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Not surprising at all. Contrary to what most people I know think, I think Xi Jinping and company are really scared. And the more scared they are, the more auth

Not surprising at all. Contrary to what most people I know think, I think Xi Jinping and company are really scared. And the more scared they are, the more authoritarian they become. They are afraid of Taiwan because Taiwan is the living example that China can prosper without the CCP. They are afraid of Hong Kong because it's an example of resistance to the regime. They are afraid of religions because no matter how much you punish someone, you won't be able to make them worship you instead. They are afraid of wealthy people because they can taste freedom and they can vision a China without the CCP. And so on...

systemvoltage 6y ago
Recently, the most notable is Xi has not congratulated or acknowledged Joe Biden’s victory.
- selectodude 6y ago
  Just did today. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/biden-election-china-trump/2020/11/13/b25961f4-2586-11eb-9c4a-0dc6242c4814_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/biden-elec...
  - systemvoltage 6y ago
    Thanks for the correction.
- arcticbull 6y ago
  A lot of leaders held off until some of the uncertainty is resolved.
ajay-b 6y ago
Do you think China suffers from a collective inferiority complex? By that I mean: Any attack or criticism is fiercely resisted because it challenges the party narrative that the party can do no wrong?
- wsc981 6y ago
  > Do you think China suffers from a collective inferiority complex? Might have something to do with loss of face perhaps which is an important concept in many asian countries [0]. From my understanding you have to be very careful with criticism in many Asian countries, especially with regards to authority. If someone has higher authority than you (e.g. boss at work) he can generally do no wrong or if he does wrong in some way (e.g. makes bad business deal), you don't confront your boss. --- [0]: https://www.tripsavvy.com/saving-face-and-losing-face-1458303 https://www.tripsavvy.com/saving-face-and-losing-face-145830...
  - dnhz 6y ago
    I'm not a fan of cultural explanations for behavior versus realpolitik, especially when the alleged cultural characteristic can be distilled into a single phrase.
  - mads 6y ago
    I think loss of face is a very misunderstood concept. When is the last time you as a westerner, which I assume you are, bragged to your friends about losing face that time you slipped on a banana peel?
- tshaddox 6y ago
  Couldn't it also be that criticisms are resisted because people literally remember the last 40 years of economic improvements in China, and attribute (whether reasonably or not) that improvement to the CCP? I'm not saying that's a good reason to fiercely resist criticism, but it's certainly an understandable emotional response.
- baybal2 6y ago
  > think China suffers from a collective inferiority complex? You couldn't have said it better. But it's much more attributable to the now waning elites, than anybody else. Those are people who grew up being spoon fed with success for life, and are envious beyond measure of people who got to succeed without paying a dime for party membership.
tinza123 6y ago
...that escalated quickly. Ant's business model is under the hood good old lending and banking, where their "innovation" excels at minimizing the barrier to spend your future money. This is not like Google or Microsoft, whose products are purely technology, this is a glorified financial company. And the more money they raise, the larger / crazier scale their lending will affect. Just to give you a hint, their "savings account" equivalent has way higher interest rate than the national banks, but with same level of account numbers if not more, that would need consistently piling money to sustain. Essentially they will become "too big to fail" if the IPO goes through, and you know how that went in 2008. Yeah I guess Xi and co are scared, but for a different reason. Nothing about the foreign policies or whatever you think "freedom" is.
- Aperocky 6y ago
  Ants lending business has doled out 1.8T on 36B of cash from Ant itself. That's 50 times the leverage they financed through ABS. A term that was very relevant in 2008. Everything will be fine until the central bank raise interests, or if economy goes down the shitter. The new regulation limits the leverage cap from infinite to about 15, closer to bank's 10. This limits risk, and is considered a reasonable move. A truly desperate move would be to allow these bubbles to go ahead and IPO. Which almost happened, everything will be fine and dandy for a while, until it's not. Whether it's due to Xi's insecurity or not, I'd say that China dodged a bullet here.
  - travmatt 6y ago
    “Xi shows his power by punishing a powerful businessman” is a much better story for him than “Xi limits size of over leveraged company over fears it could wreck economy”
  - blackrock 6y ago
    Exactly. This whole discussion about China suppressing Jack Ma is nonsense. It seems nobody here even knows what Ant was doing. And they’re all typically ignorant about whatever happens in China, and will just superimpose their biased views on them. Ant was running some really shady and risky lending practices. They were not relevant when they were a private company, but once they became public, it instantly became a serious matter. The risk of failure is very high, and it risks bringing the whole system down. What the government told Ant to do, was to have more collateral on their books. To increase it from 2% to 30%. Plain and simple. Then they can go forward with their IPO.
