New Delhi, May 8 -- A COURT IN Hangzhou, AI capital of China, ruled in late April that companies cannot fire their staff and replace them with artificial intelligence. This may come as a relief to plenty of people in a metropolis that is home to Alibaba, one of Chinese tech's mightiest titans, with a total payroll of 128,000 employees. It is also good for Hangzhou's commercial landlords, who have little use for AI agents and are desperate for human desk jockeys.

China's dazzling skylines are worryingly lifeless. Since a property bubble burst in 2021, sales, prices and investment in residential and commercial real estate have tumbled. Housing has attracted most of the attention during the crisis; some 90m flats are thought to sit empty ac...