Google, ZTE and Xiaomi highlight our top five China tech stories of the year
From Google’s Dragonfly to ZTE’s crisis and Xiaomi’s IPO, it’s been a strange year in China’s tech industry
As we come to the end of 2018, it’s time to look back on the year that was. With so many big stories to pick from, our writers broke down the year in China tech by looking at five of the biggest stories.
Google’s censored search engine for China
In China, even the Googles are fake. Ever since the search engine pulled out of China in 2010, knock-offs have been appearing online in the country, fueling anticipation for its comeback. But it was still a big shock when The Intercept broke news this August that a censored version of Google search is, in fact, coming back for real through a project named Dragonfly.
Dragonfly was carried out in complete secrecy and in partnership with a mysterious China-based company. And Googlers didn’t like it. Around 1,400 employees signed a petition criticizing the lack of transparency around the project while more than 200 Google employees issued an open letter to the company demanding it halts the project.
Google’s censored search engine might be gone, but here’s five other things it’s still doing in China
Where are the games?
Xiaomi’s up and down year
Eight years after it was founded in a small Beijing office, Xiaomi went public in Hong Kong in July... priced at half of what it originally sought.
How Xiaomi forged a unique path
ZTE and Huawei’s troubles with the US
Like any good soap opera, the ZTE and Huawei drama has actually going on for years. The issue escalated in 2018 with the beginning of the US-China trade war. In January, AT&T canceled its deal with Huawei to sell its smartphones in the US. The company was also accused of posing a national security threat due to its relationship with the Chinese government.
ZTE fared even worse after being given a seven-year export ban for violating US sanctions on Iran. The company almost collapsed before the US gave it the green light to resume business in June.
iPhone boycotts are a nationalist sport in China… just not a very successful one
The following months continued with mounting suspicion against Huawei, which spread from the US to Australia, UK, and other countries. And then, the highlight of the show: Huawei’s CFO Meng Wanzhou was arrested in Canada at the request of the US government for violating the US trade embargo on Iran. Tune in for the next episode in 2019. - Masha Borak
End of the bike-sharing craze… and Ofo?
Just two years ago, Chinese cities were crammed with millions of colorful rental bikes made by the country’s over 60 “bike-sharing” startups.
In 2018, there’s only three left, and nobody knows if one of them will make it.
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