What We Know About China’s Big Tech Crackdown

What We Know About China’s Big Tech Crackdown

Hi all, it's Zheping in Hong Kong. Last week, China's biggest tech companies shed almost $290 billion in market value in two days. For context, that's roughly equivalent to five Snap Inc.s or the gross domestic product of Egypt.The reason for the selloff was a raft of new regulations from Beijing aimed at curbing monopolies in big tech. Although Chinese regulators have said little about how harsh they expect the new rules to be, penalties could range from fines, to unwinding mergers and acquisitions, to even breaking up industry leaders.In many ways, Beijing is just now joining in on a global reckoning around big tech power. The U.S. and Europe have already launched investigations and lawsuits against companies like Amazon.com Inc. and Alphabet Inc. In China, targets could include the likes of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., Tencent Holdings Ltd, and Jack Ma's Ant Group Co. The new rules will seek to root out