10 ms·

Jack Ma has not been seen in public for two months

• mesozoic 6y ago
  Seems like he annoyed the wrong people in the CCP
  • amrx431 6y ago
    Or maybe he was a fan of Winne the Pooh and watched those cartoons in the privacy of his home.
  • alexeiz 6y ago
    Don't forget he's a CCP member himself.
    • yoschi77 6y ago
      pretty much everyone conducting major business in China has to be a CCCP member afaik
      • powerapple 6y ago
        He joined the party when he was in College. Although many businessmen will be representatives as non-party members. Being a representative is more powerful than being a party member.
    • ku-man 6y ago
      I am sure both sides of the spectrum (Marxists and the likes of Rockefeller) are laughing. How come you can claim you are a communist while at the same time trying to accumulate as much wealth as much as possible? (Yes, I know the whole Chinese communist party is like that, but still)
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• janmo 6y ago
  Reminds me of former Interpol chief Meng Hongwei. He also disappeared for weeks with every one looking for him. Turned out he was in a Chinese prison...
• gotem 6y ago
  Not sure why this is news but didn’t read article yet. I’m sure Q4 was probably pretty crazy for Alibaba and not surprised if he hasn’t been doing public appearances to focus more.
• gogopuppygogo 6y ago
  He’s being re-educated. China has a wonderful track record on this process. Maybe he’ll be forced to labor at an Apple supplier like his Muslim friends as part of this process.
  • randycupertino 6y ago
    A similar thing happened to one of my favorite actresses, Fan Bingbing. Here is a good article with background: https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2019/03/the-untold-story-disappearance-of-fan-bingbing-worlds-biggest-movie-star https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2019/03/the-untold-stor...
    • FindMySocks 6y ago
      I'm pretty sure she was caught for tax avoidance and/or corruption. Hence why she was locked up for a while.
      • justinclift 6y ago
        > caught for tax avoidance and/or corruption. On the other hand, it seems feasible that could just be the excuse given. Whether or not that's the reality of things, who knows...
    • manuel4sk 6y ago
      the article seems intended to white wash her, just saying
• justinclift 6y ago
  https://archive.vn/5zH0p https://archive.vn/5zH0p
• mrtweetyhack 6y ago
  assassins
• ffpip 6y ago
  Jack Ma has disappeared as the public face of an African talent show he created, in a hint of the difficulties he is facing after a fall from grace in China. Mr Ma was replaced as a judge in the final of Africa’s Business Heroes, a television contest for budding entrepreneurs, his photograph was removed from the judging webpage, and he was conspicuously left out of a promotional video. The final took place in November, shortly after the Chinese tech billionaire made a candid speech criticising China’s regulators and its state-owned banks. In the wake of the speech, Mr Ma was dressed down by officials in Beijing and the $37bn initial public offering of his company Ant Group was suspended. He has not been seen in public since. A spokesperson for Alibaba, which was founded by Mr Ma, said: “Due to a schedule conflict Mr Ma could no longer be part of the finale judge panel of Africa’s Business Heroes earlier this year (2020).” One contestant in the competition said she had been star-struck when she pitched her business to Mr Ma in an earlier round. “You can’t imagine,” she said. But by the time of the final, Mr Ma had been replaced by Lucy Peng, an executive at Alibaba. “There was something going on in China with Jack Ma or something, so (Lucy) also came in as well,” the contestant said. While the final took place in November, the television broadcast of the show has been delayed until spring, according to two contestants, and one promotional video at the end of November makes no mention of Mr Ma. Last year, contestants pitched their ideas directly to Mr Ma as they aimed to win huge prizes offered by his charity, the Jack Ma Foundation. Mr Ma is one of China’s wealthiest men. In recent years, his work for the UN and global charity activities has brought a softer edge to China’s global image. As the coronavirus pandemic deepened this spring, he donated tens of millions of face masks globally. He paired up with his longtime right-hand man Joe Tsai to donate 2,000 ventilators to New York as hospitals there forecast dire shortfalls — prompting a thanks from both US President Trump and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. In August, Mr Ma tweeted his congratulations to the 20 entrepreneurs pitching their way through his foundation’s months-long contest to crown a second annual batch of African “Business Heroes”. “I can’t wait to meet them!” he said. It was one of his last tweets.