ChrisClark 6y ago
I've heard it said they are afraid of religion, not because they want to be worshiped, but because it's scary to them for people to have a 'higher' authority than the state.
- marcinzm 6y ago
  Exactly, centralized religion has historically been a source of power in competition to the government, military and so on. So authoritarian governments either try to co-opt it or get rid of it.
  - free_rms 6y ago
    Centralized religion has historically never existed or even anything close to it in China. And Xi has actually been a big booster for revival of the religious traditions that they do have. Every one of these threads is full of people doing a ctrl-f find/replace Russia/China on their cold war propaganda lessons. China's a different country, with a billion and a half people and a few thousand years of history that most Americans are completely ignorant of, but that doesn't stop them from being supremely confident in their takes.
    - iaw 6y ago
      > And Xi has actually been a big booster for revival of the religious traditions that they do have. Tell that to the Uyghur's.
      - wolco2 6y ago
        The Uyghur situation and the road to Europe being built over them will need to be resolved in Europe in the future. Religions can create allys. Saving this Islamic branch may go a way to reconnecting/reunderstanding the west and Islam.
    - aaomidi 6y ago
      Centralized religion doesn't need to exist in China. Islam is worldwide. Christianity is worldwide. Judaism is worldwide. And many other faiths are worldwide.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
free_rms 6y ago
This comment carries a barrel full of assumptions that the lines you were fed in civics class are fundamentally right and destined to prevail. Consider: other countries have their own civics classes where they get fed a similar line about their systems.
- whimsicalism 6y ago
  I believe that some systems are more moral than others. That said, it's pretty clear from many comments on HN that people have no clue how far along China is, perhaps stuck in a early 2000s mindset. Nor do they seem to have any serious understanding of Chinese government.
  - drilldrive 6y ago
    Where do you place China yourself development wise today?
    - ClumsyPilot 6y ago
      What does that actually mean as a questio ? Like what is the range of possible answera, is it answered with a year, or something else?
      - drilldrive 6y ago
        I mean do you see China becoming the next world power? I do myself, though not nearly as long as a reign as America had, I foresee a 15 year thereabout hold from China until the country falls into the typical issues that the Western world has faced + Japan faced since the 90's.
        whimsicalism 6y ago
        > I mean do you see China becoming the next world power I don't see there being a next clear world power because I don't think the world works that way anymore.. capital is way too trans-national at this point.
duxup 6y ago
I hate to use anecdotes but if you're clamping down on Winnie the Pooh ... it's really hard to see that as anything but a fairly fearful position.
- eunos 6y ago
  Actually I'm very doubtful that Winnie the Pooh thing was decided by him. Pretty sure that's just decided by lower level censors and Xi himself has no idea that the Pooh controversy even exists.
baybal2 6y ago
> Contrary to what most people I know think, I think Xi Jinping and company are really scared. Contrary to what most people think, I think Xi Jinping and company are really scared, but not for the reason you mention. Xi is said to be very afraid of Shanghai clique, and this is the reason they are still around, and not crushed like everybody else. Who owns Ant? Speculations are that a number of people from the Shanghai clique are, with the biggest one being public knowledge: grandson of Jiang Zemin got Ant's shares for noticeably less than market price. I believe, this explains why this case was handled remarkably tactfully, and why Ma still walks in one piece. Anybody else would've been disappeared the same day for much less in today's China.
- specialist 6y ago
  > I think Xi Jinping and company are really scared I just assume Xi Zinping is Andy Grove style paranoid. Isn't that how power works? If it wasn't the Shanghai clique, it'd be 5 other aspirants.
yongjik 6y ago
No, I don't think Xi and his friends are scared at all. That's almost like saying the US government is keeping a dozen carriers because it's scared of Russia (or China). Xi is rattling his saber against Taiwan because he can and he will face no consequences. Xi is sending police to Hong Kong because he can and he will face no consequences. Xi is clamping down on religion because he can and ... Maybe Xi is a bit paranoid, but you don't become a lifelong dictator of a billion people by doubting yourself. If I have to guess, Xi is convinced that he's leading China into an age of unprecedented glory, and he's surrounded by people who talk the same and mostly think the same.
- belval 6y ago
