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Jack Ma steps out from the shadows with morale-boosting post
- roenxi 3y agoJust going by appearances, the story at the time looked a lot like Jack Ma fleeing the country for a bit. One minute he was disturbing the tranquillity in China then the next he was picking up some Zen among the cherry blossoms. It is interesting to compare-and-contrast Jack Ma and Elon Musk who seems to me the nearest analogue in the US. How their host countries treat them says a lot about the real cultural differences between Washington and Beijing. For all America's problems - at least up to Trump level annoying the politicians - it is safe to build wealth in the US.
- daghamm 3y agoChina is still ruled by communism, the goverment has a majority share in every company. That's bad for entrepreneurs, but also means that they can have the entire power of CCP behind them. There are tons of example where a small company started by stealing from western competitors then suddenly produced a huge pile of cash out of nowhere to bought those competitors and took over their marketshare in the west.
- jfim 3y agoDo you have examples of such companies? I'm curious to see which industries they were in.
- slowmotiony 3y agoThe boss of ARM China was fired by the company board, decided he has a different opinion on the matter, changed the locks to the office and just stopped communicating with the rest of the company. The chinese courts sided with him, then when SoftBank acquired them, the company staff just left, took all the IP and started a new company. https://www.semianalysis.com/p/the-semiconductor-heist-of-the-century https://www.semianalysis.com/p/the-semiconductor-heist-of-th... https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/ousted-arm-china-ceo-refuses-to-go-after-being-fired-again/ https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/ousted-arm-china-...
- ametrau 3y agoTo be fair it wasn’t actually retarded because no one could foresee China stealing arm’s IP.
- red-iron-pine 3y agois that sarcasm? China and stealing IP are like cookies and milk
- ametrau 3y agoYes it is sarcasm.
- nebula8804 3y agoMore like tea and baozi :P
- red-iron-pine 3y agoyoutiao and soymilk?
- nebula8804 3y agoYou miss 100% of the shots you don't take. China has taken that to heart lol.
- RangerScience 3y ago/Personally/, I’d attribute that more to authoritarianism than communism, but the two have been commingled since Lenin so it’s not necessarily an important difference.
- non-chalad 3y agoIsn't communism supposed to be achieved through authoritarianism, after which the state "withers away" [sic]?
- RangerScience 3y agoAFAIK (“Seeing like a State”), that’s specific to the Leninist modality. I very well could be misinformed, but, the book mentions essentially a moment where democratic-socialism was co-opted by authoritarian communism (Leninism), so that’s what the world ended up with.
- blackeyeblitzar 3y ago[flagged]
- defrost 3y agoWere, not Are ... from your own link: > Marxism–Leninism was the first official ideology of the CCP. Mao Zedong Thought was some time ago and since then various directions the CCP has taken have been criticized as being un-Marxist and a betrayal of basic Marxist values. The Authoritarian edge has always been there in the CCP, ebbing and flowing with the years .. but that part is distinctly un-(classical)-communism. Like Capitalism "Twue Communism" has never really existed, even the big names in modern "communism" have said on the record that they represent authoritarian "on behalf of the people" (sort of) socialist control as a neccessary means on the way to a true workers paradise (barf) .. you know, a classic bait and switch to mask a system being just another variation of top down control.
- 3y ago
- gloryjulio 3y agoWhile 'goverment has a majority share in every company' is very likely not true, but CCP does have control over the the companies whenever they want. They would force CCP member into the board and setup CCP organizations within the companies. Anyone who deals with China's companies would need to understand this. You are always dealing with CCP behind it
- djtango 3y agoI know it's not a dichotomy but I think these days I'd take that model over the opposite where behind every politician is a company and with government you are always dealing with companies behind it.
- qsort 3y agoThe CCP is communist like I'm Chinese. They're just run-of-the-mill nationalist authoritarians.
- daliusd 3y agoWhich communist regime has not been nationalist authoritarian? Yes, in theory it is different thing but somehow in practice it always ends up like this.
- lazide 3y agoWell, there is authoritarianism and then there ‘a spy in every phone, internet Great Wall, re-education camps, social credit score’ authoritarianism no?
