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Guo Wengui said back in September 2019 that "Jack Ma would be jailed or killed" on Kyle Bass's youtube channel. [1] At this point its not even a question of wh

by f430 6y ago

Guo Wengui said back in September 2019 that "Jack Ma would be jailed or killed" on Kyle Bass's youtube channel. [1] At this point its not even a question of whether we will see Jack Ma in public again. Overnight he went from billionaire to peasantry. We've seen dozen cases like this: 1) Billionaire disappears or is "killed" 2) Billionaire's company becomes nationalized 3) Rinse & Repeat Everybody who isn't familiar with the inner workings of the CCP thinks that Jack Ma openly challenged the CCP. That simply isn't the case. They are using as an excuse to take over the company because they can. As much as people in the West praise CCP's economic rise, and some even point to its authoritarian system as superior to our democracy, but little do they know the very laws that protect them isn't an option in China. Imagine spending most of your life building a massive business and then one day it is taken from you by force by an authoritarian ruler. This is why anyone that has money send their kids abroad and move permanently to a Western country that their kids despise and criticize their host for calling out the CCP. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtJK_5qDraM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtJK_5qDraM

echelon 6y ago
> As much as people in the West praise CCP's economic rise Who is praising the CCP's economic rise? The American consensus as far as I can tell is that we need to shut them out and push them into decline. The West should brain drain the best and brightest from China.
- marcinzm 6y ago
  >Who is praising the CCP's economic rise? A majority of Americans until relatively recently? China was seen favorably by most Americans until the last decade. An economic world power that we should strengthen relations with if polls are to be believed. For example: https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2020/10/06/unfavorable-views-of-china-reach-historic-highs-in-many-countries/ https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2020/10/06/unfavorable-vi...
  - emteycz 6y ago
    It was a very different country 10 years ago. It was comparable to the EU (I lived in both).
    - agumonkey 6y ago
      What propelled such a quick and strong change ?
      - SoylentYellow 6y ago
        Xi Jinping rising to power.
        agumonkey 6y ago
        somehow I thought he was in place before that.
    - Mediterraneo10 6y ago
      Even ten years ago, there were things like the Great Firewall and strict laws preventing any crowdsourced mapping on national security grounds (so OpenStreetMap never quite took off in China). Sure, things were a little freer, but China and the EU were definitely not comparable.
      - emteycz 6y ago
        Great firewall is coming to the EU soon.
  - refulgentis 6y ago
    Polling data on Americans favorability to the CCP is orthogonal to OP noting we're begging the question when we say people are praising the CCP. The only set of charts that matches your description re: Americans viewing China favorably is the first set of charts, which is in response to question 8b, do you view China _unfavorably_, for a worldwide survey broken down by country. Question framing matters a lot on surveys, particularly for questions outside people's daily concerns. you'll get dramatically different distributions on the questions "do you view china favorably" or "do you view china favorably"
- the_drunkard 6y ago
  >Who is praising the CCP's economic rise? Did you miss the last 40 years in which US economic policy was underpinned by the thesis that shipping manufacturing jobs to China would give rise to a middle class that supports democracy? Well, here's a reminder if you needed it.
  - WalterSear 6y ago
    To paraphrase Upton Sinclair, "It is easy to get a man to believe and promote something, when making massive amounts of money depends upon his believing and promoting it."
- fakedang 6y ago
  Most of the Middle East, Africa (up until their debts had to be collected), Indian nationalists (up until the incursions in Kashmir), Singapore, Duterte. Heck, Europe just signed a trade deal with China with full knowledge of the Uighur camps and the HK protests, while on the other side extolling vacuously about democratic ideals in Sub-Saharan or war ridden failed states. If people counter me and reiterate stating that the EU deal is going to miraculously discipline China somewhat, boy do I have a bridge to sell to you. Maybe some gutter oil to go along with it too.
  - brabel 6y ago
    Do you believe antagonising China even more will make things better? Should the EU stop all deals with the biggest exporting economy of the world, home of one in 5 human beings, because it disagrees with its policies? I will answer that: no it shouldn't. You can have a certain level of engagement even when you strongly disagree with another country. Showing aggressive behaviour, specially taking into account the history of agression and colonisation by the West as recently as 50 years ago, will not do anything at all to make life better to the victims of Chinese prosecution. By engaging with the Chinese, the EU may at least have some leverage to politely request that the Chinese , as sovereign people, start displaying a little more respect to other cultures within their own borders.
