4B people makes it so western companies have to kowtow to the CCP. But western MONEY is attracting Chinese companies - they know they can raise more capital through Western markets than their own Chinese markets, because obviously, the Chinese markets are heavily controlled by the CCP.
In the end, western money into Chinese companies will influence how Chinese companies are run, and potentially end up being a backdoor way to freedom. And the CCP is scared of this.
China got to where it is economically through brute force - 1.4B people is a huge market. But the western world got the money not through brute force, but through intelligence and smart investing - after all, the US and Chinese economies are about the same size, yet the US has about 1/4th the population, which means each American is 4 times as productive.
Hong Kong is really just a start - China's been trying to crack down for the past couple of years causing a flight of capital from the region and devastating impacts economically as the SAR status is being tarnished - it's not an enclave where western values were respected, it's become another Chinese province under Chinese rule and thus no longer deserves special recognition or status.
At the same time, China is losing its engine of growth as it gets more expensive and people are switching manufacturing from China to elsewhere.
A sh*tstorm is brewing in China. Chinese companies are wanting to break out of China and motions like this are trying to stem them, because the CCP is trying to counter western control. What will happen in 5 to 10 years from now? It'll be interesting to watch - because companies like Alibaba and DiDi will refuse and potentially can adopt western ideology and freedoms and that can spread like wildfire.
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Remember, the huge fear the CCP has is democracy and freedom. It's why they're trying to show democracy is bad any way they could and to undermine it as much as possible. A company bigger than the CCP makes this impossible to do.
This sounds very strange - do you really think huge monopolistic companies are in any way conducive to democracy and freedom?
because companies like Alibaba and DiDi will refuse and potentially can adopt western ideology and freedoms and that can spread like wildfire.
Isn't this what western politicians have been saying for the last fifty years or so, ever since Nixon's trip to China in '72? That opening China will lead to adoption of western ideology and freedoms? Well, it hasn't. On the contrary, China has profited of the western countries' idealism and policy of appeasement and turned itself into a major world power, without adopting any of the
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The Western World acquired much of its wealth through colonialism which required a lot of brute force. And since we are talking about China, the beginning
It's laughably hypocritical (Score:4, Interesting)
Straight out of the "despotism for dummies" playbook.
The CCP can build social scores on their entire population, suppress dissent online and violently in meatspace...but, of course, when a home-grown tech company dares listing overseas and cashing in without paying off Poobear and the army (always there in the shadows - I've worked in China) than "wham* they are someone violating consumer privacy.
Yeah right, the CCP are the only ones allowed to do that comrade..
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Fuck off you useless sockpuppet ac. If you're going to shill for Poo Bear then at least do it vaguely competently. But you can't, can you? If you had any intelligence at all you'd be doing something better..