In China, 2022 was the year Big Tech changed. Succumbing to a government crackdown and a pandemic that refused to go away, the country’s leading internet conglomerates, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and Tencent Holdings Ltd., experienced their first-ever quarterly revenue drops and cut jobs by the thousands.
The humbling turn resulted from an explicit strategy by the Chinese government and marked the start of a new era in the way China’s tech industry operates. President Xi Jinping has proved willing to sacrifice economic growth and other priorities in exchange for control. For two years, his government squeezed tech giants it once celebrated, while leaving them uncertain about what to expect next.