- vondur 3y agoI would argue that the CCP is basically fascist at this point.
- staplers 3y agoLabels like these are arbitrary anyways. It's just about what is explicitly said vs what happens in the shadows. Take "fines" for example. They are the cost of doing business and never actually dissuade the behavior (in the USA). This in effect allows the government to act as a shareholder (fines = dividends) under the guise of domestic legal enforcement. Then they turn around and protect the same corporations intellectual and physical property abroad.
- hackerlight 3y agoThat's the autocratic Leninist party model, which is what enabled them to defy predictions that economic liberalization would lead to political freedoms. They are solidly state capitalist since Deng, and since Xi I would classify them as far-right revisionist and even possibly fascist, with a strong focus on order, aesthetic, collective responsibility towards nation, and restoring the homeland, where homeland is defined on ethnonationalist not civic nationalist lines.
- KerrAvon 3y ago[flagged]
- themoonisachees 3y agoI'm not aware of this either. Maybe he is, but I was under the impression that he was simply another billionaire
- aaron695 3y ago[flagged]
- maxglute 3y ago> it is safe to build wealth in the US It's safe to build OBSCENE wealth in the states. It's safe to build wealth in PRC, plenty of 10-100 millionaires. It's also safe to build OBSCENE wealth in PRC, but it comes with more political caveats. Like not trying circumvent regulators by launching irresponsible fintech. Which system is better depends on how much you value checking billionaires.
- gscott 3y agoBuilding wealth in China you have to keep it there due to tight capital controls. In the USA you can transfer it out of the country if you want to. https://www.scmp.com/business/china-business/article/3212414/i-cant-get-my-money-out-billionaire-investor-mark-mobius-says-china-restricting-flows-capital-out https://www.scmp.com/business/china-business/article/3212414... https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/china-s-rich-are-using-total-strangers-to-sneak-cash-out-of-the-country-20231107-p5ei2h.html https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/china-s-rich-are... https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/china-banks-waits-07212023123106.html https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/china-banks-waits-072... https://harris-sliwoski.com/chinalawblog/getting-money-out-of-china-the-long-version/ https://harris-sliwoski.com/chinalawblog/getting-money-out-o... https://www.afr.com/world/asia/smurfing-strangers-how-china-s-rich-smuggle-cash-from-the-country-20231106-p5ei1o https://www.afr.com/world/asia/smurfing-strangers-how-china-... https://agbrief.com/news/china/24/01/2024/china-tightens-controls-on-capital-outflows-amid-market-rout/ https://agbrief.com/news/china/24/01/2024/china-tightens-con... https://www.uschina.org/china%E2%80%99s-capital-controls-choke-cross-border-payments https://www.uschina.org/china%E2%80%99s-capital-controls-cho... https://www.ft.com/chinese-capital-controls https://www.ft.com/chinese-capital-controls
- maxglute 3y agoAnd? They can financial engineer a few 100 million out of country and have generational wealth stashed abroad or be a boring billinoaire in PRC. Flashing extravagant lavishness is frowned upon, maybe settle for a 300 ft yacht instead of a 600ft mega yacht like a RU oligarch or Arab crown prince. They're billionaires they can get pretty much what they want, not upper-middle class family from tier1 city trying to figure out how to wire >50kUSD to pay their kids rent and tuition.
- gmerc 3y agoIt’s safe to build wealth and become untouchable and unaccountable in the US, all the way to attempting a coup
- red-iron-pine 3y agosounds like the best possible endorsement to me
- gmerc 3y agoIt would, if you are a closeted fascist.
- gloryjulio 3y agoNot saying the US model is the best, but having a fascist state like China would be worse. To quote Churchill: democracy is the worst form of government – except for all the others that have been tried.
- gmerc 3y agoThe good old “at least we are not hitler” benchmark and confusing end stage capitalism with democracy… what a flex
- nebula8804 3y agoOh yeah the US is so much better, a place where the largest source of bankruptcy is medical bankruptcy, people need to go into massive debt to get a college degree to have any chance of a middle class life and unless you have something that can make the elites even more extremely wealthy than they already are (programmer, engineer) then your chances of getting them to part with any of their wealth is slim to none. This is such a beautiful life isn't it? Im not saying China is any better, but come on man. Have some empathy for all the people that have been crushed by this system whether its the poor, the people on the receiving end in Gaza/Iraq/Iran/Pakistan/Venezuela or just the people unlucky to not be born at a competitive level.
