On February 17, Jack Ma, CEO of the Alibaba Group, reiterated that his company would continue to hold on to the principle of independent development and analyze any changes positively. Whether Microsoft succeeds in acquiring Yahoo! or not, the Alibaba Group will not change its leadership and direction, Ma added. This was the first time that Alibaba had responded to the prospective Microsoft-Yahoo! merger.

Yahoo! is Alibaba's biggest shareholder and holds a 39 percent stake in the latter. The latter also runs assorted e-commercial business for the former in China. If Microsoft were to succeed in buying Yahoo! the fate of Alibaba would be of great concern to the Chinese Internet community. Earlier some people had pointed out that Microsoft, after merging Yahoo! would first streamline the assets of the latter in Asia.

For more details, please read the full story in Chinese. (http://www.bbtnews.com.cn/mainland/channel/38685.shtml)

(China.org.cn February 18, 2008)