Perhaps more than any other country, China has sought to harness the potential of data to transform its economy.
Photographer: Qilai Shen/BloombergThe Big Take
China's Didi Crackdown Is All About Controlling Big Data
Shortly after Beijing’s shock cybersecurity probe into Didi Global Inc., Chinese social media users furiously passed around a 2015 story on the Uber-like app that showed what might be spooking President Xi Jinping.
Screenshots circulated of a breezy state media report on a Didi study that revealed how bureaucrats used the company’s services on two sweltering July days in Beijing. Using playful charts, it showed that traffic at the Ministry of Public Security was among the busiest, while China’s anti-corruption agency was relatively quiet.