Burger King China JV 🍔 Apple–Tencent Agreement 📱 Neuro Drug Breakthrough 🧠

China Insights Weekly for November 17. Unpacking China’s economic and technological advances.

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Tomas Kucera & Yereth Jansen
November 17, 2025

2025-11-17 | subscribe | homepage

Welcome back to China Insights Weekly. Here are some of the key highlights for this week’s edition:

  • Temasek boosts China robotaxis, adding fresh stakes in WeRide and Pony.ai

  • NEVs pass 50% of new car sales, with Xiaomi’s YU7 beating the Model Y

  • China’s rich lead global art spending, with the highest budgets and top-tier buys

  • Shanghai court says AI prompts lack originality, denying copyright protection

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🚀 Headlines

Restaurant Brands International to form joint venture for Burger King China to accelerate expansion (link)

Toronto, Canada-based Restaurant Brands International (RBI) has formed a joint venture with Chinese asset manager CPE to operate Burger King in China. Under the deal, CPE will own approximately 83% of Burger King China, while RBI will hold a minority stake of about 17%. CPE plans to invest USD 350 million into the venture to fund marketing, menu innovation, and a major expansion. The joint venture aims to more than double the chain's market footprint, growing from around 1,250 current locations to over 4,000 by 2035. This move follows the RBI's earlier acquisition of its equity interests from previous partners, the Turkish-based operator TFI and the U.S.-based private equity firm Cartesian Capital, for about USD 158 million.

Singapore’s Temasek Holdings revealed in 3Q 2025 13F filings that it bought 1.4 million WeRide and 14,500 Pony.ai shares, worth ~US$13.7 million, in the two U.S.-listed Chinese robotaxi firms that began Hong Kong trading last week. The 51-year-old sovereign wealth fund’s USD 29 billion U.S. securities portfolio now contains ~USD 2 billion across 16 U.S.-listed Chinese names, underscoring its sustained bet on China-linked future-mobility technologies.

Xiaomi's YU7 electric SUV won the "Best Structure" award, the top honor at the 2025 International Die Casting Competition judged by the North American Die Casting Association (NADCA). The award recognizes its 20-in-1 integrated die-cast aluminium triangular beam. Combined with a cell-to-body (CTB) battery architecture, this component helps the YU7 achieve a torsional rigidity of 47,610 N·m/deg. The recognition comes alongside strong market performance; in October 2025, Xiaomi's wholesale volumes for the YU7 in China exceeded 33,662 units, surpassing the Tesla Model Y.

Shoppers are adding to cart for the holidays

Over the next year, Roku predicts that 100% of the streaming audience will see ads. For growth marketers in 2026, CTV will remain an important “safe space” as AI creates widespread disruption in the search and social channels. Plus, easier access to self-serve CTV ad buying tools and targeting options will lead to a surge in locally-targeted streaming campaigns.

Read our guide to find out why growth marketers should make sure CTV is part of their 2026 media mix.

In October, new energy vehicles (NEVs) accounted for over half of China's new car sales for the first time, reaching a landmark 52% share with sales of 1.72 million units, a 20% year-on-year increase. Overall vehicle sales rose 8.8% to 3.32 million. NEV production also constituted 53% of total output, soaring 21% to 1.77 million units. Auto exports jumped 23% to 666,000, with NEV exports nearly doubling to 256,000. Chery led with 126,000 exports, while BYD's surged 180% to 84,000. For the first ten months, total NEV production and sales both climbed 33% to 13.02 million and 12.94 million units, respectively.

Integrated die-cast aluminium component contributes to YU7’s torsional rigidity and frunk efficiency.

Chinese Mainland’s rich are biggest spenders on art for second straight year (link)

According to the Art Basel and UBS Survey of Global Collecting 2024, mainland Chinese collectors were the world's biggest art spenders in 2023 and the first half of 2024, with a median expenditure of USD 97,000 in H1 2024, more than double that of any other region. Their collections contain the highest share of top-tier artists (41%). While appetite for blue-chip art remains strong, collectors are becoming more selective, with reduced activity in the mid-tier. Just over half of their expenditure was on new and emerging artists, showing a pivot towards local talent. Paintings dominated, accounting for 49% of spending by value.

Tan Jing’s solo show presented by Mangrove Gallery at Art Basel Hong Kong 2024.

