bodyType

customContents

entityId

printArticlePageQuery

filter

article

body

urlAlias

articleSectionsContent

articleSeoArticle

articleSourceHeaderArticle

contentSchemaRenderContent

contentSubHeadlineContent

contentHeadlineContent

mainImagePrintArticleArticle

authorBlockPrintArticleArticle

contentSponsorTagContent

articlePianoPaywallContent

scmpYoutubeContent

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

query printArticlePageQuery(
  $entityId: String!
  $customContents: [CustomContentInput]
  $bodyType: BodyFormatTypeEnum
) {
  article(filter: {entityId: $entityId}) {
    entityId
    body(customContents: $customContents, type: $bodyType) {
      json
    }
    urlAlias
    ...articleSectionsContent
    ...articleSeoArticle_3o8td4
    ...articleSourceHeaderArticle
    ...contentSchemaRenderContent
    ...contentSubHeadlineContent
    ...contentHeadlineContent
    ...mainImagePrintArticleArticle
    ...authorBlockPrintArticleArticle
    ...contentSponsorTagContent
    ...articlePianoPaywallContent
    ...scmpYoutubeContent
    ...hooksTrackPageViewArticle
    id
  }
}

fragment articlePianoPaywallContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ...hooksPaywallPromiseContent
}

fragment articleSectionsContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  sections {
    value {
      ...helpersCheckIfNewsSectionInFirstIndexSection
      ...entityLink
      name
      id
    }
  }
}

fragment articleSeoArticle_3o8td4 on Article {
  ...hooksArticleSeoArticle
  ...helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle
  ...helpersGetArticleTypeArticle
  entityId
  publishedDate
  updatedDate
  summary {
    text
  }
  subHeadline {
    text
  }
  body(customContents: $customContents, type: $bodyType) {
    text
  }
  keywords
  sections {
    value {
      name
      id
    }
  }
  topics {
    name
    entityId
    id
  }
  urlAlias
  authors {
    name
    id
  }
  images {
    style(filter: {style: "768x768"}) {
      url
    }
  }
  readingTime
}

fragment articleSourceHeaderArticle on Article {
  urlAlias
  ...entityLink
}

fragment authorBlockPrintArticleArticle on Article {
  ...defaultArticleDateContent
  ...authorNamesArticle
}

fragment authorNameAuthor on Author {
  ...entityLink
  name
  entityUuid
}

fragment authorNamesArticle on Article {
  authorLocations
  authors {
    entityId
    location
    ...authorNameAuthor
    id
  }
}

fragment blockquoteQuoteContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ...contentShareWidgetContent
}

fragment checkersCheckContentContainsStarlingImageContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  topics {
    entityId
    id
  }
}

fragment contentHeadlineContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  headline
  socialHeadline
  ...contentHeadlineTagContent
  ...helpersUseContentSponsorContent
}

fragment contentHeadlineTagContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ...hooksContentHeadlineTagContent
}

fragment contentNewsletterWidgetContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  topics {
    relatedNewsletters {
      ...helpersMassageToNewsletterItemNewsletter
      id
    }
    id
  }
  sections {
    value {
      relatedNewsletters {
        ...helpersMassageToNewsletterItemNewsletter
        id
      }
      id
    }
  }
  ... on Article {
    relatedNewsletters {
      ...helpersMassageToNewsletterItemNewsletter
      id
    }
  }
}

fragment contentSchemaRenderContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ...blockquoteQuoteContent
  ...imageContent
  ...inlineWidgetContent
  ...photoGalleryWidgetContent
  ...scmpYoutubeContent
}

fragment contentShareWidgetContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  entityId
  urlAlias
  shortUrl
  socialHeadline
  headline
}

fragment contentSponsorTagContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ...helpersUseContentSponsorContent
}

fragment contentSubHeadlineContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  subHeadline {
    json
  }
  summary {
    json
  }
  ...contentSchemaRenderContent
}

fragment defaultArticleDateContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ...hooksArticleDateUtilsContent
}

fragment entityLink on BaseWithApplicationAndUrlAlias {
  __isBaseWithApplicationAndUrlAlias: __typename
  __typename
  entityId
  entityUuid
  urlAlias
  urlRedirect {
    toUrl
    id
  }
  application {
    entityId
    id
  }
  ... on Section {
    fullSectionPath {
      entityId
      id
    }
    parentSection
  }
  ...helpersAppBarVariantBase
  ...helpersApplicationBase
  ...helpersCheckIsPlusArticle
  ...helpersStyleSectionContent
}

