[经济学人] Alibaba: Ma where he came from?

Alibaba
阿里巴巴

Ma where he came from?
后无来者
No entrepreneur has defined China’s transformation like Jack Ma. His success will be hard to repeat
没有哪个企业家像马云那样定义了中国的转型。他的成功难以复制

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THE most recognisable face of Chinese capitalism belongs to Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba, an e-commerce juggernaut matched in size only by Amazon. Mr Ma, who launched Alibaba from a small apartment in Hangzhou in 1999, is an emblem of China’s extraordinary economic transformation. This week’s announcement that he will step down as the firm’s chairman a year from now, to concentrate on philanthropy, was greeted with comparative calm by investors. He stopped being chief executive in 2013; Alibaba’s share price has more than doubled since its initial public offering, the world’s largest-ever, in 2014 (see article). But one question presents itself: could China produce another story to match his? The answer is almost certainly not.

中式资本主义最知名的面孔当属阿里巴巴创始人马云。只有亚马逊可在规模上与他创立的电子商务巨头比肩。1999年，马云在杭州一间小公寓里成立了阿里巴巴，他本人象征了中国非凡的经济转型。上周他宣布将在一年后辞去集团董事局主席的职务，专注慈善。投资者对此反应较为平静。马云自2013年起就不再担任首席执行官；阿里巴巴于2014年上市时，融资规模为史上最大，至今股价已翻了一倍多。那么问题来了：中国还能上演一个可与他比拟的故事吗？答案是几乎肯定不能。

There are some very good reasons for that. China’s own rise is an unrepeatable one. When Mr Ma, then an English-language teacher, launched Alibaba, the country was still gearing up to join the World Trade Organisation. Its GDP per head, in terms of purchasing-power parity, stood at under \$3,000; it is now more than six times higher. The internet was still young, too. Less than 1% of Chinese had access to the web back then, compared with some 36% of Americans. As incomes grew and connections proliferated, Mr Ma took full advantage.

这么说有几个非常充分的理由。中国的崛起本身就不可重复。曾是英语老师的马云推出阿里巴巴时，中国还在为入世做准备。按购买力平价计算，当时的人均GDP不到3000美元，现在则高出六倍多。互联网那时也才刚起步。当时只有不到1%的中国人可以上网，而美国人约为36%。人们收入逐步增长、互联网迅速普及，马云充分利用了这样的有利条件。

Thousands of small businesses have since flourished on Alibaba’s platforms. About 1m merchants trade in its virtual emporiums. Its services have helped push China’s economy towards consumption-led growth. Last year it boasted sales of \$25bn on Singles’ Day, China’s equivalent of Black Friday (when Americans spent a measly \$5bn). It has transformed logistics and finance, as well as retailing. Last year Alibaba delivered an average of 55m packages a day; its financial offshoot, Ant Financial, accounts for more than half of China’s vast mobile-payments market. Its reach is so great that many startups decide to work with Alibaba rather than strike out alone.

从那时开始，成千上万的小企业在阿里巴巴的平台上蓬勃发展。约有100万商家在其虚拟集市中开展交易。阿里巴巴提供的服务帮助推动中国经济走上了消费型增长之路。去年“双十一”当天其平台的销售额高达250亿美元（美国人在“黑色星期五”当天才花了50亿美元）。除了零售业，阿里巴巴还改变了物流和金融业。去年，阿里巴巴平均每天递送5500万个包裹；其金融业务部门蚂蚁金服在中国庞大的移动支付市场中占据了过半江山。阿里巴巴影响力巨大，许多创业公司因此决定与它合作，而不是单枪匹马出征。

But more has changed than the structure of China’s economy and the clout of digital giants like Alibaba. Politics has changed, too. Alibaba thrived partly thanks to Mr Ma’s skilful dealings with China’s ruling Communist Party, with which he cultivated both closeness and stand-offishness (“Love them, don’t marry them,” he once said of the government). Under the leadership of President Xi Jinping, however, China’s political system has grown hostile to private businesses that become too big or too disruptive. Officials have constrained bosses’ freedom to make splashy deals. Bytedance, a brash technology firm set up in 2012, has been reined in, and forced to withdraw one of its apps. Its founder issued a grovelling public apology after being chastised by the government. Ant, meanwhile, has seen its aspirations to compete with state-owned banks held back by regulators.

