WION | 4 January 2021 | Read the original news here
Alibaba’s Jack Ma is the most celebrated Chinese entrepreneur in the world, however, now he has a target on his back and he only has one man to blame for it – Chinese President Xi Jinping.
The Chinese president is said to have personally scuttled the Ant group’s IPO. Jack Ma is a member of the Communist Party, he is one of their own and yet, he’s being hounded.
The Ant group IPO was supposed to be the biggest in history amounting to $35 billion driven by China’s most well-known entrepreneur Jack Ma but just days before the Ant group was set to list all hell broke loose as Beijing hit the brakes on Jack Ma’s IPO.
President Xi Jinping scuttled Jack Ma’s plans. The trigger was a speech in which Jack Ma made scathing criticism of Chinese regulators.
Just before his IPO Ma had attended a summit in Shanghai in which the participants included the who’s who of China’s financial, regulatory and political establishment.
One of the attendees was Wang Qishan – the Chinese vice-president. In front of the august crowd, Jack Ma said China’s banks operate like “pawn shops” and the regulators were stifling innovation.
The Alibaba founder paid a heavy price for those words. Reports say the message reached the top as Xi Jinping read government reports about Jack Ma’s statements.
The Chinese president was furious. He personally ordered Chinese regulators to start an investigation. They are studying plans that could force the Ant group to divest investments in financial companies. The disinvestments would ultimately shrink the Ant group’s influence over Chinese markets.
Jack Ma is also set to lose equity. Ma was once the most celebrated entrepreneur in China, however, now he is being painted as the enemy. He has been called a “villain”, an evil capitalist and a bloodsucking ghost.
Ma’s strategy has backfired. First, he infuriated the regulators with his speech and then overplayed his hand by lobbying with them. The Chinese state hit back with a new set of regulations.
The new rules dictated how companies like the Ant group will operate in the future. China declared that it is protecting investors by halting Ant group’s IPO.
A day before the statement, Jack Ma and his executives were summoned by the Central Bank of China and three other regulators. The rare joint meeting prompted speculation that Jack Ma was given a dressing down.
The Chinese state under Xi Jinping values loyalty and submission above everything else but with his words in Shanghai Jack Ma challenged the state. The Alibaba founder now faces not just scrutiny of his business, he also must pass the Communist Party’s loyalty test.
Jack Ma’s story isn’t technically rags to riches but it’s a very compelling story, nonetheless. It is a story that every Chinese citizen wants to emulate. Ma is bigger than life and his personality is so towering that he is not shy of overshadowing Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Jack Ma or Ma Yun had started as a lecturer in English and became a member of the Chinese Communist Party. He went on to found China’s biggest online commerce company – Alibaba.
He also launched Alipay and ventured into finance. Now, seventeen years on, Jack Ma is China’s richest man. He has a western a name and around $50 billion in banks which is a career graph every young Chinese wants to follow and a reputation for challenging Chinese authorities.
Jack Ma is not just a billionaire, he is a people’s billionaire.
Outside the country, Ma is China’s poster boy. The first prominent Chinese man Trump met after he won the US presidential election in 2016.
Xi Jinping wanted to make China a global superpower through technology. Jack Ma was supposed to be his footsoldier in that plan – an entrepreneur who understood technology who could appear alongside top Chinese leaders and at the same time connect with a global audience.
Jack Ma’s was supposed to be the face that told Xi Jinping’s success story instead, Ma himself has become China’s biggest success story – too big for the president’s liking.
Now Xi Jinping is cutting him to size, not only did Jack Ma become China’s biggest star, but he also questioned China’s policies at a time when Xi Jinping’s regime is already under global scrutiny.