Podcast: What do China’s unicorns tell us about the country?

Unicorns are supposed to be rare but in China’s tech scene, they’re becoming ordinary. In fact, according to The Economist, the number of billion-dollar firms in the country has doubled in the last five years to more than 300.

A recent episode of the publication’s Drum Tower podcast dove into what the emergence of these unicorns shows us about the country’s economic priorities.

Hosted by two of The Economist‘s China correspondents, Alice Su and Don Weinland, the episode also looked into how these tech unicorns fit into President Xi Jinping’s plans for “self-reliance.”

Here are four highlights we picked out:

7:16 – Why state-owned companies own a lot more of China’s rising startups now compared to before.

9:07 – Why foreign investors are playing an increasingly smaller role in China’s tech scene.

17:00 – Why Chinese chipmakers make up a large proportion of the country’s new unicorns but are trying to fly under the radar.

24:44 – Whether the Chinese tech scene is driving innovation or is one big state-sponsored bubble.