The Chinese government allows its corporate 'champions' nearly unfettered access to the country's 770 million internet users, but as China's tech giants get bigger and richer they realise that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) gets more nervous. Chinese President Xi Jinping has by now ensured controls that could make the market access disappear in an instant. Examples are: Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce giant, has a market cap of close to $530 billion. One of its most lucrative ventures is AliPay — a mobile payment system that has permeated every level of Chinese society, from department stores to local food carts. It has a data sharing arrangement with China's Public Security Bureau; Tencent, an internet conglomerate with a market cap of about $510 billion, dominates Chinese social media and online gaming; Baidu, China's Google, has a market cap of about $90 billion. They benefit from lax regulations and restrictions on Foreign competitors like Amazon and Facebook which face barriers to entry. The Party's control is evident from Tencent, Alibaba and Baidu all being forced to accept Party representation on their boards because of their sheer size; the Party keeping a closer eye on companies that do business in geopolitically strategic industries — like telecommunications or oil — than it does for firms involved in e-commerce or online gaming. But Alibaba and Tencent are beginning to expand into those sensitive industries — finance, for example — and attract even more Party attention; and the Party's willingness to maintain control over Chinese commerce. The latter has been visible in the following instances: (i) the Chairman of multi-billion dollar insurance company Anbang, Wu Xiaohui, being swiftly charged with fraud and sentenced to 18 years in prison as part of a Party crackdown on risky corporate spending; (ii) Chinese billionaire Wang Jianlin, head of the real estate conglomerate Wanda, being pressured to sell off international assets and focusing on domestic investments; and (iii) Alibaba's CEO Jack Ma recently purchasing Hong Kong's independent newspaper, the South China Morning Post, "essentially as an insurance policy" and a show of loyalty to the Party to buy out a leading media voice.
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