China’s tech boom borrowing the playbook of its property bust

On October 28, 2026, Unitree, China’s top robotics company, released its first quarterly report since going public in Shanghai. Third-quarter profit fell 17.4%, even as the stock traded at more than 465 times earnings. Those numbers explain why its founder, Wang Xingxing, looked so grim on listing day two months ago.

Then, on August 19, Wang struck the gong on Shanghai’s STAR Market as Unitree debuted at 445 billion yuan(US$66 billion), yet the new billionaire did not smile. One day later, Xu Jiayin, founder of the property giant Evergrande and once China’s richest man, stood white-haired in court where he was sentenced to life in prison.

A Chinese proverb says the waves behind drive the waves ahead, and the waves ahead die on the shore. Most of the commentary those two days saw it as a handover from the old economy to the new.

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