    - blisterpeanuts 6y ago
      That is essentially the thesis of American foreign policy in Asia since the 1980s. The results have been mixed; yes, they have a huge, prosperous middle class now, yet the government remains about as authoritarian as it ever was. Now, with technology, in fact things are getting worse. Everyone is required to have a cell phone, everyone is spied upon, a "social score" is maintained and if your score dips below a certain threshold, you may not travel etc. If the EU thinks that making more trade deals with China is going to temper any of these, they're naive indeed.
      - onethought 6y ago
        Over in the land of the free. Are the police not trawling through Facebook imagery and chat messages to arrest the “insurrectionists”? Is the spying ok when it’s sponsored by Facebook?
- mullingitover 6y ago
  > Who is praising the CCP's economic rise? Probably people who have some axe to grind about poverty. China's rate of extreme poverty from 1990-2016 declined from 66% to 0.7% During that time the US rate of extreme poverty more than doubled, from .5% to 1.2% https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-population-living-in-extreme-poverty-by-world-region?country=CHN~USA https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-population-livin...
Haga 6y ago
All that just because some head of states visited him before the head of state.
throwaway0a5e 6y ago
>Imagine spending most of your life building a massive business and then one day it is taken from you by force by an authoritarian ruler. I don't think most of the people praising the CCP or (any other similar system where one's life work can easily be taken) know what it's like to be in business for one's self.
jjcc 6y ago
Here's Youtube Channel of Guo Wengui. Target audience is not mainly English speaker though. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCO3pO3ykAUybrjv3RBbXEHw/videos https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCO3pO3ykAUybrjv3RBbXEHw/vid...
agumonkey 6y ago
It's odd to experience (afar) what the cold war era people were fearing.
- saiya-jin 6y ago
  Fearing? They wouldn't be even allowed to grow any business, forbidden by state. This is socialism&capitalism hybrid, seemingly taking the worst out of both. Merciless efficiency (at least for the goals of those in helm, which might not align with long term economic success), not slowed down by some pesky human rights
  - agumonkey 6y ago
    I meant seeing a big state taking control like russia did post ww2 (probably fueling the us/russia feud) but I only read in books.
potiuper 6y ago
The USA is not a democracy it is a federal republic. Anyone who disagrees needs to recite the US pledge of allegiance, and review the US constitution. China is also a republic. But, neither of the two dominant USA parties currently espouse the Marxist Leninist doctrine.
- mijkal 6y ago
  'Democracy' and 'republic' are not mutually exclusive concepts. The US has a democratic|representative|constitutional|federal republic. It's quite disturbing to see an uptick in this claim in the recent years, as if democracy in principle is not American and ought be discarded in favor of a more illiberal system of governance. (Also, the pledge is not law, so it's a curious reference to cite as some authority on the matter.)
  - onethought 6y ago
    US is a pretty bad implementation of democracy. - Non compulsory voting - first past the post - superpacs - the electoral college All contribute to an oligarchy, not a democracy. The US system seems to be designed to “feel” like a democracy while actually preserving the power of moneyed interests and land owners. It’s crazy to me that the UK has less if an oligarchy despite still having a monarchy.
    - chaostheory 6y ago
      This is the best short description of what the US and other Western governments are today. My only thing that puzzles me is why traditional authoritarian governments haven't copied them yet
      - onethought 6y ago
        It's mostly the US... New Zealand, Taiwan, Australia do it much better. Of course the media is still an impressive machine of control (see Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent), but again even the media is a little bit better outside the US.
onetimemanytime 6y ago
Ma: Thank god I bought a gazillion overpriced penthouses in London and USA--if he did. Now, if only I could get out That's why the superich in these countries buy any asset they can in countries like USA and EU. 20 billion is funny money and can disappear...might as well have plan B, C and D ready
hungryhobo 6y ago
I'm sorry but Guo wen Gui is not a credible source. His past claims have repeatedly been debunked. Not to mention his deep ties with Steve bannon
- berneezy3 6y ago
  Guo Wen Gui has made some previous claims that seemed outlandish at the time, but turned out to be true, such as China forcibly taking control of Hong Kong, causing protesters to flood the streets; the CCP lying/withholding information on the transmission and the origins of the virus; billionaires being kidnapped/murdered after conflict with the CCP. I would agree that he often exaggerates, and some of his claims do turn out to be false, but I think we should recognize that he correctly predicted a series of unlikely events w/ regards to China. I think his general intuition of the inner workings of the CCP is correct.
