Four Chinese online giants – Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent and JD.com – are to join forces to invest up to 12 billion US dollars in the telecommunications company China Unicom. It is part of a plan to encourage the injection of private capital into China's state-owned enterprises, with China Unicom being one of the first to receive investment. It is expected that the deal will be finalised by the beginning of August 2017. Analysts at the financial services company Jefferies have commented that the partnership would “help [China Unicom] operationally”, which was “more important than the money”. It was also noted that with the Chinese government's recent introduction of stricter internet regulations, the involvement of companies such as Baidu and JD could help them to “score points” with the authorities.Â
