With Alibaba investigation, China gets tougher on tech

China’s internet giants came to dominate segments of the world’s No. 2 economy because Beijing’s authoritarian government largely looked the other way while they grew and grew.

Now the companies have the regulators’ full attention.

The country’s market watchdog said Thursday that it had opened an investigation into whether the e-commerce group Alibaba had engaged in monopolistic practices, such as restricting vendors from selling merchandise on other platforms. Separately on Thursday, four Chinese financial regulatory agencies, including the central bank, said they would meet soon with Ant Group, Alibaba’s finance-focused sister company, to discuss new supervision.