  - curryslapper 6y ago
    if you throw enough shit at the wall, some will stick doesn't change the fact it's shit
  - justicezyx 6y ago
    > but turned out to be true, such as China forcibly taking control of Hong Kong Pick a random guy from the street of Shanghai Beijing Guangzhou, any college educated person, they'll prefix the same. > the CCP lying/withholding information on the transmission and the origins of the virus; This was largely accepted as a fact of any government handling an emergency. CCP of course is worst at this. > billionaires being kidnapped/murdered after conflict with the CCP Think about it, if this is true, how Mr. Guo still milking money from his cult followers. It's either that he is producing nonsense that CCP doesn't care, or he is protected by “deep state” or Trump? You probably want to accept the fact that Mr. Guo is producing junks, otherwise you are leaving with a worse alternative...
  - helen___keller 6y ago
    He also continues to claim that Trump will ultimately win the presidency, that covid-19 is a bioweapon deliberately unleashed on the west, that the CCP is in collusion with (just about) every mainstream media, and financial instution, as well as controlling democrats. He's responsible for the abomination of misinformation that is gnews and gtv which has been consistently spreading absolute bogus regarding the pandemic, the election, and politics, for a really long time. Yes, Guo is right about some things every now and then, and yes he without a doubt knows more about the inner workings of CCP than 99.9% of people. But let's not give him more credit than he deserves, he's not a fucking prophet. Let's not build another political cult of personality around an eccentric billionaire. If you take a look at gnews/gtv, a Guo cult of personality really is the only description you can think of.
jonathannat 6y ago
The era of CCP economic rise is over. Middle income trap and aging demographics dictate as much. CCP will now have to contend with - internal turmoil - political infighting - encirclement by democracies (India, Japan, Australia, US, UK, Canada, France, South Korea, Taiwan). Once Merkel is out in sept 2021, Germany will be onboard - negative sentiment from most of population in the world due to covid - exploding debt/bankruptcies - lack of efficient feedback loops to self correct, as dictatorship has little of that. Thus Jack Ma is no more. If you have a foreign commercial presence in China, expect - kidnapping of executives (for layoffs, unpaid bills) - no delivery for paid merchandises - seizure of molds/machines/factories (nationalization) - seizure of tangible assets (nationalization) - trademark/copyrights given to Chinese entities with no recourses.
- vkou 6y ago
  > If you have a foreign commercial presence in China, expect... In how many months do you expect your predictions will come true, in a way that will cause the majority of Fortune 500 firms to leave China? Three? Six? Sixty? Six hundred? I, for one, have strong doubts that the majority of those firms will ever leave China. I will also note that all of your criticisms can be applied even more-so to democracies. Internal turmoil, political infighting, negative world sentiment (for some of them), exploding debt, aging demographics, ossification of political structures and poor ability to self-correct, check, check, check. It's true that, say, the United States is not encircled, but it has a separate problem of having to over-reach to maintain an incredibly ambitious, and unsustainable overseas military presence. If those criteria were sufficient for a social collapse, then we're all living on borrowed time, and I don't see why you're singling China out as a likely point of failure.
  - jonathannat 6y ago
    most of it is already happening, check chinalawblog (including tales/warnings of kidnapping). the only thing that hasn't happened full scale is nationalization of tangible assets, such as molds, machines or factories. But if you owe some (made up) bills to the local government when you close your factories, the local government will prevent you from grabbing your stuff.
onlyrealcuzzo 6y ago
What benefit does the CCP get by owning Alibaba and Ant? Can't the CCP do whatever it wants anyway? Why does it need to own these companies? And aren't there a lot of negatives by taking over the largest IPO in history only a few months later???
- russh 6y ago
  It sends a message.
  - ckozlowski 6y ago
    It reminds me a lot of the Mikhail Khodorkovsky case. Similar struggle, it feels.
Aunche 6y ago
It's sad to see unsubstantiated hearsay as the top comment. I'm sure every billionaire in China has multiple escape routes. Guo Wengui certainly did, nor is he a "peasant."
- WalterSear 6y ago
  I'd be surprised if Jack Ma didn't.
- seebetter 6y ago
  And sad to see mindless authoritarians on Hacker News.
RockmanX 6y ago
Guo Wengui is rubbish. His words mean nothing!
daemin 6y ago
