[adventured]

> All major Chinese companies began as state owned enterprises

Tencent, Baidu, Alibaba, Ctrip, JD.com and dozens of other major Chinese Internet companies did not begin as state owned enterprises.

They were all born during the prime years of Deng's philosophy holding sway over how the Chinese Government implemented economic policy. At one point Yahoo and Softbank owned about 80% of Alibaba as an example. The state had very little applied control over the company until the Xi era. China's system today is not the same as China's system in 1999. There was far more freedom in the system of 20 years ago, including in regards to corporate independence and speech online.

[mytailorisrich]

Yes, Alibaba started with investments from Softbank and Goldman Sachs.

It really is a private startup story like those in the Silicon Valley.

[blahblahblogger]

To what extent do CEOs like Jack Ma, who are known in the West (at least on here), acknowledge the reality of this system?

Or do they?