Can Chinese big tech learn to love Big Brother?

JACK MA, CHINA’SJD most famous entrepreneur, has not been one to mince his words about the role of government and business. At a meeting with corporate leaders in Bali in 2018 he told the audience that it is not the government that makes business and innovation happen. That is the work of entrepreneurs, he insisted: “They have the ideas and dreams.”A that began in late 2020 on China’s consumer-internet champions has made such inspiring sentiments harder to sustain. For the first time the leading firms’ sales growth is slowing. Alibaba’s revenues rose by just 10% in the final three months of 2021, the slowest quarterly expansion since going public in 2014. Tencent, an internet-services and video-game Goliath, notched up 8% revenue growth in the same period, its slowest rate as a public company (see chart 1). .com, another e-commerce group, announced solid revenues but Richard Liu, its founder and chairman, resigned in April, one of many high-profile entrepreneurs to do so in the past few years. Local media reported that Meituan, a delivery giant, plans to axe up to 20% of its employees in its core business units despite its sales rising by 30%. Shares in those four companies, along with Pinduoduo, one more e-commerce group, have shed about $1.5trn in value since February last year (see chart 2).