China moves to rope in its tech ‘unicorns’

Shanghai: Having lost the likes of Alibaba and Baidu to Wall Street, China is hatching a plan to woo them back and make sure it keeps a new generation of technology titans closer to home as it battles the US for supremacy in the sector.

New share offerings worth tens of billions of dollars are in the pipeline for 2018, setting it up as a blockbuster year with a number of so-called "unicorns" -- tech start-ups valued at least $1 billion -- lining up to cash in.

China dominates the line-up of the world´s biggest unicorns expected to list, including mobile-payments pioneer Ant Financial -- valued at an estimated $100 billion -- as well as ride-sharing firm Didi Chuxing and online-services platform Meituan-Dianping, both put in the tens of billions.

Strict rules essentially prevented the first wave from listing in mainland China, with Alibaba and Baidu instead opting for New York and Tencent heading to Hong Kong. But authorities are now planning to ease those rules, which analysts say is part of Beijing´s goal of developing domestic champions into global leaders in artificial intelligence, big data, and other sectors -- with state support.

And this comes at a time of heightened trade tensions with Washington, which already complains of a skewed playing field in China´s domestic markets.

"This is absolutely part of China 2025," said Peking University economics professor Christopher Balding, using shorthand for China´s tech-dominance plan.

"One of the things that Beijing has made very clear is that they want to control and strengthen their tech companies. It has its thumb on the scale at every step."