Jack Ma of Alibaba, the $200bn Chinese ecommerce giant, is making an awful mess of the purchase of the South China Morning Post, Hong Kong’s English-language daily. He should take a lesson from his business rival, Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon and owner of The Washington Post.

“Trust us. Why do people have to think that if we have it, it will lose its independence?” Mr Ma asked indignantly on Tuesday at the World Internet Conference in the southern city of Wuzhen — an event demonstrating that “China has been on an upward internet spiral for 21 years, with Tencent and Alibaba becoming the beating heart,” according to news agency Xinhua.

The answer to Mr Ma’s question is an interview given by Joseph Tsai, Alibaba’s executive vice-chairman, to the paper Alibaba bought this week for $266m. Mr Tsai complained: “There is too much of a focus on what is wrong with Alibaba?.?.?.?I’m not saying SCMP should step up coverage of Alibaba, but it should be more curious.”