David Wolf at Silicon Hutong, one of the China's best biz tech blogs, has heard what Yahoo's! Jerry Yang has to say about forming an online advertising exchange in China. And he is not impressed. Wolf recalls a long list of inglorious Yang missteps in China and then writes:

Any other executive with a similar track record would have been reassigned, if not fired, long ago.

And now Jerry wants Yahoo! China to be in the advertising exchange business.

Is anybody at Yahoo! the least bit concerned?

The only silver lining in all of this is that Jack Ma is running the ball. I'm still skeptical, but I give Jack the eBay killer an even chance.

So Wolf sees Alibaba's mercurial Ma as the upside. Ma is one of China's most talented and successful entrepreneurs. But to this observer he has always been a bit removed from Yahoo's! corporate brand and woes. Ma may well find a way to make Yahoo! China succeed in the end. But will it be in a form that Yahoo! likes? We'll all have to wait to see how that plays out.