fragment helpersAppBarVariantBase on BaseWithApplicationAndUrlAlias {
  __isBaseWithApplicationAndUrlAlias: __typename
  ...helpersCheckIsLiveArticle
  ...helpersCheckIsPlusPage
  ...helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle
  ...helpersCheckIsPostiesPage
  ...helpersCheckIsPostMagazineArticle
  ...helpersCheckIsStyleArticle
  ...helpersSectionContent
  ...helpersStyleSectionContent
}

fragment helpersApplicationBase on BaseWithApplicationAndUrlAlias {
  __isBaseWithApplicationAndUrlAlias: __typename
  ...helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle
  ...helpersCheckIsPostiesPage
  ...helpersCheckIsPlusPage
}

fragment helpersCheckIfNewsSectionInFirstIndexSection on Section {
  name
}

fragment helpersCheckIsAmpEnabledArticle on Article {
  entityId
  types {
    value {
      entityId
      id
    }
  }
  sections {
    value {
      entityId
      id
    }
  }
  disableOffPlatformContent
  sponsorType
  published
  ...helpersCheckIsPlusArticle
  ...helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle
}

fragment helpersCheckIsLiveArticle on Article {
  flattenTypeIds
  liveArticle {
    status
    id
  }
}

fragment helpersCheckIsMainTopicContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  topics {
    entityId
    id
  }
}

fragment helpersCheckIsPlusArticle on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ... on Article {
    paywallTypes {
      entityUuid
      id
    }
  }
}

fragment helpersCheckIsPlusPage on Page {
  urlAlias
}

fragment helpersCheckIsPostMagazineArticle on Article {
  sections {
    value {
      entityId
      id
    }
  }
}

fragment helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle on Article {
  sections {
    value {
      entityId
      id
    }
  }
}

fragment helpersCheckIsPostiesPage on Page {
  urlAlias
}

fragment helpersCheckIsStyleArticle on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  sections {
    value {
      entityId
      id
    }
  }
}

fragment helpersGetArticleTypeArticle on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ... on Article {
    types {
      value {
        entityId
        id
      }
    }
  }
}

fragment helpersMassageToNewsletterItemNewsletter on Newsletter {
  entityId
  name
  alternativeName
  description {
    text
  }
  summary {
    text
  }
  homepageDescription {
    text
  }
}

fragment helpersSanitizeArticleTypeEntityIdsArticle on Article {
  types {
    value {
      entityId
      id
    }
  }
}

fragment helpersSanitizeAuthorTypesArticle on Article {
  authors {
    types
    id
  }
}

fragment helpersSanitizedAuthorEntityIdsArticle on Article {
  authors {
    entityId
    id
  }
}

fragment helpersSectionContent on Section {
  fullSectionPath {
    entityId
    id
  }
}

fragment helpersStyleSectionContent on Section {
  fullSectionPath {
    entityId
    id
  }
}

fragment helpersUseContentSponsorContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  topics {
    entityId
    sponsor {
      ...sponsorTagSponsor
      name
      type
      id
    }
    id
  }
  ... on Article {
    sponsorType
  }
  ...helpersCheckIsMainTopicContent
}

fragment hooksArticleDateUtilsContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  createdDate
  publishedDate
  updatedDate
}

fragment hooksArticleSeoArticle on Article {
  ...helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle
  ...helpersCheckIsPostMagazineArticle
  ...helpersCheckIsStyleArticle
  ...hooksContentHeadlineTagContent
  ...helpersCheckIsAmpEnabledArticle
  entityId
  headline
  socialHeadline
  types {
    value {
      entityId
      id
    }
  }
  authors {
    entityId
    id
  }
  images {
    generic_og: style(filter: {style: "og_image_scmp_generic"}) {
      url
    }
    styles(filter: {styles: ["og_image_posties_article", "og_postmag", "og_image_style", "og_image_scmp_analysis", "og_image_scmp_explainer", "og_image_scmp_editorial", "og_image_scmp_fact_check", "og_image_scmp_debate", "og_image_scmp_live", "og_image_scmp_obituary", "og_image_scmp_opinion", "og_image_scmp_review", "og_image_scmp_series", "og_image_scmp_generic"]}) {
      url
      style
    }
    type
  }
  urlAlias
}

fragment hooksContentHeadlineTagContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  __typename
  ... on Article {
    types {
      value {
        name
        entityId
        description {
          text
        }
        id
      }
    }
    ...helpersCheckIsStyleArticle
  }
  flag
  sections {
    value {
      name
      id
    }
  }
  ...hooksContentHelperContent
}

fragment hooksContentHelperContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ...helpersSanitizeArticleTypeEntityIdsArticle
  ...helpersSanitizeAuthorTypesArticle
  ...helpersSanitizedAuthorEntityIdsArticle
  flag
}

