Mr. Li spoke publicly with a group of more than 30 officials and executives including Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. Executive Chairman Jack Ma and the heads of chip maker Qualcomm Inc. and personal-networking company LinkedIn Inc. After months of anxiety from U.S. and other foreign companies over cyberspying allegations between Beijing and Washington and antimonopoly probes into some companies, Mr. Li welcomed foreign companies and said their business interests in China would be protected.
He told the group that he recognized the importance of the Internet industry and that the Chinese government has work to do to ensure “the greatest invention” of recent decades can create jobs to offset a Chinese economy otherwise facing “downward pressure.” “It looks like the government has a lot to do in this field,” Mr. Li said at one point.
Addressing Qualcomm, which is facing a probe into its licensing practices in China, Mr. Li said, “I believe the opportunities Qualcomm has will be greater than the challenges.” Qualcomm Executive Chairman Paul Jacobs described the process as “some difficult discussions.”
“I’m happy to hear the premier’s words about cooperation,” Mr. Jacobs said during an interview after the event.
Mr. Li’s comments struck a somewhat different tone than those of Chinese officials speaking to the same executives the day before at an Internet industry gathering in the nearby city of Wuzhen. At that event, one senior official described the Internet as “a two-edged sword,” while others emphasized the Chinese Internet is a place where one must follow the rules.
Experts say allegations of cyberspying between the U.S. and China have hurt the Chinese businesses of companies such as International Business Machines Corp. and Cisco Systems Inc., and made it tougher for Chinese regulators to approve various foreign Web applications. Like Qualcomm,
Microsoft Corp. is also facing an official probe into its businesses. Internet companies such as Google Inc., Twitter Inc. and Facebook Inc. remain blocked in China.
China is working to strengthen its business and political influence on the Internet, which Mr. Li put at 700 million users. The gathering in Wuzhen was titled as a World Internet Conference, with a theme that says the Web should be “shared and governed by all.”
The premier signaled no plans for wholesale change in approach. “We believe in an open, transparent and, above all, a safe Internet,” Mr. Li said, reminding the executives that both “dynamism and order” are necessary online. But the premier didn’t dwell on Internet controls and instead stuck to business, acknowledging the sector deserves better policy making by his government.
“In every sense, China has become a major Internet country,” said Charles Chao , founder of Sina Corp. , a Chinese news and video portal that controls the popular Weibo social-media service. But whether the country will capitalize on its successes such as e-commerce and solve its bandwidth bottlenecks, Mr. Chao said, “people may have different conclusions.”
In saying more than once that China wants to “level the playing field,” Mr. Li appeared to be speaking not about holding back foreign technology giants such as Web company Google and chip maker Qualcomm but instead about how China’s innovations in banking and trade empower little competitors against entrenched players.
For instance, after Alibaba’s Mr. Ma described his company’s Alipay affiliate as the world’s No. 3 payment system—with a trajectory that could see it overtake Visa and MasterCard within three years, not to mention the nation’s massive government-run banks—Mr. Li said he was encouraged this week during a tour of the trading city of Yiwu to see small-business owners harnessing Alibaba’s systems to gain “equal access” to markets.
Source: wall Street Journal by James T. Areddy
No comments:
Post a Comment