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Explainers

In-depth guides that explain China’s technology, policy, and business landscape — from chipmaking and AI to space, energy, and geopolitics. Built for readers who want context, not just headlines.

Li Auto’s Product Reset Is Improving. The Hard Part Comes in Q4

What Is Happening at Li Auto Right Now? Li Auto, one of China's most closely watched electric and range-extended vehicle makers, is navigating a classic product-cycle squeeze: it is simultaneously retiring its existing lineup, launching replacements, and trying to prove that its newer pure-electric vehicles

Why DeepSeek's Price Hike Matters: China's AI Compute Supply Chain Explained

What Happened — And Why It's More Than a Pricing Story In mid-August 2026, DeepSeek adjusted its API prices twice within seven days. The first move raised the peak-hour output price for its flagship V4-Pro model from ¥6 to ¥27 per million tokens — a 350% increase

Leapmotor vs. Xpeng: Two Roads to Profitability in China's EV Industry

Both companies posted roughly ¥35 billion in first-half revenue. One turned a profit. The other spent twice as much on R&D. Here's why that gap tells a larger story about how China's EV shakeout is unfolding. What Is This About? China's

Why China's Tech Giants Are Selling Off Their Gaming Assets

Alibaba and ByteDance have exited major gaming investments. Here's the structural logic behind the retreat — and what it reveals about where Chinese tech is heading. What Is Happening? Two of China's largest internet conglomerates have divested significant gaming assets within a short window of time. Alibaba

China's AI Healthcare Market: A ¥150B Industry Still Searching for a Business Model

What Is AI Healthcare — and Why Does It Keep Attracting Capital? AI healthcare refers to the application of artificial intelligence across the medical value chain: helping doctors read scans, accelerating drug discovery, guiding surgical planning, and managing chronic conditions at scale. In China, the sector has attracted successive waves of

Zhipu’s GLM-5.3 Shows Why Better AI Models No Longer Move the Market

As Chinese AI labs iterate flagship models every two months, the era of benchmark-driven hype is giving way to a harder question: who can turn capability into recurring revenue? What Is This About? In August 2026, Zhipu AI released GLM-5.3, its latest flagship large language model. By

Tencent's AI Pivot: What the "Midway Moment" Thesis Really Means

Why a surge in capital spending—not a product launch—may signal the most consequential shift in China's AI race What Is the "Midway Moment" Thesis? In mid-2026, Bank of America Merrill Lynch described Tencent's accelerating AI investment as its "Battle of

Unitree Robotics IPO: What China's First Humanoid Robot Stock Tells Us About the Industry

When Unitree Robotics (688836.SH) opened for trading on Shanghai's STAR Market on August 19, 2026, its shares surged 629% above the issue price in the first minutes of trading — valuing the company at RMB 444.9 billion. The listing wasn't just a market event. It

How Geely Grew Profit Per Car by RMB 2,100 While Rivals Bled

What Is This About? China's auto market in 2026 is defined by a relentless price war. Most automakers are caught in a painful trade-off: sell more units, earn less per unit. Yet Geely Automobile's H1 2026 results broke that pattern in a measurable way. In

China's AIGC Entertainment Race: 12 Companies, One Market

The question in China's AI-generated content sector has shifted. It is no longer "which model produces the most impressive video clip." It is now "who can build a reliable, controllable, and monetizable content production system at scale." That distinction matters enormously—and it