CHINA Trends and Developments Contributed by: Greg Hallahan, Amanda Rasmussen and Kristine Kwok, Secretariat
• RedNote: a lifestyle platform for sharing short videos and posts, similar to TikTok (and which is experiencing a surge in popularity among overseas users given the recent travails of TikTok); • Xueqiu and Tonghuashun: forums for discuss - ing specific interests via keywords and topics similar to Reddit; and • Zhihu: a question-and-answer platform which is broadly equivalent to Quora. While these public forums are vibrant, using social media to identify information about par - ticular individuals in China can be challenging. WeChat, the primary social media platform used by individuals for information sharing and main - taining social networks in China, is entirely pri - vate. Until 2021 the international professional net - working platform LinkedIn, as well as some local equivalents such as Renren, were widely used in China. There are no longer any similar, wide - ly used public professional networking social media platforms. In locations where most individuals use interna - tional social media accounts such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and X, deep web searches often allow investigators to identify accounts, email addresses and phone numbers associated with individuals and to identify other people and entities with whom they maintain connections. This is not possible in China. Other useful sources of information The Central Government Procurement Cen - tre maintains a database of a large number of government tenders, ranging from requests for medical devices for hospitals, to renovation pro - jects to improve the energy savings and fire pro - tection for local buildings.
Tender documents include the name and price of the winning bidder, which is helpful for under - standing the legitimacy and scope of an entity’s business operations. For example, in one case a pattern of bids over time that indicated a group of contractors and subcontractors were working together to collude on tenders was identified. The China National Intellectual Property Admin - istration publishes details of all applications and licences relating to patents, copyrights and trade marks. Searches can be conducted by appli - cant, owner, inventor as well as associated text or type of intellectual property. These checks are frequently used to help establish the veracity of claims in disputes and the nature and activity of business operations. The China Customs Bureau does not release shipping records, but it is possible to see bills of lading showing imports and exports to/from China via China’s trading partners, such as the United States. US shipping records, for example, disclose the identities of the consignee and the shipper, product description, HS code, quantity, weight and value. These records help to support or refute claims about the transfer of goods in shipping disputes. For example, it was recently shown that bills of lading provided in an insurance claim were likely falsified because no matching records of goods shipped and delivered were found in the trade data. Some city governments provide rent subsidies for employees of local enterprises to attract talent. Eligible employees receive payments in addition to their salaries of between approxi - mately RMB1,000 and RMB3,000 (USD140 and USD400) per month. Some cities publish lists of those receiving rent subsidies which include
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