  While I strongly dislike authoritarian regimes and wish the CCP would just disappear. You have to admit that China in the last 20 years has been an absolute growth machine. I often see it argued that it's "fake" because the party subsidizes a lot of economic ventures, but even then they are building one hell of a domestic market. Trying not to do the apology of a terrible regime, but I can see why Xi would see himself as "leading China into an age of unprecedented glory".
  - thefounder 6y ago
    For what is worth many dicators had "golden" years. The issue is that at some point you get a bad dictator(or the current one turns bad) and you have to live with him your entire life. Not to mention that even within the golden period you still have freedoms taken away but that's a different story/trade off.
    - H8crilA 6y ago
      China's political system is nothing that a good old style capitalistic bust can't take out in a decade or so. The USSR never recovered from the inflationary late 70s. Japan's state-induced credit boom economy never recovered from the early 90s deflationary bust. Dictatorships/state controlled economies are still economies. As Hyman Minsky would agree - there's only one way to handle volatility, take it in your face. You can't suppress it.
lookgg 6y ago
can't agree more
tanilama 6y ago
I don't think so. Xi does this because he can. If you can quarantine 1B people in two weeks, that means Xi's power has reached an unbelievable level. He can start a war if he wants to, no one in China can object to that. Alibaba is nothing but a pawn to him. The fear created by halting of Ant IPO will ensure no other entrepreneurs will publicly challenge the authority as long as Xi is in power.
specialist 6y ago
"Not surprising at all." That Jack Ma said anything at all surprised me. Ma's had always been wholly obsequious, in public at least. I guessed that Ma's spoke up for one of the reason's I've done so in the past: Ma was done and decided to stop playing. He felt he finally had enough juice to make some kind of a power play. He felt that Truth and Duty were principles worth dying for. Whatever the reason, I'm sure he now wishes he hadn't. I'll be doubly surprised if Ma doesn't have an exit strategy. Opting for that seaside villa and teaching poetry to local school kids.
- Aperocky 6y ago
  Being able to finance high interest lending by selling subprime debt securities are principles worth dying for? Or are these Truth and Duty? I'm very confused. Ma criticised the regulators for 'holding back innovation', innovation we've seen and paid for in 2008.
  - specialist 6y ago
    I am the last person to ask about the merits of Ma's argument. I'm firmly in the castles in the sky camp, that all finance is intrinsically suspect, and that all the belligerents retcon their dogma as needed (went up because I'm a genius, went down due to unforeseen circumstances completely beyond my control). Like I tried to say, poorly, I'm just surprised Ma spoke up, and can only guess why.
AsyncAwait 6y ago
I think the difference between the U.S. and China is that in the U.S. corporate power controls the government, whereas in China the state has control over the corporations. I don't think Xi is scared per se, but he definitely doesn't want China ending up like the U.S.
vicpara 6y ago
This articles speaks of Xi Jinping as if he is taking all the decisions. There are a lot more people behind him that are assessing the situations based on merits rather than personal whims. It's only the Western ignorance that makes us see every economical, fiscal and foreign decision to belong to one man be it Putin or Xi Jinping. It also reinforces us the ideas that were sold to us by our own government: China is ruled by a dictatorship and everything they do must be wrong. Everything China does must be wrong because it's not a democracy and people are not free. The internation banking rules force the banks to adhere to a set of conduct, regulations and rules that make the banking environment predictable for all actors. Looking at money flow: speed, volume and diversity, it is in China's interests to have a predictable and understandable banking landscape rather than continuing on this path of reinventing the wheel. The more Western banks trust the banking system within China, the more predictable and easy it will be to keep the economy growing. ANT's move is only establishing a state within a state and certainly hurts national security by creating a gap in one core service within any modern country: the financial system.
eznzt 6y ago
>They are afraid of Taiwan because Taiwan is the living example that China can prosper without the CCP. You can not compare the racially and culturally homogeneous Taiwan to the whole of China. A country like China has 0 chance of remain whole without authoritarian leadership. >They are afraid of Hong Kong because it's an example of resistance to the regime. They are not, they crapped their pants and with time things will get worse for them. >They are afraid of religions because no matter how much you punish someone, you won't be able to make them worship you instead. They just don't want the west of China to become a playground for Islamic terrorists.
hungryhobo 6y ago
