During the years my wife Deb and I lived in China, we became friends with Duncan Clark, an investment banker, consultant, and writer based in Beijing. For the past few years I’ve known that he was at work on a biography of Jack Ma, this era’s most renowned Chinese entrepreneur.
That book, Alibaba and the House that Jack Ma Built, comes out this week. I’ve read it; I recommend it; and I think it tells a lot not just about Ma and his sprawling, remarkable Alibaba firm but also about the potential, the limits, and the character of modern China.
I sent Duncan Clark a list of three questions that his portrait of Jack Ma provoked for me. Below you’ll see those questions, and his (very interesting) answers. In a few days I’ll send him a round of follow-ups — and Duncan has offered to answer (within reason!) questions from readers as well. Please send them to hello@theatlantic.com; we’ll pass them to Duncan Clark and extend the conversation here.
Let’s go to the questions:
Q 1. Duncan, let's start with the basics -- of what exactly Alibaba is, and why it matters, and what is significant about what Jack Ma has done there.
You and I both know that the curse of Western descriptions of China is to put everything in "Oh, it's the Chinese version of XXX" terms. Thus "Baidu is the Chinese version of Google"—except it's not really. And "Weibo is the Chinese version of Twitter," except... Or the variation, "Xiaomi is the Chinese answer to the iPhone" etc. And in your book you even single out the familiar "Alibaba is the Chinese version of Amazon" to say that it both clarifies and misleads.
So stipulating that things in China need to be described in their own terms, how can you most clearly explain Alibaba's concept and importance to those who haven't seen it in operation in China? Why should they care about, or be impressed by, what it has done?And, since we both know that the joy of China is that contradictory realities are simultaneously true, I'll ask you to do what I just warned about, and draw a comparison between Jack Ma's own achievement and non-Chinese figures that readers may be familiar with. If you were drawing from a range of Western technology and industrial leaders -- Steve Jobs with his obsessive insistence on design, Elon Musk with his multi-front innovation, Bill Gates with his competitive ferocity, Jeff Bezos with whatever trait you'd choose — who would you choose to describe Jack Ma? What matters about him and what he has done?
A: You’re right. The “X is the Y of China” approach is a common formulation - whether we are talking about a Chinese firm or a Chinese entrepreneur – yet one that comes with serious drawbacks. In comparing an Alibaba to an Amazon, or a Jack Ma to a Jeff Bezos or a Steve Jobs, we are of course implying that the China story is somehow a knock-off of an American original. In other words, that “X < Y”.