Chinese billionaire Jack Ma has not been seen in public for 2 months

So he is hiding?

“As Business Insider’s Allana Akhtar reported, this isn’t the first time that powerful businessmen have disappeared in China after going head-to-head with the government.”

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Just laying low in Hangzhou, not missing, people have seen him. That’s according to CNBC sources

Alibaba founder Jack Ma is not missing as was reported, CNBC anchor David Faber reported Tuesday morning.
“He is being less visible, purposefully,” Faber said after noting that he has closely covered Ma and his businesses. “And you can expect for that to be the case for some time.”
Faber, citing sources, said Ma is simply laying low amid the Chinese Communist Party’s crackdown on Alibaba and Ant Group. Yahoo Finance reported over the weekend that Ma hadn’t been publicly seen in two months since China pulled his fintech firm Ant Group’s monster $37 billion IPO in early November.
“He may not have shown up, but he’s not missing,” Faber said on CNBC Tuesday. “He hasn’t been captured, he hasn’t been taken, this is not a Chairman Wu situation,” referring to the Anbang Insurance chairman who was sentenced to 18 years in prison in 2018.

That’s according to David Faber?

According to his sources, he has a relationship with Ma so could also be his own source

I can say from my interactions with him that it’s not the case. He is simply explaining his theory that I also agree with on what’s happening. I’ve been watching China trying to develop the first central bank digital currency in the world to be used by the general public. Jack Ma’s business is in the way, that’s why I think he is now in this position.

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Agreed. Its not just them, this is happening in different ways over the years in the west. Microsoft, facebook, google, amazon (hopefully) etc. They are, however, still accounted for. Well, maybe not the apple guy.

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I’ve not read this, but thought you folks might enjoy it. cheers

It’s not very accurate. For instance tHe party always has officials in large firms .State backed firms are some.of the biggest in China.

Realizing this, the CCP has begun to assert control over the private sector by “installing . . . Party officials inside private firms” and having state-backed firms invest in private enterprises. In the absence of civil rights or an independent judiciary, “private” companies have no real independence from the government in China. Dissent and demands for civil rights are a threat to the regime and will be crushed.

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Don’t we have them in our firms too already? :grimacing:

Read it before and similar things been saying here.

Basically China opened up from 1982 to 2012 under the Deng Xiaoping Gaige Kaifeng model. Deng personally chose Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao as his successor.

Especially under Jiang Zemin and his second in command Zhu Rongji China embraced entrepreneurship and free markets and everyone got fucking rich. The faction of the CCP that supports opening up is the liberal Shanghai clique headed by Jiang. Jack Ma was their poster child and had Jiang’s support.

The thing is that the state owned enterprise and the Maoists never went away. They absolutely fucking hated the liberalization and the relative lessening of power from the state. Xi is a figurehead for the hardline new-left, but was actually chosen as he was thought to be more moderate than extremist Bo Xilai (how did that work out :crazy_face:)

So since 2012, in Xi’s mind he has been saving the party and reversing the balance. In every industry in China the State competes with the private sector, on an unfair battlefield. The private sector in China actually were supporting a lot of what Trump was asking for in terms of market liberalization as they want the same things foreign companies want in China.

Since 2012 the role of the State in China has been strengthened in basically every level of life. Xi regularly attacks the private sector and underwrites and supports the SOE. The SOE make money for the party, and the party is beyond all in China.

In this context, Jack Ma as a charismatic high profile entrepreneur was always on borrowed time. His business grew too big and in some sectors like finance, was clearly competing against the state. Everyone knew eventually that something would happen. He has the original sin of being part of the Jiang clique.

Im knee deep in China stuff, so if this is too matter of fact, I apologize. I can sprinkle it with 1984 quotes if makes people more comfortable

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China is a stationary bandit. Stationary bandits wait for the economy to grow so they have more to embezzle.

Latin America is a roving bandit. Roving bandits embezzle as much as possible, as soon as possible or someone else will embezzle that money.

Alibaba is way bigger than any of the US tech firms as well. It’s not equivalent to Amazon, it basically owns the whole of the Chinese retail sector through tmall and taobao.

If used an analogy, they own the high street, the bank, the factory, the delivery firm, the supermarket.

For me personally, I don’t think tech firms should be able to get that big in any country. I feel the same way about Facebook , Google etc.

I don’t support the Draconian way the Chinese state goes about doing this, but would like to see Western governments act against big tech.

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The general spiel of a China apologist( and I know a few) Is “The Chinese system isn’t perfect, but it works. Stuff gets done at hyper speed in China and the government has improved every aspect of people’s lives. The West is falling behind, our system is inferior. Western media only focus on the bad things in China and not the amazing changes and innovation”.

I don’t believe that or say anything like that. I dislike the communist system and hate the CCP. I just try not to get to emotive about it when assessing it.

We are in the midst of a global pandemic, people are losing their jobs and hope. I’m struggling to get too emotional about a guy who owns 50 billion USD , losing a quarter of his wealth. I would put that in the “bit shit” column rather than the “EVIL EVIL Dystopian EVIL :imp::imp::imp::imp::scream::scream::scream:” one

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Seeing Jack Ma unscripted was a cringe fest. This might also be the one, from memory, where Musk referred to autonomous vehicles as a ‘solved problem’.

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Tbf, the chinese system is effective. They do get shit done. But the negatives are ugly and unacceptable for people who care about liberty and basic human rights. And they play unfair by leveraging their huge potential market so no one calls them out. Effective. But unfair and Not right.

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Sounds like Daddy Xi wants to taketh away.

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Is this a joke? Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Facebook, and Tesla are all bigger than Alibaba. Apple alone is worth like 3.5 Alibabas. Alibaba is only about as big as TSMC by market cap. It was never remotely close to touching the largest US tech firms and it never will be.

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Now Alibaba is worth jack shit.

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What are we discussing? Monopoly

In terms of a monopoly over one country, Alibaba is bigger. Facebook etc are global companies, Alibaba is essentially a local one. Sure market cap might be bigger for US tech, that’s not the point was making, rather Ali has more of a relative monopoly in China than US tech does

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Exactly.

Incidentally, also one of the reasons Taiwanese companies moving back. Everything in China now is about getting on the “Red Supply Chains” if you want to be involved in any big project or especially any BRI project. To do this you need to forfeit to the State. Taiwanese companies finding themselves not being Chinese enough and are being pushed out.

Right now nothing matters more than the Party in China. That’s where we have been for the last five years. No way Ma didn’t see this coming