Apple and Tencent ended a year-long stand-off on 14 Nov by setting a 15% App Store commission on WeChat mini-app purchases, half the standard 30% “Apple tax” for large developers earning over USD 1 million. Tencent reported social network revenue from WeChat mini-games reached CNY32.3 billion (USD4.6 billion) in Q3, with over 80% of the 400,000 developers being small teams with less than 30 people. Apple's service revenue, including the App Store, hit a record USD28.8 billion in its fiscal Q4. The move not only provides developers with better revenue-sharing conditions but also encourages growth in digital content consumption. The collaboration marks a strategic shift in Apple’s approach to the Chinese market.

Chinese streaming platform iQiyi has presented the first awards for its AI short film competition, which attracted 2,300 submissions from creators in over 30 countries. Eleven awards were given, including one first prize, three second prizes, and five third prizes. The contest required one-to-five-minute films created using ByteDance's Doubao and Google's Veo 3 tools. The first-prize winner completed the film "Under the Fireworks Lies My Home" in 10 days. Concurrently, iQiyi launched a dedicated AI Theater channel for AI-generated dramas longer than 15 minutes, marking a significant step in its AI content strategy that began in 2018.

Shanghai’s Huangpu District People’s Court ruled on 7 Nov that six Midjourney prompts created by a visual-art firm lack originality and are “ideas, not expressions,” so they cannot be copyrighted under Chinese law; the suit against two defendants accused of re-using the prompts on Xiaohongshu was dismissed, setting a precedent that AI prompts enjoy no IP protection.

As of January 2025, the global shipping fleet is dominated by three nations, which collectively control over 40% of the world's deadweight tonnage. Greece leads with 397.6 million DWT, followed by China with 347.2 million DWT, and Japan with 240.7 million DWT. China owns the largest number of vessels at 10,440, of which 7,103 sail under its national flag—a notably high proportion compared to the common practice of using foreign flags. Combining the shares of Mainland China and Hong Kong, China moves up to the first position globally, commanding 20.2 percent of the capacity. The combined share of the top 10 ship-owning nations, which includes Singapore (153.4 million DWT) and Hong Kong, China (139.5 million DWT), reaches 67.3% of global fleet capacity.

Tianjin Medical University researchers led by Shi Fudong identified formyl peptide receptor 1 (FPR1) as the key driver of chronic neuroinflammation; after screening millions of compounds via computer-aided design, they developed the small-molecule antagonist T0080. In murine multiple sclerosis models, T0080 significantly reduced brain inflammation and slowed neurodegeneration. The team, whose findings were released on 14 Nov, is now preparing first-in-human trials for the candidate, which could also address Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and stroke.

📸 China Snapshot

Jade Dragon Snow Mountain towers above Lijiang at 5,596 meters, one of the southernmost glaciated peaks on the planet. The massif is home to thirteen sharp summits, alpine meadows, and the iconic White Water Terrace landscapes. It sits just a short drive from Lijiang Old Town, which makes it one of the few places in China where a UNESCO listed city and a near Himalayan peak sit in the same line of sight. The mountain is also central to Naxi culture, featured in their mythology and traditional music, and it remains one of Yunnan’s most photographed natural landmarks.

Photo by Yereth Jansen

🎁 Bonus Stories

Mathematician Wu Meng, backed by a Finnish Academy of Science and Letters grant, has left the University of Oulu to become a full professor at Hunan University. While in Finland, he cracked a major part of Furstenberg’s 1960s conjecture on number base behaviour; the proof, published in Annals of Mathematics, earned him the 2023 International Congress of Chinese Mathematicians Best Paper Award and a Frontiers of Science Award.

Hong Kong’s Bar Leone, crowned the World's No. 1 Bar by World’s 50 Best Bars in 2025, has opened its second location in Shanghai's Sinan Mansions. The new venue, opening on November 9, operates daily from 6 pm to 1 am. The wood fixtures and delicate wall images, a signature of the Hong Kong location, have been replicated in Shanghai. The photos and coasters feature famous football players, family insignia, and religious icons. While 80% of the menu replicates the Hong Kong original, Shanghai exclusives like the Masa Margarita feature local adaptations.

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👥 About us

China Insights is brought to you by Tomas Kucera and Yereth Jansen, CEO at Darling Advertising + Design in Shanghai. Also follow us on LinkedIn, X or Facebook.

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