The Tiger Who Came to Tea — Didi-China Style
Beijing may once have cared about foreign market sentiment when it needed capital, but it’s now flush and will do what it wants, when it wants.
Party animal.
Photographer: Freder/iStockphotoMany children love “The Tiger Who Came to Tea,” the story of an uninvited carnivore who decides to spend an afternoon with a little girl named Sophie and her mother. Though ostensibly polite, the animal consumed everything: all the tea, all the food, all the water from the taps. Sophie’s family restocked the kitchen, even bought special tiger food, but the big cat — who blew out the word “goodbye” from a trumpet — never showed up again.
This fable reminds me of China. The government, always keen to have a good party itself, does not care if it crashes those of others. The latest data security probe on ride-hailing giant Didi Global Inc. is an example of behavior by a plus-size, self-absorbed feline that doesn’t take overseas market niceties into account.