Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) touted its Asian holdings as a key reason why Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) ought to pay more for the company, arguing that they represent extra strategic value. But Alibaba, the Chinese internet conglomerate that’s 39 percent owned by Yahoo, is looking for someone to take over this stake, reports Reuters, citing a source familiar with the discussion. Alibaba does not want to come under Microsoft’s influence, and it believes that its 2005 agreement with Yahoo gives it the right to invoke such a transaction, should Yahoo ultimately get sold. The firm has reportedly hired Deutsche Bank and the law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz to advise on the situation.

-- This isn’t the first indication that the Microsoft bid has caused reverberations in China. A report last month suggested that Chinese regulators had contacted Alibaba over the situation, though another report said that it was mainly Alibaba that was concerned.

-- Meanwhile, Alibaba.com, the publicly traded B2B site, in which Yahoo took a sizable pre-IPO stake, has been sliding, and is trading below the IPO price for the first time. Reuters quotes an analyst attributing the decline to the company’s exposure to the slowing US economy. In the financial presentation made this morning, Yahoo said Alibaba.com accounted for $2 of each Yahoo share, though it did not peg a value on its total Alibaba investment.

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