The notion of launching a Chinese version of Starbucks makes sense: A market with 1.4 billion people, some of whom must like coffee. After all, there’s a Chinese Uber (Didi Chuxing), a Chinese Google (Baidu), and a Chinese Amazon (Alibaba). Enter Luckin Coffee in 2017. It quickly became the largest coffee chain in the People’s Republic, publicly listed on the New York-based NASDAQ with a market capitalization of $12 billion in January 2020.
Danielle Pletka is a distinguished senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the host, with Marc Thiessen, of the podcast What the Hell Is Going On?
