Within the past few months it has become impossible to hail a taxi at rush hour in Beijing. Instead of stopping for outstretched arms, drivers are chasing richer prizes: smartphone users who have downloaded an app that pays both parties for a ride.

过去几个月里，在北京的交通高峰时段很难打到出租车。司机不愿为招手的乘客停车，他们要追求更大的奖励——那些下载了打车应用(app)到智能手机上的乘客，因为这些应用会为每一单向司机和乘客双方都提供奖励。

The apps give a rebate to the passenger and a tip to the driver. They help cabbies, who have long complained that prices are held artificially low by state fiat. Many will not pick up passengers at peak times unless cars are ordered online. With the apps, users can offer an extra tip in advance, creating a market price for taxis where none existed before.

打车应用给予乘客车费返款，并给司机发放补贴。这对出租车司机有帮助，因为他们长期以来一直在抱怨车费被行政命令人为压低了。许多司机在高峰时段根本不载客，除非乘客是在网上订车。有了打车软件之后，用户可以预先选择向司机支付额外小费，由此形成前所未有的出租车市场价格。

The two competing apps are fielded by rival Chinese internet conglomerates, and for now consumers and drivers are reaping the rewards. Didi Dache [“Honk Honk Taxi”] and Kuadi Dache [“Fast taxi”] have spent millions of their investors’ money.

嘀嘀打车(Didi Dache)和快的打车(Kuadi Dache)是两款彼此竞争的打车应用，分别得到两家互为对手的中国互联网集团的支持，目前乘客和司机都从中尝到了甜头。这两款应用已花掉了投资人的数百万资金。

Cheap taxis are just one of the spoils of a new war between China’s three internet giants, known collectively as BAT – short for Baidu, the dominant search engine, Alibaba, which controls 80 per cent of China’s ecommerce, and Tencent, the gaming and social media juggernaut with a market capitalisation of $132bn. For Wang Ran, a blogger and founder of China eCapital, an investment bank, the competition between Didi, a Tencent app, and Alibaba’s Kuadi is “the first battle in the first world war of the internet”.

低价出租车只是中国互联网三巨头（合称“BAT”）之间一场新战争带来的好处之一。在三巨头中，百度(Baidu)是占主导地位的搜索引擎，阿里巴巴(Alibaba)控制了中国电子商务市场80%的份额，腾讯(Tencent)是市值为1320亿美元的游戏和社交媒体巨擘。在投资银行易凯资本(China eCapital)的创始人、知名博主王冉看来，腾讯嘀嘀打车与阿里巴巴快的打车之争，可谓“中国互联网的第一次大战”的第一场战役。

For several years these groups – each of which sits comfortably on the list of the top 10 internet companies in the world – were content to nurture their natural monopolies in peace. But in the past six months they have engaged in a frenzy of acquisitions to compete with each other in just about every market imaginable.

近几年来，这几家互联网集团都满意于和平地培育各自的自然垄断体系。它们都轻松地保持了全球互联网公司前10强的地位。但过去6个月里，它们发起了疯狂的收购攻势，在所有能想象得到的市场上展开角逐。

Their expansion highlights rapid evolutions in the Chinese internet market, a source of wealth and power that challenges the country’s traditionally state-led economy.

它们的扩张凸显了中国互联网市场的快速演化，这个市场造就的财富与实力已挑战了中国传统的国有经济。

Two factors have shaken up the cosy world of China’s internet. The first is that internet companies have become the largest private-sector companies in China by capitalisation and revenues and are awash with cash. Second, the arrival of the mobile internet has given them something to fight over. Nearly half a billion Chinese use smartphones that cost as little as $50 each to get online.

有两个因素搅动了中国互联网行业安逸的氛围。其一，互联网公司已成为中国市值与营收最高的民营公司，手握巨额现金。其二，移动互联网的到来，让互联网公司有了争斗的领域。将近5亿中国人用智能手机上网，他们的手机有的只要50美元。

“Before, each of these companies had a distinct sphere, but with the arrival of mobile internet there is more and more convergence on a single model, and more areas of overlap. That’s where the battle lines are now,” says Arthur Kroeber of Gavekal Dragonomics, the research group.

