Tell me I'm not the only one who figured this out:

Yesterday I saw this on Twitter. It was really weird how Tim derailed a discussion about business sovereignty into a discussion about racism. He's obviously more intelligent than that, so it seemed that he was playing dumb.

What made Tim's reply even weirder is that the article itself does a good job of making it clear that Tencent does not control Epic. So, there wasn't any need for Tim to derail the discussion as if he was hiding something.

Only one thing was still missing: If Tencent doesn't control Epic, what's the business model behind their acquisition? It's not a partnership, since as Epic stated, "We don't share anything with them. In fact, we compete with them." Why would Tencent give hundreds of millions of dollars to a competitor?

Well, let's see how they are competing. A quick search for "Epic Store China availability" gave this result:
"The Epic Games store is available to players in most countries in the world except for China and where prohibited by US law".

Wait a second. China is the home of Tencent, and one of the biggest gaming markets in the world. By making the Epic Store unavailable in China, Epic makes sure that none of their store exclusives can compete against Tencent's games. But why would Tencent want Epic to open a store like this, instead of simply discouraging them from opening it? Hmm...

Tencent has launched a new piece of hardware called the TGP (Tencent Games Platform) box. Acting a little like a Steam machine that runs Windows 10, the system offers Chinese gamers the chance to play popular games like League of Legends, without requiring a gaming PC to do it.

Steam. That's it. By making western games become Epic Store exclusives, Tencent eliminates the competition from Steam in the Chinese market. Plus, it gives Tencent a whole year to clone any successful western games before the Chinese audience can play it, cementing their dominance in the Chinese market.

The hundreds of millions that Tencent gave Epic are probably much more than the royalties that Epic would have gained from third party Unreal Engine games sold in China. So, helping Tencent to monopolize the Chinese market seems to be a lucrative move for Epic. 

it's PRO-COMPETITIVE and for the good of the gaming industry!!! 

Well, regional lockout isn't a new thing, it's been done forever.

It's a sure loss for Chinese customers, and for some developers (basically, the ones for which the higher profit margin doesn't cover the missing revenue from the lost Chinese customers). But it's nothing illegal, and doesn't affect western customers.

I wonder how many third party developers are actually conscious of all that, though.