Will be tough for Alibaba, Tencent, JD.com to grow without Beijing’s help

Earnings reports from Chinese tech companies last week should be a wake-up call for Beijing.

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and JD.com Inc. pulled out all the stops to attract customers to spend during their 618 shopping festival, a Black Friday-like extravaganza that took place during the quarter ending in June. They offered steeper-than-ever discounts on everything from iPhones to loungewear, enlisted A-list celebrities like Rihanna to promote products, and even experimented with a digital avatar of an executive to hawk goods over livestream.