Talking with a Chinese friend of mine, his take was that Jack Ma's imprisonment/disappearance is less about his comments in the October speech and more about an

Talking with a Chinese friend of mine, his take was that Jack Ma's imprisonment/disappearance is less about his comments in the October speech and more about an ongoing power struggle in the CCP between supporters of the former General Secretary Jiang Zemin, who is an ally of Jack Ma, and the Xi Jinping faction. The October speech may have just been the catalyst and pretense. As for how smooth the transition would be, Chinese politics are pretty opaque and I'm far from an expert, but from the outside it appears the Xi faction is fairly strong and only growing in power, so I would guess the transition wouldn't be too turbulent. I definitely think politics are less unified in China that it may appear, and the whole situation with Jack Ma is an example of "multiple power centers bumping into each other".