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Jack Ma's disappearing act fuels speculation about billionaire's whereabouts
- downrightmike 6y agoJeff's basement or the Uyghur extermination camp
- monksy 6y ago"re-education"* (For lose definitions of what they're educating on)
- smt1 6y ago"xi thought", whatever that is? https://www.ft.com/content/50d9aae2-e182-11e7-8f9f-de1c2175f5ce https://www.ft.com/content/50d9aae2-e182-11e7-8f9f-de1c2175f... What's funny is that the Chinese natural language community seems to be way ahead of the regulator's ability to censor content, at least in eastern China (and the fact that there is still a reliance on the usage of Windows, Linux, Android, and IOS, and the easiness of transcoding between GB18030 and Unicode). This is true of the tech savvy community in China in general, but the proliferation of English auto translated internet text/videos virtually impossible for the government to monitor. It's wide scale overrunning of government controls from what I hear. The world is more intertwined than you think due to the inter webs. Of course the opposite is true in the other side of China.
- Ulrich2 6y agoA bit older but related: "China: The Disappearing Millionaires" 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...
- moomin 6y agoAllow me to predict the future: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/25/fan-bingbing-china-star-reappears-after-nearly-a-year-in-wilderness https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/25/fan-bingbing-c...
- dang 6y agoCurrently discussed at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25629774 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25629774
- I_am_tiberius 6y agoOther discussions: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25627043 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25627043 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25636045 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25636045 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25627398 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25627398
- dang 6y agoMostly https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25629774 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25629774 too.
- 88840-8855 6y agoWell, the state said that the power is still with the state and not with some super rich tech companies. We _ALL_ know the harm of facebook and _ALL OF US_ wished this platform would be shut down immediately. But the state has nothing to say here.
- xxpor 6y agoEven if Facebook were shut down tomorrow (legally or not), I can't imagine any possible scenario where Zuck would be disappeared by the feds.
- 88840-8855 6y agoIt would be more like with Assange, you say? 2 years of isolation in a prison and more?
- khuey 6y agoIf Zuck lost an extradition hearing and then hid out in a foreign embassy for years I suspect he would be arrested when the embassy finally kicked him out, yes.
- xxpor 6y agoThere's a difference between being arrested and put in jail until your bond hearing 24-48 hours later and being blackbagged and "interrogated" for 2 months before anyone knows where you are. We only do that to people in Europe and the Middle East, duh.
- maaand 6y agonot true, most probably Zuck will disappear, if he releases say.. Pelosi's private DMs / WhatsApps.
- vorpalhex 6y agoHe'd be in court for the next twenty years, but even then likely civil and not criminal. He wouldn't be blackbagged.
- franklampard 6y agoHe is just benevolently chilling in the ICU with his 996 engineers.
- fermienrico 6y agoThis level of government intervention, censorship and alleged intimidation should be a warning to world-class talent and entrepreneurs who might be attracted to China.
- actuator 6y agoI really doubt something bad will happen to him even if he is under CCP custody. CCP can't be that stupid that they let a successful entrepreneur with an amazing story and global appeal go missing. Because if he really disappears it will cause talent drain like anything, which will be just stupid to the ambitions CCP has for PRC.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- TrainedMonkey 6y agoYou are assuming CCP thinks like you do, what if sending a message is extremely important to them?
- Hermel 6y agoYes, and what if they see extraordinary people as a threat? They might be willing to sacrifice some potential growth if it helps them staying in power...
- actuator 6y agoYes, and everyone gets the message that even if successful and immense value generator for PRC, you can't expect to be safe for saying even non political stuff. This will just cause a chilling effect, there are plenty of brilliant Chinese people who might not like that.
- boringg 6y agoCultural revolution was not that long ago: 1966-1976. There has already been a chilling effect before Jack Ma. I would wager control is utmost importance to CCP. Not as concerned about the chilling effect on their top performers.
- actuator 6y agoBut more to lose now and countries would readily welcome the top performers.
- aezakmi 6y agoProbably he outlived his usefulness.
- duxup 6y agoI remember a while back there were a number of stories about Chinese government officials embezzling money and then fleeing the country suddenly over night. At that time that seemed pretty brazen, but perhaps those folks are more aware of how often random people who displease the powers that be may be disappeared or used as an example... and they knew that if there was any risk it was time to get out of town. This is far from the only example of business people, even local celebs disappearing for a time.
- busterarm 6y ago> I remember a while back there were a number of stories about Chinese government officials embezzling money and then fleeing the country suddenly over night. At that time that seemed pretty brazen, but perhaps those folks are more aware of how often random people who displease the powers that be may be disappeared or used as an example... and they knew that if there was any risk it was time to get out of town. This is far from the only example of business people, even local celebs disappearing for a time. Unless you can buy/obtain citizenship from somewhere else, that only gets you so far. Eventually China will get you back on Chinese soil. You're going to need a passport renewal eventually. China is widely known for pursuing dissidents outside its borders and is not above kidnapping. They also have the political leverage to make Khashoggi-like incidents go away.
- duxup 6y agoIIRC at the time a lot of countries these officials ran to were actually providing them with citizenship or some level of permanent residency. The Chinese government wasn't happy about it but as they also weren't likely to hand anyone over to their home country it was mostly a stalemate. Not sure how frequent that is now. The "Khashoggi-like" examples area always mentioned in these situations but I think those events are much more rare than people seem to imagine....
- karmasimida 6y agoCouldn't it be that he just hide to stay lowkey for a period of time to avoid further trouble? The best option right now for him is to avoid exposure and shut his mouth, TBH.
- 88840-8855 6y agoNaaa, it happened in China. It must be the evil CCP that only made bad stuff and let 1.4 billion suffers right in this moment. Fuck, my cat just pooed on the floor. I am sure, the CCP is also the reason for that.
- dekhn 6y agoOf all the China disappearing acts, the one that still blows me away the most was what happened to the panchen lama: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gedhun_Choekyi_Nyima https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gedhun_Choekyi_Nyima
- boringg 6y agoWow just read up on that. Depressing that they would kidnap a 6 year old - no limits to what the CCP won't do I guess.
- 88840-8855 6y agoWhat are the limits of the American war crimes? Pls put ur own shit into perspective first.
- dang 6y agoWould you please stop using HN primarily for political and ideological battle? We ban that sort of account because it destroys the curious conversation we're trying for here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. Occasional political discussion is fine, but when it becomes the main activity of an account, that's quite different. There are lots of past explanations about this: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=political%20overlap%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so... https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0&query=primarily%20test%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme... If you or anyone still has a question after reading some of that material, I'd be interested to know what it is.
- hladomorko 6y agoThere Is No War in Ba Sing Se