I think the reason your opinion is different than most people you know is because you really know nothing about china unfortunately. > They are afraid of Taiwan because Taiwan is the living example that China can prosper without the CCP. Not really, 20 years ago maybe? but now that the first tier provinces have mostly caught up economically it's really just a matter of time before rest of china catches up. > They are afraid of Hong Kong because it's an example of resistance to the regime. again, most chinese think the hongkong riots as a bunch of misguided youth manipulated by western media. you may not agree with it, but that's the view held in china right now. > They are afraid of religions because no matter how much you punish someone, you won't be able to make them worship you instead. or maybe the fact religion has been the main drivers for a whole bunch of wars? > They are afraid of wealthy people because they can taste freedom and they can vision a China without the CCP. is that why more and more wealthy chinese people are expressing their support for ccp abroad, but are instead labelled as brainwashed?
- dcolkitt 6y ago
  > Not really, 20 years ago maybe? but now that the first tier provinces have mostly caught up economically it's really just a matter of time before rest of china catches up. This isn't even remotely true. Taiwan has a GDP per capita of $54,000.[1] The two wealthiest administrative division in China are Shanghai at $38,000 and Beijing at $37,000[2]. Moreover it's not an apples-to-apples comparison because those cities are consistently drawing the best and the brightest from the entire country. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_administrative_divisions_by_GDP_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_administrative...
  - hungryhobo 6y ago
    Can you tell the difference in living standards between 54,000 and 38,000?
    - BobbyJo 6y ago
vmception 6y ago
Thats a huge stretch. It is the total opposite. Xi Jinping is keeping all the key holders to the kingdom satisfied impeccably well. They aren't afraid of Hong Kong, the other perspective is that Hong Kong has much less relevance than it had during the handover, 20% of GDP down to 3% of GDP. Hong Kong is an example and cautionary of tale of "late stage capitalism" that all cities around the world experience, high rents and living costs and no consensus on how to help. Whereas mainland China gets large living spaces and welfare for all while inheriting exposure to high growth market based systems and its working extremely well right now, Beijing's state capital system is working. They can deal with Hong Kong as is for the next 17 years no problem. Taiwan is just there. They can saber-rattle about that for a long time too. The status-quo in China is good enough, some people get their money out, others provide services in mainland. That status quo involves the implicit threat of party members doing anything to you if you fall out of favor. Chinese unity and territorial sovereignty is the primary common denominator of everything Xi does, if you do or say anything that can be seen to harm the state or the idea of China, then you've done it wrong. I read the transcript of Jack Ma's speech, it wasn't very egregious, but all he had to do was skip the thoughts about the current state of how debt is negotiated in China.
addicted 6y ago
They’ve managed to crush Hong Kong. And they are on their way to beating Taiwan at its own strengths. Even if they are running scared, it looks like they’re running extremely successfully. Of course, it helps that the only country that could have put pressure on them was led by a moron who though mispronouncing China’s name was the heights of showing them up, while not taking any effective long term actions.
throwawaysea 6y ago
This is also true of the far left in the US. Their attempts to increasingly censor, deplatform, ban, cancel, and so forth suggests that they are scared that people do not think like they do. And with that comes a bend towards authoritarianism and fascist control, the very things they claim to be against. But just like with the chicken and the egg, I cannot rightly tell if either the CCP or the American far left are acting out of fear, or if they are just exercising newly-gained power. It may simply be that they're putting new power to work, testing the waters to entrench their positions further.
chenpengcheng 6y ago
lol wishful thinking
ChomskyNormal4m 6y ago
People have been saying the CCP is on its last legs for over 70 years. In those seventy years it has led a country which grew to have the second largest GDP in the world. -- writing this from the USA, where Covid is spiking, where there are armed right wing Covid open for business riots at statehouses, as well as against police kneeling on black men's throats killing them leading to nationwide blm antifa riots, where the president won't concede the election, where U3 unemployment is currently 6.9% etc. (I heard about the Hong Kong riots in the US News until the open-business/blm/antifa riots happened with a much higher body count)
dang 6y ago
Please don't take HN threads on generic tangents. Nationalistic and political battle is particularly repetitive and therefore off topic here. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=generic%20discussion%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor... https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=generic%20ideolog%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor... https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html If you compare this subthread to the much higher-quality—because more specific, and specifically about this story—comments elsewhere in the thread, you'll get a sense of why we have this rule.

