Alibaba and Tencent Consider Opening Up Their Walled Gardens

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. BABA 1.96% and Tencent Holdings Ltd. TCEHY 3.76% are considering moves to gradually open up their services to one another, as Beijing’s tech crackdown makes it harder for China’s two online giants to maintain the virtual barriers they have built in recent years.

That would mark a big shift for China’s consumer internet, which has largely split into two camps built around the arch rivals. The restrictions mean, for example, that customers can’t use Tencent’s payment system to buy goods on an Alibaba platform.

Now, both companies are separately working on plans to loosen those curbs, according to people familiar with the matter. The system could make life more convenient for consumers—and help spur greater competition—but will also mean the duo will have more insight into each other’s businesses.

Initial steps from Alibaba could include introducing Tencent’s WeChat Pay to Alibaba’s e-commerce marketplaces, Taobao and Tmall, some of the people said.

Tencent could make it easier to share Alibaba e-commerce listings on its WeChat messaging app, or allow selected Alibaba services to access WeChat users via so-called mini-programs, some of the people said. Mini-programs are light apps embedded in the main WeChat app.

The moves come as Beijing seeks to tame China’s tech giants. In April, the country’s State Administration for Market Regulation fined Alibaba a record 18.2 billion yuan, the equivalent of $2.8 billion, for forcing vendors to sell exclusively on its platform, in a practice known as “er xuan yi,” or “choose one out of two.”

Alibaba was also ordered to carry out a comprehensive revamp and submit “self-examination compliance reports” in the next three years.

Angela Zhang, an associate professor of law at the University of Hong Kong and author of “Chinese Antitrust Exceptionalism,” said the split in China’s internet was a fundamental competitive problem.

“This is the core of the antitrust issue here. Without addressing those problems, it will not fundamentally change the competitive landscape in China’s tech industry,” Ms. Zhang said. “Startups have no choice but to join either the Alibaba or Tencent camp, because the two control the so-called superapps that serve as gateways to vast amounts of users,” she said.

On the one side stands Alibaba, its financial affiliate Ant Group Co., and Alibaba-owned firms like Ele.me, a food-delivery platform. The other camp includes Tencent and its many investee companies like e-commerce groups JD.com Inc., Meituan and Pinduoduo Inc.