ALL EYES ON MEITUAN DIANPING

ALL EYES ON MEITUAN DIANPING

Chinas State Administration for Market Regulation on April 26 launched an investigation into the shopping platform and food delivery giant Meituan Dianping for alleged monopoly conduct including the implementation of an “exclusive dealing agreement.”

Meituan was also found to have coerced merchants into ending their transactions with its competitors.

Wang Xing， 42， born in Fujian Province， is the founder and CEO of Meituan. He graduated from Tsinghua University with a bachelors degree in electronic engineering in 2001， and went on to receive his masters degree in computer engineering from the University of Delaware in 2005.

In 2010， he founded the group-buying site Meituan. It was hugely successful and merged with Dianping in 2015 to become Meituan Dianping， which went public on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 2018. As of January 2021， Forbes estimated Wangs net worth at$28.8 billion.

Shared Parking

Economic Daily April 26

Searching for parking space has long been a headache for those residing in Chinas metropolises， especially for those working in the central business districts of the first- and second-tier cities. Data show that as of late 2020， there was a shortage of some 80 million parking spaces across the country.

Most recently， Haidian District in Beijing launched a shared parking initiative accompanied by a kind of “parking subsidy.” Residents can get a subsidy of 150 yuan （$23.14） per month， provided by parking management companies， for choosing staggered shared parking. About 25 to 30 percent of Beijing parking lots are left empty； by sharing parking space， the crush on parking lots will be alleviated and their actual usage rate will go up.

Smart technologies， too， can come in handy when solving Chinas parking problems. With shared parking services such as smart apps in place， users can rent surplus parking spots for a time span as short as one hour or as long as a few months.

Expectations are that all regions will come up with more measures to improve governance efficiency， to form a shared parking development model that benefits citizens and activates parking space resources.

Mission of Universities

Outlook Weekly April 26

Chinas esteemed Tsinghua University celebrated its 110th anniversary on April 25. Over the past 110 years since its inception， Tsinghua has cultivated pioneers in the fields of science， engineering， business， culture and politics.