[Barrin92]

then you've probably never worked in the Chinese tech sector because it is the literal Wild West. The competitor manipulation story in this case is utterly believable to anyone who has ever seen in what kind of quasi feudal wars Chinese tech companies are often engaged, because there is virtually no government oversight. Regulators on the mainland were generally so far behind the curve that tech companies until very recently more or less did whatever they wanted, which accounts for their enormous growth over the last two decades.

About ten years ago there was the infamous "3Q war" where Tencent and Qihoo engaged in pretty ridiculous measures over the messenger market by blocking each others usage on consumer machines when the other one was installed, orchestrating fake media articles about pornography, police raids and at some point calling on users to go into a general strike. The war basically only ended because at some point the government stepped in and for the first time enforced anti-trust law.

This has changed to some degree but China's tech sector always was so hilariously under-regulated it makes most Western countries look socialist in comparison