People sometimes remark on how Cisco got to be the superpower it is today, when it ran without an R&D function, saying instead that it used mergers as its method of R&D and completing 191 mergers since 1993. A similar strategy surrounds the large Chinese internet companies – their government prevents companies like Google, Facebook, Netflix and Amazon setting up to sell services directly in China, and so they must either reach out to local companies for partnership in order to enjoy access in the most populous market in the world, or face having their services shamelessly copied. And this is the strategy which sits behind how Tencent Video has jumped some 19.59 million new SVoD customers in just 6…