Why is China targeting its own internet companies? - a podcast by Marketplace

For months, the Chinese government has been putting pressure on big tech companies. It penalized the recently public ride-hailing company Didi for how it collected user data. It blocked two major video game streaming platforms from combining, hit e-commerce giant Alibaba with a nearly $3 billion antitrust fine and this week, a state-run newspaper called online games “spiritual opium.” But the crackdown hasn’t been targeting all tech companies equally. Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino speaks with Greg Ip, the chief economics commentator for The Wall Street Journal. He writes that the government views the tech industry in two distinct ways: the nice-to-haves and the need-to-haves.

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