What China’s Tech Squeeze Is Doing to Singles’ Day

Since Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. inaugurated Singles’ Day more than a decade ago, the annual event has turned into the world’s biggest shopping spree, one that draws in hundreds of millions of people across the globe. But in the wake of China’s yearlong crackdown on the tech industry, the event this year is a more low-key affair, as the e-commerce giant seeks to turn the focus away from increasing sales and more toward sustainability and philanthropy -- key pillars of President Xi Jinping’s drive to reshape China’s economy.

When Nov. 11 is written numerically -- 11/11 -- the four digits evoke “bare branches,” a Chinese expression for the unattached. On Chinese university campuses in the 1990s, 11/11 evolved into a celebration of being single in a culture where young people face heavy parental pressure to get married -- a counterpoint to Valentine’s Day.