- baby 3y agoI understand the feeling, but on the other hand I don't think these are good examples because these people have gotten filthy rich and it's not clear to me if we actually need such accumulation of wealth. There's probably a healthy cap somewhere, the same way power is capped in the government.
- winrid 3y agoJack Ma didn't just try to build wealth like your average mid sized software or HVAC company. He built a monopoly and the company was fined for it and eventually broken up [0]. He obviously didn't like this and left the country to do billionaire things. To me there's nothing 1984 or dystopian about this. The guy was building a company that was hurting the people. If anything we need more of this in the US. [0] https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/07/07/tech/jack-ma-ant-group-fine https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/07/07/tech...
- logicchains 3y agoIt was only a harmful monopoly if you take the Chinese communist party's word at face value, which is a pretty naive thing to do.
- eunos 3y agoGood thing Lehman bros and Enron already gone by now, else they'd be lionized as "dynamic and forward thinking" compared to "sclerotic" party
- _xnmw 3y agoI'm not sure it is safe to build wealth anywhere, anymore, although the US is the country I chose to register my company in, because it is probably the safest. Still, I have my reservations. Petty theft like shoplifting is being increasingly normalized and justified in the US (see train package theft), and enforcement of property law is slipping, see how home owners can lose their home to "squatting". This is a very slippery slope which I hope doesn't go the way of the Bolshevik revolution, but anything is possible.
- professor_x 3y agoSafe relative to what? Being a Venetian banker or Chinese tea exporter wasnt that safe. What about prospecting for gold in Colorado river valleys where bears hang out? Moving trains of camels thru the Sahara? Chasing whales around for years at a time without going home. Today is way better.
- squigz 3y agoDid you really just compare the state of America to... the Russian Revolution?
- JoeAltmaier 3y agoFair, I think. We had protestors storm the centers of government, attempting to overthrow it, after the last election. So many similarities if you only look.
- nebula8804 3y agoWhats old is new again, just with more enshittification(in your example instead of gladiators storming the capitol we got lard butts one of which died by heart attack)
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- nebula8804 3y agoWonder if some of this is just people needing more and more of a 'thrill'. The US culture is one of auspicious displays of wealth or exceptionalism that things like doing train robberies, drifting in crowded times square, or outrunning cops for the 'likes' is the latest fad.....maybe im overthinking it and its just a lack of parenting.
- ThePowerOfFuet 3y agohttps://archive.ph/rJjOE https://archive.ph/rJjOE
- amou234 3y agoThe last blurb in the article is the most damning part. "Ma spends much of his time abroad, especially in Japan where he is a visiting professor at Tokyo College, a research institute run by the University of Tokyo" Jack Ma has no hope for China, as evident by his action. The long internal post may have been requested by the Chinese government, or his staff, to somehow rally Alibaba's failing image. But Jack sees the real pictures on the ground in China. And he chooses Japan. And the young in China knows it too. That's why the young are laying flat. and sneaking through Mexico into US. and fleeing to Cambodia and Myanmar for work.
- starspangled 3y agoThe young in China knows what? What do you mean by laying flat, and do you have any data for emigration trends?
- re 3y ago>laying flat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tang_ping https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tang_ping
- 55555 3y agoThis is a phenomenon we see in the entire developed world, or possibly the entire world, including in the west and Japan (NEETs, Hikikomori).
- Dalewyn 3y agoNo, NEET stands for "Not Employed, Educating, or Training" and Hikikomori translates literally to "Pulling Back In". Both phenomena result in the individual abdicating his productivity in deference to pursuits such as resolving crises and introspection. Tang Ping on the other hand is a phenomenon where the individual only produces as much as his environment demands of him. If he contracted with his employer to work 9 to 5, he will work 9 to 5 and not a second more. If his work description is producing Powerpoint slides, he will produce Powerpoint slides and only Powerpoint slides. If he is remote work, he will quit rather than come into the office. He will then use the freed up time and energy on other pursuits he deems worthy.