I remember an episode of Planet Money podcast where they went to the village where a secret agreement was signed by some farmers to divide up the communal land and farm it individually, so they could sell the surplus and make some profit. In the podcast they managed to talk to one of the original signatories to the agreement, and he lamented that fact that after his farming days he had started many businesses but they had all been taken from him by the authorities. Now given that the judiciary in China is just another arm of the CCP, there is no rule of law, there's just the rule of the CCP and the whims of whomever is in charge. So you build something successful, someone in charge gets envious, then one small misstep and it all gets taken away from you. I don't actually know if it needs an actual misstep or just enough people to conspire against you. This is also what worries me about Chinese companies buying other companies and property outside of China. There's a danger that at any moment the entire company will get nationalised and therefore China (or rather the CCP) will own it all. I'm not against some foreign ownership and investment, but usually this has originated from a country where the law rules the land and not some arbitrary dictator. (Yes I'm also concerned about middle-east money flowing in, but to a lesser extent because they don't try to hide it)
- ethbr0 6y ago
  Or another way of putting it, and always one of the weaknesses of over-powerful government and an impotent judiciary -- political skill trumps business skill. Play that out long enough, and you have all the "China {X} Industries" being owned by someone whose chief qualification was working their way up the CCP hierarchy. To the detriment of the company's functioning, and the alternate candidates who could perform better in the position. And that, ultimately, hurts China more than anyone else. Anti-corruption drives are no substitute for constant, actual market pressures, because weasels will always corrupt the very vehicles you use to implement anti-corruption campaigns. Or equally inevitably, end up in charge of the entire apparatus.
itsthefnlacctdn 6y ago
I highly doubt that many Chinese people even want to be billionaires. This might be some holy level us Westerners dream of reaching but I appreciate that there is a state power that is larger than that of a corporation's. Some person made a killing off the backs of its nation/citizens and they get to call themselves king and write the rules? I wish this delusion that we can all reach this level through hard work can dissipate already. This is a guillotine dropping on a kings head, I applaud the CCP. As if I will lose sleep if Bezos or Gates lost their keys to the castle.
eplanit 6y ago
"As much as people in the West praise CCP's economic rise, and some even point to its authoritarian system as superior to our democracy..." They do? I don't think this describes a large population.
chaostheory 6y ago
The blame mainly lies with the Xi dictatorship, where as previously the CCP was ruled by committee. I can't imagine the CCP doing this in the era before Xi and post Deng Xiaoping. imo the CCP is gone. It's the Xi Jinping Party now The good news for the West and China's Asian competitors is that he is effectively helping slow and cripple China's progress. Xi advocates a return to Mao centralism while ignoring all the good that came with Deng Xiaoping's decentralization reforms. With this act, he is also introducing a lot of uncertainty for any foreign investors. This gives the West time to recuperate since the failure of the anti-BRIC TPP.
- onethought 6y ago
  This. Everyone is talking like the CCP are the culprit here. There is big turmoil within the party right now, because Xi has taken absolute control of all areas of government. He wants to be a Mao 2 and all the moderates in the party are gone (Deng, Chou, Bo, Hu) The good thing about this is hopefully when Xi dies it gives China an opportunity to change things maybe even away from the party. The bad thing is... well dictatorships...
drieddust 6y ago
Well at least west have cheap iphones and other necessities, isn't it? Corporate geed is the reason CCP is so powerful today. Every single corporation I have worked with is willing to comply with China,it's censorship laws, and it's atrocities on the work force.
newen 6y ago
He is just lying low. He is not missing. https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/alibaba-founder-jack-ma-is-lying-low-for-the-time-being-but-hes-not-missing/ar-BB1cuxpK https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/alibaba-founder-jack...
- imperfectcats 6y ago
  Just like Shelley Miscavige is free and safe. I often wonder how much the CCP studies Scientology, as I think Scientology has been really successful in avoiding any real consequences.
- whydoyoucare 6y ago
  From what I understand of the CCP, "lying-low" is a polite phrase for "killed" or "disappered for ever".
orblivion 6y ago
You don't become a billionaire by being naive. Why would anybody choose to become a billionaire under such conditions? Was there a chance he'd come out on top?
jackthehammer 6y ago
f430 says>"Imagine spending most of your life building a massive business and then one day it is taken from you by force by an authoritarian ruler."< FTFY: Imagine spending years of your life building a massive political following and then, in one day, it is taken from you by force by authoritarian capitalists.

