Thinking About China
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China’s Tencent Allowed Sale of Australian PM’s 76,000 WeChat Followers

China’s Tencent Allowed Sale of Australian PM’s 76,000 WeChat Followers
The messenger app WeChat is seen next to its logo in this illustration picture taken on Aug. 7, 2020. Florence Lo/Reuters
Anders Corr
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News Analysis

Australia’s conservative prime minister, Scott Morrison, got a shock when China’s WeChat social media app gave his 76,000 followers two lousy choices: opt out within 24 hours and get your followers deleted along with Morrison’s account reassignment, or get signed up automatically to the replacement, called “Australia China New Life.”

Anders Corr
Anders Corr
Author
Anders Corr has a bachelor's/master's in political science from Yale University (2001) and a doctorate in government from Harvard University (2008). He is a principal at Corr Analytics Inc. and publisher of the Journal of Political Risk, and has conducted extensive research in North America, Europe, and Asia. His latest books are “The Concentration of Power: Institutionalization, Hierarchy, and Hegemony” (2021) and “Great Powers, Grand Strategies: the New Game in the South China Sea" (2018).
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