China Decode: China Drops Its Jobs Target, Tencent Buys Back Manus, and the Rise of "Tier 3 City" Living

Hogging seats on a crowded train, not saying excuse me, watching videos on your phone with no headphones in. Sometimes it feels like we don't know how to act anymore. What we have been seeing, increasingly, is people breaking rules. Why should I play by the rules if nobody else is going to do that for me? This week on Explain It to Me, how to mind your manners.

New episodes Sundays wherever you get your podcasts. The number of people now in China in flexible employment is about 320 million workers this year. So this accounts for about 44% of China's workforce. That sounds to me like a very lopsided, very imbalanced. economy that potentially uh could uh engender social stability issues welcome to China Decode i'm Alice Hann.

And I'm James King. In today's episode of China Decode we're discussing economic indicators from unemployment to inflation raising flags, Tencent could buy MANAS back from Meta, and why Gen Z is moving to smaller cities across China looking for a different lifestyle. That's all coming up, but first let's do a quick check-in with how the Chinese markets are starting the week. Markets were down, with the Shanghai composite falling around 2.06% and Shenzhen component dropping 3.48%, partially attributed to risk-off sentiment surrounding escalating US-Iran tensions.

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