• Kimi K3.1 Pro made news for the wrong reason: Kimi tried to control creator messaging, and it backfired. Earning trust takes dropping the transactional mindset altogether.

• Creators with better options negotiate for more than an one-off post, help build the trust ecosystem, and act less like rented ad space.

• OpenAI, Anthropic and a16z are building ambassador pipelines from campus to the workplace. New Media strategy is here to stay, and it takes months and patience, and that is what the Kimis are competing against.

What happened after the backlash

It all began when this week the creator Elshayib posted screenshots of what appears to be a promotional brief for Kimi K3.1 Pro.

Kimi wanted to review content before creators post and asked them to “Please DO NOT put on the paid partnership label.”

Two days later, Kimi apologized publicly. But not what for what blew up in the first place. Kimi said sorry for rate limits and unnecessary quota consumption and ignored the influencer-promotion allegations that made people question the launch. Kimi’s October 25 statement:

“We’re sorry for the rate limits and unnecessary quota consumption on the K3.1 Pro subscription plan. These were our issues, and we should have fixed them sooner.”

X influencers noticed the dodge.

Kimi has earned serious technical interest. K3.1 Pro placed fourth on Artificial Analysis’s Intelligence Index, ahead of OpenAI’s GPT-6 Astra and Xiaomi’s MiMo-V2.6-Pro.

The model is probably fine, but the diffusion of trust works in wondrous ways, and once out of the bag, it’s difficult to contain. I’d argue this whole fiasco is partly because Kimi needs to control the narrative. Lost trust can stop people from ever trying it, and it makes publicly rejecting Kimi the correct virtue signaling.

Why a pay-per-post brief misses the negotiating power

Wrote a great piece on how Kimi took a very Chinese PR and KOL buying model and ran it in the U.S. It’s not hard to understand why Kimi did it: promotion is a deliverable—give me a tweet, a repost, or an Instagram post, and I’ll pay you for it. And if I pay you for it, I get to review and revise. This is an established influencer marketing workflow in China, and Kimi didn't invent it.

The trap for Chinese AI companies entering a new community is assuming quantity >quality. Enough purchased posts and that “momentum” will win over the people whose judgment they most want attached to the brand. Creators with existing audiences and offers from other AI companies are the most coveted, and they are in the driver’s seat to negotiate the whole relationship.

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On creator marketplaces, small AI and developer accounts ask around $120 for an X repost, $250 to $400 for a sponsored post and $300 to $550 for a thread. They are renting out their feeds like ad space.

High-profile work is priced differently. One tech creator with nearly 400,000 followers across platforms told CNBC her sponsored deals typically run $5,000 to $30,000 per campaign. Google and Microsoft have paid $400,000 to $600,000 for some multi-month creator partnerships. This brings me back to the idea of the alternatively influential.

A creator with those alternatives has little reason to accept a tightly controlled, one-off assignment that could cost them credibility. Continued access, support, and future work are what they want, and a transaction-only offer looks thin next to a partner willing to invest over time. The creator economy is real but it’s so much more than a pay-to-play mentality.

A much bigger check doesn’t guarantee a willing partner either. Another creator told CNBC he had turned down a $20,000 AI deal and would refuse $100,000 or $500,000 too. Some audience relationships set a line money doesn’t move.

How U.S. AI players build an influence ecosystem

OpenAI, Anthropic and a16z are building a pipeline that starts on campus and runs into the workplace. None of it was built in a launch cycle.

It starts at school. Anthropic’s Claude Campus pays student ambassadors a published $3,600 stipend to organize campus activity from September 2026 to June 2027. OpenAI’s Student Collective gives campus leads training, staff access, and semester stipends for running workshops.

It continues with power users. OpenAI’s Codex Ambassadors sign up for six renewable months, commit to one community contribution a month, and get credits, office hours and a direct feedback line to OpenAI’s developer-experience team. The role is unpaid, though the perks have value.

goes furthest and treats media as a skill to teach. Its New Media team runs launches for portfolio companies, and its eight-week New Media Fellowship (launched on Substack, mind you) trains storytellers to embed in those companies and leave the skills behind when they go. Founders learn to package their own content and plug into a16z’s distribution, which a year in includes about 1 million followers on X and 250,000 newsletter subscribers. The next step is helping portfolio CEOs build these teams in-house. Everyone in the network becomes an ambassador. Try pricing these new media assets; I doubt they’d repost something for a few hundred bucks.

The difference is time. Each program takes months to ramp up, and the people in it learn the product, build a reputation around it, and keep showing up. The alleged Kimi brief bought a launch week of posts and skipped that ramp-up. Either way, a material connection has to be disclosed.

What Kimi should do next

Pretending nothing happened is the worst option available. The media environment is fragmented: creators, Substackers, and everyone in between are weighing in, and legacy media is now reporting on it. Kimi is no longer just trying to influence the public. It has to influence how all these voices read its actions, and right now they're its most important stakeholder.