研究集团龙洲经讯(GaveKal Dragonomics)的葛艺豪(Arthur Kroeber)说：“以前，这几家公司都有各自独特的势力范围，但随着移动互联网的到来，它们越来越向同一个模式靠拢，业务领域的重叠也越来越多。而它们竞争的战线就在这些方面。”

Most of the new acquisitions have been made with mobile in mind. Baidu paid $1.9bn in July for 91 Wireless, an app store designed to give it an edge with mobile users. Alibaba has an undisclosed stake in UC Web, China’s top mobile browser. Last month Alibaba made an offer for AutoNavi Holdings, a mapping service, valuing it at $1.6bn, and allowing it to compete head-to-head with Baidu’s mobile map app.

它们近期的收购举动大多出于发展移动互联网业务的考量。百度去年7月斥资19亿美元收购了应用商店91无线(91 Wireless)，旨在让百度在移动用户那里赢得优势。阿里巴巴购入了中国头号手机浏览器——UC浏览器(UC Web)的股权，具体股权份额未对外披露。上月，阿里巴巴提出收购地图应用提供商高德软件(AutoNavi Holdings)，对高德的估值达到16亿美元，此交易将使高德能与百度的手机地图应用展开针锋相对的争夺。

Nine days later Tencent said it would take a 20 per cent stake in Dianping, China’s best-known restaurant rating and reviews website. On March 10 Tencent took a 15 per cent stake in JD.com, the largest ecommerce company after Alibaba. Media reports have since said Tencent is discussing a deal to merge its online video business with Sohu, China’s third-largest video platform.

9天之后，腾讯表示将收购国内最知名餐馆评分点评类网站——大众点评网(Dianping) 20%的股份。3月10日，腾讯收购京东商城(JD.com) 15%的股份，京东是除阿里巴巴外中国最大的电商公司。随后一直有媒体报道称，腾讯正在与中国第三大视频平台搜狐(Sohu)商谈，希望合并双方在线视频业务。

Jenna Qian of Qunar, China’s biggest travel website by traffic, which is part owned by Baidu, says: “There is a convergence going on. People are competing to be the most convenient user experience, and there is this fear that ‘if I don’t provide travel then Tencent or someone else will’. These guys might be happy to sit there with their virtual monopolies and huge margins but that’s not going to last very long, and that’s why there is this big rush.”

去哪儿网(Qunar)的钱臻(Jenna Qian)说：“目前确实存在业务趋同的情况。大家争着提供最便利的用户体验，都有这样一种担忧，‘如果我不提供在线旅行服务，腾讯或其他公司就会提供’。巨头们现在可能轻松坐享当前事实上的垄断地位和可观的利润率，但这不会持续很长时间。这也是他们急于收购的原因。”去哪儿网是中国流量排名第一的在线旅行网站，而百度持有该公司股份。

Mr Wang of China eCapital says the BAT conglomerates want to become ubiquitous by monopolising every aspect of daily life that could conceivably be put on the web and sold to the public. “BAT want to be with you 24 hours a day, seven days a week, they want to get to know you, they want to date you, they want to have you,” he wrote.

易凯资本的王冉表示，BAT三巨头希望变得无处不在，在日常生活中所有能搬到网上、兜售给公众的领域占据垄断地位。他写道：“它们拥有着同一个梦想，那就是无限贴近所有用户7x24的生活，黏你泡你占有你。”

China’s internet giants are becoming what analyst Anne Stevenson-Yang of J Capital Research calls “tech Kereitsus”, referring to the national champions that dominated the Japanese economy in the 20th century with interests in multiple industries. “When companies are this big in China, the difference between public and private is not that important,” she says. “For all intents and purposes these companies have become the ministry of the internet.”

