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2 - An Ecosystem for Private Enterprise Growth

Alibaba, Ant Group, and Small/Medium Enterprises

from Part I - Different Types of Chinese Corporate Ecosystem

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 July 2022

Colin S. C. Hawes
Colin S. C. Hawes
Affiliation:
University of Technology, Sydney
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Summary

This chapter traces the incredibly rapid expansion of the platform e-commerce and financial conglomerates Alibaba and Ant Group. It shows how they took advantage of government fragmentation and dependence on the private economy to attract huge foreign investment, using the variable interest entity (VIE) legal loophole, and then to diversify into payment services (Alipay) and finance in conjunction with state financial institutions, attracting hundreds of millions of customers and tens of millions of SME merchants. The chapter analyzes the key struggles between this Alibaba/Ant "corporate ecosystem" and government regulators seeking to protect consumers, finding that reports of a reining in of Chinese private firms by the Chinese Communist Party are premature.

Keywords

AlibabaAnt Groupcorporate ecosystemChinese private firmse-commercesmall and medium-sized enterprisesdigital financedigital paymentsAlipay
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Chapter
Information
The Chinese Corporate Ecosystem , pp. 49 - 85
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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