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The first time I heard this story from him some years ago I tried not to fall into the conspiracy theory trap, because of assassinations in foreign countries di

The first time I heard this story from him some years ago I tried not to fall into the conspiracy theory trap, because of assassinations in foreign countries disguised as suicides it's a "classic setup", so I simply decided to watch one of his predictions: keep an eye on Jack Ma. The result was quite scary, Jack indeed started to fade away, first by suddenly parting from Alibaba, diluting his position, then he stopped showing in international media (which he was relatively active, since he was a reference in china entrepreneurship), and now he vanishes. Basically these individuals grow with the hand of the CCP on their back, and when it's time to collect they are stripped off and put on tight leash, and at any moment they can easily be muffled. Why do the major trade blocks ignore these actions? USA, EU... Edit: the predictions I'm talking about are from this youtube interview, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtJK_5qDraM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtJK_5qDraM , which bare in mind it's still a biased source.

klik99 6y ago
I still feel it’s a conspiracy theory but Jack Ma is absolutely being targeted. He was beloved by the Chinese media as a motivational speaker as well as a business man, when he started not speaking highly of CCP (which is tantamount to criticizing) I told my wife that in a year he would be vilified by the media, and sure enough here we are at the first stages of that. This might be happening on a case by case basis with those who don’t want to “play ball”, but I don’t believe there is a concerted effort to bring down all billionaires. Reminds me of the rise of the middle class in Europe as they threatened the existing power structure. Sometimes it feels China is going through the same stages of history Europe went through over centuries but at breakneck speed.
- antibuddy 6y ago
  It is in fact a conspiracy theory. But a small reminder that conspiracy theory doesn't tell you anything about the truthfulness, e.g. that the Iraq War was based on made-up evidence was a conspiracy theory. That being said: Your explanation makes more sense to me. It is often enough to anger the wrong person to get a bad treatment (well, even assassination). And looking at history this is exponentiated in dictatorships, where power is concentrated on few ppl, who can act with impunity.
  - jacquesm 6y ago
    > that the Iraq War was based on made-up evidence was a conspiracy theory. To be fair though, that never was much of a conspiracy. Maybe in the United States it was but in the rest of the world I don't think people believe the WMD story, rather, we believed the UN weapons inspectors' story.
    - elindbe3 6y ago
      A poorly executed conspiracy is still a conspiracy.
      - jacquesm 6y ago
        No, it was simply a lie. And one that should have fallen completely flat. My respect for Colin Powell went through the floor that day.
      - MichaelZuo 6y ago
        The word ‘conspiracy’ itself has a legal, original, meaning entirely different from the popular meaning. I find all good discussions involving this clarify what meaning is intended.
        vmception 6y ago
        I resort to just saying the definition of words, in a sentence, instead of the word itself. I've told and convinced plenty of anti-vaxxers about the magical secret way our body naturally produces antibodies if we expose our body to dead versions of a virus (or, now, things shaped like that virus). They like magic, secrets and nature, they do not like the word vaccine. I do the same with the word conspiracy, "That is a secret plan by a group to do something harmful". It rolls off the tongue.
        Bakary 6y ago
        The only really effective way to change someone's mind is to make them believe they came up with the conclusions themselves
- mgreenleaf 6y ago
  Your post reminded me of my recent encounter with the phrase "damning with faint praise". It is interesting how applicable it is in authoritarian governments; you can't simply praise, you must give enthusiastic encomiums. That is particularly interesting in business, where it may be obvious to business leaders that something is wrong, but anything lackluster brings about government condemnation, which is part of the problem the business people can see. Startup founders are usually sharp, rebellious individuals trying to upend current business practices, so the condemnations damper the business spirit to some degree. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damning_with_faint_praise https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damning_with_faint_praise)
  - trumpeta 6y ago
    I mean, I get the same feeling from Apple events, everything is constantly the best ever.
    - mordymoop 6y ago
      The worst possible condemnation of a powerful national government: to compare its normal everyday functioning to a corporate product launch. Orwell was too optimistic.
      - toxik 6y ago
        Eh, it was just a more relatable example. If anything, it shows you that our idea of oppression is Apple overstating their product's capabilities.
        zepto 6y ago
        The Orwellian part is people talking as though it’s a fact that Apple is overstating something. As far as I can see that’s bullshit. They say what they are measuring, and people do check it. They’d be open to straight up legal action from both customers and shareholders if they were lying.
      - mhh__ 6y ago
- samstave 6y ago
  Putin does the same thing. and literally just takes companies from billionaires.
  - coldtea 6y ago
    Ah, if only our governments would take companies from billionaires too! Or perhaps they could start with properly taxing them!
    - jp555 6y ago
