Asian Tech Press (May 5) -- Chinese e-commerce giant PDD Holdings Inc. on Thursday denied reports that it has moved its headquarters from China to Ireland.

PDD Holdings, previously known as Pinduoduo Inc., which owns Chinese discount e-commerce platform Pinduoduo and its US counterpart Temu, has moved its headquarters from China to Ireland to protect its expanding global business from tensions between the US and China, according to multiple media reports.

In a recent filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Pinduoduo changed its headquarters address from Shanghai to Dublin, listing it as the "address of principal executive offices".

The move underlines the growing importance of Temu to Pinduoduo. In September last year, Pinduoduo launched Temu in the U.S., aiming to replicate the soaring global popularity of other Chinese brands such as fast fashion giant Shein.

Analysts said that Pinduoduo was pre-emptively restructuring the company to protect Temu from the escalating U.S. government offensive against the Chinese tech companies such as TikTok owner ByteDance.

Earlier, ByteDance moved the headquarters of its short-video platform TikTok to Singapore in response to concerns from the U.S. government about Chinese ownership of the popular app. Last year, Shein moved its headquarters to Singapore and has been on a hiring spree in the city.

In response, a Pinduoduo executive told Shanghai media on Thursday that "Pinduoduo was born in Shanghai and grew up in China, and Pinduoduo's headquarters will always be in Shanghai, China, and will not change."

The executive explained that Temu, Pinduoduo's global business, chose Dublin, Ireland as the legal domicile for its overseas operations due to the need to conduct business in Europe and based on compliance needs.

Pinduoduo said it hopes to help Chinese manufacturing go abroad through its cross-border e-commerce and global business.