In june this year Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba, a giant Chinese e-commerce firm, addressed the Economic Club of New York, whose members include many Manhattan luminaries and Wall Street chiefs. Mr Ma's message was that his company exists for the long-term good of society, a far cry from the creed of shareholder value followed by many in the room. He pledged to help America's struggling small firms export to China's 630m internet users, who between them now spend more online than Americans do. The venue for the event was the Waldorf Astoria hotel, which, when it opened in 1931, in the midst of the Depression, was hailed by President Herbert Hoover as "an exhibition of confidence and courage to the whole nation". Today the Waldorf is owned by a Chinese insurance firm run by Deng Xiaoping's grandson-in-law. The whole event seemed to symbolise a change in the world's economic order.
展开▼