fragment hooksPaywallPromiseContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  entityId
  ...helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle
}

fragment hooksTrackPageViewArticle on Article {
  entityId
  publishedDate
  headline
  sections {
    value {
      name
      id
    }
  }
  urlAlias
  authors {
    name
    id
  }
  entityUuid
}

fragment imageContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  headline
  ...checkersCheckContentContainsStarlingImageContent
}

fragment inlineWidgetContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ...contentNewsletterWidgetContent
}

fragment mainImagePrintArticleArticle on Article {
  images {
    title
    url
    isSlideshow
    size_652x446: style(filter: {style: "652x446"}) {
      url
    }
  }
}

fragment photoGalleryDialogContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  __typename
  ...contentShareWidgetContent
}

fragment photoGalleryWidgetContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ...photoGalleryDialogContent
}

fragment scmpYoutubeContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  entityId
  urlAlias
  publishedDate
}

fragment sponsorTagSponsor on Sponsor {
  name
  type
  images {
    url
  }
}


sections

types

disableOffPlatformContent

sponsorType

published

headline

socialHeadline

authors

images

publishedDate

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

keywords

topics

readingTime

authorLocations

entityUuid

Zen Soo

Sarah Dai

Chinese tech companies have cultivated a technology universe so large that it exists almost exclusively on its own – sustained by the country’s 1.4 billion people – but cut off from the rest of the world by Beijing’s Great Firewall which blocks content not approved by the government.
Outside the firewall, a parallel internet ecosystem exists where companies banned in China, like Facebook, Google and Twitter, market their products to the remaining six billion people on the planet.
Protected from foreign competition, Chinese companies like Tencent and Baidu have flourished, attaining market valuations that rival global firms like Facebook. But the strong growth of China’s closed technology ecosystem means that US companies wanting to enter the massive market or Chinese ones going global now have to offer two sets of products – one geared for the rest of the world, and another specifically for China.
Wow Way or Huawei? A readable Chinese brand is the first key in unlocking America’s market
Byton, the Chinese-backed electric vehicle start-up that unveiled its electric car this week at the CES show in Las Vegas, plans to work with different partners for technology applications such as facial recognition, voice control and autonomous driving – a group of mainland China companies for its Chinese car, and other partners for the international model.
“There are very specific requirements for driving autonomous cars in and outside China,” said Daniel Kirchert, Byton’s co-founder and chief executive. “In China, we definitely need partners with the China experience. But outside China, we will work with global partners.”
The Nanjing-based carmaker has teamed up with Amazon’s Alexa for voice control, but plans to work with a local company for the Chinese model, Kirchert said. Currently, Byton is working with Baidu on the latter’s autonomous driving system Apollo, although Kirchert declined to reveal if Byton will be powered by Apollo in China.

Huawei Technologies, which launched its flagship Mate 10 Pro smartphone at CES, has partnered with Google to offer its voice-controlled Google Assistant on the device. In the US the Mate 10 Pro will come fully integrated with Google apps such as Gmail, Google Chrome and Google Drive, whereas the mainland China version will be equipped with Huawei’s own voice assistant, and lacks Google integration since the search company’s services are blocked in the country.
How the mainland went from ‘Made in China’ to ‘Created in China’
“[China and US] devices have different partners because we want to optimise the user experience,” said Osman Hsieh, senior retail manager of Huawei’s Consumer Business Group.
“Apps like Google, Gmail or YouTube [on the US version of the Mate 10] are not going to work in China.”
Chinese technology permeates every level of society back home, from Tencent’s ubiquitous WeChat messaging app to mobile payments with Alipay or WeChat Pay, with few foreign internet companies succeeding at appealing to Chinese consumer preferences even if they are not banned outright. But just as American companies find it difficult to compete in China, Chinese tech companies are also finding it increasingly difficult to enter markets like the US due to security concerns.
Collapse of Huawei deal with AT&T ‘will threaten China-US trade ties’

At CES earlier this week, Huawei was forced to launch its Mate 10 Pro on the “open market”, as opposed to in partnership with US carrier AT&T after the latter backed out of a deal, reportedly due to political pressure. It was the second US-China deal since the start of the year that fell through over national security concerns, after the US government rejected Ant Financial’s acquisition of US-based money transfer service MoneyGram International.
“The timing is probably coincidental but security concerns are behind the failure of both deals. It doesn’t help that the Chinese market is largely closed to Western companies when domestic alternatives exist,” said Kirk Boodry, an analyst with New Street Research.
Ant Financial’s Moneygram deal a victim of ‘quite difficult’ political environment, say analysts
Ant Financial is an affiliate of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Holdings, owner of the South China Morning Post.
The increasing difficulty for Chinese and US companies to break into each other’s markets has forced both sides to adapt and change as they look to appeal to one another.