• runawaybottle 6y ago
  Would love to get a transcript of exactly what he said at a forum a few months ago, from Quartz: Speaking at a forum attended by some of China’s most powerful figures in politics and finance, Ma heavily criticized the “pawnshop mentality” of Chinese banks, and accused global authorities’ old-school financial regulation of slowing down innovation. The criticism eventually reached Chinese president Xi Jinping, who was furious about the remarks and personally ordered the suspension, according to the Wall Street Journal. https://qz.com/1946723/theres-no-place-for-a-jack-ma-in-todays-china/amp/ https://qz.com/1946723/theres-no-place-for-a-jack-ma-in-toda... A couple of other interviews he’s been hammering away at the stagnant (according to him) Chinese banks, and the regulators basically snuffed him by forcing his Ant payment group to ‘stick to just payments’ (he wanted it to give loans via the system, becoming a type of bank in itself). ^ I can see how they would be afraid of this. I think Alibaba is trying to force sellers to only sell on Alibaba exclusively (not allowing them to sell on other sites if they want to sell on Alibaba). If Alipay gives loans, I could see how Ma might make it so that available credit is usable on Alibaba only, further tightening the hold. Jack Ma might be the one trying to be monopolistic here, but I’d love for someone with first-hand experience to speak to what’s going on over there. Or maybe we’re all just sheep and Chinese insiders know how to shift stock prices with nonsense because they can and buy up shares. Those companies are increasingly being listed on global markets and all the CCP has to do is breath ‘eh, maybe no capitalism’, and the stocks move. SEC can’t stop that.
  • Barrin92 6y ago
    bigger reason than Alibaba's market control is the fact that the Chinese government is absolutely allergic to unsecured debt. China over the last few years has desperately attempted, and with some sucess, cleaned up parts of its financial sector because the government fears few things more than a financial crisis, it's something they learned when they came out ahead in 2008/2009. relevant read: https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2020/11/china-takes-step-against-securitization-consumer-borrowing-with-suspension-of-ant-ipo.html https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2020/11/china-takes-step-aga...
    • alan-crowe 6y ago
• boomboomsubban 6y ago
  Why is "Ma missed a TV recording in November" suddenly a story? China isn't the only one who might have wanted him to pull out, "owner involved in political controversy" could cause both Ali Baba and Ma to not want to appear om such a show, even if they were on the correct side. Has he missed anything else?
  • spiderfarmer 6y ago
    He was a very public figure.
    • boomboomsubban 6y ago
      Yet he only had one scheduled appearance over the past two months, which nobody seemed to notice he cancelled until today.
• zed88 6y ago
  "Don't bite the hand that feeds you", it certainly sounds true in China. And after watching that interview with Elon, he certainly doesn't seem that bright.
  • sasaf5 6y ago
    To be fair with Ma, he doesn't seem to have the level of English required to have a smart conversation with a native speaker. I couldn't conclude much from that interview regarding his intellect.
    • blackrock 6y ago
      Perhaps the white guy should debate with Jack Ma in Chinese? Ever thought about that?
      • nix23 6y ago
        Jack Ma is white too, stop with your racist bs.
      • mensetmanusman 6y ago
        I wish we hadn’t left behind latin as an international language that everyone has to learn as a second language (to keep things equal). Fairly or not, English is the international language of science, technology, and culture. There are some major benefits of learning a second language, so I wouldn’t say it’s completely ‘fair’ to English speakers who have no incentive at all to learn a second language and receive the health benefits it offers.
        • eloisius 6y ago
          Latin isn’t some neutral communication protocol the entire would or could easily adopt. Why not Classical Chinese? More people spoke that and it also underpins numerous modern languages.
          • deleted 6y ago
• birdyrooster 6y ago
  Okay this is not at all likely but wouldn't it be crazy if you know, given China's reputation, it's possible that Jack Ma could just be sitting tight out of public view letting the world assume that China killed him until they capitulate to his demands.
  • solstice 6y ago
    Very unlikely indeed. The government/party bigwigs he recently antagonize are not going to let an entrepreneur shame them publicly and let him get away with that. He's keeping or being kept out of public view until things are settled. I don't think they care what other countries assume and therefore there's no way for pressure to build up
  • boxed 6y ago
    That would be pretty stupid. Then they would have already gotten the PR hit of killing him, might as well do it.
  • birdyrooster 6y ago
    Maybe I am not as crazy as I thought "After reports speculating about Alibaba founder Jack Ma’s whereabouts, CNBC’s David Faber reported Tuesday that the billionaire is not missing, according to a person familiar with the matter. Instead, Ma has been lying low for the time being, Faber reported."
    • jjeaff 6y ago
      Likely lying low either at the demand of the party or for his own self preservation. I doubt he would be trying to really force the party's hand.
• nix23 6y ago
  There is a whole documentary about millionaires who "vanished", and one year old: https://www.arte.tv/en/videos/083456-000-A/china-the-disappearing-millionaires/ https://www.arte.tv/en/videos/083456-000-A/china-the-disappe...
  • aminozuur 6y ago
    This is pretty interesting. I'm watching it now.
  • mgh2 6y ago
    Discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25629774 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25629774
• mensetmanusman 6y ago
  It’s hard for me to fathom the mind of an authoritarian. Imagine being so mad at a speech you want to imprison someone. Isn’t this a sign of mental illness? I denigrate myself all the time with humor. This is my strategy to keeping an open mind on self improvement.
  • daemin 6y ago
    It's the same sort of person that gets offended by being compared to a children's cartoon and therefore has it and any mention of it banned from the entire country. So because this "Emperor" has seemingly lost "face" therefore the whole country must suffer.
    • taf2 6y ago
      winnie the pooh is so cute though. especially when he drives tanks and runs over people.
