China’s tech crackdown is upending lives from Beijing to Kentucky

Sheng Gang, a driver who works for several ride-hailing apps including Didi, in Shanghai, China. After kicking off a year ago, China’s big tech crackdown has forever changed the lives of hundreds of millions of people in China and beyond. — Bloomberg

For the past five years, Catrina Cowart started most of her days at 5am with a livestreamed call from China. Through a tutoring app called VIPKid, the freelance writer in Lexington, Kentucky earned US$21 (RM87) an hour teaching English to Chinese kids, more than what she would have made at a local school. But her routine ended this summer after Beijing decreed a large portion of its US$100bil (RM415.05bil) private education sector illegal.

In moves that were much harsher than expected, Chinese regulators in July banned institutions teaching the school curriculum from raising capital, going public or even making profits. Also prohibited was the hiring of foreign tutors, who over the years made billions of dollars for burgeoning startups like VIPKid. While Beijing’s ban was intended to prevent companies from capitalising on parental paranoia, tens of thousands of American instructors paid a toll. For Cowart, losing the steady income stream is manageable, but what’s more difficult is cutting ties with her students, many of whom had been with her since they were toddlers.