      how about first journalists that don't tell lies about how taxes work. 99% they report on gross revenue and complain about how little tax is paid. And almost everyone buys it.
      - coldtea 6y ago
        I know how taxes work. That's why I don't buy the "gross revenue" argument, or the "actually the rich pay more of their income in taxes" arguments. The rich and big corporations have billions (pun intended) of ways of padding their expenses, hiding their net, moving their wealth around so it can't be taxes, making shell companies etc.
        jp555 6y ago
        IF those are all legal actions, you do not know how taxes work (knowing how an internal combustion engine works generally does not mean you understand valve timing formulae) Your anger is misplaced, and should fall at the feet of lawmakers.
        samstave 6y ago
        >>>*Shell Companies* Panama Papers is the most unreported, under-investigated scandal of the century
- baybal2 6y ago
  > Sometimes it feels China is going through the same stages of history Europe went through over centuries but at breakneck speed. And you feel it right. This is what is the explanation for the schizophrenic public position of the Chinese establishment: on one hand they shout out loud that "economic liberalisation is irreversible, opening up will go on," and on other keep tightening all legal, and extralegal nuts on private enterprise, and in overall sliding back into the madness of seventies. They have accepted the fact of millionaire chicken run to the West being unstoppable, but they at least want to prevent the multimillionaire, and billionaire chicken run. They simply want their money that much, and that started to outweight the rational interest of "not slaughtering a hen laying golden eggs" in recent 2-3 years.
- DataWorker 6y ago
  “Sometimes it feels China is going through the same stages of history Europe went through over centuries but at breakneck speed.” A dangerously ethnocentric perspective.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
xwdv 6y ago
God damn, they killed Jack Ma?
- libertine 6y ago
  Jack Ma is missing since October. No one knows what happened to him, in my opinion I doubt they killed him simply because he was in China. What's the point of killing him there? They can simply remove him from the picture.
  - paganel 6y ago
    > Jack Ma is missing since October. Recent article on this [1], because I must admit that for me also this was a tough thing to believe. [1] https://www.businessinsider.com/alibaba-founder-jack-ma-suspected-missing-2021-1 https://www.businessinsider.com/alibaba-founder-jack-ma-susp...
    - pankajdoharey 6y ago
      Although i think it will reflect poorly on CCP to secretly make Jack go missing, who is actually a world famous personality at this point. One should also remember that anything is possible in a totalitarian regime.
      - libertine 6y ago
        Will it though? You live in the time where there's massive outrage for one week, but the next week that's the subject of the past that lost hype and momentum so it's forgotten. I think the CCP knows this, hell even political leaders of the free world know this - no one resigns due to scandals anymore. They just sit tight, don't acknowledge it, and it blows over.
        pankajdoharey 6y ago
        That is true, but Jack isnt any ordinary Billionaire, this would affect Chinese businesses.
tchalla 6y ago
The major trade blocks ignore these actions because they profit from it. Once they won’t, we will see “democracy values” based moral statements and arguments.
- libertine 6y ago
  But does it make sense in the long term? I don't see it honestly... it's not just democracy values, it ranges from that to things like hacking/IP theft. It's a massive loss. Also, if we're at the point where "democracy values" are stumped by short term profits then maybe we deserve all of this.
  - Siira 6y ago
    The Western political institutions have short-term incentives for their constituents.
    - esarbe 6y ago
      That's an unfortunate drawback of a constituency trained to prioritize short-term goals. I wonder if it's possible to change this and have a 'wise' constituency that is able to do a more long-term prioritization.
ianai 6y ago
What can the trade blocks do? Sanctions would be tantamount to what was seen at the start of the pandemic. Basically cutting your local economy off from the world’s manufacturing. War would be even more extreme. There’s 1.3 billion Chinese. Their government is capable of being infinitely more organized and long thinking than just about all the others. Maybe a world war could curb the inevitable sans nuclear weapons. With nuclear weapons... Perhaps if the smaller trade blocs all rejected vehemently China along with the major it’d be a stronger position. Say in reaction to such actions. The large trade parties could help this by investing with infrastructure and other such programs in those countries. Possibly hoping for the Chinese people to change their form of government from within is the “nicest” option.
- ianai 6y ago
  Basically, you've got to reproduce the factors within China making them such strong trading partners outside of them in a way they cannot diminish unilaterally. This could be done with political will or reproduction of their capacity. Personally, I wonder whether a UBI in a developed country could work to essentially lower their external 'trading costs'. Try to change their thought processes at the margin. i.e. Make the local goods and services out compete the foreign goods/services through moving local costs not observed in foreign goods/services to localized costs. i.e. Maybe a person making a UBI would be willing to do a job for (X+U) - where (X+U) is their reservation price, X is the foreign price, and U the UBI. Edit-flipped signs
- BunsanSpace 6y ago
