As Alibaba gears up for its stock market debut, curious consumers who visit its US portals will find a vast array of items for sale from the strange to the sublime.
But for a global e-commerce giant, there’s also a number of things you can’t buy through Alibaba’s sites such as 11Main and AliExpress. This is no doubt due to the long arm of the Chinese’s government and strict censorship laws.
Here’s a sampling of what you will — and won’t — find via Alibaba:
1) Tiananmen ‘Tank Man’
Type “Tiananmen Square” into Amazon and you get images of China’s crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square in 1989, including the solitary man who stood fast against rolling tanks. Search any of Alibaba’s US portals, including AliExpress and 11Main.com and … no tanks. AliExpress does sell several 3D models of the red structure that faces the square.
Tiananmen SquareAFP/Getty2) Seven years in exile
“Seven Years in Tibet,” starring Brad Pitt, is also absent from any of Alibaba’s US portals. At the time of the film’s release in 1997, Pitt and the film’s director, Jean-Jacques Annaud, were banned from ever entering China. Annaud was welcomed back in 2012 to chair the 15th annual Shanghai Film Festival, but it looks like his film is still off limits.
3) Mao for sale
Like Amazon, AliExpress and 11Main have sections devoted to book sales. But type in “The Private Life of Chairman Mao,” a haunting memoir by Mao’s private doctor that depicts the iron-fisted ruler as a philanderer and you get nada. There is plenty of Mao memorabilia, including T-shirts, posters, watches and even trophies, available on AliExpress. This giant bronze statute of the chairman is available for a bargain price of $703.
4) Anti-social behavior
US social media sites like Twitter and Facebook are far from welcome in China. After banning Facebook for years, China made way for it in September 2013, within a 17-square-mile area of the mainland known as the Shanghai Free Trade Zone. But don’t expect the plethora of books about Mark Zuckerberg that you can get on Amazon. One exception is this nifty Zuckerberg coffee mug with a $20 price tag.
5) Knockoffs galore
One thing that Alibaba’s AliExpress has that Amazon doesn’t is knockoffs — lots of them. A Michael Kors watch for $7.90, anyone?
