A screen shows the value of transactions conducted during Alibaba Group's Singles' Day global shopping festival, Hangzhou, China, November 2020 
Aly Song / Reuters

It was supposed to be the world’s largest initial public offering. Ant Group, the Internet finance firm affiliated with Chinese tech giant Alibaba, planned to list on the Shanghai and Hong Kong stock exchanges in early November. But just days before the company’s highly anticipated market debut, Chinese regulators intervened to block the offering. Then, in December, the Chinese government fined several homegrown technology behemoths—including Alibaba and the Tencent subsidiary China Literature—for violating antimonopoly laws, and top leaders pledged to further strengthen antimonopoly efforts in 2021. In less than six weeks, the unexpected crackdown had decisively upended

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