Tencent Holdings ’ recent move to open up its ubiquitous super app WeChat to shopping links from external platforms marks a major victory for Chinese regulators, as Big Tech companies bow to pressure to remove online walled gardens in the world’s biggest e-commerce market , according to analysts. “These high walls that tech companies built are finally coming down,” said David Wei Shilin, a senior partner at multinational law firm Dentons, who indicated that the impact of this development will be different for each company in the industry. “[Being open] is a core part of the internet.” On Monday, Tencent announced on its official WeChat account that users of the multipurpose app will be able to directly open third-party shopping links in the platform’s group chats “on the basis of ensuring security and user experience”. This development means major enterprises are now fully aware of this inexorable trend towards openness, according to Dentons’ Wei, who also serves as secretary general of the Competition and Anti-Monopoly Law Commission of the Beijing Lawyers Association. “It is impossible for a mantis to stop a chariot,” said Wei, citing an old Chinese idiom about futility. He indicated, however, that in the past “the overall environment was not suitable for regulators to enforce the law in a very strong manner” against Big Tech companies. That all changed in the past 12 months, when Beijing started tightening the regulation of China’s technology sector – especially the once-freewheeling internet companies – through a series of crackdowns designed to further develop the nation’s digital economy by stamping out monopolistic practices, securing private data and encouraging greater competition. The latest move by internet giant Tencent, which runs the world’s biggest video gaming business by revenue , reflects the new reality for Big Tech companies under this tightened regulatory regime. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology ratcheted up the pressure on Big Tech companies in July, when it started a six-month campaign to address the internet industry’s “tough problems” . This effort targeted 22 specific scenarios, including the practice by online platforms to block and restrict normal access to other websites without a legitimate reason. Still, the initial steps at greater interoperability between platforms have been unsteady. Beijing wants to smash online walls but Big Tech treads carefully On the opening up of WeChat, known as Weixin on the mainland, Jefferies equity analyst Thomas Chong said in a research note on Monday: “We view further updates about connectivity by Tencent as a positive for the sector.” He described it as an important step after Tencent announced in September that new rules on external links and connectivity would be implemented in phases. WeChat, with 1.26 billion monthly active users, is also a major access point for those using JD.com and Meituan , Chong said in a research note that month. The accessibility of shopping links in the platform’s group chats “is a key focus area for [other] e-companies”, he said on Monday. While Tencent’s announcement did not identify these external platforms, WeChat has been accused before by Taobao Marketplace and Tmall apps operator Alibaba Group Holding and ByteDance , parent of short video platforms Douyin and TikTok , of blocking their links. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post . China’s e-commerce crackdown puts tech giants in line with national policy Since acquiring a stake in JD.com in 2014 , which included transferring its QQ Wanggou and PaiPai e-commerce businesses to that platform, Tencent has continued to make strategic e-commerce investments. In 2017, Tencent and JD.com invested a combined US$863 million in cash in online fashion retailer Vipshop. The Shenzhen-based internet giant is currently the second-biggest stakeholder in both Vipshop and social e-commerce platform Pinduoduo . As such, these partner companies had exclusive access to WeChat’s ecosystem through mini-programs. These are apps that run within WeChat, enabling partner firms to set up shop, do live streaming campaigns and sell directly to WeChat users. Total sales made on various mini programs doubled in 2020 to reach 1.6 trillion yuan (US$250 billion), as the number of daily active users of these mini apps totalled 400 million, according to Tencent earlier this year. Still, “e-commerce is not one of the areas in which Tencent attaches great importance”, said Chen Tao, an e-commerce analyst at research firm Analysys. Chen described WeChat being opened as “more like icing on the cake” because the competitive advantages for e-commerce platforms are a good supply chain and understanding the needs of their users. China’s digital economy not winner-take-all market, Xinhua says In March, Alibaba and Tencent were said to be on the verge of a major e-commerce collaboration , which would see bargain online shopping platform Taobao Deals offered as a mini-program on WeChat. Under that initiative, Taobao Deals would accept transactions that use online payment service WeChat Pay, which is the main rival of Alibaba affiliate Ant Group ’s Alipay. Alibaba has long barred the use of WeChat Pay on its Chinese retail platforms, including Tmall and Taobao. Transactions on Tencent’s WeChat have also been exclusive to the platform’s own payment service. Alibaba chief executive Daniel Zhang Yong said in a conference call earlier this month that the experience for users was “actually bad” whenever they tried to share Taobao links on social media platforms like WeChat.