HK has no reason to cave in to Alibaba

Hangzhou-based e-commerce giant Alibaba is obviously pulling out all the stops to convince the government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region to clear the way for its IPO by bending the rules.

Shortly after the company's CEO Jonathan Lu blasted the Hong Kong authorities for their lack of knowledge about Internet enterprises, his boss, chairman Jack Ma, invited a group of Hong Kong reporters from various media to Alibaba's headquarters in scenic Hangzhou to make a personal plea.

From the reports of that meeting, it was clear that Ma didn't break any new ground. Instead, he was seen to be harping the same theme that his company is special and therefore it should be treated differently.

This is not going to convince too many in Hong Kong. What Ma may have missed is that bending the rules for his company would almost certainly stir a controversy that the Hong Kong government can ill afford at this time.

From the very beginning, Alibaba was too full of confidence, believing that the Hong Kong authorities would throw the rules out of the window to welcome it with open arms. That obviously was not the case.

There was talk about Alibaba bringing its IPO to New York, or, some reports suggested, London. Market rules in the United States apparently have made provisions to accommodate some of Alibaba's requirements. Those provisions were introduced to help domestic e-commerce companies to tap stock market capital. Hong Kong has no such needs.