PetroChina Official's Affair Spawns Fashion Critiques

Hu and Dong as they walked down "Douyin Street"

There's a street in Chengdu that's nicknamed "Douyin Street" or "TikTok Street", a main pedestrian area where street photographers hang out to catch wannabe models strutting their stuff -- or maybe a Chinese official holding hands with his alleged mistress.

That was what happened to Hu Jiyong, now a former Party Committee Secretary and executive director and general manager of Beijing Huanqiu Construction Co, a subsidiary of PetroChina.

He was summarily fired from his posts and faces an investigation from a disciplinary committee after a video of him and a younger woman was posted on Douyin by a street photographer.

Hu looks much younger in these manga versions

It was after the clip of the couple was posted did some viewers recognised Hu and his supposed mistress, Dong Sijin, who was also a PetroChina employee (also sacked).

In the video they turn heads because Hu wears a pink polo shirt that matches Dong's pink and lime green dress that netizens have described as "a mistress dress" -- now nicknamed "dismissal dress". Not only that, but she was holding a limited edition mini hibiscus Lady Dior handbag that costs around US$6,100.

Perhaps what was even more intriguing about the whole incident was that the couple knew they were being photographed and filmed and didn't act like they had anything to hide.

So Hu has lost his job, probably his girlfriend and his wife too, but he and Dong are forever immortalised in a series of memes from manga to Lego, to a guy in a dress holding hands with another man in a pink polo.

And here's the Lego version

Oh and yes that "mistress dress" is doing a hot trade on Taobao, with some 4,000 orders for the dress. Overwhelmed by the demand, the online store even asked customers to "shop rationally".

There probably isn't the same demand for the designer handbag though.

Nevertheless, some netizens could not understand why someone would want to dress like Dong, while others lamented how it was difficult to pull of wearing pink. One person even defended the dress, writing: "Every dress is probably worn by a mistress at one point. The dress is innocent!"

Chinese Billionaires Drop Off Rich List

Zhong of Nongfu Spring is China's wealthiest man

China's Covid-19 restrictions which severely slowed down the economy, and the depreciation of the yuan led to 229 people losing their billionaire status, according to a new rich list compiled by Hurun Report.

They accounted for more than half of the 445 people worldwide who lost their status as US-dollar billionaires, and as a result dropped off the Hurun Global Rich List. This is the biggest decline in Chinese billionaires since the list was first published in 2013.

However at the same time, China added the largest number of new billionaires at 69, based on their net worth as of January 16 this year.

Tencent's Ma has a net worth of US$39 billion

Topping the list is Zhong Shanshan, 69, founder of water bottle brand Nongfu Spring with US$69 billion, down 4 percent year on year. He is also the world's 15th richest person.

Next is Pony Ma, 52, of Tencent with US$39 billion, up two spots from last year despite losing 25 percent of his net worth. Ma is followed closely by TikTok parent company Bytedance's Zhang Yiming, 40, whose wealth shrank by 31 percent to US$37 billion. 

Alibaba founder Jack Ma Yun dropped from fifth to ninth place, as his net worth fell 32 percent to US$25 billion, and makes him the 52nd wealthiest person in the world.

Li Ka-shing continues to be Hong Kong's wealthiest person and 39th richest in the world at US$31 billion, a drop of 6 percent from a year ago.

Zhang still US$37B rich despite TikTok bans

"Interest rate hikes, the appreciation of the US dollar, the popping of a Covid-19-driven tech bubble and the continued impact of the Russia-Ukraine war have all combined to hurt stock markets," said Rupert Hoogewerf, chairman and chief researcher of Hurun Report, a consultancy.

Nevertheless, China's economy expanded 3 percent in 2022, one of its slowest rates of growth in decades because of the severe zero-Covid-19 strategy that caused multiple city lockdowns and manufacturing suspensions that have resulted in multinational companies looking elsewhere to ease supply chain issues.

However, Hoogewerf seems to think Chinese entrepreneurs will look abroad for expansion. "Chinese entrepreneurs will actively look to expand abroad from this year as they have a global perspective," he says. "The reopening gives them opportunities to copy their growth model [in China] to other countries."

Really?

Hoogewerf says China businesses will go abroad

China limits how much money people and presumably companies can take out of the country, and the central government has a more isolationist focus than wanting to go overseas. Those expansion days of snapping up foreign brands are over.

To think they can replicate their success at home to other countries is naive thinking, as business and labour regulations are very different.

Other countries' governments may not want Chinese companies coming to their shores either, with TikTok being the most recent example of being banned from civil servants' devices.

Canada Bans Tik Tok on Govt Phones

Canada follows the EU and US in Tik Tok ban

The Canadian government has followed the United States in removing and blocking the video-sharing platform Tik Tok from all government-issued smartphones due to security reasons from February 28.

In an email sent to Global Affairs employees said the Chief Information Officer made the decision following a review which found that Tik Tok's data collection methods could lead to cyber attacks.

"The Government of Canada continuously works to ensure the cyber security of our networks by identifying threats and vulnerabilities, including those on social media platforms," the email said.

Parent company ByteDance stores data in China

"The government will continue to monitor the situation and will work with partners to keep the information on our systems and networks secure."

But why would anyone install Tik Tok on a government-issued phone in the first place? How many would have done so?

If anything Tik Tok is a time suck -- getting viewers to watch endless 30-second videos about a whole range of subjects, mostly mindless. And it is this monitoring of users' watching habits and their information is the data that Tik Tok's parent company ByteDance wants, and that it is stored in China.

Nevertheless hopefully this will be a wake-up call to people using Tik Tok to understand they have no control over where their information is extracted from and kept, and perhaps they should think twice about having Tik Tok on their phones.

Canada is following the European Commission and European Council, several American state governments, and most US federal government employees in barring the app on government-issued phones.

Trudeau says this ban could be the first step

While the US Congress is debating a bill which would ban Tik Tok across the country, Prime Minster Justin Trudeau hasn't said whether Canada would do the same.

"This may be the first step, it may be the only step we need to take, but every step of the way we're going to be making sure we're keeping Canadians safe," he said. 

"Certainly, I suspect that as government takes the significant step of telling all federal employees they can no longer use Tik Tok on their work phones, many Canadians... will reflect on the security of their own data and perhaps make choices in consequence."

So does this mean Trudeau is finally coming around to possibility of Chinese interference in Canada and that it must be stopped in every possible way?