systemvoltage 6y ago

Recently, the most notable is Xi has not congratulated or acknowledged Joe Biden’s victory.

selectodude 6y ago
Just did today. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/biden-election-china-trump/2020/11/13/b25961f4-2586-11eb-9c4a-0dc6242c4814_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/biden-elec...
- systemvoltage 6y ago
  Thanks for the correction.
arcticbull 6y ago
A lot of leaders held off until some of the uncertainty is resolved.

ajay-b 6y ago

Do you think China suffers from a collective inferiority complex? By that I mean: Any attack or criticism is fiercely resisted because it challenges the party narrative that the party can do no wrong?

wsc981 6y ago
> Do you think China suffers from a collective inferiority complex? Might have something to do with loss of face perhaps which is an important concept in many asian countries [0]. From my understanding you have to be very careful with criticism in many Asian countries, especially with regards to authority. If someone has higher authority than you (e.g. boss at work) he can generally do no wrong or if he does wrong in some way (e.g. makes bad business deal), you don't confront your boss. --- [0]: https://www.tripsavvy.com/saving-face-and-losing-face-1458303 https://www.tripsavvy.com/saving-face-and-losing-face-145830...
- dnhz 6y ago
  I'm not a fan of cultural explanations for behavior versus realpolitik, especially when the alleged cultural characteristic can be distilled into a single phrase.
- mads 6y ago
  I think loss of face is a very misunderstood concept. When is the last time you as a westerner, which I assume you are, bragged to your friends about losing face that time you slipped on a banana peel?
tshaddox 6y ago
Couldn't it also be that criticisms are resisted because people literally remember the last 40 years of economic improvements in China, and attribute (whether reasonably or not) that improvement to the CCP? I'm not saying that's a good reason to fiercely resist criticism, but it's certainly an understandable emotional response.
baybal2 6y ago
> think China suffers from a collective inferiority complex? You couldn't have said it better. But it's much more attributable to the now waning elites, than anybody else. Those are people who grew up being spoon fed with success for life, and are envious beyond measure of people who got to succeed without paying a dime for party membership.

tinza123 6y ago

...that escalated quickly. Ant's business model is under the hood good old lending and banking, where their "innovation" excels at minimizing the barrier to spend your future money. This is not like Google or Microsoft, whose products are purely technology, this is a glorified financial company. And the more money they raise, the larger / crazier scale their lending will affect. Just to give you a hint, their "savings account" equivalent has way higher interest rate than the national banks, but with same level of account numbers if not more, that would need consistently piling money to sustain. Essentially they will become "too big to fail" if the IPO goes through, and you know how that went in 2008. Yeah I guess Xi and co are scared, but for a different reason. Nothing about the foreign policies or whatever you think "freedom" is.

Aperocky 6y ago
Ants lending business has doled out 1.8T on 36B of cash from Ant itself. That's 50 times the leverage they financed through ABS. A term that was very relevant in 2008. Everything will be fine until the central bank raise interests, or if economy goes down the shitter. The new regulation limits the leverage cap from infinite to about 15, closer to bank's 10. This limits risk, and is considered a reasonable move. A truly desperate move would be to allow these bubbles to go ahead and IPO. Which almost happened, everything will be fine and dandy for a while, until it's not. Whether it's due to Xi's insecurity or not, I'd say that China dodged a bullet here.
- travmatt 6y ago
  “Xi shows his power by punishing a powerful businessman” is a much better story for him than “Xi limits size of over leveraged company over fears it could wreck economy”
- blackrock 6y ago
  Exactly. This whole discussion about China suppressing Jack Ma is nonsense. It seems nobody here even knows what Ant was doing. And they’re all typically ignorant about whatever happens in China, and will just superimpose their biased views on them. Ant was running some really shady and risky lending practices. They were not relevant when they were a private company, but once they became public, it instantly became a serious matter. The risk of failure is very high, and it risks bringing the whole system down. What the government told Ant to do, was to have more collateral on their books. To increase it from 2% to 30%. Plain and simple. Then they can go forward with their IPO.