美奇金投资咨询公司(J Capital Research)分析师杨思安(Anne Stevenson-Yang)指出，中国互联网巨头正变成“科技企业集团(tech Kereitsus)”。这个词原来是指20世纪里涉足多个行业、主宰了日本经济的全国性领军企业。她说：“当中国的企业发展到如此大的规模之后，公有和私有的差别已不太重要。无论从哪方面来看，这些公司已变成了国家的‘互联网部’。”

BAT has also begun to expand into the more traditional economy, with ambitions to rationalise some inefficient state-owned sectors, including taxi services. The biggest onslaught has been in financial services. Alibaba began the rush last autumn when it set up Yu’ebao, a money-market fund. It paid a multiple of the state-fixed Chinese banks’ deposit rate, and claimed in March to have attracted more than Rmb500bn ($81bn) in the first nine months. Tencent offers a similar money market fund called Licaitong. So does Baidu, through its Baidu Wealth Management.

BAT三巨头也向传统经济领域扩张，其目标是合理化改革出租车服务等一些低效的国有经济领域。首当其冲的是金融服务业。阿里巴巴去年夏季开始发难，推出了货币基金“余额宝”(Yu’ebao)，其收益率达到官方设定的银行存款利率的数倍。阿里巴巴今年3月声称，余额宝刚推出9个月时间，便已吸引了逾5000亿元人民币（合810亿美元）的资金。腾讯也推出了类似的货币基金——理财通(Licaitong)。百度也通过旗下的百度理财(Baidu Wealth Management)推出了同类产品。

However, efforts to push further into finance have met resistance. Last week the central bank suspended “virtual” credit cards issued by Alibaba and Tencent as well as mobile payments made by scanning bar codes. “Banking is a red line they’ve started to cross,” says Duncan Clark, chairman of the telecoms consultancy BDA China. “Online there is virtually no regulation whereas offline the regulation is so cumbersome as to stifle activity. Think of the most inefficient areas of the Chinese economy and this is where these guys are going to be the most effective.”

然而，BAT三巨头侵入金融业腹地的努力遇到了阻碍。上上周，中国央行暂停了阿里巴巴和腾讯发行的“虚拟”信用卡，以及二维码扫码移动支付服务。电信业咨询机构北京博达克咨询公司(BDA China)的董事长邓肯•克拉克(Duncan Clark)表示：“他们已开始跨过银行业这条红线。在线市场几乎没有监管，而线下业务的监管非常严厉，遏制了一些活动。想想中国经济中效率最低的是哪些领域，那里将是他们最能发挥效率的地方。”

The notorious inefficiency of the state sector, which still controls most of the economy, creates opportunities. “For us, our market economy has only been here for a few decades,” Robin Li, the head of Baidu, said in January. “Our traditional industries have not been very mature before they were hit by the internet.”

国有部门仍控制着中国经济的大部分领域，其出了名的低效率给互联网企业带来了机遇。百度首席执行官李彦宏(Robin Li)今年1月表示：“对我们来说，市场经济的发展只有几十年时间。我们的传统行业在尚未非常成熟的时候，便受到了互联网的冲击。”

One example is in retail. Jack Ma, chairman of Alibaba, argued recently that unlike shoppers in the US who see ecommerce as “dessert” to their main shop offline, many Chinese see Alibaba websites such as Tmall and Taobao as the only realistic options. “In China, because the infrastructure of commerce is so bad, ecommerce becomes the main course,” he said. He predicts it will eventually reach 30 per cent of total retail consumption compared with 6 per cent today.

零售行业正是这样一个领域。阿里巴巴董事局主席马云(Jack Ma)近期表示，美国消费者往往将电子商务视作补充线下零售业的“餐后甜点”，而中国消费者则将天猫(Tmall)和淘宝(Taobao)等阿里巴巴旗下电商网站视为唯一的现实选择。他表示：“在中国，由于商业基础设施非常薄弱，电商反而成为了‘主菜’。”他预计，电商在中国零售业消费总额中所占比例将达到30%，远高于当前的6%。

. . .