  The long thinking aspect of the Chinese government is Chinese propaganda. You see them announcing long term goals and going on giant infrastructure projects, which go on to be under used, poorly built e&. China has serious structural issues that the CCP is trying to hide. Massive food, drug and alcohol fraud hurting people (fake alcohol is a HUGE issue). Riots, mass stabbings/attacks, economic slowdown/hardship. All of which the CCP covers up because foreign media can't easily penetrate, and the CCP control the domestic media/narrative. China is a house of lies, they're essentially trying to fake it until they make it.
  - 6y ago
GrantZvolsky 6y ago
Let's not jump to conclusions with Jack Ma. It could all be explained by an illness.
memetherapy 6y ago
Because there is little to no benefit to the EU or USA to challenging the CCP, be it because of their treatment of a few billionaires or millions of Uighers. Unlike the Soviet Union China doesn't represent an existential threat to the USA or EU, largely as a matter of geography. The promotion of human rights, liberal democracy, the rule of law etc. has always been fairly low on the priority list of most western states in actuality and has usually played second fiddle to national interests.
- starfallg 6y ago
  >Unlike the Soviet Union China doesn't represent an existential threat to the USA or EU, largely as a matter of geography. That is categorically untrue. The model of government and economic success of China is the biggest existential threat to western hegemony, much bigger than the USSR. China is well in the process of building a strong military with greater capabilities than Russia and once this is complete, the world order will undoubtedly change unless something is done about it now. The only reason we don't see more noise on this is because a lot of people depend on trade with China for their wealth, which was never the case during the cold war with the USSR. The state department was fully aware of the Chinese threat, hence why the TPP was proposed as a measure of containment. Too bad that play was ruined and replaced with ineffective populist measures that sound good on AM radio and internet forums, but are actually counterproductive in practice.
  - tlear 6y ago
    USSR controlled half of Europe and had enough ground forces on hand to bust through Germany and be in France in a week(without nukes being involved). PRC is nowhere close. It is a threat to Japan, India, Russia, Vietnam etc to US and Europe not so much
    - arcticfox 6y ago
      I don't understand that perspective - large ground armies haven't been relevant to superpower conflicts since pre-Cold War. Force projection, like the US has been able to do for 30 years, is relevant and when China ramps up in that regard there's no telling how things will change. IMO China doesn't even need to bother much with military advancement to become a massive threat to Western democracies though, as they can simply continue to build their economic engine and leverage it whenever necessary. They are already doing so to great effect against multinational corporations.
varjag 6y ago
The Little Red Checkbook
FooBarWidget 6y ago
Speculations such as these should be taken with a huge grain of salt. Consider that: * Jack Ma is himself a CCP member. * Before regulators stopped Ant's IPO, people were worrying about how Ant is a CCP ploy to take over the world, and a national security threat. Speculations about China have a tendency to view everything through the "CCP is evil and the only thing that's constantly on their minds is how to kill/jail/invade more" lens. As if all behavior in China is solely attributable to the CCP. This lens distorts things so much that a lot of the time you end up with nonsense.
- nmfisher 6y ago
  Have you lived in China? CCP membership means nothing. There are dozens, if not hundreds of government officials and corporate identities in prison (or worse, executed) who were party members. Global perceptions about Ant Financial are completely irrelevant to Jack Ma. This is all internal politics. Anyone who poses a potential threat to the party (read: Xi Jinping) is liable to disappear (even if only temporarily).
  - FooBarWidget 6y ago
    > CCP membership means nothing. I know. But that's not the point. Not that long ago people were speculating all over the place that Jack Ma's CCP membership means that Ant is a wholly state-controlled company and a national security threat. The 180 degree turn of all the comments, shows that at the end of the day, people don't actually know anything about China, and therefore we should be critical of speculations.
    - someperson 6y ago
      Regardless of Jack Ma's CCP membership, any major firm in China has close ties to the government at every level of the organization (including the officially embedded Chinese Communist Party cell). The recent Jack Ma + Ant kerfuffle started after he gave a public speech that was mildly critical of the CCP's financial regulation. He probably should have known better given the current political environment in China, but alas.
bserge 6y ago
It's all very interesting. I'd say the CCP is the most powerful group in the world right now. That they can control billionaires like that is impressive and scary. I have to admit, a one party system does seem like the best type of government, on paper. It can be more efficient and do things much faster than anything else. Billionaires can't just pay politicians to create/modify laws in their favour. And for the average citizen, life's the same as in a democracy. But that only works if the party is working for the country, gives people a decent amount of freedom and listens to their needs. When the party no longer keeps the people content (which seems inevitable, looking at history), there's practically no way to change it besides a violent revolution. That's a huge drawback, and the reason we're better off with a slower democratic system that doesn't have a single point of (catastrophic) failure. Modern China seems to work a lot like Imperial China. Just with different names for the emperor and his officials, more freedom and rights for the population, as well as more means to keep them in check.
