China’s bike-sharing industry is ‘immature and unreasonable’, needs regulation, says state media commentary

China’s bike-sharing industry should be regulated to control the quality and quantity of shared bikes, according to an online commentary published Friday by People’s Daily, the mouthpiece of the ruling Communist Party.

“Three years ago, lots of people were happy about the convenience bike-sharing brought. Nowadays, abandoned bikes have become mountains of rubbish,” the commentary said.

Recently, thousands of abandoned bikes have been seen in rivers in Guangdong province, and hundreds of thousands of bikes are piled up in a “graveyard” in suburban Shanghai.

The Party mouthpiece said the primary cause of all the troubles is that the bike-sharing industry is “immature and unreasonable”.

Bike-sharing took off in China in late 2016 with dozens of start-ups deploying millions of the two-wheelers on city pavements, funded by billions of dollars in venture capital money. People’s Daily said around 20 million shared bikes have been put onto streets in China over the past three years.

Market leaders Mobike and Ofo have since expanded across Southeast Asia, Japan, the US and Europe, though both have pulled back from some cities in the US, UK, France and Australia.

In August last year Xinhua News Agency called dockless bikes one of China’s “four great new inventions” in modern times, making daily life of the public more convenient.