ChrisClark 6y ago

I've heard it said they are afraid of religion, not because they want to be worshiped, but because it's scary to them for people to have a 'higher' authority than the state.

marcinzm 6y ago
Exactly, centralized religion has historically been a source of power in competition to the government, military and so on. So authoritarian governments either try to co-opt it or get rid of it.
- free_rms 6y ago
  Centralized religion has historically never existed or even anything close to it in China. And Xi has actually been a big booster for revival of the religious traditions that they do have. Every one of these threads is full of people doing a ctrl-f find/replace Russia/China on their cold war propaganda lessons. China's a different country, with a billion and a half people and a few thousand years of history that most Americans are completely ignorant of, but that doesn't stop them from being supremely confident in their takes.
  - iaw 6y ago
    > And Xi has actually been a big booster for revival of the religious traditions that they do have. Tell that to the Uyghur's.
    - wolco2 6y ago
      The Uyghur situation and the road to Europe being built over them will need to be resolved in Europe in the future. Religions can create allys. Saving this Islamic branch may go a way to reconnecting/reunderstanding the west and Islam.
  - aaomidi 6y ago
    Centralized religion doesn't need to exist in China. Islam is worldwide. Christianity is worldwide. Judaism is worldwide. And many other faiths are worldwide.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

free_rms 6y ago

This comment carries a barrel full of assumptions that the lines you were fed in civics class are fundamentally right and destined to prevail. Consider: other countries have their own civics classes where they get fed a similar line about their systems.

whimsicalism 6y ago
I believe that some systems are more moral than others. That said, it's pretty clear from many comments on HN that people have no clue how far along China is, perhaps stuck in a early 2000s mindset. Nor do they seem to have any serious understanding of Chinese government.
- drilldrive 6y ago
  Where do you place China yourself development wise today?
  - ClumsyPilot 6y ago
    What does that actually mean as a questio ? Like what is the range of possible answera, is it answered with a year, or something else?
    - drilldrive 6y ago
      I mean do you see China becoming the next world power? I do myself, though not nearly as long as a reign as America had, I foresee a 15 year thereabout hold from China until the country falls into the typical issues that the Western world has faced + Japan faced since the 90's.
      - whimsicalism 6y ago
        > I mean do you see China becoming the next world power I don't see there being a next clear world power because I don't think the world works that way anymore.. capital is way too trans-national at this point.

duxup 6y ago

I hate to use anecdotes but if you're clamping down on Winnie the Pooh ... it's really hard to see that as anything but a fairly fearful position.

eunos 6y ago
Actually I'm very doubtful that Winnie the Pooh thing was decided by him. Pretty sure that's just decided by lower level censors and Xi himself has no idea that the Pooh controversy even exists.

baybal2 6y ago

> Contrary to what most people I know think, I think Xi Jinping and company are really scared. Contrary to what most people think, I think Xi Jinping and company are really scared, but not for the reason you mention. Xi is said to be very afraid of Shanghai clique, and this is the reason they are still around, and not crushed like everybody else. Who owns Ant? Speculations are that a number of people from the Shanghai clique are, with the biggest one being public knowledge: grandson of Jiang Zemin got Ant's shares for noticeably less than market price. I believe, this explains why this case was handled remarkably tactfully, and why Ma still walks in one piece. Anybody else would've been disappeared the same day for much less in today's China.

specialist 6y ago
> I think Xi Jinping and company are really scared I just assume Xi Zinping is Andy Grove style paranoid. Isn't that how power works? If it wasn't the Shanghai clique, it'd be 5 other aspirants.

yongjik 6y ago

No, I don't think Xi and his friends are scared at all. That's almost like saying the US government is keeping a dozen carriers because it's scared of Russia (or China). Xi is rattling his saber against Taiwan because he can and he will face no consequences. Xi is sending police to Hong Kong because he can and he will face no consequences. Xi is clamping down on religion because he can and ... Maybe Xi is a bit paranoid, but you don't become a lifelong dictator of a billion people by doubting yourself. If I have to guess, Xi is convinced that he's leading China into an age of unprecedented glory, and he's surrounded by people who talk the same and mostly think the same.