- whoevercares 6y ago
  It’s a zero or one game for China —- they can make 10000 right decisions but the system could collapse with one, just one wrong decision. It’s not fault tolerant as the democracy system
  - squiggleblaz 6y ago
    Which single wrong decision is going to collapse China? Their administration have made wrong decisions before — unless you subscribe to some outlandish conspiracy theory. It seems far more likely that if they collapse, it will be as a consequence of a series of wrong decisions, in a completely boring way. The straw that breaks the camel's back will be the same as all the straws before it, except that everyone will analyse it to death considering the camel could hold thousands of other very similar straws, just not this one.
    - whoevercares 6y ago
      What I meant is high level strategic decisions. Example like cultural revolution. It’s really a single decision from one dictator and get carried out super efficiently. If you are Chinese, you’ll probably understand what I meant how single decisions could collapse China without even my explanation. China is strange, critical policies like cultural revolution and Deng’s decision to open the country was really very short and succinct words on paper
cheph 6y ago
> Why do the major trade blocks ignore these actions? USA, EU... Careful now ... I know of several people who were banned from HN for being critical of China ... EDIT: I suspect this post will be gone soon.
- dang 6y ago
  Who and when? If you're going make a grand claim like that, you should supply links so readers can make up their minds for themselves. HN is full of criticisms of China on any thread that touches even tangentially on China. We don't ban users for that. We ban users who repeatedly break the site guidelines, such as by posting nationalistic flamebait—especially if they do it repeatedly. Those are not at all the same thing. It's common, of course, for people to make grandiose claims about being banned for their noble views when really it was for their bad behavior.
namelosw 6y ago
From my understanding, Jack Ma having these troubles recently because he's filing the Ant Group IPO. Everybody was talking about the stock because everybody believes it would be skyrocketing. Also combined with the fact that the Ant Group is abusing rules under fintech's cover (eg: Banks need to follow regulations on the interest rate but the Ant Group along with other financial companies can get away with it, or they lure graduates to lend money they can't afford to pay back). These caused concern from the government because it has potentially huge impacts on society (most likely reap shit ton of money from people). As the government see it, if they caused such problems it's the government that has to deal with the consequence. PS: Some information about Guo from the video. According to Vice, He was rich because he was close to high ranking officials, and fled because the Government ally he linked to was under investigation because of accepting bribes [0]. Everybody would know in China, a close relationship comes from bribing at least from those times, and bribing is a crime in most countries especially in the US. It seems to me, he callout corruption issues only because he's out of the game. [0] https://youtu.be/LkOsgh5kcgQ?t=92 https://youtu.be/LkOsgh5kcgQ?t=92
- maeln 6y ago
  > Everybody would know in China, a close relationship comes from bribing at least from those times, and bribing is a crime in most countries It is a classic tactic in dictatorship: Make sure that for anybody to advance, they need to get their hands dirty (i.e bribes) so that you always have a Damocles sword over their head. It's one way to ensure obedience.
- dumb1224 6y ago
  However even in the oversea chinese community he (Guo) is poorly regarded and very dubious. He gained a lot of attention much earlier because of these callouts but later proven not accurate and not different from other controversial figures in order to gain popularity. Their motto is 爆料革命 - 'callout revolution'. Many even major chinese celebrities fall for that. https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%88%86%E6%96%99%E9%9D%A9%E5%91%BD https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%88%86%E6%96%99%E9%9D%A9%E5... https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/20/business/media/steve-bannon-china.html?utm_source=pocket-newtab-global-en-GB https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/20/business/media/steve-bann...
johncena33 6y ago
> Basically these individuals grow with the hand of the CCP on their back, and when it's time to collect they are stripped off and put on tight leash, and at any moment they can easily be muffled. That's the reason I never got why all the fanfare for Jack Ma. I don't know how much of his success can be attributed to CCP's belssings.
erdos4d 6y ago
> Why do the major trade blocks ignore these actions? USA, EU... These people are literally disappearing millions from an ethnic group into concentration camps in a genuine genocide and nobody cares. Why would anyone care about some puppet "billionaire" who gets disappeared for acting up?
- squiggleblaz 6y ago
  As a matter of fact/demonstrable behavior, regardless of the things we would like to be true, most people would value the life of a billionaire business person well above the lives of millions of poor people who don't speak the same as us. This is especially true the higher up in power you go; and since it requires power to do anything about it, the chances of anything being done about it are much greater when it's a billionaire business person than a nation of poor people.