……

Until now, most of China’s private wealth was generated by access to state sectors but the internet is changing that. As Baidu’s New York listed shares surged, Robin Li became China’s richest man in December, worth $12.2bn according to estimates of the Bloomberg Billionaire Index. A month later he was eclipsed by Pony Ma, the head of Tencent, worth $13bn after a surge in Tencent’s share price. Alibaba’s Jack Ma could yet take the top slot once his company completes a much anticipated initial public offering in New York this year, expected to value the company at up to $200bn, according to some analysts’ estimates.

迄今为止，中国大部分私人财富都靠从国有部门分一杯羹获得，不过互联网正在改变这一局面。随着百度在美国上市股票的股价上涨，李彦宏在去年12月成为了中国首富。彭博亿万富翁指数(Bloomberg Billionaire Index)显示，当时李彦宏的身价达到122亿美元。1个月之后，李彦宏被腾讯首席执行官马化腾超过。腾讯股价的大涨使得马化腾的身价达到130亿美元。不过，在阿里巴巴今年在纽约完成期待已久的首次公开发行(IPO)之后，马云很可能成为中国新首富。根据一些分析师的估计，IPO将使阿里巴巴的估值达到2000亿美元。

Such huge valuations have raised eyebrows. Alibaba, which makes the bulk of its revenues by selling advertising on its sites to would-be sellers, publishes very little information. Yahoo of the US, which has a 24 per cent stake, releases just four numbers each quarter without any accompanying detail: sales, gross profit, operating profit and net profit. “The numbers being talked about for Alibaba are quite generous given how little we know about them,” says one analyst.

如此高的估值令人瞠目。阿里巴巴的绝大部分收入来自向未来的卖家出售网站上的广告位。该公司对外披露的信息微乎其微。目前持有阿里巴巴24%股份的美国雅虎(Yahoo)，每季度只公布关于阿里巴巴的4项数据——营收、毛利润、营业利润和净利润，此外再无更多细节。一名分析师说：“考虑到我们对阿里巴巴所知甚少，目前对阿里巴巴的估值是非常慷慨的。”

Likewise Tencent sites QQ and WeChat claimed more than 815m and 271m active users respectively, according to third-quarter results last year. Yet the China Internet Network Information Centre, part of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, puts total internet users at just 618m.

根据去年第三季度的数据，腾讯QQ和微信(WeChat)的活跃用户数分别超过8.15亿和2.71亿。而据中国工信部下属的中国互联网络信息中心(CNNIC)估计，中国互联网用户总数仅为6.18亿。

The huge multiples on Chinese internet stocks are dwarfed by some of their even frothier US counterparts. But thanks in part to the suspended disbelief of the global internet industry, China’s internet conglomerates are the largest private companies in the country by market capitalisation.

虽然中国互联网股票的估值倍数非常之高，但与美国估值更高的同行相比仍相形见绌。不过，随着人们逐渐打消对全球互联网行业的疑虑，中国互联网巨头已成为国内市值最大的民营公司。

. . .

……

The distinction between private and state business is hazy in China. The private sector is not free of state control, foreign investors have difficulty exercising influence and large companies cannot escape the orbit of the bureaucracy.

在中国，民营企业和国有企业的界限并不清晰。民营企业并不能完全摆脱国家的控制，外国投资者难以施加影响力，大型企业也难逃官僚主义的影响。

“There are two types of private companies in China. There are those that are very low-level and small, who fly under the radar. But once a company grows to scale, it has to align its interests with the political establishment or it won’t survive,” Ms Stevenson-Yang says.

杨思安说：“中国有两种民企。低层次的小公司不受关注，但一旦规模做大，就不得不将自己的利益与政府保持一致，否则便无法生存。”

Each seems to be growing into a pseudo fiefdom. Tencent is based in the southern city of Shenzhen. Alibaba is based in Hangzhou and the constellation of companies in its orbit is concentrated nearby in Shanghai. Baidu occupies the north, based in Beijing. Ms Stevenson-Yang says this reflects the overall distribution of power in China, with competing regional political clans. “Business is a mirror of the bureaucracy,” she says.