然而，发生了变化的不只是中国的经济结构和阿里巴巴等数字巨头的影响力。政治也已不同往日。阿里巴巴蓬勃发展的原因之一是马云善于经营与中国执政党的关系——他们之间既亲密又保持距离（他曾说：“要跟政府恋爱，但别跟政府结婚。”）然而，在习近平的领导下，中国的政治体制对规模过大或太具颠覆性的私营企业越来越不友好。官员们已经限制了企业老板们做大手笔交易的自由。成立于2012年、鲁莽张扬的科技公司字节跳动已受到约束，并被迫关闭了一个应用。在受到政府严厉批评之后，其创始人公开道歉，言辞卑谦。与此同时，蚂蚁金服与国有银行竞争的壮志也受到了监管机构的压制。

China is putting its corporate champions at the service of its ambitions to compete globally in high-tech industries. Alibaba’s task is to use artificial intelligence to improve cities. Through state-backed venture-capital funds, the government is pouring money into industries that were once the preserve of the private sector. Rumours occasionally surface that it plans to take stakes and board seats in big tech firms. All this has fed growing international suspicion of China, especially in America. Mr Ma was one of the first out of the blocks to congratulate President Donald Trump on his election victory; this year America prevented Ant’s purchase of MoneyGram, a money-transfer firm, on national-security grounds. The reality was always more complicated, but Mr Ma embodies an idea of China as market-driven and open. That idea has faded.

中国正在利用领军企业为自己在全球高科技产业中竞争的雄心服务。阿里巴巴的任务是利用人工智能改善城市。通过国家支持的风投基金，政府正在向曾经专属于私营部门的行业投入资金。时有传言说中国政府计划在大型科技公司中持股并获取董事会席位。所有这些都让其他国家对中国疑心渐重，特别是美国。马云是首批祝贺特朗普当选总统的人之一。今年，美国以国家安全为由阻止了蚂蚁金服收购汇款公司速汇金（MoneyGram）。现实总是更为复杂，但马云代表的是市场驱动和开放的中国。而这个形象已逐渐失色。

Jack be nimble
风清扬

None of this is to say that enterprise is fizzling in China. Indeed one of Mr Ma’s legacies is a shift to a culture that values startups more than ever. His charisma and folksy advice have earned him cult-like status among the country’s entrepreneurs. Venture capitalists are lavishing money on hundreds of newcomers, in industries from biotech to electric vehicles. Small private firms will continue to flourish.

这并不是说企业经营在中国正趋于衰落。事实上，马云的遗产之一就是带领人们转向一种比以往任何时候都更重视创业公司的文化。他的魅力和接地气的建议让他在中国企业家中享有神一般的地位。从生物技术到电动汽车等行业，风险资本家正在向各个领域里的成百上千家新企业投入大量资金。小型私营企业还将继续蓬勃发展。

But it is harder to be as disruptive today as Mr Ma was 20 years ago. That is partly because his own creation is so dominant. Increasingly, however, the greatest obstacle to disruption is China’s rulers. The party is intent on having a say much earlier in the development of industries that it considers important. As a result, China is unlikely to see new business leaders with the boldness and brio to match Mr Ma.

但是比起20年前，今天更难产生像马云当年那样的颠覆性影响。部分原因是他自己的创新成果如今占据了如此显赫的市场地位。然而，中国的统治者正日益成为颠覆的最大绊脚石。共产党打定主意要在它认为重要的行业的发展过程中一早就确立话语权。因此，中国不太可能再出现胆识与活力堪比马云的新商业领袖。

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