klik99 6y ago

I still feel it’s a conspiracy theory but Jack Ma is absolutely being targeted. He was beloved by the Chinese media as a motivational speaker as well as a business man, when he started not speaking highly of CCP (which is tantamount to criticizing) I told my wife that in a year he would be vilified by the media, and sure enough here we are at the first stages of that. This might be happening on a case by case basis with those who don’t want to “play ball”, but I don’t believe there is a concerted effort to bring down all billionaires. Reminds me of the rise of the middle class in Europe as they threatened the existing power structure. Sometimes it feels China is going through the same stages of history Europe went through over centuries but at breakneck speed.

antibuddy 6y ago
It is in fact a conspiracy theory. But a small reminder that conspiracy theory doesn't tell you anything about the truthfulness, e.g. that the Iraq War was based on made-up evidence was a conspiracy theory. That being said: Your explanation makes more sense to me. It is often enough to anger the wrong person to get a bad treatment (well, even assassination). And looking at history this is exponentiated in dictatorships, where power is concentrated on few ppl, who can act with impunity.
- jacquesm 6y ago
  > that the Iraq War was based on made-up evidence was a conspiracy theory. To be fair though, that never was much of a conspiracy. Maybe in the United States it was but in the rest of the world I don't think people believe the WMD story, rather, we believed the UN weapons inspectors' story.
  - elindbe3 6y ago
    A poorly executed conspiracy is still a conspiracy.
    - jacquesm 6y ago
      No, it was simply a lie. And one that should have fallen completely flat. My respect for Colin Powell went through the floor that day.
    - MichaelZuo 6y ago
      The word ‘conspiracy’ itself has a legal, original, meaning entirely different from the popular meaning. I find all good discussions involving this clarify what meaning is intended.
      - vmception 6y ago
        I resort to just saying the definition of words, in a sentence, instead of the word itself. I've told and convinced plenty of anti-vaxxers about the magical secret way our body naturally produces antibodies if we expose our body to dead versions of a virus (or, now, things shaped like that virus). They like magic, secrets and nature, they do not like the word vaccine. I do the same with the word conspiracy, "That is a secret plan by a group to do something harmful". It rolls off the tongue.
        Bakary 6y ago
        The only really effective way to change someone's mind is to make them believe they came up with the conclusions themselves
mgreenleaf 6y ago
Your post reminded me of my recent encounter with the phrase "damning with faint praise". It is interesting how applicable it is in authoritarian governments; you can't simply praise, you must give enthusiastic encomiums. That is particularly interesting in business, where it may be obvious to business leaders that something is wrong, but anything lackluster brings about government condemnation, which is part of the problem the business people can see. Startup founders are usually sharp, rebellious individuals trying to upend current business practices, so the condemnations damper the business spirit to some degree. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damning_with_faint_praise https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damning_with_faint_praise)
- trumpeta 6y ago
  I mean, I get the same feeling from Apple events, everything is constantly the best ever.
  - mordymoop 6y ago
    The worst possible condemnation of a powerful national government: to compare its normal everyday functioning to a corporate product launch. Orwell was too optimistic.
    - toxik 6y ago
      Eh, it was just a more relatable example. If anything, it shows you that our idea of oppression is Apple overstating their product's capabilities.
      - zepto 6y ago
        The Orwellian part is people talking as though it’s a fact that Apple is overstating something. As far as I can see that’s bullshit. They say what they are measuring, and people do check it. They’d be open to straight up legal action from both customers and shareholders if they were lying.
    - mhh__ 6y ago
samstave 6y ago
Putin does the same thing. and literally just takes companies from billionaires.
- coldtea 6y ago
  Ah, if only our governments would take companies from billionaires too! Or perhaps they could start with properly taxing them!
  - jp555 6y ago
    how about first journalists that don't tell lies about how taxes work. 99% they report on gross revenue and complain about how little tax is paid. And almost everyone buys it.
    - coldtea 6y ago
      I know how taxes work. That's why I don't buy the "gross revenue" argument, or the "actually the rich pay more of their income in taxes" arguments. The rich and big corporations have billions (pun intended) of ways of padding their expenses, hiding their net, moving their wealth around so it can't be taxes, making shell companies etc.
      - jp555 6y ago
        IF those are all legal actions, you do not know how taxes work (knowing how an internal combustion engine works generally does not mean you understand valve timing formulae) Your anger is misplaced, and should fall at the feet of lawmakers.
      - samstave 6y ago
        >>>*Shell Companies* Panama Papers is the most unreported, under-investigated scandal of the century
baybal2 6y ago
> Sometimes it feels China is going through the same stages of history Europe went through over centuries but at breakneck speed. And you feel it right. This is what is the explanation for the schizophrenic public position of the Chinese establishment: on one hand they shout out loud that "economic liberalisation is irreversible, opening up will go on," and on other keep tightening all legal, and extralegal nuts on private enterprise, and in overall sliding back into the madness of seventies. They have accepted the fact of millionaire chicken run to the West being unstoppable, but they at least want to prevent the multimillionaire, and billionaire chicken run. They simply want their money that much, and that started to outweight the rational interest of "not slaughtering a hen laying golden eggs" in recent 2-3 years.
DataWorker 6y ago
“Sometimes it feels China is going through the same stages of history Europe went through over centuries but at breakneck speed.” A dangerously ethnocentric perspective.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

