but they aren't. Regulation of tech really only started in earnest only a few years ago. Before that there was barely any privacy frameworks, there was hardly any oversight into anything, and as a result the Chinese tech sector was basically in a Wild West state which accounts for much of its very rapid growth. The state was so absent that private tech companies tried to sabotage each other to gain advantages.

One interesting example from the last decade is the "3Q War" between Tencent and Qihoo, which ended in Tencent essentially blocking use of its own messaging client when they detected that people used Qihoo 360. It's as if Youtube decided to stop operating on any device that had TikTok installed.

There's countless of startup stories like this that would have ended in front of a judge or regulator anywhere else within a week, but in China for a very long time nothing really happened. Chinese 'growth hacks' and profit driven behaviour makes SV look well behaved in comparison.

This completely wrong idea that somehow every aspect of the Chinese economy is strictly regulated is one of the results of this distorted overhyped view people have of the Chinese government.