belval 6y ago
While I strongly dislike authoritarian regimes and wish the CCP would just disappear. You have to admit that China in the last 20 years has been an absolute growth machine. I often see it argued that it's "fake" because the party subsidizes a lot of economic ventures, but even then they are building one hell of a domestic market. Trying not to do the apology of a terrible regime, but I can see why Xi would see himself as "leading China into an age of unprecedented glory".
- thefounder 6y ago
  For what is worth many dicators had "golden" years. The issue is that at some point you get a bad dictator(or the current one turns bad) and you have to live with him your entire life. Not to mention that even within the golden period you still have freedoms taken away but that's a different story/trade off.
  - H8crilA 6y ago
    China's political system is nothing that a good old style capitalistic bust can't take out in a decade or so. The USSR never recovered from the inflationary late 70s. Japan's state-induced credit boom economy never recovered from the early 90s deflationary bust. Dictatorships/state controlled economies are still economies. As Hyman Minsky would agree - there's only one way to handle volatility, take it in your face. You can't suppress it.

lookgg 6y ago

can't agree more

tanilama 6y ago

I don't think so. Xi does this because he can. If you can quarantine 1B people in two weeks, that means Xi's power has reached an unbelievable level. He can start a war if he wants to, no one in China can object to that. Alibaba is nothing but a pawn to him. The fear created by halting of Ant IPO will ensure no other entrepreneurs will publicly challenge the authority as long as Xi is in power.

specialist 6y ago

"Not surprising at all." That Jack Ma said anything at all surprised me. Ma's had always been wholly obsequious, in public at least. I guessed that Ma's spoke up for one of the reason's I've done so in the past: Ma was done and decided to stop playing. He felt he finally had enough juice to make some kind of a power play. He felt that Truth and Duty were principles worth dying for. Whatever the reason, I'm sure he now wishes he hadn't. I'll be doubly surprised if Ma doesn't have an exit strategy. Opting for that seaside villa and teaching poetry to local school kids.

Aperocky 6y ago
Being able to finance high interest lending by selling subprime debt securities are principles worth dying for? Or are these Truth and Duty? I'm very confused. Ma criticised the regulators for 'holding back innovation', innovation we've seen and paid for in 2008.
- specialist 6y ago
  I am the last person to ask about the merits of Ma's argument. I'm firmly in the castles in the sky camp, that all finance is intrinsically suspect, and that all the belligerents retcon their dogma as needed (went up because I'm a genius, went down due to unforeseen circumstances completely beyond my control). Like I tried to say, poorly, I'm just surprised Ma spoke up, and can only guess why.

AsyncAwait 6y ago

I think the difference between the U.S. and China is that in the U.S. corporate power controls the government, whereas in China the state has control over the corporations. I don't think Xi is scared per se, but he definitely doesn't want China ending up like the U.S.

vicpara 6y ago

This articles speaks of Xi Jinping as if he is taking all the decisions. There are a lot more people behind him that are assessing the situations based on merits rather than personal whims. It's only the Western ignorance that makes us see every economical, fiscal and foreign decision to belong to one man be it Putin or Xi Jinping. It also reinforces us the ideas that were sold to us by our own government: China is ruled by a dictatorship and everything they do must be wrong. Everything China does must be wrong because it's not a democracy and people are not free. The internation banking rules force the banks to adhere to a set of conduct, regulations and rules that make the banking environment predictable for all actors. Looking at money flow: speed, volume and diversity, it is in China's interests to have a predictable and understandable banking landscape rather than continuing on this path of reinventing the wheel. The more Western banks trust the banking system within China, the more predictable and easy it will be to keep the economy growing. ANT's move is only establishing a state within a state and certainly hurts national security by creating a gap in one core service within any modern country: the financial system.

eznzt 6y ago

>They are afraid of Taiwan because Taiwan is the living example that China can prosper without the CCP. You can not compare the racially and culturally homogeneous Taiwan to the whole of China. A country like China has 0 chance of remain whole without authoritarian leadership. >They are afraid of Hong Kong because it's an example of resistance to the regime. They are not, they crapped their pants and with time things will get worse for them. >They are afraid of religions because no matter how much you punish someone, you won't be able to make them worship you instead. They just don't want the west of China to become a playground for Islamic terrorists.

