By now we all know that the Chinese stock market is going through “a melt-down” of more than US$550bil. The panic is widespread and extends beyond private education firms or transport. Companies like Meituan, Tencent are also taking a hit.

We see different bloggers (and substackers) writing different interpretations. Many of them paint the Communist Party of China as power hungry and determined to rein in big tech going out of control. Many have a caveat “Maybe China’s leaders, for reasons that will remain forever opaque to us, have done this or that.”

We don’t think the reasons are opaque. In this special edition of The Lowdown, we have gathered 7 opinions from practitioners on the ground, – some are from the Momentum Works community , to demystify the China regulators crack down and the underlying reasons.

Why are they sharing this? We feel that it’s important to bridge this insights gap, and to help everyone understand why things happen the way they are.

Regardless of the political climate – we are now all connected to China – in terms of culture, history, supply chain, investment, technology and people.

As Ren Yi (a.ka. Chairman Rabbit) – whose blog we have also condensed below puts it:  “The Chinese model is so special that it is not easy to tell the Chinese stories.”  

We do not judge what is right/ wrong, and the sharing of the opinions are for you to form you own judgement, assess your own risks and make your own decisions.

And as always, we’re always happy for a chat if you need.

Check out these articles on Chinese crack down on tech companies:

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Thanks for reading The Low Down (TLD), the blog by the team at Momentum Works. Got a different perspective or have a burning opinion to share? Let us know at [email protected].

 

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Jianggan Li
Jianggan Li is the Founder & CEO of Momentum Works. Prior to founding Momentum Works, he co-founded Easy Taxi in Asia, and served as Managing Director of Foodpanda. The two years running Rocket Internet companies has given him a lifetime experience on supersonic implementation, and good camaraderie with entrepreneurs across the developing world. He holds a MBA from INSEAD (GMAT 770) and a degree in Computer Engineering from Nanyang Technological University. Unfortunately he never wrote a single line of code professionally - but in his first job he was in media, travelling extensively across Asia & Europe, speaking with Ministers & (occasionally) Prime Ministers. Apart from English and his native Mandarin, he is also fluent in French and conversational in Cantonese & Spanish. He tried to learn Latin (for three years) and Sanskrit (for six months) as well. In his (scarce) free time, he reads, travels, hikes and dives. Pyongyang, Tehran & Chisinau are among the interesting cities he has been to.