The Washington Huskies men’s basketball team opened its weeklong visit to China on Tuesday with a visit to the headquarters of Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce company that rivals U.S. tech giants such as Google and Amazon.
Tipping off a week of festivities that culminates in a game between the Huskies and Texas Longhorns on Friday, representatives from both schools and the Pac-12 sat down Tuesday for a Q&A with Alibaba founder Jack Ma at the company’s headquarters in Hangzhou. UW President Ana Mari Cauce, Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott and Ma exchanged gifts to commemorate what the conference hopes will be a multi-year relationship with China and Alibaba.