I won't invest in Chinese companies or VIEs.
...
So you soured on your interest in BABA?

Not exactly--I always had a very strong opinion that it didn't ever meet Rule #1, so it was never suitable for a large position size.
Just to begin with, BABA paper doesn't represent shares in the well known Alibaba business in China.
The bullish notes were limited to the notion that I thought there was a pretty good chance that the price would be much higher in a couple of years.
Even the prices things with dubious firm value can go up a lot.

So I bought some calls as a gamble: heads I'd win quite a bit, tails I wouldn't lose much.
Not very long term, as I didn't want to commit much cash, and it bought time to let the clouds clear to make a better decision.
I rolled them once (no new cash into the position).
But the probabilities of upside versus downside outcomes seem increasingly unlikely to me, so the maximum position size has continued to shrink.
So I still don't want to put new cash into the position, so I'm letting them expire.
Barring a last minute big pop, the cost of the calls will have been a dead loss.
But trivial as a percentage of my portfolio, and the outcome is not wholly unexpected.

I did a couple of rounds of BABA trades in the past that were profitable, so I'm up overall on the ticker. Just not as much as I was : )

Jim