Alibaba ready for possible trade war with US: Vice chairman Joseph Tsai

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba on Thursday said that the company is ready for a possible trade war with the United States, adding that it would not only survive the fight but will also thrive. This comes after the company reported its total earnings for the year.

"If US goods become too expensive due to tariffs, Chinese consumers can shift to domestic producers or imports from other parts of the world," CNN Money quoted Alibaba (BABA) Vice Chairman Joseph Tsai, as saying to analysts during an earnings conference call.

However, Tsai clarified that Alibaba does not want a trade war, as this would further deteriorate trade talks. He also said that the e-commerce giant would not face any difficulty in finding other markets for its products if the US becomes a tougher place for business.

"In terms of our international expansion, the world is a big place. We have made substantial progress in emerging markets like Southeast Asia and South Asia as these markets are ripe for us to add more consumers into our ecosystem," he said.

Jack Ma's Too-Big-to-Fail Financial Giant Faces a Clampdown

There’s no other company on Earth quite like Ant Financial.

Spanning online payments, insurance, lending, credit scores, asset management and more, Jack Ma’s Chinese behemoth resembles a mashup of PayPal, Geico, Wells Fargo and Equifax -- with a bit of BlackRock thrown in for good measure. Thanks to clever mobile apps and a burgeoning Chinese middle class, Ant oversees the world’s biggest money-market fund and handles more than $2.4 trillion of mobile payments every three months. Many of the company’s 870 million customers rely on it for nearly every aspect of their financial lives.

But Ant’s extraordinary reach may soon expose the company to a major challenge: Chinese policy makers, worried that Ant and other financial holding companies pose systemic risks to the nation’s $12.7 trillion economy, are drafting new regulations that could make it much harder for the companies to grow.

The rules will force Ant and some of its peers that straddle at least two financial industries to obtain licenses from China’s central bank and meet minimum capital requirements for the first time, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified discussing private information. The companies’ ownership structures and inter-group transactions will also be restricted, the people said, adding that the rules need approval from China’s State Council and are subject to change.

How a Hong Kong newspaper is on a mission to promote China's soft power

On a recent afternoon, the staff of The South China Morning Post, a 114-year-old newspaper, gathered around roast suckling pig in their lavish new headquarters in Hong Kong to celebrate a remarkable turnaround.

Readership has been surging. The Post has launched new digital products and added dozens of journalists. After more than a decade of decline and editorial chaos, the newsroom now buzzes like a tech start-up, with table tennis and an in-house pub serving free craft beer.

The revival began with The Post's acquisition two years ago by the Alibaba Group, the Chinese technology and retail giant. But if Alibaba is breathing new life into the paper, it has also given it a new mission: improving China’s image overseas and combating what it sees as anti-Chinese bias in the foreign media.

In effect, Alibaba has taken Hong Kong’s English-language paper of record since the days of British rule and put it on the leading edge of China’s efforts to project soft power abroad. Every day, The Post churns out dozens of articles about China, many of which seek to present a more positive view of the country. As it does, critics say it is moving away from independent journalism and pioneering a new form of propaganda.