This week we saw the Chinese government decide it was time to cut some of the country’s most successful businesses down to size. While the Chinese Communist Party is always keen to make sure no person or company gets too powerful, this time it has turned its attention to an entire sector. Chinese internet companies, that had been a runaway success story to rival their western counterparts like Google, eBay and Facebook, now appear to have a smaller part to play in the nation’s development. While it’s not possible to know what’s on the mind of the political party, it seems a renewed focus on hard tech, manufacturing, and engineering rather than consumer services has something to do with it.
Elsewhere it appears the fight against the Delta variant of Covid-19 might be turning a corner. The number of new cases in the UK has started to fall after rising exponentially for weeks, while vaccination rates in much of Europe have picked up significantly after a slow start. However, the UK’s decision not to vaccinate teenagers looks to be limiting the number of people left to get a jab.
Read what the team at FE consider to be significant over the current week.