What do you think of the trend of American business executives visiting China? Let me know your thoughts at zeyi@technologyreview.com.

Catch up with China

1. Montana’s TikTok ban could be another “junk internet bill”—highly politicized and unlikely to survive judicial review. (MIT Technology Review)

2. Sunday marked the 34th anniversary of the protest and massacre in Tiananmen Square. 

• Every year in Hong Kong, people have gathered in a public park to hold a vigil. This year, the vigil was blocked by a food carnival hosted by pro-Beijing groups in the same park. (Wall Street Journal $)
• People who tried to take candles out were taken away by police. (Reuters $)
• The vigils and protests have been carried on by people overseas. (CNN)

3. Shein, the Chinese fashion e-commerce company that has attracted a large Gen Z following, has hired Washington lobbyists for the first time, to respond to allegations of forced labor practices. (Politico)

4. Defense officials around the world are gathering in Singapore this week for the high-level Shangri-la Dialogue. (CNBC)

• Meanwhile, spy masters are having a separate, secret meeting in the same city. (Reuters $)
• CIA director Bill Burns also had a secret trip to China last month, meeting Beijing’s intelligence officials. (Financial Times $)

5. As Pride month begins, China’s LGBTQ communities are losing their few support groups as they are squeezed by the government to shut down operations. (The Economist $)

6. Local police in China are increasingly dealing with a new type of scam: people are using generative AI tools to impersonate others and request money transfers from the victim’s contacts. (Wall Street Journal $)

Lost in translation

Would you spend $1 a month to have unlimited chats with a simulacrum of your favorite influencer? Xiaoice, a Chinese AI company, just offered this service. Every Thursday from now on, the company will release a new “AI clone” of a Chinese influencer (the first is designed around a 20-something female model named Hu Wenjie, better known by her online alias 半藏森林). Users can converse by text and voice with such AI chatbots. If they spend 30 RMB ($4.22) a month, the “influencer” will double as an office assistant and help with tasks like writing marketing copy. (Why would you want your influencer to do that?) The service has a strong romantic tone: the basic subscription is called the “relationship mode.” For now, the majority of the profits go to the influencer, according to a report by Chinese state broadcaster CCTV.

One more thing

The latest viral social media trend in China is packing a lunch that’s simple and sometimes too bland to eat and calling it 白人饭—literally, “white people food.” It’s surely a dig at the quick lunches in American food culture, but there are also people who say they’re doing it to lose weight or to forgo complicated food prep.