The preliminary plan, which is being led by the People’s Bank of China, would mark a significant escalation in regulators’ attempts to tighten their grip over the country’s internet sector. It envisions the creation of a government-backed entity along with some of China’s biggest e-commerce and payments platforms, the people said, asking not to be identified as the discussions are private.
The proposal is among a slate of options being considered to crystallise Beijing’s goal of gaining greater control over the data amassed by online behemoths from Alibaba Group Holding Ltd and Tencent Holdings Ltd to up-and-comers like ByteDance Ltd and Meituan. Companies were encouraged this month to open up data in areas from e-commerce to social media to promote healthy development of the sharing and online economies in a report that outlined the Communist Party’s priorities.
The Communist Party has recently signalled an intent to tighten its grip over the Internet, e-commerce and digital-finance spheres after decades of adopting a relatively hands-off approach that spawned a generation of billionaires. Much like Facebook Inc or Google, the enormous amounts of information that China’s Internet giants hoover up in real time are key to their bottom lines as well as their ability to innovate and expand. But Beijing has grown increasingly wary of the might of companies such as Alibaba and Tencent and their potential to influence public opinion.