xwdv 6y ago

God damn, they killed Jack Ma?

libertine 6y ago
Jack Ma is missing since October. No one knows what happened to him, in my opinion I doubt they killed him simply because he was in China. What's the point of killing him there? They can simply remove him from the picture.
- paganel 6y ago
  > Jack Ma is missing since October. Recent article on this [1], because I must admit that for me also this was a tough thing to believe. [1] https://www.businessinsider.com/alibaba-founder-jack-ma-suspected-missing-2021-1 https://www.businessinsider.com/alibaba-founder-jack-ma-susp...
  - pankajdoharey 6y ago
    Although i think it will reflect poorly on CCP to secretly make Jack go missing, who is actually a world famous personality at this point. One should also remember that anything is possible in a totalitarian regime.
    - libertine 6y ago
      Will it though? You live in the time where there's massive outrage for one week, but the next week that's the subject of the past that lost hype and momentum so it's forgotten. I think the CCP knows this, hell even political leaders of the free world know this - no one resigns due to scandals anymore. They just sit tight, don't acknowledge it, and it blows over.
      - pankajdoharey 6y ago
        That is true, but Jack isnt any ordinary Billionaire, this would affect Chinese businesses.

tchalla 6y ago

The major trade blocks ignore these actions because they profit from it. Once they won’t, we will see “democracy values” based moral statements and arguments.

libertine 6y ago
But does it make sense in the long term? I don't see it honestly... it's not just democracy values, it ranges from that to things like hacking/IP theft. It's a massive loss. Also, if we're at the point where "democracy values" are stumped by short term profits then maybe we deserve all of this.
- Siira 6y ago
  The Western political institutions have short-term incentives for their constituents.
  - esarbe 6y ago
    That's an unfortunate drawback of a constituency trained to prioritize short-term goals. I wonder if it's possible to change this and have a 'wise' constituency that is able to do a more long-term prioritization.

ianai 6y ago

What can the trade blocks do? Sanctions would be tantamount to what was seen at the start of the pandemic. Basically cutting your local economy off from the world’s manufacturing. War would be even more extreme. There’s 1.3 billion Chinese. Their government is capable of being infinitely more organized and long thinking than just about all the others. Maybe a world war could curb the inevitable sans nuclear weapons. With nuclear weapons... Perhaps if the smaller trade blocs all rejected vehemently China along with the major it’d be a stronger position. Say in reaction to such actions. The large trade parties could help this by investing with infrastructure and other such programs in those countries. Possibly hoping for the Chinese people to change their form of government from within is the “nicest” option.

ianai 6y ago
Basically, you've got to reproduce the factors within China making them such strong trading partners outside of them in a way they cannot diminish unilaterally. This could be done with political will or reproduction of their capacity. Personally, I wonder whether a UBI in a developed country could work to essentially lower their external 'trading costs'. Try to change their thought processes at the margin. i.e. Make the local goods and services out compete the foreign goods/services through moving local costs not observed in foreign goods/services to localized costs. i.e. Maybe a person making a UBI would be willing to do a job for (X+U) - where (X+U) is their reservation price, X is the foreign price, and U the UBI. Edit-flipped signs
BunsanSpace 6y ago
The long thinking aspect of the Chinese government is Chinese propaganda. You see them announcing long term goals and going on giant infrastructure projects, which go on to be under used, poorly built e&. China has serious structural issues that the CCP is trying to hide. Massive food, drug and alcohol fraud hurting people (fake alcohol is a HUGE issue). Riots, mass stabbings/attacks, economic slowdown/hardship. All of which the CCP covers up because foreign media can't easily penetrate, and the CCP control the domestic media/narrative. China is a house of lies, they're essentially trying to fake it until they make it.
- 6y ago

