China Digital Digest Weekly: Exploring the Chinese Digital Landscape

Hi folks, we are back with our weekly edition of China’s Digital Digest, wherein we bring you weekly updates on China’s digital space. The report takes a quick glance at China’s complex and rapidly evolving social media landscape by providing updates on the latest happenings across the social media industry. Here are the major highlights of the report.

1. Tencent And NetEase Vow Crackdown on Online Hate Speech After Knife Attack

https://www.reuters.com/world/china/chinese-social-media-companies-condemn-hate-speech-against-japanese-after-knife-2024-07-01/

China’s internet companies have announced a crackdown on “extreme nationalism” online, particularly anti-Japanese sentiment, after a Chinese woman was fatally stabbed while protecting a Japanese mother and child in Suzhou.

Tencent and NetEase, two of the biggest firms, said that they would be investigating and banning users who stirred up hatred. The notice from Tencent, which owns the messaging app WeChat, said the incident in Jiangsu province had attracted public attention and that some netizens incited a confrontation between China and Japan [and] provoked extreme nationalism.

An unemployed man, surnamed Zhou, was arrested for stabbing a Japanese mother and child at a bus stop outside a Japanese school in Suzhou, a city in eastern China. Hu Youping, a Chinese woman who intervened in the knife attack, died from her injuries. Hu was praised for her heroism and bravery in online tributes and the Japanese flag was flown at half mast at Japan’s embassy in China.

2. EU Reconsiders Duty Exemption for Cheap Goods That Helps Shein, Temu

https://brandequity.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/marketing/eu-takes-aim-at-chinas-temu-and-shein-with-proposed-import-duty/111449336

The European Union is working on a proposal to impose import duties on cheap goods bought from online platforms outside the bloc, a move that would primarily target Chinese retailers such as Temu, AliExpress and Shein, according to people familiar with the matter.

The EU currently has a €150 (US$161) duty-free threshold for online purchases that is meant for small gifts or personal packages, but that has enabled a surge in small-value imports from those platforms. The proposal would aim to stem this flow and would apply to all non-EU e-commerce platforms.

3. Alibaba’s Taobao Adds 1-Hour Delivery Short Cut in Race Against ByteDance, JD.Com

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/alibabas-taobao-adds-1-hour-093000118.html

Alibaba Group Holding’s online shopping app Taobao has made its one-hour delivery service hotkey on the platform’s homepage, as the tech giant tries to stake out a larger position in the on-demand delivery market amid competition with JD.com and ByteDance’s Douyin.

The 4-year-old service now has its own tab accessible from the Taobao homepage, as China’s largest e-commerce marketplace works with food delivery platform Ele.me, also owned by Alibaba, to expand the range of products through its “24-hour local life services”, the Taobao and Tmall Group said in a statement. The service covers a wide range of daily necessities, including fresh produce and other groceries, medicine, alcohol, and flowers. Most of these are already covered by Ele.me.

4. Ecommerce Giant JD.Com Pursues Budget-Minded Consumers

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/chinese-e-commerce-giant-jd-093000391.html

China’s e-commerce giant JD.com is said to be doubling down on its budget shopping platform Jingxi in its latest move to win consumers in the “sink” market, made up mostly of small towns where shoppers have limited spending power, amid fierce competition with rivals such as PDD Holdings.

Borrowing a page from PDD’s playbook, JD.com is taking full control over Jingxi’s operation, logistics, and after-sales services in what is known as a “whole custodian” model, hoping to better serve price-sensitive consumers, according to a report from Chinese media outlet 36kr. After the restructuring, the head of Jingxi would report directly to JD.com CEO Xu Ran, the report said.

5. TikTok Updates Option To Download Clips Without Watermark

https://www.theleap.co/blog/tiktok-edit-post-no-watermark/

TikTok’s added another element to its option that enables creators to download their videos without a TikTok watermark, which makes it easier to repurpose your short form video clips in other apps.

Now, TikTok is prompting users to either save their video with a watermark, or “post to save without watermark” when you tap on the “Save” option within the upload flow. So essentially, TikTok will let you repost your video to other apps, but you’ll need to share it to TikTok first. That ensures that TikTok gets more content, while still enabling users to share the same in other apps. TikTok has enabled users to download clips without a watermark since early this year, though it’s now added the post-first requirement. That’ll restrict users who’ve been using TikTok’s editing tools to make their clips, but not uploading them to the app.

6. TikTok is Developing a New AI Chatbot Called Genie

https://tribune.com.pk/story/2477210/tiktok-unveils-new-ai-chatbot-genie-in-development

TikTok has sought to trademark the name “Genie” for its coming AI chatbot tool, which would enable users to pose questions in-stream and get immediate responses, among other functions.

In May in the US, the viral video app filed to trademark the name “Genie” for an AI chatbot software that will, among other functions, simulate conversations, facilitate interaction and communication between humans and AI, and produce human-like speech and text. TikTok’s actually been developing its AI chatbot for some time, with users in the Philippines getting access to its “Tako” chatbot tool in May last year. Though Tako, according to TikTok, is only designed to guide users to other videos in the app, not to answer more complex queries.

Wrapping Up

The vast and diverse nature of the Chinese Social Media space makes it incredibly challenging to keep a tab on the rapid developments taking place. However, China’s Digital Digest brings you all the latest updates from there to keep you abreast of all the evolving trends.

To delve deeper into the findings of our latest report, click here.