BAT三巨头中的每一家似乎都在变成“诸侯国”。腾讯的总部位于中国南部城市深圳。阿里巴巴扎根于杭州，众多与其相关的公司聚集于附近的上海。百度占据北方，总部设在北京。杨思安表示，这反映出中国总体的权力分配，包括相互竞争的地区政治派系。她说：“商业是官僚体系的一面镜子。”

Each of the big three is so big, so wired in politically and so vital to the Chinese economy that its survival is assured. An employee at one of the companies likened BAT to Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia, the superstates of George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, which are so big as to be undefeatable and permanently at war.

BAT三巨头规模庞大，与政治的联系十分紧密，对中国经济至关重要——这为它们的生存提供了保证。其中一家公司的一名员工将BAT三巨头比作大洋国、欧亚国和东亚国——乔治•奥威尔(George Orwell)的小说《一九八四》(1984)中的超级大国，这三国都非常庞大，无法被彻底打败，因此一直处于战争之中。

For years Alibaba blocked Baidu’s internet crawlers from its website as they competed on search. The logic shifted with the emergence of Tencent’s popular messaging app WeChat as the chief threat to Alibaba’s ecommerce platform. Now Baidu’s crawlers are welcome on Alibaba sites. “One day it’s Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia, while the next day Oceania has always been allies with Eurasia,” says the employee.

多年来，由于在搜索引擎服务上存在竞争，阿里巴巴阻止百度的网络爬虫抓取其网站的信息。腾讯热门的消息应用微信的出现，对阿里巴巴的电子商务平台构成了主要威胁，使其对百度的思维发生了转变。如今，阿里巴巴的网站对百度爬虫敞开了大门。这名员工表示：“今天是大洋国总与欧亚国交战，明天就成了大洋国一直是欧亚国的盟友。”

The liberalising influence of the internet does not appear to extend to politics. One internet entrepreneur walked out of an interview when asked about the “Great Firewall” and pervasive censorship. As a western analyst says: “They know better than to say anything about politics or regulation. There is simply no upside.”

互联网的自由风气似乎并未延伸至政治领域。当被问及对“长城防火墙”(Great Firewall)和普遍存在的审查制度有何看法时，一名互联网企业家立即退出了采访。正如西方分析师所言：“他们懂得应该避谈政治或监管。对这些问题发表看法没有任何好处。”

Most of China’s big companies have benefited from the Great Firewall, which blocks western competitors such as Twitter, Facebook and sometimes Google. But this may be changing. China’s big internet brands are now big enough to no longer be threatened by foreign competition, while their share prices could gain from a freer and more open internet.

多数中国大公司都受益于长城防火墙。它将西方竞争者挡在门外，其中包括Twitter、Facebook，有时也包括谷歌(Google)。但这种情况也许正在发生改变。中国大型互联网品牌如今已足够强大，不再受外国公司竞争的威胁，而一个更自由、更开放的互联网可以让它们获得更高的股价。

As they grow beyond China’s borders, though, censorship could make them vulnerable to lawsuits.

不过，随着这些中国企业向海外发展，审查制度可能会使它们容易遭到起诉。

“If they want to expand abroad, the Great Firewall becomes an obstacle for them and not a protection,” says Michael Anti, a Chinese journalist. “But don’t expect these guys to start fighting. This is China and if you co-operate with the establishment you can make a lot more money than by fighting against it. Even Microsoft and Yahoo co-operate, so why should you expect some Chinese guy not to? They will only stand up if their licences get too expensive.”

“如果它们想在海外扩张，长城防火墙会成为它们的一块绊脚石，而不是保护伞。”中国新闻撰稿人安替(Michael Anti)说。“但别指望这些人起来抗争。这是中国，与政府合作比对抗能挣到更多的钱。就连微软(Microsoft)和雅虎也选择了合作，为什么要指望一些中国人不这么干呢？他们只会在经营牌照太贵的时候挺身而出。”