GrantZvolsky 6y ago

Let's not jump to conclusions with Jack Ma. It could all be explained by an illness.

memetherapy 6y ago

Because there is little to no benefit to the EU or USA to challenging the CCP, be it because of their treatment of a few billionaires or millions of Uighers. Unlike the Soviet Union China doesn't represent an existential threat to the USA or EU, largely as a matter of geography. The promotion of human rights, liberal democracy, the rule of law etc. has always been fairly low on the priority list of most western states in actuality and has usually played second fiddle to national interests.

starfallg 6y ago
>Unlike the Soviet Union China doesn't represent an existential threat to the USA or EU, largely as a matter of geography. That is categorically untrue. The model of government and economic success of China is the biggest existential threat to western hegemony, much bigger than the USSR. China is well in the process of building a strong military with greater capabilities than Russia and once this is complete, the world order will undoubtedly change unless something is done about it now. The only reason we don't see more noise on this is because a lot of people depend on trade with China for their wealth, which was never the case during the cold war with the USSR. The state department was fully aware of the Chinese threat, hence why the TPP was proposed as a measure of containment. Too bad that play was ruined and replaced with ineffective populist measures that sound good on AM radio and internet forums, but are actually counterproductive in practice.
- tlear 6y ago
  USSR controlled half of Europe and had enough ground forces on hand to bust through Germany and be in France in a week(without nukes being involved). PRC is nowhere close. It is a threat to Japan, India, Russia, Vietnam etc to US and Europe not so much
  - arcticfox 6y ago
    I don't understand that perspective - large ground armies haven't been relevant to superpower conflicts since pre-Cold War. Force projection, like the US has been able to do for 30 years, is relevant and when China ramps up in that regard there's no telling how things will change. IMO China doesn't even need to bother much with military advancement to become a massive threat to Western democracies though, as they can simply continue to build their economic engine and leverage it whenever necessary. They are already doing so to great effect against multinational corporations.

varjag 6y ago

The Little Red Checkbook

FooBarWidget 6y ago

Speculations such as these should be taken with a huge grain of salt. Consider that: * Jack Ma is himself a CCP member. * Before regulators stopped Ant's IPO, people were worrying about how Ant is a CCP ploy to take over the world, and a national security threat. Speculations about China have a tendency to view everything through the "CCP is evil and the only thing that's constantly on their minds is how to kill/jail/invade more" lens. As if all behavior in China is solely attributable to the CCP. This lens distorts things so much that a lot of the time you end up with nonsense.

nmfisher 6y ago
Have you lived in China? CCP membership means nothing. There are dozens, if not hundreds of government officials and corporate identities in prison (or worse, executed) who were party members. Global perceptions about Ant Financial are completely irrelevant to Jack Ma. This is all internal politics. Anyone who poses a potential threat to the party (read: Xi Jinping) is liable to disappear (even if only temporarily).
- FooBarWidget 6y ago
  > CCP membership means nothing. I know. But that's not the point. Not that long ago people were speculating all over the place that Jack Ma's CCP membership means that Ant is a wholly state-controlled company and a national security threat. The 180 degree turn of all the comments, shows that at the end of the day, people don't actually know anything about China, and therefore we should be critical of speculations.
  - someperson 6y ago
    Regardless of Jack Ma's CCP membership, any major firm in China has close ties to the government at every level of the organization (including the officially embedded Chinese Communist Party cell). The recent Jack Ma + Ant kerfuffle started after he gave a public speech that was mildly critical of the CCP's financial regulation. He probably should have known better given the current political environment in China, but alas.

bserge 6y ago

It's all very interesting. I'd say the CCP is the most powerful group in the world right now. That they can control billionaires like that is impressive and scary. I have to admit, a one party system does seem like the best type of government, on paper. It can be more efficient and do things much faster than anything else. Billionaires can't just pay politicians to create/modify laws in their favour. And for the average citizen, life's the same as in a democracy. But that only works if the party is working for the country, gives people a decent amount of freedom and listens to their needs. When the party no longer keeps the people content (which seems inevitable, looking at history), there's practically no way to change it besides a violent revolution. That's a huge drawback, and the reason we're better off with a slower democratic system that doesn't have a single point of (catastrophic) failure. Modern China seems to work a lot like Imperial China. Just with different names for the emperor and his officials, more freedom and rights for the population, as well as more means to keep them in check.

