Xi Jinping has declared an industry-wide crackdown on big tech in China
Chinese President Xi Jinping called on the country’s regulators to ramp up control on the internet economy in a speech on Monday, spelling more trouble for Chinese tech giants that have already been in the government’s crosshairs for their monopolistic behavior. On Tuesday, Alibaba’s popular internet browser was removed from app stores in China after the state media criticized it for allegedly allowing misleading medical advertising. Alibaba — whose core business is online retail, much like its American counterpart, Amazon — has over the years amassed a large portfolio of print, broadcast, digital and social media platforms. The government is now reportedly ordering the company to divest and dump its media assets as authorities grow more concerned about the tech giant’s influence over public opinion. In the United States, the Biden administration is recruiting high-profile leaders in the Big Tech antitrust space, but while Washington is responding to pressure to improve transparency and accountability in the industry, Beijing’s motive is to solidify political control to ensure that no private company will grow too large or deviate from serving the political and economic goals set by the ruling Chinese Communist Party. On Friday, China’s regulators fined several other large tech companies in the country, including Tencent, Baidu, Didi and TikTok developer ByteDance, for past acquisitions and investments. Last June, China’s internet regulator censured Chinese social media platform Weibo — of which Alibaba owns 30 percent — after it appeared to have censored posts about an Alibaba executive’s alleged extramarital affair. But don’t mistake the party’s move as a defense of free speech.