by f430 6y ago

echelon 6y ago

> As much as people in the West praise CCP's economic rise Who is praising the CCP's economic rise? The American consensus as far as I can tell is that we need to shut them out and push them into decline. The West should brain drain the best and brightest from China.

marcinzm 6y ago
>Who is praising the CCP's economic rise? A majority of Americans until relatively recently? China was seen favorably by most Americans until the last decade. An economic world power that we should strengthen relations with if polls are to be believed. For example: https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2020/10/06/unfavorable-views-of-china-reach-historic-highs-in-many-countries/ https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2020/10/06/unfavorable-vi...
- emteycz 6y ago
  It was a very different country 10 years ago. It was comparable to the EU (I lived in both).
  - agumonkey 6y ago
    What propelled such a quick and strong change ?
    - SoylentYellow 6y ago
      Xi Jinping rising to power.
      - agumonkey 6y ago
        somehow I thought he was in place before that.
  - Mediterraneo10 6y ago
    Even ten years ago, there were things like the Great Firewall and strict laws preventing any crowdsourced mapping on national security grounds (so OpenStreetMap never quite took off in China). Sure, things were a little freer, but China and the EU were definitely not comparable.
    - emteycz 6y ago
      Great firewall is coming to the EU soon.
- refulgentis 6y ago
  Polling data on Americans favorability to the CCP is orthogonal to OP noting we're begging the question when we say people are praising the CCP. The only set of charts that matches your description re: Americans viewing China favorably is the first set of charts, which is in response to question 8b, do you view China _unfavorably_, for a worldwide survey broken down by country. Question framing matters a lot on surveys, particularly for questions outside people's daily concerns. you'll get dramatically different distributions on the questions "do you view china favorably" or "do you view china favorably"
the_drunkard 6y ago
>Who is praising the CCP's economic rise? Did you miss the last 40 years in which US economic policy was underpinned by the thesis that shipping manufacturing jobs to China would give rise to a middle class that supports democracy? Well, here's a reminder if you needed it.
- WalterSear 6y ago
  To paraphrase Upton Sinclair, "It is easy to get a man to believe and promote something, when making massive amounts of money depends upon his believing and promoting it."
fakedang 6y ago
Most of the Middle East, Africa (up until their debts had to be collected), Indian nationalists (up until the incursions in Kashmir), Singapore, Duterte. Heck, Europe just signed a trade deal with China with full knowledge of the Uighur camps and the HK protests, while on the other side extolling vacuously about democratic ideals in Sub-Saharan or war ridden failed states. If people counter me and reiterate stating that the EU deal is going to miraculously discipline China somewhat, boy do I have a bridge to sell to you. Maybe some gutter oil to go along with it too.
- brabel 6y ago
  Do you believe antagonising China even more will make things better? Should the EU stop all deals with the biggest exporting economy of the world, home of one in 5 human beings, because it disagrees with its policies? I will answer that: no it shouldn't. You can have a certain level of engagement even when you strongly disagree with another country. Showing aggressive behaviour, specially taking into account the history of agression and colonisation by the West as recently as 50 years ago, will not do anything at all to make life better to the victims of Chinese prosecution. By engaging with the Chinese, the EU may at least have some leverage to politely request that the Chinese , as sovereign people, start displaying a little more respect to other cultures within their own borders.
  - blisterpeanuts 6y ago
    That is essentially the thesis of American foreign policy in Asia since the 1980s. The results have been mixed; yes, they have a huge, prosperous middle class now, yet the government remains about as authoritarian as it ever was. Now, with technology, in fact things are getting worse. Everyone is required to have a cell phone, everyone is spied upon, a "social score" is maintained and if your score dips below a certain threshold, you may not travel etc. If the EU thinks that making more trade deals with China is going to temper any of these, they're naive indeed.
    - onethought 6y ago
      Over in the land of the free. Are the police not trawling through Facebook imagery and chat messages to arrest the “insurrectionists”? Is the spying ok when it’s sponsored by Facebook?
mullingitover 6y ago
> Who is praising the CCP's economic rise? Probably people who have some axe to grind about poverty. China's rate of extreme poverty from 1990-2016 declined from 66% to 0.7% During that time the US rate of extreme poverty more than doubled, from .5% to 1.2% https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-population-living-in-extreme-poverty-by-world-region?country=CHN~USA https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-population-livin...

