China’s ‘Lipstick King’ returns to live-streaming show after three-month disappearance

On Tuesday night, Li Jiaqi reappeared on Alibaba’s Taobao Live, a live-streaming platform for the e-commerce giant.His show immediately attracted thousands of viewers within the first few minutes, despite no prior notices on his social media accounts. By the end of the two-hour show, 63 million viewers had watched his live-stream, higher than most of his previous shows. But still lower than the traffic during major shopping festivals.The 30-year-old livestreamer, also called Austin Li, was one of China’s biggest internet celebrities, with 64 million followers on Alibaba’s Taobao. He once sold 15,000 lipsticks within five minutes in a sales competition against Alibaba founder Jack Ma, winning himself the nickname “China’s lipstick king.” But the superstar salesman had gone silent since early June after his popular show was abruptly cut off on the eve of this year’s anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. Just before the abrupt ending, Li had shown his audience a multi-layered ice cream treat decorated with Oreos and wafers. It resembled a tank.The fans were so avid that they bought out many of the goods more quickly than expected, forcing Li to end the show earlier than usual. His previous live-streams usually last more than three hours. “Today, the goods have been prepared in a hurry, and many girls couldn’t grab it,” Li said near the end of the live-stream, adding that he felt sorry for causing a bad shopping experience because there were not enough goods.”How about we end it for now, and then we will continue to broadcast when we have enough goods,” he said. “See you tomorrow, girls.”Li’s return has quickly become a hot topic on social media, with many Weibo users hailing the live-streaming star in a wild welcome.”I burst into tears when seeing him again on screen!” But the strict crackdown on the ballooning live-streaming industry might not be a good news for China’s economy. The world’s second largest economy is beset by severe economic problems. Consumer spending is weak, while youth unemployment is near historic highs. Policymakers now face mounting challenges to keep growth and jobs steady, as the country contends with the impact of Bejing’s adherence to a rigid zero-Covid policy, a bruising regulatory crackdown on the private sector, and a real estate crisis that is causing rising bad debts at banks and growing social protests.