Kimi should start with a public apology, on video and on X. The opening could read:

“We wanted this community to see how much care we put into Kimi. We should have trusted you to test it and judge that work for yourselves. Instead, our approach to promotion put control ahead of that trust. That was the wrong strategy. For disappointing you and failing to uphold your trust, I’m sorry.”

The details come after: who issued the instructions, whether they were authorized, how the creator relationships were structured, and which posts need correcting. If an agency was involved, say so precisely once it is verified (but don’t try to shift the entire blame). That attribution is secondary messaging. Leading with it would turn the apology into a defense.

Then Kimi should sit for an interview that allows uncomfortable questions, and follow it with direct, honest contact with Elshayib. He should not have to change his position for Kimi to keep the conversation open. Staying engaged under criticism shows the trust the company says it wants.

Beyond this incident, Kimi needs to give credible people a reason to stay involved: supported testing, regular feedback sessions, and useful community work, with every benefit disclosed. None of it should depend on repeated praise or an obligation to defend the company.

The quota apology shows Kimi can name a concrete problem and fix it. It needs the same specificity on creator promotion if the goal is to become a brand people willingly attach their reputation to after a launch campaign.

Calling the Shots is written by Ivy Yang and read by the sharpest observers and operators in comms, tech, China strategy, and media. People who understand that perception and narrative create enterprise value and the power to call the shots. Learn more about Ivy’s work at Wavelet Strategy: https://waveletnyc.com

The prosecution alleges Huawei’s 20-year pattern: trade-secret theft, bank fraud, sanctions violations, concealment. Huawei has pleaded not guilty and its position, delivered by lead trial counsel Brian Heberlig, is that this is “competition, not conspiracy. Innovation, not theft,” and that prosecutors have cherry-picked isolated incidents and recast ordinary competition, plus misconduct by a handful of employees, as an institutional conspiracy. The trial is expected to run about three months, but the reputational battle will be longer and harder to salvage.

So how did Huawei get here? The Commerce Department put…

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Manus is the latest example, and the cleanest break yet. As I explained in this post, most of the conversation around China-shedding focuses on the companies themselves. What structure did they use? Where did they relocate? How did they cut ties? But what Manus did right was understand the power of influence.

What was the communication strategy that made it credible? Because even with the perfect legal structure, if the narrative doesn’t hold across different stakeholder groups, the structure doesn’t matter.

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So I wrote a field guide on how to build global trust. Effective global communication is built on reputation, market trust, and geopolitical context. For this one, I’m focusing on Singapore as the destination for companies with Chinese roots.

This guide is written for investors, financial and operating partners, and legal, compliance, and advisory firms working with companies with China affiliations. The deck is not a thought piece and focuses on how those relationships are communicated, including how due diligence is articulated without sounding defensive and how exposure is credibly explained.

A China affiliation is a variable most stakeholders evaluate upfront. It is not necessarily a dealbreaker, but something that needs to be understood and managed.

You can download the full Field Guide by becoming a supporter of Calling the Shots.

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In the recent WSJ Exchange front-page feature, “Arc’teryx Won Over China With a $1,000 Jacket. Now It’s Popping Up Everywhere,” the brand essentially gets a beautifully packaged replay of its own talking points:

• China is the growth engine.

• Arc’teryx can charge 20% more in China than in the U.S., even in a deflationary economy.

• The Cai Guo-Qiang Tibetan Plateau outrage “hasn’t stopped its growth in China,” and “a widespread boycott didn’t materialize.”

• Amer Sports’ stock is up 28% this year.

  

This is exactly the investor thesis from Amer, Arc’Teryx’s parent company: Greater China as the growth engine, Arc’Teryx as the hero asset, differentiated from luxury names like LVMH and Kering that are supposedly struggling to unlock Chinese demand. The WSJ piece doesn’t interrogate that story; it reaffirms it, at length, with some colorful anecdotes layered on top.

If you don’t follow the brand or the crisis closely, you walk away thinking: Arc’teryx is one of t…

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Instead of the what and how, I’m focusing on two things:

1. why Chinese netizens are furious (hubris, status signaling, a conquer-nature posture) and

2. how Arc’teryx’s global vs. China messaging split made the crisis worse, compounded by Cai’s lack of an English statement on his own channels.

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Quick recap

The fireworks display, “Ascending Dragon,” was staged Friday by Arc’teryx and Cai Guo-Qiang at roughly 18,000 feet in the Himalayas—an extremely fragile alpine ecosystem in southwest Tibet (NBC News). After footage of the activation spread, backlash in China centered on sacred land and environmental risk. Local officials first said the materials were eco-friendly and no environmental impact assessment (EIA) was needed, then quickly announced a task force to investigate.

On …

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That’s the current vibe check as we brace for tariff escalation. The new U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports—and the end of the de minimis exemption that once allowed shipments under $800 to enter duty-free—have sent Chinese platforms scrambling. E-commerce giants like Temu and Shein are pulling back, and the ripple effects are already hitting digital ad markets and consumer behavior.

Temu spent heavily on U.S. digital advertising after its 2022 launch—but that phase is likely over. According to Adweek, its share of Google Shopping impressions dropped to 0% last week. The company, which previously claimed 1 in 5 Google Shopping ads, slashed its daily average ad spend by 31% from March 31 to April 13. Shein reduced its spending by 19% in the same period.

