China’s techlash gains steam. Again

FIRST IT WAS fintech. Last November China’s Communist rulers abruptly suspended the $37bn initial public offering (IPO) of Ant Group, a financial-technology titan, and forced it to modify its asset-light business into something more like a bank. Since then they have pursued other internet giants. The two biggest, Alibaba and Tencent, have been targeted by trustbusters. This month regulators banned Didi Global’s ride-hailing app over data transgressions, days after the firm’s $4bn IPO in New York. And on July 24th, in the clearest sign yet that the government wants to revise its state-capitalist model into something with less global capitalism and more Chinese state, online-education companies were told they can no longer make a profit or use offshore vehicles that enable their shares to be traded abroad.