Tencent censors article on China’s widening tech gap with US, written by its own researcher

The article from Tencent Research Institute discusses declining valuations and revenue growth in China’s tech sector

Tencent removed the piece from the web and WeChat, highlighting the sensitivity of the topic amid Beijing’s Big Tech crackdown

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The WeChat app seen on a smartphone on July 13, 2021. Tencent has removed an article by its own research group from WeChat and its website that draws attention to a widening gap between Chinese and US tech companies. Photo: Reuters

Published: 5:00pm, 7 Aug 2021Updated: 5:00pm, 7 Aug 2021

Chinese tech giant Tencent Holdings censored an article by one of its own staff researchers published on Friday that discussed the country’s widening gap in the digital economy with the US and stressed the importance of the tech sector amid Beijing’s ongoing crackdown on related industries.

The move came hours after news broke Friday night that a district procuratorate in Beijing launched a lawsuit against Tencent alleging that the “youth mode” on WeChat, the country’s most popular social media platform, does not comply with laws protecting minors.

The article, titled “Warning of the widening gap in the digital economy between China and the US”, said that domestic Big Tech companies, which saw rapid growth from 2016 to 2018, are now slowing down and falling behind those in the US in terms of both revenue and market capitalisation.

China’s tech industry is at a low point, the article said, and the country must “tightly grasp the historical opportunity of information development and digital revolution” to avoid repeating the mistake of missing out on previous industrial revolutions.

The article, by Tencent Research Institute senior researcher Yan Deli, was published on Friday evening on both Tencent’s website and the institute’s official WeChat account. It was removed from both platforms.

Tencent did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Saturday.

The article’s removal highlights the current sensitivity of the topic. The piece drew attention to the market cap of Big Tech companies at a time when their valuations have been hammered by sell-offs sparked by regulatory crackdowns and state media headlines.

The market cap of Tencent and Alibaba Group Holding, the sixth and seventh most valuable internet companies in the world, respectively, made up 13.3 per cent of the total valuation of the global industry’s top seven companies by the middle of this year, according to the article. That is down from the 23.8 per cent they had at the end of 2017, and even lower than the 17.4 per cent they accounted for at the end of 2015.

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