In July 2021, Li Ziqi — at the time one of the most-followed creators on Chinese video platforms, with an audience in the tens of millions — stopped posting without explanation. On 30 August 2021 she answered the speculation with a post that became a national talking point: '资本真是好手段' ('capital really knows its tricks'). In October 2021 she sued her business partner.
The dispute was structural. Her brand lived in a joint venture in which the operating partner held 51% and ran the commercial side — the food brand, the licensed products, the sales channels — while she held 49% and made the content. When trust broke, the creator found her own brand's revenue, trademark-adjacent business and distribution sitting on the other side of the table.
The case ran through Mianyang Intermediate Court. On 27 December 2022 the two sides settled through court mediation: Li Ziqi's stake in the joint venture rose to 99% and the partner's fell to 1%, and the partner's founder exited the business. The settlement came 500-plus days after she had stopped posting.
The silence itself was the cost that no court could repair. An audience that had built its routine around her videos was left without them for a year and a half, and the food brand's momentum stalled with her. She resumed posting after the settlement, but the episode had already demonstrated how a creator's own name can be held hostage by the shareholding structure around it.
The 500+ days of silence cost Li Ziqi her audience's momentum and her food brand's stalled growth, plus legal fees, before her stake rose to 99%.
A 51/49 venture with the maker on the minority side splits the asset from its revenue — the person the audience follows owned neither channels nor control, so the partnership could freeze her.
Stopping was the only leverage a creator had, and it worked — but a year and a half of silence is a strike that burns down the factory it is meant to protect.
The deal structure optimised for the partner's commercial expansion, not for what happens when the two sides disagree; nobody designed an exit, so the only exit was a lawsuit.
When the creator's audience is the asset, the shareholding structure decides who can walk away — a deal that lets the partner hold revenue while the creator holds fame will be tested by one of them.
Li Ziqi resumed posting after the December 2022 settlement and kept control of the joint venture with a 99% stake. The case became the standard Chinese reference point for creator–MCN disputes and prompted more creator-friendly contract terms across the industry.
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