PERHAPS NO COMPANY embodies the ups and downs of Chinese big tech better than its biggest tech firm of all—Tencent. Two years ago the online empire seemed unstoppable. More than a billion Chinese were using its ubiquitous services to pay, play and do much else besides. Its video games, such as “League of Legends”, were global hits. Tencent’s market value exceeded $900bn, and the firm was on track to become China’s first trillion-dollar company.
Then the Communist Party said, enough. Xi Jinping, China’s paramount leader, decided that big tech’s side-effects, from distracted teenagers to the diversion of capital from strategically important sectors such as semiconductors,
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