Especially Chinese tech companies.

Tencent is investing millions in Reddit.

Which is weird, because Reddit is blocked in China.

So what's their real motivation?

Welcome back to China Uncensored.

I'm Chris Chappell.

Reddit.

The tech company that calls itself

the “front page of the internet”

is looking to expand it.

Reddit has just raised 300 million dollars

in the company's fourth round of funding.

Half of that is from a major Chinese tech company.

But who cares if it's from a Chinese company?

Because this round funding puts Reddit's valuation

at an astronomical 3 billion dollars.

Now that's a lot of money,

especially if you consider what Reddit actually is.

It's basically a no-frills online message board

where people create discussion threads called Subreddits

and then vote up or down posts

they think are awesome or lame.

Example—a Subreddit called 'funny'.

Where Reddit user B_rodriguezzz

posted a photo captioned

Jamaican Super Lotto winner taking NO CHANCES

...was upvoted by 119 thousand people.

Or the Subreddit “Who's the dumbest person you've ever met?”

which features a post by a teacher

about a 9th grade student who allegedly

“ate an entire 24 pack of crayons,

puked,

and then did it again the next day”

and “tazed himself in the neck before a football game.”

NoahtheRed's post was upvoted nearly 18 thousand times.

Anyway, you get the idea.

This company is worth 3 billion dollars.

And that's of course why Chinese tech giant Tencent

is investing a whopping $150 million in Reddit.

Tencent is headed by Ma Huateng,

also known as Pony Ma...

Who's apparently trying to figure out exactly

why offering to invest 150 million in Reddit

has sparked such a torrent of fury.

See, Reddit users started rebelling

as soon as they heard about the Chinese funding deal.

Rebelling how?

By posting content that would be banned in China.

Like Tank Man,

the guy who famously stood up to stop tanks

that were rolling out of Tiananmen Square in 1989

that had just run over pro-democracy protesters,

including these students on hunger strike.

Or also on Tiananmen Square,

but more recently

police brutally arresting practitioners

of the banned Falun Gong spiritual group.

But not all the backlash is gloomy.

There's the cheery design proposal

for Reddit's new logo

featuring Winnie-the-Pooh.

The cuddly bear is often censored in China,

because of its obvious resemblance

to Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

But don't worry,

it's unlikely Xi Jinping will see

all those Winnie-the-Pooh memes,

because since last August,

Reddit itself has has been banned in China.

Now Reddit users are afraid that their beloved platform,

known for uncensored free speech,

is going to get censored to meet

the demands of the Chinese Communist Party.

See, Tencent has a history of censoring things

the CCP doesn't like.

Its Chinese platforms QQ and WeChat

are both heavily censored,

and they work with Chinese authorities

to give them access to user data.

Amnesty International did a report back in 2016

on tech companies protecting users

against threats to privacy

and freedom of expression.

The results?

Not so good for Tencent.

“Chinese firm Tencent came bottom,”

the report reads,

“scoring zero out of 100,

ranked as the company

taking least action on messaging privacy,

and the least transparent.”

Snapchat,

which Tencent owns a 10 percent share of,

came in third from the bottom.

Who would have thought the app

that scans millions of users

with advanced facial recognition technology

so they can wear cute dog ears

would have privacy issues?

But defenders of Tencent's investment in Reddit

say that Tencent is a private company,

so there's no real danger they'd bring in censorship

or leave a back door

for the Chinese communist party to access, right?

Well, Tencent is a private company...

with Chinese characteristics.

What I mean is, in China,

pretty much every company that's made it big,

is only big because it has links to the Communist Party.

Here's Tencent CEO Pony Ma,

and another famous tech CEO, Jack Ma—

no relation—

clapping during a speech Xi Jinping gave

two months ago inside the Great Hall of the People.

Boy, they were given great seats.

In that speech where everyone was forced to clap,

Xi Jinping said that the Communist Party

would maintain leadership “over all tasks.”

That includes tech companies.

Both Jack and Pony were also honored at that event

for their “outstanding contributions” to China's economy.

So yeah, they may be called private companies.

But they're still under the direction of the Party.

According to the Financial Times,

more than 35 Chinese tech companies,

including big ones like Sina and Baidu,

have quietly set up communist party committees,

which “assess a company's daily operations

to ensure they do not stray from party objectives.”

Think of it like your company's HR department,

but one that's working for

the authoritarian state you live under.

You do not want to get called in

for that performance assessment.

But it's not all bad!

Xu Zewei,

founder of Chinese fintech platform 91 Finance,

was quoted in the Financial Times article

as saying that “to be affiliated with the Communist party

is good for our brand”

and “when recruiting,

we specifically seek out party members.”

Trey McArver, co-founder of a consultancy

that advises companies on how to do business in China,

put it even more bluntly.

“No company,

private or state-owned,

gets ahead in China without aligning itself

with the party's larger goals.”

Take a company like Huawei,

the world's biggest telecom equipment maker.

Not only does it make telecom equipment,

but it also helps the communist party

with little things on the side, like espionage.

Just last month,

the Polish government arrested a Huawei employee

on allegations of spying for China.

And federal prosecutors in the United States

are pursuing a criminal investigation of Huawei

for allegedly stealing trade secrets

from American business partners.

Investing in US technology

is one of the Chinese Communist Party's strategic objectives.

And it's not just the well-known companies like Reddit

that they're interested in.

Chinese private companies—which, again,

once they get to a certain size,

pretty much all have links to the Party—

have been investing heavily in Silicon Valley.

That's partly because they want to get in on US technology.

Why?

It's all part of China's secret plan

to rule the world through high-tech.

Just kidding.

It's not a secret plan.

It's called “Made in China 2025”,