Haga 6y ago

All that just because some head of states visited him before the head of state.

throwaway0a5e 6y ago

>Imagine spending most of your life building a massive business and then one day it is taken from you by force by an authoritarian ruler. I don't think most of the people praising the CCP or (any other similar system where one's life work can easily be taken) know what it's like to be in business for one's self.

jjcc 6y ago

Here's Youtube Channel of Guo Wengui. Target audience is not mainly English speaker though. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCO3pO3ykAUybrjv3RBbXEHw/videos https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCO3pO3ykAUybrjv3RBbXEHw/vid...

agumonkey 6y ago

It's odd to experience (afar) what the cold war era people were fearing.

saiya-jin 6y ago
Fearing? They wouldn't be even allowed to grow any business, forbidden by state. This is socialism&capitalism hybrid, seemingly taking the worst out of both. Merciless efficiency (at least for the goals of those in helm, which might not align with long term economic success), not slowed down by some pesky human rights
- agumonkey 6y ago
  I meant seeing a big state taking control like russia did post ww2 (probably fueling the us/russia feud) but I only read in books.

potiuper 6y ago

The USA is not a democracy it is a federal republic. Anyone who disagrees needs to recite the US pledge of allegiance, and review the US constitution. China is also a republic. But, neither of the two dominant USA parties currently espouse the Marxist Leninist doctrine.

mijkal 6y ago
'Democracy' and 'republic' are not mutually exclusive concepts. The US has a democratic|representative|constitutional|federal republic. It's quite disturbing to see an uptick in this claim in the recent years, as if democracy in principle is not American and ought be discarded in favor of a more illiberal system of governance. (Also, the pledge is not law, so it's a curious reference to cite as some authority on the matter.)
- onethought 6y ago
  US is a pretty bad implementation of democracy. - Non compulsory voting - first past the post - superpacs - the electoral college All contribute to an oligarchy, not a democracy. The US system seems to be designed to “feel” like a democracy while actually preserving the power of moneyed interests and land owners. It’s crazy to me that the UK has less if an oligarchy despite still having a monarchy.
  - chaostheory 6y ago
    This is the best short description of what the US and other Western governments are today. My only thing that puzzles me is why traditional authoritarian governments haven't copied them yet
    - onethought 6y ago
      It's mostly the US... New Zealand, Taiwan, Australia do it much better. Of course the media is still an impressive machine of control (see Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent), but again even the media is a little bit better outside the US.

onetimemanytime 6y ago

Ma: Thank god I bought a gazillion overpriced penthouses in London and USA--if he did. Now, if only I could get out That's why the superich in these countries buy any asset they can in countries like USA and EU. 20 billion is funny money and can disappear...might as well have plan B, C and D ready

hungryhobo 6y ago

I'm sorry but Guo wen Gui is not a credible source. His past claims have repeatedly been debunked. Not to mention his deep ties with Steve bannon

