China is cutting edge in mobile tech

HONG KONG — Snapchat and Kik, the messaging services, use bar codes that look like drunken checkerboards to connect people and share information with a snap of their smartphone cameras.

WeChat and Alipay, two Chinese apps, have long used the bar-code-like symbols — called QR codes — to let people pay for purchases and transfer money.

The video-streaming service YY.com has for years made online stars of young Chinese people posing, chatting and singing in front of video cameras at home.

Silicon Valley has long been the world’s tech capital, birthplace of social networking and iPhones, which have spread across the globe.

The rap on China has been that it always followed in the valley’s footsteps as government censorship abetted the rise of local versions of Google, YouTube and Twitter.

Some Western tech companies, even the behemoths, are turning to Chinese firms for ideas.

[...] in China, more people use their mobile devices to pay their bills, order services, watch videos and find dates than anywhere else in the world.

Before Venmo became the app of choice for Millennials to transfer money in the United States, both young and old in China were investing, reimbursing each other, paying bills and buying goods with digital wallets on their smartphones.

[...] in China, the three major Internet companies — Alibaba, Baidu and WeChat parent Tencent — compete to create a single app with as many functions as they can stuff into it.