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Deconstructing the myth of Alipay Drama—Repoliticizing foreign investment in the telecommunications sector in China

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  • Shen, Wei

Abstract

Alibaba’s dispute with Yahoo and Softbank over Alipay’s ownership in 2011 again brought China’s telecoms law and foreign investment policies into the spotlight. Although China has officially opened up its telecoms services sector to foreign investors according to its WTO Agreement, foreign investors are still experiencing various difficulties when they enter the Chinese market. Recent years have witnessed some new regulatory movements tackling the variable interest entity structure (or the VIE structure) adopted by foreign investors in investing into China’s telecoms industry. This article reviews the VIE structure and Chinese regulatory counter measures, and offers a political economy insight to Chinese telecoms policy changes. In addition, the article attempts to review the struggles between regulators and regulatees in the business community through the lens of economic regulatory/development model with Chinese characteristics.

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  • Shen, Wei, 2012. "Deconstructing the myth of Alipay Drama—Repoliticizing foreign investment in the telecommunications sector in China," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(10), pages 929-942.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:telpol:v:36:y:2012:i:10:p:929-942
    DOI: 10.1016/j.telpol.2012.08.008
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    Cited by:

    1. Syed Tariq Anwar, 2017. "Alibaba: Entrepreneurial growth and global expansion in B2B/B2C markets," Journal of International Entrepreneurship, Springer, vol. 15(4), pages 366-389, December.
    2. Xia, Jun, 2017. "China’s telecommunications evolution, institutions, and policy issues on the eve of 5G: A two-decade retrospect and prospect," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(10), pages 931-947.

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