The Trump administration has recently stepped up its pace of curbing China’s growing technological power.
`We are witnessing a fundamental change,` commented Alex Capri – researcher at the Hinrich Foundation and lecturer at the National University of Singapore.
Capri said that unlike ByteDance or Huawei, Alibaba has not had much success in penetrating the Western market.
US President Donald Trump and Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma.
To date, Alibaba has not been threatened or punished by US President Donald Trump like other Chinese technology companies.
However, this company is always in the minds of US officials.
Pompeo said Washington wants to protect `the most sensitive personal information and most valuable intellectual property of businesses, including research on Covid-19 vaccines, so that they are not accessed on systems based on Covid-19.`
Companies like Alibaba `were nurtured in a safe environment in China, almost closed to foreign countries, and gained market share without having to compete with foreign companies,` Capri commented, `Now, when they
Alibaba has many popular e-commerce platforms, mainly operating in the Chinese and Southeast Asian markets.
However, any move by Washington is unlikely to affect Alibaba’s retail and e-commerce segment in China – a market that contributes up to 80% of the company’s annual revenue.
Even if the US wanted to punish Alibaba’s US cloud computing business, its impact would be very small.
However, the vague language in the ban on WeChat and TikTok last weekend shows that Washington seems to be preparing to cast a bigger net.
`If the US does the same thing to Alibaba, this will be a big blow,` he said.
Although Alibaba records very little revenue from the US, this is still an important market for the company.
Alibaba also has many other connections in the US.
However, if the Trump administration bans Chinese technology companies, American businesses will not escape the influence.
WeChat is an essential application for hundreds of millions of Chinese people.