berneezy3 6y ago
Guo Wen Gui has made some previous claims that seemed outlandish at the time, but turned out to be true, such as China forcibly taking control of Hong Kong, causing protesters to flood the streets; the CCP lying/withholding information on the transmission and the origins of the virus; billionaires being kidnapped/murdered after conflict with the CCP. I would agree that he often exaggerates, and some of his claims do turn out to be false, but I think we should recognize that he correctly predicted a series of unlikely events w/ regards to China. I think his general intuition of the inner workings of the CCP is correct.
- curryslapper 6y ago
  if you throw enough shit at the wall, some will stick doesn't change the fact it's shit
- justicezyx 6y ago
  > but turned out to be true, such as China forcibly taking control of Hong Kong Pick a random guy from the street of Shanghai Beijing Guangzhou, any college educated person, they'll prefix the same. > the CCP lying/withholding information on the transmission and the origins of the virus; This was largely accepted as a fact of any government handling an emergency. CCP of course is worst at this. > billionaires being kidnapped/murdered after conflict with the CCP Think about it, if this is true, how Mr. Guo still milking money from his cult followers. It's either that he is producing nonsense that CCP doesn't care, or he is protected by “deep state” or Trump? You probably want to accept the fact that Mr. Guo is producing junks, otherwise you are leaving with a worse alternative...
- helen___keller 6y ago
  He also continues to claim that Trump will ultimately win the presidency, that covid-19 is a bioweapon deliberately unleashed on the west, that the CCP is in collusion with (just about) every mainstream media, and financial instution, as well as controlling democrats. He's responsible for the abomination of misinformation that is gnews and gtv which has been consistently spreading absolute bogus regarding the pandemic, the election, and politics, for a really long time. Yes, Guo is right about some things every now and then, and yes he without a doubt knows more about the inner workings of CCP than 99.9% of people. But let's not give him more credit than he deserves, he's not a fucking prophet. Let's not build another political cult of personality around an eccentric billionaire. If you take a look at gnews/gtv, a Guo cult of personality really is the only description you can think of.

jonathannat 6y ago

The era of CCP economic rise is over. Middle income trap and aging demographics dictate as much. CCP will now have to contend with - internal turmoil - political infighting - encirclement by democracies (India, Japan, Australia, US, UK, Canada, France, South Korea, Taiwan). Once Merkel is out in sept 2021, Germany will be onboard - negative sentiment from most of population in the world due to covid - exploding debt/bankruptcies - lack of efficient feedback loops to self correct, as dictatorship has little of that. Thus Jack Ma is no more. If you have a foreign commercial presence in China, expect - kidnapping of executives (for layoffs, unpaid bills) - no delivery for paid merchandises - seizure of molds/machines/factories (nationalization) - seizure of tangible assets (nationalization) - trademark/copyrights given to Chinese entities with no recourses.

vkou 6y ago
> If you have a foreign commercial presence in China, expect... In how many months do you expect your predictions will come true, in a way that will cause the majority of Fortune 500 firms to leave China? Three? Six? Sixty? Six hundred? I, for one, have strong doubts that the majority of those firms will ever leave China. I will also note that all of your criticisms can be applied even more-so to democracies. Internal turmoil, political infighting, negative world sentiment (for some of them), exploding debt, aging demographics, ossification of political structures and poor ability to self-correct, check, check, check. It's true that, say, the United States is not encircled, but it has a separate problem of having to over-reach to maintain an incredibly ambitious, and unsustainable overseas military presence. If those criteria were sufficient for a social collapse, then we're all living on borrowed time, and I don't see why you're singling China out as a likely point of failure.
- jonathannat 6y ago
  most of it is already happening, check chinalawblog (including tales/warnings of kidnapping). the only thing that hasn't happened full scale is nationalization of tangible assets, such as molds, machines or factories. But if you owe some (made up) bills to the local government when you close your factories, the local government will prevent you from grabbing your stuff.

onlyrealcuzzo 6y ago

What benefit does the CCP get by owning Alibaba and Ant? Can't the CCP do whatever it wants anyway? Why does it need to own these companies? And aren't there a lot of negatives by taking over the largest IPO in history only a few months later???

russh 6y ago
It sends a message.
- ckozlowski 6y ago
  It reminds me a lot of the Mikhail Khodorkovsky case. Similar struggle, it feels.

Aunche 6y ago

It's sad to see unsubstantiated hearsay as the top comment. I'm sure every billionaire in China has multiple escape routes. Guo Wengui certainly did, nor is he a "peasant."

WalterSear 6y ago
I'd be surprised if Jack Ma didn't.
seebetter 6y ago
And sad to see mindless authoritarians on Hacker News.

