Can a US consumer internet company ever make it big in China? That question, which has long dogged Silicon Valley, is starting to take on the urgency of a strategic imperative.

It isn’t just that China is a juicy target in its own right. There is a risk to ceding ground to emerging Chinese rivals in their booming home market at a time when those companies are taking their first, tentative steps towards going global. US companies, themselves accustomed to using dominance of a massive domestic market as a launch pad to take on the world, should understand what’s at stake.

Uber and Airbnb, the yin and yang of the sharing economy, are the latest to try their luck. The ride-hailing app that likes to batter down doors is in a pitched battle with a Chinese local competitor backed by two of those aspiring global players, Tencent and Alibaba. Airbnb, which prefers a less confrontational approach, this week lined upsome influential allies as it seeks its own way in.