Our inaugural piece focuses on mental health and the wave of people informally “diagnosing” themselves with ADHD on Red Note. It’s not that different from the old habit of cross-checking every rash on WebMD—and now asking ChatGPT about every symptom—but it points to something larger. As the outside world feels stagnant, this becomes an extension of the logic of 躺平 (“lying flat”) by turning inward: if you can’t move the system, you start scanning and reinterpreting yourself, trying to make peace with what you can’t change.

For an older generation in China, anxiety didn’t really have a psychological vocabu…

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The White House would like the TikTok chapter to read as closure. It isn’t. The executive order did something narrower: it set up a U.S. vehicle fronted by Oracle, Silver Lake, and Abu Dhabi’s MGX at roughly half ownership, pushed ByteDance below twenty percent, and kept the app running by licensing a copy of the recommendation engine to be retrained and audited in the United States. Enforcement is paused for 120 days to December 16, even as the Supreme Court has upheld the 2024 sale-or-ban law. This is not a clean break; it is a political workaround. The vector of influence is just rearranged, not removed.

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That conditionality is the headline. On the very day the EO landed, I went on the BBC to make the point that TikTok’s five-year saga shows that in the U.S. market, success can be achieved and then renegotiated.

The licensing workaround ultimately hinges on China…

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My nieces and nephews play make-believe store at home and there is no physical money involved. They hold out their arms to me and the watch pops a QR code. I scan with Alipay or WeChat Pay, give them real money, and the game goes on.

The watch is also the screen you do not put down, because for children in China, their social life now lives on their wrists. The category leader is Little Genius, 小天才, branded as imoo outside China. I wanted to understand how these watches took the market, the long-term implications for kids, and the China context that allowed this mark…

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But what do consumption and standards look like during an economic downturn?

Labubu might be the answer.

I’ve been back in China for about a month and found myself repeatedly drawn to Pop Mart stores. Across the cities I’ve visited—Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, Suzhou, Wuhan—I walked into at least half a dozen locations. For research, I told myself.

No matter the city, Pop Mart stores had shoppers, unlike many of their retail peers. At Wuhan’s SKP mall, nearly empty on a weekday evening, the only store with customers and purchasing happening was Pop Mart on the B1 level.

There’s plenty to look at and plenty to buy. But the m…

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In a recent Rest of World story, one founder framed it this way:

“DeepSeek has shown us that as long as our product is competitive, we should not worry too much about being a Chinese company.”

But that optimism is still fragile—and perhaps a bit premature.

Even as DeepSeek makes waves, the rest of the ecosystem hasn’t exactly followed.

Recently, Semafor reported that the U.S. Treasury is reviewing Benchmark Capital’s $75 million investment in Manus, an AI company founded by Chinese technologists. Manus is incorporated in the Cayman Islands, stores its data outside China, and has a team that spans Singapore, Japan, the U.S., and China. In other words, it looks like any globally ambitious tech startup. But none of that has stopped the scrutiny.

In fact, the investment sparked public backlash from other VCs.

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It was a fascinating discussion of everything from China’s evolving demographics, the shifting mindsets of the young generation, and social identity in the underemployment and unemployment environments. We hit all the buzzwords du jour: “lying flat,” “involution,” “quality children” and “three-child policy,” “invisible labor of mothers” (ok, this is not as buzzy, but let’s talk about it more) and took apart these topics from a gender and cultural lens.

And speaking of cultural phenomenons, my previous post on live streaming

in China was partially inspired by an interview I did with New York Times’ Muyi Xiao,…

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I’m so excited to share with you my first Op-Ed for The Wire China titled “The Dilemma of the China Shedding Strategy”. The publication has long been my trusted source for insightful analysis on China's global business influence, and it’s a personal milestone to be able to share my thoughts on The Wire China.

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My piece focuses on Hillhouse and GGV’s “China Shedding Strategy.” I first wrote about this idea in the context of Temu and Shein downplaying their Chinese identity.

I argued that the best way to defend corporate reputation is to shape those ideas and play offense. Actions must ultimately match the perceived reputation, but as you will read in the Op-Ed, that’s often not the case.

In a nutshell, the funds' are pursuing a"China Shedding Strategy" because of the following reasons:

• Shifting allocation and investment priorities of US institutional investors like pension funds

• New proposed U.S. restrictions on investments in Chinese techn…

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Happy New Year! I just got back from Italy, and what a trip! I saw tourists sporting Huawei and Oppo phones at the ancient ruins of Pompeii, stumbled upon not one but two Miniso stores in Naples, paid tribute at the Patheon to the QUEEN who gave the world Margherita pizza (God bless you, Margherita Savoia), and experienced firsthand the passion of Neapolitan soccer fans at the Napoli vs. Monza match (a nail-biting 0:0). But yes, I came out in one piece!

And I gave a lot of thought to the themes of 2024 while in transit, and here is a running list of things I will pay close attention to:

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1. The Global EV Race
   In 2023, China's electric vehicle (EV) sales exceeded nine million units, a staggering six times more than the U.S. Chinese EV companies like BYD, XPeng, and Nio have been eyeing the U.S. and EU markets for a while.

   While they employ sophisticated marketing and customer segmentation strategies in China, their entry into EU and U.S. mar…

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Public announcement: Starting in September, I will take on selective consulting and advisory projects again. If you plan to build or revamp your corporate narrative strategy, let’s chat. https://waveletnyc.com

Last October, I started writing about Temu, a subsidiary of Pinduoduo (PDD), just a month after its US launch. Despite a low-key start, the app swiftly climbed to the top of the Android download charts within two weeks of launch.

Temu then embarked on an aggressive social media and advertising campaign. I wrote about its kitschy Super Bowl debut and why it was an ill-advised marketing strategy at the time. I mean, why splurge tens of millions of dollars just to win the second-to-worst Super Bowl ad of the year?

Read the full piece inbelow:

Pekingnology

Op-Ed: “Billionaire” Splurge: Temu’s Super Bowl Debut

Super Bowl, the culmination of America's favorite sport, had an unexpected advertiser this year. Temu, Chinese e-commerce juggernaut Pinduoduo's overseas e-commerce platform, ran two 30-second commercials during the Super Bowl with the theme "Shop Like a Billionaire." This year a 30-second ad costs roughly $7 million. What exactly did Temu want and get …

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3 years ago · 7 likes · 2 comments · Ivy Yang

Since then, Temu has barely stayed out of the spotlight and dragged its archenemy Shein into it, too (not that it really needed the help).

Untangling the Shein and Temu Background Story

The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission penne…

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