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News on the Chinese Media & Gaming

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Wang’s long view

A 30 year-old book forecasts American decline
Jan 22, 2021 (WiC 525)

A month after it was announced that Wang Huning would become one of the seven most senior officials in the Communist Party of China (CPC) in 2017, we reported how his out-of-print books were selling at sky-high prices as collectors’ items (see ...

Yoozoo poisoning casts shadow on Netflix show
Jan 8, 2021 (WiC 523)

Murder by poisoning dates back many centuries. Deemed an unchivalrous method of assassination, the same technique is still used today – the poisoning of Russian agent Sergei Skripal with Novichok in the UK caused a major diplomatic incident in ...

Alibaba buys into a streaming video giant
Nov 27, 2020 (WiC 520)

In Chinese martial arts novels, bi wu zhao qin (比武招亲) was a customary way of helping a woman to find a worthy husband. A father would put out a notice that his daughter was available for marriage and suitors would then fight to ...

Remembering the volunteers

The Korean War is commemorated in a flurry of films and documentaries
Oct 23, 2020 (WiC 515)

The cast for a 30-part series made in China 20 years ago to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Korean War was said to number more than 100,000 people. But the series was never broadcast on concerns that it might fan unnecessary acrimony in ...

Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock

Bytedance’s TikTok faces a growing risk of shutdown in the US and UK
Jul 24, 2020 (WiC 505)

In 2017 Fujian native Zhang Yiming became obsessed with learning English. Aside from reading more English language materials himself, the 37 year-old software engineer – and founder of the tech giant Bytedance – also asked his staff to take ...

India bans Chinese apps including TikTok
Jul 3, 2020 (WiC 502)

The Chinese video sharing app TikTok almost seems made for India – a country where Bollywood films still capture the public imagination and literacy rates are often low. The app says 120 million Indians use it every month – including some ...

Cooking up entertainment

iQiyi, China’s Netflix, is looking for new ways of cashing in on content
Jun 5, 2020 (WiC 498)

Every yuan counts. That was the message in a lawsuit that iQiyi lost in a Beijing court this week, brought by one of its subscribers. He was furious that the streaming platform had charged him an extra three yuan an episode for advance showings ...

Born in the USA

TikTok poaches Disney’s streaming boss
May 29, 2020 (WiC 497)

Content posted on TikTok, the smash-hit short-video platform from China, doesn’t last more than 15 seconds. Kevin Mayer, who is taking over as its new boss next week, will be hoping for a longer stay. The rewards could be tremendous for the ...

Spiking the cannon

How China’s censors have silenced an outspoken property tycoon
Apr 17, 2020 (WiC 491)

Following the launch of popular social media apps such as Sina Weibo and WeChat in 2010, a new breed of opinion leaders picked up a following in China. Known locally as gongzhi – literally, ‘public intellectuals’ – these ...

A short history of the ‘sick man of Asia’ slur
Feb 28, 2020 (WiC 484)

In an article published in 2008, Reuters described the Beijing Olympics as “a cure for the sick man of Asia”. The news agency went on to explain how success in international sport would help China to leave behind its “century of ...

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