China just created a national data administration to harness data for economic growth

3. Hundreds of Baidu employees are working around the clock and borrowing computer chips from other departments to prepare for the launch of Ernie Bot, Baidu’s answer to ChatGPT, next Thursday. (Wall Street Journal $)

4. Shou Zi Chew, CEO of TikTok, has called for closed-door meetings with at least half a dozen lawmakers in Washington, DC. He is due to appear before a congressional hearing regarding privacy and national security concerns regarding TikTok later this month. (Forbes$)

5. China could control 32% of the world’s lithium mining capacity by 2025, investment bank UBS AG estimates. ($Bloomberg)

6. China has reappointed Yi Gang as head of the central bank, signaling the continuity of its monetary policies. (AP)

7. The “996” culture of overwork in China, adopted by tech companies a few years ago, is not going away easily. A Chinese auto company executive recently asked his legal department to figure out “how to avoid legal risks” by having employees work Saturdays. (sixth tone)

lost in translation

In central China, a young entrepreneur is reinventing retirement homes by teaching senior residents to play esports. As Chinese video game publication ChuApp reports, Fan Jinlin, a 25-year-old man from Henan province, took over his family’s nursing home business after college. He started creating video content about the lives of locals and quickly gained millions of followers on Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok.

In February 2022, he embarked on the construction of an e-sports room in his fifth retirement home and recruited seniors interested in video games. Zhang Fengqin, a 68-year-old retired bank employee, is one of them. She saw the news about Douyin and applied. Soon, she went from someone who couldn’t even use a mouse to a competent player of Teamfight Tactics, a popular game that doesn’t require quick reflexes as much as strategic thinking. Ultimately, Fan wants to build a professional team to play in tournaments, but to achieve that, he would need at least seven participants like Zhang. So far there are only three.

One more thing

The number 2,952 has disappeared from the Chinese social media platform Weibo. For what? Because President Xi Jinping extended his rule by five years last week, after receiving 2,952 votes approving the extension – with zero opposition and zero abstentions – in China’s ceremonial legislative body, the National Congress of people. While everyone knew Xi would get a third term, the fact that there was not a single opposition vote still caused people to comment on how pointless the procedure was. A few days later, Weibo blocked search results on the number.