The idea of an Alipay and Apple Pay partnership in China —suggested by Jack Ma this week—didn’t make a lot of sense when he said it.上周，马云明确提出要让支付宝（Alipay）和苹果缴纳（Apple Pay）在中国合作，不过当时他的这个建议变得并不合理。Alipay is China’s most popular online payment system used for online purchases including Taobao orders, paying utility bills, movie tickets, and other shopping sites. It is not like Visa, Mastercard, or China’s own UnionPay, which have a network of tens of thousands of merchants and swipe stations. Walk around Beijing or Shanghai and you’ll see plenty of signs for UnionPay, the state-owned processor that enjoys a monopoly within China, and barely any for Alipay.支付宝是中国当下最热门的在线缴纳系统，人们用它缴纳淘宝（Taobao）上的订单，交纳物业费，出售电影票，还可在其他购物网站上消费。然而，支付宝的地位与享有数万个商家和刷卡网络的Visa、万事达（Mastercard）或中国银联（UnionPay）不尽相同。

漫步在北京或者上海的街头，你不会找到银联的标志随处可见——作为国有缴纳处置机构，银联在中国具备独占地位——而支付宝的标志却寥寥无几。Apple’s new Apple Pay, meanwhile, is a mostly physical experience. You forgo the hassle of swiping a credit card at the cash register for the ease of touching the iPhone’s home button at two hundred thousand locations that have signed on with Apple. Yes, it has an online component that makes online shopping easier, but its allure is the physical component, just as Alipay’s allure is online.与此同时，苹果（Apple）的新产品——苹果缴纳——更好的是一种实地体验。你需要在结账柜台刷卡，而只需在与苹果签下的20万家门店内，精彩按下iPhone的home键就能已完成缴付。是的，苹果手机上的在线组件让在线购物显得更加便利了，但它的关键还是物理组件，而支付宝的特色则是在线缴纳。

So when Ma brought up a partnership, it wasn’t clear what Alipay could offer Apple in China: it doesn’t have payment installations across the country and even where it did—in some stores it previously setup QR codes at cash registers that customers scanned with Alipay—UnionPay told Alipay to route them through UnionPay’s network.所以当马云抛橄榄枝时，我们并不确切支付宝在中国能给苹果带给什么：它在国内没缴纳设施，尽管曾多次有过——支付宝曾在一些商家的收银台前获取二维码，顾客可以扫瞄二维码来缴付，而银联随后回应，支付宝必需通过银联网络才能已完成缴纳处置。But Jack Ma doesn’t choose his words lightly. What he says carry weight even if it is difficult to understand. Just two days after he spoke on a stage with Tim Cook in the audience, China’s government announced a massive change to the payments system that supported Ma’s idea of a partnership.但马云并不是轻率地开腔，这番话近于有分量，即便你很难解读。就在马云在众目睽睽下与蒂姆o库克的对话刚过去两天，中国政府就宣告了将对缴纳政策作出极大转变，马云的合作设想随之获得不利反对。

Late Wednesday, China’s State Council, the Communist Party’s 35-member policy board led by Premier Li Keqiang, announced China would open its payment system to foreign companies like Visa, Mastercard, and American Express, which it had long discriminated against. It might have well have added Alipay, which has also been disadvantaged. China has blocked foreigners for more than a decade from issuing their own cards and forced them to use UnionPay’s network, handing over a cut of the fees. During that time, UnionPay grew into a full-blown monopoly.上周三，由李克强总理领导的中国国务院宣告，中国将对Visa、万事达和美国运通（American Express）等国外公司对外开放缴纳系统。仍然正处于弱势地位的支付宝也有可能名列其中。十多年来，中国仍然禁令这些公司派发自己的银行卡，强制他们用于银联网络并交纳费用。

在此期间，银联茁壮为一家羽翼丰满的独占巨头。Alipay has similarly faced off against UnionPay. Last August, Alipay abruptly said it shut down its offline point-of-sales service—the limited physical locations it had—for “obvious reasons” after UnionPay said Alipay’s transactions must be integrated into its network. It was a bold power grab, but one with state support.支付宝在面临银联时遭遇了类似于困境。

