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Quote:If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then China’s leading B2B e-commerce platform, Alibaba.com, should feel complimented indeed.

On Monday, the China Internet Information Center, a government agency under the State Council Information Office, launched “China Suppliers,” a web site billed as China’s largest government-run e-commerce platform. The site has a pearl of a URL—www.china.cn—and a slick layout.

That layout—along with the site’s list of product categories and all its core functions—is a near-perfect replica of Alibaba’s.

Zhang Ke, deputy director of China Suppliers, told the Oriental Morning Post, a Shanghai-based daily, that he does not believe the new site will create any “conflict of interest” with Hangzhou-based Alibaba or with other B2B platforms because China Suppliers does not offer a platform to complete transactions between buyers and sellers...