hungryhobo 6y ago

I think the reason your opinion is different than most people you know is because you really know nothing about china unfortunately. > They are afraid of Taiwan because Taiwan is the living example that China can prosper without the CCP. Not really, 20 years ago maybe? but now that the first tier provinces have mostly caught up economically it's really just a matter of time before rest of china catches up. > They are afraid of Hong Kong because it's an example of resistance to the regime. again, most chinese think the hongkong riots as a bunch of misguided youth manipulated by western media. you may not agree with it, but that's the view held in china right now. > They are afraid of religions because no matter how much you punish someone, you won't be able to make them worship you instead. or maybe the fact religion has been the main drivers for a whole bunch of wars? > They are afraid of wealthy people because they can taste freedom and they can vision a China without the CCP. is that why more and more wealthy chinese people are expressing their support for ccp abroad, but are instead labelled as brainwashed?

dcolkitt 6y ago
> Not really, 20 years ago maybe? but now that the first tier provinces have mostly caught up economically it's really just a matter of time before rest of china catches up. This isn't even remotely true. Taiwan has a GDP per capita of $54,000.[1] The two wealthiest administrative division in China are Shanghai at $38,000 and Beijing at $37,000[2]. Moreover it's not an apples-to-apples comparison because those cities are consistently drawing the best and the brightest from the entire country. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_administrative_divisions_by_GDP_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_administrative...
- hungryhobo 6y ago
  Can you tell the difference in living standards between 54,000 and 38,000?
  - BobbyJo 6y ago

vmception 6y ago

Thats a huge stretch. It is the total opposite. Xi Jinping is keeping all the key holders to the kingdom satisfied impeccably well. They aren't afraid of Hong Kong, the other perspective is that Hong Kong has much less relevance than it had during the handover, 20% of GDP down to 3% of GDP. Hong Kong is an example and cautionary of tale of "late stage capitalism" that all cities around the world experience, high rents and living costs and no consensus on how to help. Whereas mainland China gets large living spaces and welfare for all while inheriting exposure to high growth market based systems and its working extremely well right now, Beijing's state capital system is working. They can deal with Hong Kong as is for the next 17 years no problem. Taiwan is just there. They can saber-rattle about that for a long time too. The status-quo in China is good enough, some people get their money out, others provide services in mainland. That status quo involves the implicit threat of party members doing anything to you if you fall out of favor. Chinese unity and territorial sovereignty is the primary common denominator of everything Xi does, if you do or say anything that can be seen to harm the state or the idea of China, then you've done it wrong. I read the transcript of Jack Ma's speech, it wasn't very egregious, but all he had to do was skip the thoughts about the current state of how debt is negotiated in China.

addicted 6y ago

They’ve managed to crush Hong Kong. And they are on their way to beating Taiwan at its own strengths. Even if they are running scared, it looks like they’re running extremely successfully. Of course, it helps that the only country that could have put pressure on them was led by a moron who though mispronouncing China’s name was the heights of showing them up, while not taking any effective long term actions.

throwawaysea 6y ago

This is also true of the far left in the US. Their attempts to increasingly censor, deplatform, ban, cancel, and so forth suggests that they are scared that people do not think like they do. And with that comes a bend towards authoritarianism and fascist control, the very things they claim to be against. But just like with the chicken and the egg, I cannot rightly tell if either the CCP or the American far left are acting out of fear, or if they are just exercising newly-gained power. It may simply be that they're putting new power to work, testing the waters to entrench their positions further.

chenpengcheng 6y ago

lol wishful thinking

ChomskyNormal4m 6y ago

People have been saying the CCP is on its last legs for over 70 years. In those seventy years it has led a country which grew to have the second largest GDP in the world. -- writing this from the USA, where Covid is spiking, where there are armed right wing Covid open for business riots at statehouses, as well as against police kneeling on black men's throats killing them leading to nationwide blm antifa riots, where the president won't concede the election, where U3 unemployment is currently 6.9% etc. (I heard about the Hong Kong riots in the US News until the open-business/blm/antifa riots happened with a much higher body count)

dang 6y ago

Please don't take HN threads on generic tangents. Nationalistic and political battle is particularly repetitive and therefore off topic here. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=generic%20discussion%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor... https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=generic%20ideolog%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor... https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html If you compare this subthread to the much higher-quality—because more specific, and specifically about this story—comments elsewhere in the thread, you'll get a sense of why we have this rule.