China will struggle to produce another Jack Ma

THE most recognisable face of Chinese capitalism belongs to Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba, an e-commerce juggernaut matched in size only by Amazon. Mr Ma, who launched Alibaba from a small apartment in Hangzhou in 1999, is an emblem of China’s extraordinary economic transformation. This week’s announcement that he will step down as the firm’s chairman a year from now, to concentrate on philanthropy, was greeted with comparative calm by investors. He stopped being chief executive in 2013; Alibaba’s share price has more than doubled since its initial public offering, the world’s largest-ever, in 2014 (see article). But one question presents itself: could China produce another story to match his? The answer is almost certainly not.