  • baybal2 6y ago
    If you only knew some Russian. There is a drama now happening on Youtube with former presitator of Kazakhstan, where his past subordinates now surface and dump their personal accounts of him. As could've been imagined, none are positive of his personal ability. But the biggest insecurity of such people is to appear to be useless. He very much understands that he surrounded himself with sharks, and able lieutenants while being on the borderline of mental development scale himself. In many dumped secret recordings of him by one former official, he often explodes with "You would've been nobody without me!!!" whenever challenged with even an innuendo of "I could've done it without you." What holds such people firmly in their chairs of power, is not their ability, but such shark pool of capable executors whose loyalty is conditional
    • squiggleblaz 6y ago
      presitator = ??? president + dictator?
    • bjoli 6y ago
• mensetmanusman 6y ago
  An analogy for western audiences comes to mind. Imagine if Elon Musk had criticized Trump two months ago and then hadn’t been seen or heard of since then.
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  • bingbong70 6y ago
    Quite an analogy with an assumption that "speech" is the only thing Jack Ma could have done wrong....
    • mlyle 6y ago
      Even if Jack Ma did something wrong, being disappeared without explanation is not exactly great :P And certainly his speech seems to have caused offense shortly before this disappearance.
    • tw04 6y ago
      If Musk had murdered someone in secret, he still wouldn't just disappear with no formal charges or acknowledgement of what happened. Ignoring the fact you haven't actually made any accusations, "disappearing" someone just doesn't happen in the US to US citizens. And I'll get in front of it: no I don't consider foreign citizens on US soil "the same thing". While the US does provide robust protections for foreigners (relatively speaking) it's never fair or honest to compare the treatment of a citizen in one country to a foreigner in another.
    • elefanten 6y ago
      If you have an argument to make or information to share, please do. What do you think he did?
• anotheryou 6y ago
  https://twitter.com/realvision/status/1171508657948778497 https://twitter.com/realvision/status/1171508657948778497 "[W]hy Jack Ma’s retirement could end with imprisonment or death." (2019)
  • platinumrad 6y ago
    The Jack Ma situation is eyebrow-raising but Guo Wengui is a nutjob and should not be taken seriously. https://www.politico.com/story/2019/06/07/guo-wengui-chinese-billionaire-1356594 https://www.politico.com/story/2019/06/07/guo-wengui-chinese... https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/12/18/guo-wengui-chinese-dissidents-teng-biao/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/12/18/guo-wengui-...
• gregjw 6y ago
  Same
• neonate 6y ago
  https://archive.is/5vSj1 https://archive.is/5vSj1
• guardiangod 6y ago
  I posted this in another thread- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25636761 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25636761 The rumor in China is that Jack Ma is part of Jiang Zemin's clique of politicians/sphere of influence. Alibaba's backed by and invested by Jiang's families. Xi has been purging Jiang's people/influence on the Central Government for the last few years to strengthen his ruling. Originally he was going to leave Ma alone as he has proven himself to be useful. But 2 things happened- 1. people start to idolize Ma the businessman over the party's absolute rule. 2. Perhaps as a result Ma is embolden to speak out against Xi's government directions. So now Ma has to go. Ma knew this and that's why he resigned from Alibaba's Chairman position, but it was too late. Ant Financial, with its main backers from Jiang's gang, was put to a standstill. This is only the first step. Expect the party to eventually to take over the Alibaba group (国进民退). No private civilian will be allowed to gain this much power again. https://time.com/5926062/jack-ma/ https://time.com/5926062/jack-ma/ “There is no so-called [Ma] era,” read a recent headline in the CCP mouthpiece People’s Daily, “but only an era that has [Ma] in it.” Anyway, to quote House of Cards- “Such a waste of time. He chose money over power, in this town, a mistake nearly everyone makes. Money is the McMansion in Sarasota that starts falling apart after ten years. Power — is the old stone building that stands for centuries. I cannot respect someone who doesn’t see the difference.” - Frank Underwood
  • Wowfunhappy 6y ago
    I've always thought that was a dumb line. Power can also crumble over time—more quickly than money, I would argue.
    • arpa 6y ago
      Ah it's just a false dichotomy. In reality these things go together. Can't have (real fuckoff) power without money; can't have (real fuckoff) money without power. If you don't have one but have another, you'll soon lose it.
      • jjeaff 6y ago
        I think you can actually wield quite a bit of power without necessarily having a lot of money personally. Harry S Truman was one. There are quite a few senators and congresspeople today that don't have that much wealth to speak of. Ocasio-Cortez comes to mind. Quite a few with military backgrounds. Granted, many do eventually obtain wealth. But some like Biden stayed pretty average for his whole 50 years career in congress. Were it not for his proximity fame for being the VP to the first Black president in history, he likely wouldn't be wealthy today (seeing as the vast majority of his wealth is from a single book deal after leaving office). Yet these politicians inevitably wield a lot of power. In some cases, more than their wealthy counterparts. AOC has a lot of power just from her twitter account and star power.