RockmanX 6y ago

Guo Wengui is rubbish. His words mean nothing!

daemin 6y ago

I remember an episode of Planet Money podcast where they went to the village where a secret agreement was signed by some farmers to divide up the communal land and farm it individually, so they could sell the surplus and make some profit. In the podcast they managed to talk to one of the original signatories to the agreement, and he lamented that fact that after his farming days he had started many businesses but they had all been taken from him by the authorities. Now given that the judiciary in China is just another arm of the CCP, there is no rule of law, there's just the rule of the CCP and the whims of whomever is in charge. So you build something successful, someone in charge gets envious, then one small misstep and it all gets taken away from you. I don't actually know if it needs an actual misstep or just enough people to conspire against you. This is also what worries me about Chinese companies buying other companies and property outside of China. There's a danger that at any moment the entire company will get nationalised and therefore China (or rather the CCP) will own it all. I'm not against some foreign ownership and investment, but usually this has originated from a country where the law rules the land and not some arbitrary dictator. (Yes I'm also concerned about middle-east money flowing in, but to a lesser extent because they don't try to hide it)

ethbr0 6y ago
Or another way of putting it, and always one of the weaknesses of over-powerful government and an impotent judiciary -- political skill trumps business skill. Play that out long enough, and you have all the "China {X} Industries" being owned by someone whose chief qualification was working their way up the CCP hierarchy. To the detriment of the company's functioning, and the alternate candidates who could perform better in the position. And that, ultimately, hurts China more than anyone else. Anti-corruption drives are no substitute for constant, actual market pressures, because weasels will always corrupt the very vehicles you use to implement anti-corruption campaigns. Or equally inevitably, end up in charge of the entire apparatus.

itsthefnlacctdn 6y ago

I highly doubt that many Chinese people even want to be billionaires. This might be some holy level us Westerners dream of reaching but I appreciate that there is a state power that is larger than that of a corporation's. Some person made a killing off the backs of its nation/citizens and they get to call themselves king and write the rules? I wish this delusion that we can all reach this level through hard work can dissipate already. This is a guillotine dropping on a kings head, I applaud the CCP. As if I will lose sleep if Bezos or Gates lost their keys to the castle.

eplanit 6y ago

"As much as people in the West praise CCP's economic rise, and some even point to its authoritarian system as superior to our democracy..." They do? I don't think this describes a large population.

chaostheory 6y ago

The blame mainly lies with the Xi dictatorship, where as previously the CCP was ruled by committee. I can't imagine the CCP doing this in the era before Xi and post Deng Xiaoping. imo the CCP is gone. It's the Xi Jinping Party now The good news for the West and China's Asian competitors is that he is effectively helping slow and cripple China's progress. Xi advocates a return to Mao centralism while ignoring all the good that came with Deng Xiaoping's decentralization reforms. With this act, he is also introducing a lot of uncertainty for any foreign investors. This gives the West time to recuperate since the failure of the anti-BRIC TPP.

onethought 6y ago
This. Everyone is talking like the CCP are the culprit here. There is big turmoil within the party right now, because Xi has taken absolute control of all areas of government. He wants to be a Mao 2 and all the moderates in the party are gone (Deng, Chou, Bo, Hu) The good thing about this is hopefully when Xi dies it gives China an opportunity to change things maybe even away from the party. The bad thing is... well dictatorships...

drieddust 6y ago

Well at least west have cheap iphones and other necessities, isn't it? Corporate geed is the reason CCP is so powerful today. Every single corporation I have worked with is willing to comply with China,it's censorship laws, and it's atrocities on the work force.

newen 6y ago

He is just lying low. He is not missing. https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/alibaba-founder-jack-ma-is-lying-low-for-the-time-being-but-hes-not-missing/ar-BB1cuxpK https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/alibaba-founder-jack...

imperfectcats 6y ago
Just like Shelley Miscavige is free and safe. I often wonder how much the CCP studies Scientology, as I think Scientology has been really successful in avoiding any real consequences.
whydoyoucare 6y ago
From what I understand of the CCP, "lying-low" is a polite phrase for "killed" or "disappered for ever".

orblivion 6y ago

You don't become a billionaire by being naive. Why would anybody choose to become a billionaire under such conditions? Was there a chance he'd come out on top?

jackthehammer 6y ago

f430 says>"Imagine spending most of your life building a massive business and then one day it is taken from you by force by an authoritarian ruler."< FTFY: Imagine spending years of your life building a massive political following and then, in one day, it is taken from you by force by authoritarian capitalists.