whoevercares 6y ago
It’s a zero or one game for China —- they can make 10000 right decisions but the system could collapse with one, just one wrong decision. It’s not fault tolerant as the democracy system
- squiggleblaz 6y ago
  Which single wrong decision is going to collapse China? Their administration have made wrong decisions before — unless you subscribe to some outlandish conspiracy theory. It seems far more likely that if they collapse, it will be as a consequence of a series of wrong decisions, in a completely boring way. The straw that breaks the camel's back will be the same as all the straws before it, except that everyone will analyse it to death considering the camel could hold thousands of other very similar straws, just not this one.
  - whoevercares 6y ago
    What I meant is high level strategic decisions. Example like cultural revolution. It’s really a single decision from one dictator and get carried out super efficiently. If you are Chinese, you’ll probably understand what I meant how single decisions could collapse China without even my explanation. China is strange, critical policies like cultural revolution and Deng’s decision to open the country was really very short and succinct words on paper

cheph 6y ago

> Why do the major trade blocks ignore these actions? USA, EU... Careful now ... I know of several people who were banned from HN for being critical of China ... EDIT: I suspect this post will be gone soon.

dang 6y ago
Who and when? If you're going make a grand claim like that, you should supply links so readers can make up their minds for themselves. HN is full of criticisms of China on any thread that touches even tangentially on China. We don't ban users for that. We ban users who repeatedly break the site guidelines, such as by posting nationalistic flamebait—especially if they do it repeatedly. Those are not at all the same thing. It's common, of course, for people to make grandiose claims about being banned for their noble views when really it was for their bad behavior.

namelosw 6y ago

From my understanding, Jack Ma having these troubles recently because he's filing the Ant Group IPO. Everybody was talking about the stock because everybody believes it would be skyrocketing. Also combined with the fact that the Ant Group is abusing rules under fintech's cover (eg: Banks need to follow regulations on the interest rate but the Ant Group along with other financial companies can get away with it, or they lure graduates to lend money they can't afford to pay back). These caused concern from the government because it has potentially huge impacts on society (most likely reap shit ton of money from people). As the government see it, if they caused such problems it's the government that has to deal with the consequence. PS: Some information about Guo from the video. According to Vice, He was rich because he was close to high ranking officials, and fled because the Government ally he linked to was under investigation because of accepting bribes [0]. Everybody would know in China, a close relationship comes from bribing at least from those times, and bribing is a crime in most countries especially in the US. It seems to me, he callout corruption issues only because he's out of the game. [0] https://youtu.be/LkOsgh5kcgQ?t=92 https://youtu.be/LkOsgh5kcgQ?t=92

maeln 6y ago
> Everybody would know in China, a close relationship comes from bribing at least from those times, and bribing is a crime in most countries It is a classic tactic in dictatorship: Make sure that for anybody to advance, they need to get their hands dirty (i.e bribes) so that you always have a Damocles sword over their head. It's one way to ensure obedience.
dumb1224 6y ago
However even in the oversea chinese community he (Guo) is poorly regarded and very dubious. He gained a lot of attention much earlier because of these callouts but later proven not accurate and not different from other controversial figures in order to gain popularity. Their motto is 爆料革命 - 'callout revolution'. Many even major chinese celebrities fall for that. https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%88%86%E6%96%99%E9%9D%A9%E5%91%BD https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%88%86%E6%96%99%E9%9D%A9%E5... https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/20/business/media/steve-bannon-china.html?utm_source=pocket-newtab-global-en-GB https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/20/business/media/steve-bann...

johncena33 6y ago

> Basically these individuals grow with the hand of the CCP on their back, and when it's time to collect they are stripped off and put on tight leash, and at any moment they can easily be muffled. That's the reason I never got why all the fanfare for Jack Ma. I don't know how much of his success can be attributed to CCP's belssings.

erdos4d 6y ago

> Why do the major trade blocks ignore these actions? USA, EU... These people are literally disappearing millions from an ethnic group into concentration camps in a genuine genocide and nobody cares. Why would anyone care about some puppet "billionaire" who gets disappeared for acting up?

squiggleblaz 6y ago
As a matter of fact/demonstrable behavior, regardless of the things we would like to be true, most people would value the life of a billionaire business person well above the lives of millions of poor people who don't speak the same as us. This is especially true the higher up in power you go; and since it requires power to do anything about it, the chances of anything being done about it are much greater when it's a billionaire business person than a nation of poor people.