去年8月，在银联回应支付宝的交易必需划入银联网络后，支付宝忽然宣告，由于“显著的原因”，将重开线下销售点的服务——尽管数量十分受限。“Alipay decided to quit offline payments altogether because it does not want to subject itself to UnionPay’s control,” China’s business magazine Caixin quoted a source saying at the time.中国商业媒体财新（Caixin）当时提到了一个消息源的众说纷纭：“支付宝要求完全解散线下缴纳领域，因为它想受到银联的掌控。”Jack Ma stopped short of submitting to UnionPay’s rules when it came to online payments, however, because the stakes were too big. Alipay handled almost half the $900 billion online payments in China last year, according to iResearch.在在线缴纳领域，马云并没受到银联的管控，因为这块蛋糕过于大了。

研究公司iResearch的数据表明，去年中国在线缴纳的总额超过9,000亿美元，其中完全一半都是通过支付宝已完成的。Jack Ma is known for staying a step or two ahead of the government without creating feuds. The way he sidestepped UnionPay’s monopoly in the mid-2000s by setting up Alipay’s online system with 200 banks is one example. Teaming up with Apple Pay looks like another. A partnership made little sense until China’s government announced it was opening up payments for everyone, which reduces UnionPay’s influence on the market and on Alipay. It remains to be seen how the rules will be implemented, but overnight UnionPay’s has less sway over Alipay.马云知名之处，在于他总能慢政府一到两步，却会越线。其中一个例子是他在2004年创办了支付宝在线缴纳系统，并与200家银行签下，乘势超越了银联的独占。与苹果缴纳的合作或许不会是另一个顺利案例。

这次合作最初意义并不大，但随着中国政府宣告将放松缴纳领域的容许，因而增加了银联对市场和支付宝的影响力，情况就大有所不同了。这一规定到底将如何实行仍尚待仔细观察，但一夜之间，银联对支付宝的影响大大减少了。Ma’s suggestion of an Apple Pay partnership, knowing a policy change would help it advance, looks prescient. An Alibaba spokeswoman declined comment.马云或许在官方公布消息之前就早已告诉政策将要变化，因此才明确提出了和苹果缴纳合作的建议。

阿里巴巴（Alibaba）的发言人拒绝接受回应公开发表评论。Even though China’s government is intent on allowing foreigner card companies, and by extension Alipay, into the market, it will be years before any build scale to compete with UnionPay, which has tens of thousands of agreements with stores, restaurants, and shops.即便中国政府无意让外国银行卡公司甚至支付宝都转入市场，但它们要茁壮到不足以同银联竞争仍必须好几年时间。后者早已与成千上万家餐馆、餐厅和商铺签定了合作协议。Forrester vice president Bryan Wang in Beijing sees a potential Alipay agreement as a hedge. “The high-end iPhone 6 user wants to buy something at a department store, and they say, ‘Sorry we don’t accept Alipay—that’s probably not the experience Apple want to bring customers,” he says.坐落于北京的弗雷斯特研究公司（Forrester）副总裁王平回应，支付宝要达成协议这一合作仍不存在障碍。

他回应：“矮小上的iPhone 6用户想在百货商场买点东西，结果店员说道：‘对不起，我们不反对支付宝’——这有可能不是苹果想带来顾客的体验。”The first conversations Apple had about coming to China happened with UnionPay. But the negotiations have been slow to form. For now, Apple Pay is deactivated on iPhones sold in China. Caixin has reported that negotiations are still advancing.就转入中国的问题，苹果首先自由选择与银联进行对话。但磋商的进展十分较慢。

到目前为止，苹果缴纳功能依然没能在中国的iPhone上落成。据财新报导，双方仍在接洽。It may be that the potential tie up between Jack Ma and Apple has little to do with China. “What Alibaba may be trying to do is…gain entry into the huge U.S. offline retail market and in return integrate Apple Pay into Alibaba’s online footprint from app stores to online retail stores in China,” says Neil Shah, who tracks the China mobile market for Counterpoint Research.马云和苹果公司的潜在合作有可能与中国关系不大。

Counterpoint Research公司的尼尔o沙哈负责管理研究中国的移动市场，他回应：“阿里巴巴想要做到的，有可能是转入美国极大的线下零售市场。作为报酬，阿里巴巴的在线产品将植入苹果缴纳功能，借以将其从苹果应用于商店带进中国的在线零售商店。

”Apple doesn’t need Alipay and Alipay doesn’t need Apple. But at least now it’s clearer how they would work together.苹果并不是不须和支付宝合作不能，而支付宝也不是“非君不娶”。但最少，双方有可能的合作方式现在显得更加清晰了。

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