- throwaway4good 3y agoI was listening to Nicolai Tangen's interview with Alibaba co-founder Joe Tsai: https://www.nbim.no/en/publications/podcast/alibaba-co-founder-and-chair-china-jack-ma-ai-and-baseball/ https://www.nbim.no/en/publications/podcast/alibaba-co-found... Alibaba co-founder and Chair: China, Jack Ma, AI and basketball And while smart and sympathetic, I cannot help to think that Alibaba is a company of the past belonging to a time of a certain US-China order that is no more. The future of Chinese tech belongs to companies that are much more fast moving, fearless, and aggressively deep tech than what Alibaba aspires to be.
- resolutebat 3y agoAlibaba was fast moving, fearless and aggressively deep tech, you don't survive the world of Chinese e-commerce if you aren't. They were decapitated and neutered by the Chinese state when they started to show signs of upending the existing order, specifically building a competing financial system (Alipay/Ant) and daring to call out Chinese economic orthodoxy.
- throwaway4good 3y agoBy deep tech I thinking things more like making your own chips rather than running a ponzi scheme :-D Anyway. If you listen to the Tsai interview he seems more concerned about US regulators than Chinese.
- fancl20 3y agoFrom what I heard from engineers working for Alibaba, my understanding is that they are fighting with their own bureaucracy structure for quite long time to make any effective decision, at same time facing fierce compitition from JD and PDD. At some stage they released new prodect to compete with PDD every few months while still keep losing in their core e-commerce bussiness till now. All these were before government cracking down their financial business. Most of the people I know in the industry think Alibaba is one of the least efficient big tech company in China compare to e.g Tencent, Baidu, Bytedance, Huawei. They all have somewhat similar bureaucracy burden as big corp but not at the level of Alibaba. Their problem is much complex than pointing the finger at Chinese government to explain everything.
- flooow 3y ago[flagged]
- Dalewyn 3y agoThat's because there are no safeguards and failsafes to keep authority in check. When Winnie the Pooh orders you to jump, your only permitted responses are Yes or How high? unless you want to be deleted (no, not killed, deleted) from the face of the planet and any and all records known to China. Same goes for Russia and other authoritarian regimes.
- Arnt 3y agoThere's one in the city where I live. Her fortune is a company (you have all heard its name) so in a certain sense her wealth is putting a number on a large number of voters' jobs. Recently the company decided it needed a plot of land, located in the middle between there of its sites. It got that plot. Call it an oligarch or call it well-paid voters' jobs. I think the later is truer.
- IAMMidway 3y agoYou think the Chinese government gives a damn about a sad and dying planet? They should punish billionaires that cross the people, not the government.
- bugbuddy 3y agoMaybe they will finally scrap their flutter mobile app and rewrite it in something else better.
- tjpnz 3y agoHe gazed up at the enormous face. Forty years it had taken him to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark moustache. O cruel, needless misunderstanding! O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.
- spxneo 3y agoSeeing Jack Ma come out like this makes me think things are very grim in China and I been obsessively following it for years. Historically, no country has survived without paying its government workers for more than 24 months. China has just entered its 16th month. so roughly 8 months remaining. coincidentally the new US president will be announced around then. So far the actions of Israel, Russia's confidence suggests Trump re-election. China appears to be waiting and speed running its military re-armament but I wonder if decades of neglect can be overcome within just 3 quarters...
- baby 3y agowdym China is not payment its government workers?
- gs17 3y agoI'm guessing it's an exaggerated version of this: https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/economy/2023/5/11/chinas-cash-strapped-local-governments-cant-pay-workers-on-time https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/economy/2023/5/11/chinas-cash-... I'm amazed people would/could put up with being unpaid for multiple months.
- carom 3y agoAny recent articles about the government worker pay situation?
- Log_out_ 3y agoPuppetered prisoners so inspiring. Even uses the bulletpoints provided by the party. Like pomegranateseeds in a pomegranate.. Good thing democratic countries regularly build up their foes in the name of market forces. Couldn't have worldwars without that..
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- mannyv 3y agoAnother successful graduate of the CCP re-education summer camp!
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]