The current “dog-eat-dog” competition between China’s tech giants could end up giving more power to Beijing, which already has tight control over online content, the New York Times reported Thursday.
The report said the Chinese government issued a record 18.2 billion yuan fine to Alibaba, hours after a veteran Internet entrepreneur called on regulators to take similar measures against its biggest rival.
TikTok’s Chinese sister platform, ShakeYin, is suing China’s largest Internet company, Tencent, for allowing users to share videos to WeChat, Tencent’s ubiquitous instant messaging service.
Meanwhile, Alibaba has filed to build its own app on WeChat, which, in the end, is provoking Tencent to say no.
On the Chinese Internet, which has the world’s largest Internet user base, lawsuits are flying and anger is burning. Late last year, Beijing made it very clear that it would seriously consider limiting the power of the few companies that dominate China’s online life. Now, China’s Internet companies, while showing obedience to Beijing, are trying to make their competitors look worse than they are by correcting their own anti-competitive behavior.
But this melee among the companies could leave the Communist Party, which controls the government and court system, as the ultimate arbiter of the Internet industry. The winner will be decided by Beijing, not by competition.
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