For many Chinese technology companies with ambitions to become global, the first step often is to play down their roots, or at least not advertise them.
One such exhibitor at CES, Hangzhou-based smart-home robotics provider Rokid, is branding itself so that its products appeal to both Chinese and US consumers.
At CES, the company’s smart speaker, home robot and mixed reality glasses were displayed on minimalist, Scandinavian-style wooden tables, and the booth was designed tastefully in white. Apart from the Chinese staff at the booth, there was little sign that the company was from China.
“From the start, Rokid wanted to build an international company and go global, so we don’t want to be recognised as just a traditional Chinese company, a Chinese-only company,” said Reynold Wu, Rokid’s director of products. “It’s a matter of how you brand yourself to the world, to the industry.”

Makeblock, an educational tech robotics start-up based in China’s hi-tech hub of Shenzhen, was another company that showed little signs of its Chinese origins at CES. About 70 per cent of Makeblock’s revenue comes from outside China, mainly from European countries. Currently, the US makes up 15 per cent of Makeblock’s business, but the start-up aims to double its sales this year, according to the company.
Zuckerberg-backed US school teaches coding with robotics kits designed by Chinese farmer’s son
“I think that it is good to almost disguise the company so you can’t tell where it’s from … people have a sense of recognition with brands that they feel are part of their community,” said Patrick Boyle, a marketing manager with Makeblock in the US.
“Every culture and market is different and has different demands. If you’re in Japan, you’d want to look like a Japanese company, and if you’re in Europe you’d want to look like you’re a company from Europe.”
The real competitive battleground for US and Chinese companies will be emerging markets
Kirk Boodry, New Street Research
More Chinese start-ups are becoming international because many of the founders were born in the 1990s and have a more global mindset, said Antonio Wang, associate vice president of client system research at IDC China.
“But even as internationalisation takes place, there’s a need to strengthen the Chinese elements to build a new generation of China brands,” Wang said.
Similar to their Chinese counterparts, US companies wanting to tap the mainland Chinese market are making adjustments to meet local tastes and regulations.

Facebook, whose social media service is blocked in China, announced earlier this week that it has tied up with Chinese smartphone manufacturer Xiaomi to manufacture its Oculus virtual-reality headsets for the local market. The China version of the Oculus headsets will feature content running on Xiaomi’s virtual reality platform.
Next month Apple, which counts China as a major market for its iPhones, will transfer the storage and handling of photos, documents, messages and video for its iCloud customers in China to state-controlled Guizhou-Cloud Big Data (GCBD), according to an emailed statement to affected users obtained by online news site 9to5Mac.
William Carter, deputy director and research fellow of technology policy at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a Washington DC-based think-tank, said both the US and China are building an “expansionary presence [in technology] across the world, targeting other markets”.
Opinion: Sino-US collision must be avoided at all costs
“The landscape of doing hi-tech businesses in each other’s market is changing, and may get more difficult,” Carter said. “US companies operating in China are watching nervously as to how the Chinese authorities will react to [Huawei and Ant Financial’s failed deals], and are concerned about a retaliatory approach.”
New Street Research’s Boodry echoed this sentiment, stating that he does not expect “reciprocal market entry in tech at all” for China and the US.
“The real competitive battleground for US and Chinese companies will be emerging markets,” Boodry said.


Wrestling for access: how China, US firms are navigating technology’s separate universes

With two technology universes – one inside and another outside China’s Great Firewall – tech companies are dividing their products in order to conquer

Huawei CEO Richard Yu speaks about the Mate 10 Pro phone during a keynote address during CES 2018 in Las Vegas on January 9, 2018. / AFP PHOTO / MANDEL NGAN

Workers set up a display at the Huawei booth at the Las Vegas Convention Center in preparation for the 2018 CES in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S. January 8, 2018. REUTERS/Steve Marcus

mBot, one of Makeblock's most popular products, allows kids to learn engineering and computing by building robots. 18APR17 SCMP/Coco Liu

FILE - In this Jan. 6, 2016, file photo, Peijun Guo wears the Oculus Rift VR headset at the Oculus booth at CES International in Las Vegas. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg seems to be realizing a sobering reality about virtual reality: The headsets his company's Oculus division has been making to put users into artificial worlds are too expensive and confining to appeal to the masses. (AP Photo/John Locher, File)

Byton CEO Carsten Breitfeld presenting the Byton concept car at CES in Las Vegas. The company plans to work with different technology partners. Photo: Handout

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Big Tech

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With two technology universes – one inside and another outside China’s Great Firewall – tech companies are dividing their products in order to conquer


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