[1/4] Amateur players take part in a competition of guandan, a poker-like card game, in Beijing, China August 13, 2023. Total U.S.-based venture-capital investment in China plummeted to $9.7 billion last year from $32.9 billion in 2021, PitchBook data shows. "In finance, information is currency," said Yang, for whom a game of guandan has become a standard gambit before wining and dining local officials. Yu Longze, a broker based in Beijing, said his boss this month ordered all staff to learn the game. In April, the ruling Communist Party's anti-graft watchdog censured one of its officials in the eastern province of Anhui for playing guandan during a training course, among other misdeeds.

---

Persons: Yang Yiming, Joe Biden, Xi Jinping, Yang, Yu Longze, Huang, Hua Min, Li Keshu, Yew Lun, John Geddie, Clarence Fernandez Organizations: REUTERS, Rights, China's, Total U.S, Reuters, Thomson Locations: Beijing, China, Rights BEIJING, United States, Texas, Anhui