Decoding China’s tech frontier—AI, robotics, EVs, and more. Based in Hangzhou, China, we’re a small reporting team from a decade old Chinese tech media 差评 (Chaping).
The tech story you aren’t being told.
Something is happening in China’s tech world that the English-speaking world rarely sees.
The information exists in abundance, but it remains siloed, locked behind Mandarin language barriers, inside institutions that never hold press conferences, and within the minds of engineers who have little reason to look outward. The filtering that happens between “there” and “here” isn’t just a nuance; it’s a massive distortion that compounds with every passing year.
We’ve spent a decade closing that gap.
Since 2015, our team has built deep, quiet relationships across China’s technology ecosystem. We don’t rely on press credentials or conference invites. Instead, we speak directly with the research institutions, the product managers inside the giants, and the executives shaping the industry’s trajectory. This is the kind of access that can’t be bought or fast-tracked. It only comes from being present, consistently, for over ten years.
X.PIN is what we’re doing with it.
X.PIN 差评
Founded over a decade ago, Chaping (差评) began with a simple mission: to make complex technology trends accessible to everyone. What started as a small team has evolved into one of China’s most influential tech media platforms, now reaching over 149 million people and generating 5 billion annual views.
Our Reach
WeChat (newsletters): Over 6 million followers
Douyin (short form videos): Over 4.7 million followers
Bilibili (long form videos): Over 3.3 million followers
All Platforms: Over 29 million followers
Our reporting has even caught the attention of industry giants. People like Pony Ma (Tencent), Lei Jun (Xiaomi), and Robin Li (Baidu) follow our updates.
As the tech landscape becomes increasingly global, we realized that information gaps don’t just exist within China, they exist between China and the rest of the world. To address this, we launched our English-language brand, X.PIN, to share high-value, first-hand insights with an international audience.
Beyond Substack, our new YouTube channel XPIN creates simple tech explainers for a broader audience. Feel free to check it out.
