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I muttered 'fuck' under my breath when I read the news this morning. Not many news can make me swear anymore these days. As an immigrant from Hong Kong, SCMP i

I muttered 'fuck' under my breath when I read the news this morning. Not many news can make me swear anymore these days. As an immigrant from Hong Kong, SCMP is one of the few remaining HK media that follows a centralist approach to news regarding China. Other HK medias have already picked their sides, similar to MSNBC and Fox news in US. This buyout will be a major loss to press freedom in HK, and a loss of a rational voice to outsiders. SCMP will probably become another mouthpiece for China's central government. I don't for a second believe China/Alibaba will 'maintain editorial independence.' To be successful in China, you need to have connections (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guanxi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guanxi) . It is much of a 'you scratch my back, I scratch yours.' I am willing to believe Ma is a decent man, but how can a newspaper stay independent when its owner has to play this game?

shostack 11y ago
As someone with only passing familiarity of the concept of "guanxi," is it even possible to grow a business to that size in China and be that successful without being corrupt or participating in/facilitating corruption? Or at that level of the game is it entirely possible to succeed with "legal" forms of guanxi? Seems like a cultural concept where to get ahead it is very much "damned if you do, damned if you don't" because of what I imagine is an inherently escalating nature to it.
- swuecho 11y ago
  guanxi and corruption is not the same. you hard to do thing without guanxi (kind of good relationship). guanxi is part of chinese culture, more like, long term relationship.
  - Thriptic 11y ago
    Can you elaborate on what guanxi entails?
    - gbog 11y ago
      Guanxi really just mean "relation". In this context, it means long term business relations alloing for trust and mutual respect, where each part knows that the other part will return favors and keep the relation balanced. It also, as a side-effect, facilitate corruption, but it does not imply it. The Chinese have a long culture of managing social relations, so this side is very developped, but you have the same in higher society in Europe.
tangerine_beet 11y ago
I don't believe they'll maintain editorial independence either. But the reason is not so much guanxi as the need to cower to the will of the central government, especially on anything relating to national image and social stability. It's not a 'scratch my back I'll scratch yours' situation, but rather a 'central gov says scratch my back and I will or god knows what's going to happen to me'. That said, there is another angle to this that I think worth mentioning. Ma and his partner claim their motiviation for the takeover is to counterbalance the bias they see in western media coverage on China, and I see no reason to doubt that. However, it doesn't mean they can't have other motivations, and a leader of a high profile Chinese company like Alibaba may have ideas or motivations that are better left unsaid until the time is right. If they were buying the newspaper to give more voice to government critics, do you think they would come out and say it?

shostack 11y ago

As someone with only passing familiarity of the concept of "guanxi," is it even possible to grow a business to that size in China and be that successful without being corrupt or participating in/facilitating corruption? Or at that level of the game is it entirely possible to succeed with "legal" forms of guanxi? Seems like a cultural concept where to get ahead it is very much "damned if you do, damned if you don't" because of what I imagine is an inherently escalating nature to it.

swuecho 11y ago
guanxi and corruption is not the same. you hard to do thing without guanxi (kind of good relationship). guanxi is part of chinese culture, more like, long term relationship.
- Thriptic 11y ago
  Can you elaborate on what guanxi entails?
  - gbog 11y ago
    Guanxi really just mean "relation". In this context, it means long term business relations alloing for trust and mutual respect, where each part knows that the other part will return favors and keep the relation balanced. It also, as a side-effect, facilitate corruption, but it does not imply it. The Chinese have a long culture of managing social relations, so this side is very developped, but you have the same in higher society in Europe.

tangerine_beet 11y ago

I don't believe they'll maintain editorial independence either. But the reason is not so much guanxi as the need to cower to the will of the central government, especially on anything relating to national image and social stability. It's not a 'scratch my back I'll scratch yours' situation, but rather a 'central gov says scratch my back and I will or god knows what's going to happen to me'. That said, there is another angle to this that I think worth mentioning. Ma and his partner claim their motiviation for the takeover is to counterbalance the bias they see in western media coverage on China, and I see no reason to doubt that. However, it doesn't mean they can't have other motivations, and a leader of a high profile Chinese company like Alibaba may have ideas or motivations that are better left unsaid until the time is right. If they were buying the newspaper to give more voice to government critics, do you think they would come out and say it?