The party coordinates via WeChat with members studying overseas.Īs a cornerstone of China’s surveillance state, WeChat is now considered a national security threat in the United States. When military researchers working undercover in the United States needed to talk to China’s embassies, they used WeChat, according to court documents. ![]() When secret police issue threats abroad, they often do so on WeChat. It has even extended Beijing’s reach beyond its borders. As WeChat has become ubiquitous, it has become a powerful tool of social control, a way for Chinese authorities to guide and police what people say, whom they talk to and what they read. Woven through it all is the ever more muscular surveillance and propaganda of the Chinese Communist Party. For the millions of members of China’s diaspora, it is the bridge that links them to the trappings of home, from family chatter to food photos. Built to be everything for everyone, WeChat is indispensable.įor most Chinese people in China, WeChat is a sort of all-in-one app: a way to swap stories, talk to old classmates, pay bills, coordinate with co-workers, post envy-inducing vacation photos, buy stuff and get news. Li had little choice but to take the bad with the good. “It felt like if I only watched Chinese media, all of my thoughts would be different.” “All of a sudden I discovered talking to others about the issue didn’t make sense,” Ms. Her Chinese friends both inside and outside China began to say that Canada had no justice, which contradicted her own experience. When a top Huawei executive was arrested in Canada in 2018, articles from foreign news media were quickly censored on WeChat. She also questioned what was being said about China. A post from a news account in Shanghai warned Chinese people to take care lest they accidentally bring the drug back from Canada and get arrested. Another rumor purported that Canada had begun selling marijuana in grocery stores. One article claimed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada planned to legalize hard drugs. Li, who lived in Toronto at the time, increasingly found WeChat filled with gossip, conspiracy theories and outright lies. ![]() “But then I started talking to some foreigners about him, non-Chinese,” she said. She believed it was the unquestioned consensus on the newly elected American president. Trump was an admired leader and impressive businessman. Other players include JD.com's JD Pay, Baidu Wallet and Meituan Pay.Just after the 2016 presidential election in the United States, Joanne Li realized the app that connected her to fellow Chinese immigrants had disconnected her from reality.Įverything she saw on the Chinese app, WeChat, indicated Donald J. It provides a glimpse of what TikTok could eventually become, as Douyin started selling merchandise in 2017 and now operates a growing e-commerce operation where hundreds of millions of users shop on a daily basis.īyteDance’s expansion comes as China’s financial regulators are tightening oversight over financial technology firms, particularly companies such as Ant Group.Ĭhina’s third-party payment sector is dominated by Alipay and WeChat Pay, with the former taking 55.39% of the total market in the second quarter of last year, according to market researcher Analysys. The company, which denies the allegation, has been in talks for months with Walmart Inc and Oracle Corp to shift such assets into a new entity.ĭouyin is the main revenue generator for ByteDance. Hezhong Yibao obtained a third-party payment license from the central bank in 2014.īyteDance has been ordered by the outgoing Trump administration to divest TikTok’s US assets on national security concerns. Users of Douyin, which accumulated 600 million daily active users, previously could use Ant Group’s Alipay and Tencent Holdings’ WeChat Pay, the country’s two ubiquitous third-party mobile payment channels, to buy virtual gifts for livestreamers or items from shops on the platform.īyteDance founder and CEO Zhang Yiming built up the company’s payment capability in China by acquiring Wuhan Hezhong Yibao Technology Co last year. “The set-up of Douyin Pay is to supplement the existing major payment options, and to ultimately enhance user experience on Douyin,” Douyin said in a statement. BEIJING: Beijing-based ByteDance launched on Jan 19 its third-party payment service for the Chinese version of its hit short video app TikTok, Douyin Pay, as it presses to expand into the e-commerce business in China.
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