Microsoft's Roots in China Have Positioned It to Buy TikTok

In 1998, China was hardly a technological rival to the US. With only 7 million internet users, fewer than 26 million personal computers, and an ecommerce industry that generated a paltry $42 million the following year, it was considered a laggard compared with many other countries. But Microsoft, then the world's richest and most powerful tech company, recognized the potential. That year, then-CEO Bill Gates created Microsoft Research China, an engineering outpost in Beijing to tap into a pool of talent and establish ties to the country's tech scene. In the following years, Microsoft launched internet operations in China when other US tech companies were stymied.