Whether this is a temporary recalibratio…

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What's the PR playbook for 2025 with a fragmented media landscape and black swan events? Let's start with the challenges, perfectly summarized by Biden's outgoing Communications Director:

1. It's harder than ever before to break through

2. Most Americans under 35 have moved away from traditional news sources.

3. There's a global anti-incumbent, anti-institution wave.

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These points deeply resonate with me. I see a widening schism between what serious, top-tier media wants to cover and companies’ expectation of cov…

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Simply put: it’s showdown time.

In a recent Wired article, I weighed in on TikTok’s defense strategy during its recent court hearing. The piece, aptly headlined “TikTok’s Defense Strategy Involves Throwing Shein and Temu Under the Bus,” captures the heart of TikTok’s legal gambit—deflecting scrutiny by pointing out that other Chinese apps, like Shein and Temu, collect far more personal data than TikTok. TikTok's legal counsel focused …

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The Baidu PR department has probably been working 24/7 since the drama unfolded a week ago. CNN, the Financial Times, and all major U.S. media outlets have written about it, and the discussion in China is ubiquitous on social media and in the news.

“A lot of what she said really struck a nerve, because people feel that in their own workplaces very often. The fact that she said it in a way that’s so direct and in your face, it just generated this kind of emotional response,” I shared with CNN and FT.

S…

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With the media industry facing significant changes and ongoing U.S.-China geopolitical tensions, strategic PR and reputation management have become increasingly important for Chinese companies aiming for overseas markets. This piece offers some perspectives on the current state of Chinese companies' reputation management and recommended strategies for navigating these challenges and enhancing brand influence in international markets

Recently, many American media have been making drastic layoffs. For example, Timemagazine laid off about 15% of its union-represented editorial staff; the Los Angeles Times also launched the largest layoff in the newspaper's 142-year history. According to Pew Research, employment in the U.S. media industry fell by 26% from 2008 to 2020; in 2023, the number of layoffs in the U.S. news industry was close to 2,700, the highest annual number since 2020.

Why now? S…

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I wrote an FT Chinese column story on how Alibaba communicated the Cainiao news and the differences in the U.S. and China. My thesis：

Alibaba's domestic communications strategy in China focuses on creating a positive image of Cainiao’s overall operational growth and bright future ahead. Overseas, it takes on the "investor perspective," emphasizing capital returns. However, it's challenging to cater to both Chinese and English-speaking audiences, and it also raises more questions than answers for Alibaba's attitude towards Cainiao and the real reasons behind the withdrawal of Cainiao's IPO.

The full piece below is translated and edited for clarity.

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I got to bounce ideas with my friend Shu Hu, who has worked for several high-profile tech companies in China in the past decade, and we are going talk about the following "tabooed topics":

• How vital is WeChat as a medium for news and PR in China?

• Can one buy positive coverage in China?

• In China, can negative articles be retracted if companies asked?

• What are some of the Faux Pas when working with US media and reporters? 

She graciously offered her insights and translated her thoughts below, with my edits and additions. 

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A Brief History of Public Relations

The industry of public relations is both ancient and modern. In 1903, Ivy Lee, the father of modern PR and best known for his work with the Rockefeller Family, started his consultancy. Theories of public communication based on persuasion and identity can be traced back to ancient Greece and Aristotle's "Rhetoric."

Publi…

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Following our recent substack collab, and I recorded a podcast episode unpacking Amer Sports’ (Nasdaq: AS) IPO in this piece here.

In the podcast, we also delved deeper as to what could’ve been prepared from the corporate PR side, and whether the China shedding strategy works.

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Last week,’s Helen Davidson reached out to me for a Temu story she’s writing. (The full piece is live now, and you can read it here!) In the same week, I was invited to participate in a one-hour panel discussion about cross-border commerce on Pheonix TV and contribute to an upcoming story in the Rest of the World. And in thinking about what I wanted to say, I went down the rabbit hole on all things on cross border e-commerce, and came out of these experiences thinking more about “PR best practices.”

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Temu’s PR dao of non-action 无为而治

I set out to answer these questions:

1. How does Temu benchmark against other cross-border e-commerce platforms?

2. Does …

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I’ve written a lot of TikTok because it really has all the elements of intrigue. Here are a few reasons:

1. It found success in the social media and culture arena, a feat none of its Chinese peers have managed to conquer.TikTok has taken hostage of American millennials and Gen Z's short attention span, boasting an engaged user base that spends an average of over 90 minutes daily on a platform that started with silly dance videos.

2. TikTok has an internet-famous, heartthrob CEO who gives you advice on the millennial pause. (“Don’t do it,” and here’s to know your meme.)

3. TikTok is the poster child for Chinese companies expanding to US markets. The policy and regulatory treatments it receives will set the precedent for others and be the likely fate of many after it. Amid ongoing political debates about Chinese firms, it's set to be a key issue in the upcoming U.S. presidential election.

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