【Economist】China Inc abroad: SEA change

Tech titans eye South-East Asia

China’s technology giants are having a torrid time. At home, a regulatory crackdown is intensifying. In the latest move, on August 17th the authorities released draft antitrust rules that would hurt the business models of titans like Alibaba and Tencent. In the West, meanwhile, governments want to make it harder for Chinese companies to do business in their countries and, in America’s case, to list shares. Some global asset managers are calling Chinese tech stocks “uninvestable”. 目前，一些科技巨头面临困难（having a torrid time）。国内严厉的监管打击愈演愈烈（a regulatory crackdown is intensifying）。8月17号，官方发布了反垄断规则草案（the authorities released draft antitrust rules），这项草案会对像阿里巴巴、腾讯等商业巨头的商业模式造成很大影响，这些公司在西方国家的商业环境，以及在美国上市变得困难重重，一些全球资产管理者认为，目前Chinese科技股票“不值得投资（uninvestable）”。

The firms are thus casting around for friendlier climes. Foreign markets account for a relatively small share of the Chinese groups’ sales. Tencent made around $5bn in revenues outside mainland China last year, less than 8% of the total. So little of Alibaba’s income is derived from abroad that the company doesn’t bother publishing a geographical breakdown. If it were to start, however, no place would feature more prominently than South-East Asia. 一些公司因此投向政策更友好的地方。这些国内公司销售额在国外市场中所占的份额相对较小。去年中国大陆以外的收入约为5亿美元，占总数的8％。这么少的阿里巴巴的收入来自国外，该公司不会令令人责备出版地理分解。但是，如果开始，那么，没有比东南亚更突出的地方。

The region is home to nearly 700m people, fast-digitising economies and, crucially, no hardened geopolitical persuasion. Having taken an interest in South-East Asian online darlings such as Lazada (an e-commerce venture majority-owned by Alibaba) or Sea Group (in which Tencent holds a 23% stake), China’s giants are expanding more directly in the region. Last year Alibaba bought half of a 50-storey skyscraper in Singapore, the regional commercial hub. Tencent and ByteDance, the unlisted owner of TikTok, a hit short-video app, have also opened beachhead offices there and set out on local hiring sprees. 该地区是近700米的人，快速数字化经济，至关重要的是，没有硬化的地缘政治劝说。对劳拉达（阿里巴巴的一家电子商务有限）或海集团（腾讯持有23％的股权）进行了兴趣，中国的巨头在该地区更直接扩大。去年阿里巴巴在新加坡享有一半的50层底层摩天大楼，是区域商业中心。Tiktok，Tiktok的未列入所有者，一个命中的短视视频应用程序，也在那里开设了Beachhead办公室，并阐述了当地招聘的Sprees。*

Cloud computing presents a particular opportunity. Although the cloud market’s total size in South-East Asia is still relatively small, at less than $2bn a year, it grew by more than 50% in 2020, and shows no signs of slowing. And the Chinese firms are winning an ever greater share of this ever larger pie, mostly from Amazon Web Services (AWS), the American e-commerce empire’s cloud division. 云计算提出了特定的机会。虽然云市场在东南亚的总规模仍然相对较小，但每年少于2亿美元，在2020年增长超过50％，没有显示出速度放缓的迹象。而中国公司正在赢得更大的馅饼，主要是来自亚马逊网络服务（AWS），美国电子商务帝国的云师。*

According to Gartner, a research firm, in 2020 Tencent, Alibaba and Huawei, a privately held telecoms colossus, had 22% of the cloud market in South-East Asia and the smaller Asia-Pacific economies, up from 18% in 2019. This year Tencent opened its first data centre in Indonesia and its second in Thailand. In June Alibaba said it would build its first in the Philippines. 据Gartner称，一家研究公司，在2020年腾讯，阿里巴巴和华为，私人举办的电信巨人，占东南亚云市场的22％，较小的亚太经济体，2019年的18％。这个腾讯在印度尼西亚开设了第一个数据中心及其第二个在泰国的第二个数据中心。6月份阿里巴巴表示，它将在菲律宾建立它。*

Unlike AWS and its American cloud rivals, Google Cloud and Microsoft’s Azure, Chinese firms are comfortable with the principle of data localisation. Many South-East Asian governments mandate that data about their citizens be processed and stored in their territory. Whereas Microsoft and AWS publish reports on the data requests made to them by governments and law-enforcement agencies, Chinese firms do not. This makes the Chinese services attractive to authorities unwilling to compromise on localised data. It also complicates embryonic efforts by America to negotiate a digital trade pact with Asian countries, which would almost certainly try to limit data localisation. 与AWS及其美国云竞争对手不同，谷歌云和微软Azure，中国公司对数据本地化原则感到舒适。许多东南亚政府授权其公民的数据被处理并存放在其领土上。虽然微软和AWS发布了各国政府和执法机构对他们所作的数据请求的报告，但中国公司没有。这使得中国服务对当局不愿意妥协于本地化数据。它还使美国与亚洲国家谈判数字贸易协定的胚胎努力使其与亚洲国家谈判，这几乎肯定会审议数据本地化。*

Even before it contributes a big slug of revenues, business activity in South-East Asia is a way to learn what works outside China, notes Tan Bin Ru, the regional boss of OneConnect Financial Technology, a subsidiary of Ping An, a huge Chinese insurer. The environment is both familiar (with millions of Chinese-speakers, who often dominate commerce) and diverse (with different legal jurisdictions and a wide range of income levels). Asian companies have used the region as a staging post to global conquest in the past, notably Toyota, which began its international expansion in Thailand in 1957. China’s giants would love to follow in its tyre tracks. 即使在贡献了大量收入之前，东南亚的商业活动也是一种学习中国以外的工作的方式，Notes Tan Bin Ru，OneConnect金融技术的区域老板，这是一个庞大的中国保险公司的子公司。环境既熟悉（数百万汉语演讲者），他们经常主宰商业）和多样化（具有不同的法律司法管辖区和广泛的收入水平）。亚洲公司在过去的全球征服中使用该地区，尤其是丰田，该公司于1957年开始在泰国的国际扩张。中国的巨人愿意追随其轮胎轨道。* ——

Aug 21st 2021 • Business • 642 words