Hello and welcome to the Intelligence from the Economist. I'm your host, Jason Palmer.

Every weekday we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world.

Staffing the American government is a monumental task. The fact clearly not lost on President

Joe Biden, who had a thousand staff ready to go on his first day in office. So where are

all of his ambassadors and what are the risks of having so few in post? And defining the

boundaries of oceans is not straightforward. Not even the number of oceans in the world

is widely agreed. We look into why it's all more than just words and lines on a map.

First up though. When American markets open today after the long weekend, investors will

be watching Chinese tech giants closely. Last week, D.D., a Chinese ride hailing app listed

on the New York Stock Exchange. It was the biggest American initial public offering of a Chinese

company since the e-commerce behemoth Alibaba listed seven years ago. But then Chinese

regulators put the brakes on, first announcing an investigation into D.D.'s data practices

and then pulling it from China's app stores. D.D. isn't the first firm to fall foul

of fickle regulators, far from it. As its big tech companies stretch their wings in international

markets, China's leadership seems set on bringing them back to Earth.

So the cyberspace administration of China has put out a series of announcements over the

past couple days. D.D. listed in New York on June 30th. Two days later, the regulator

said that it was investigating the company. Two days later, the regulator said that it

would drop the D.D. app from the app store.

John Weinland is the economist, China, business, and finance editor and is based in Hong Kong.

So this is obviously a devastating development for the company. It can no longer acquire new

customers. And it's coming just a few days after the $4.4 billion IPO.

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