by Guido Santevecchi
The prophet of e-commerce frequents a very exclusive club in the Ginza district. The businessman had publicly denounced the Chinese financial system
Jack Ma is doing well, despite the power outage in China and the siege of his Alibaba by the communist financial authorities. He has been living in Tokyo for six months, with his family and personal chef in tow. His footsteps were discovered by the Financial Times: the prophet of e-commerce frequents a very exclusive club in the Ginza district of the Japanese capital, takes trips to spas and ski slopes, travels to Israel and the USA. Half a year ago, he left his home in Hangzhou, where Alibaba’s headquarters are located.
In China, Jack Ma has been invisible since October 2020 when he publicly denounced the Chinese financial system, comparing it to a “pawn shop” that stifles technological innovation. The billionaire likely understood that the long hand of the Communist Party was descending on his group, which ranged from e-commerce to credit. Xi Jinping’s Marxist turn has punished Alibaba and other giants of China’s new economy, from Tencent to JD.com, with billions of dollars in fines and orders to sell business units.
Jack Ma was eclipsed (political excommunication not publicly declared by the party but evident, with rumors of his possible arrest). For the past two years he has only been sighted at philanthropic events in the Chinese countryside or on study trips abroad: among Dutch flower growers and Spanish farmers. He never ended up under house arrest, but he had to change his life: before that, he loved to attend big public events to promote Alibaba’s triumphs. The party covered him up, but without depriving him of his freedom. Jack Ma has been the ambassador of Chinese capitalism (always under state protection) to the world for years, Xi Jinping has no interest in punishing him so severely.
However, Jack Ma’s emigration to Tokyo is part of an alarming scenario for private industry in China. It looks like a version of Agatha Christie’s Ten Little Indians, transported to Beijing and set in the skyscrapers of the big industrial conglomerates of red capitalism. One by one, the men and women who helped build the world’s second largest economy are emerging from history. Some without leaving a trace, others announced sudden resignations and perhaps went abroad.
In March 2021, Colin Huang, the founder of social e-commerce platform Pinduoduo, retired at the age of just 41: “to pursue personal interests”. The following May, it was the turn of Zhang Yiming, the brilliant founder of TikTok, to resign as CEO of ByteDance, claiming he suddenly “discovered he wasn’t cut out to be a leader.” And yet Richard Liu took the step back, leaving executive positions at JD.com, the e-commerce giant and Alibaba’s biggest competitor, at the age of 47. Liu has announced that his next activity will be to nurture young talent and fund revitalization and development plans in rural areas of China. Philanthropic projects that fit perfectly with the “shared prosperity” campaign launched by Xi Jinping. The Chinese president wants to take charge of wealth redistribution, heal social inequality and strengthen the Communist Party’s power by shielding it from social protests.
November 30, 2022 (Change November 30, 2022 | 12:52)
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