January 9, 2023 - 1:05pm
Jack Ma, China’s enigmatic multi-billionaire and owner of the global fintech company Ant Group, has dramatically stepped down from his post, bringing to an end several months of speculation about his official status and personal credibility. It is a spectacular fall from power, akin to Elon Musk actually giving up both Twitter and Tesla in order to spend more time with his family.
Ma has long been emblematic of China’s rags to riches story. Born in 1964, his family survived the Cultural Revolution, finally coming into its own in the early years of China’s capitalist transformation in the 1990s. A former English teacher, he was an early adopter of computer technology, recognising its potential as the country opened up to the world.
In 1999, Ma founded Alibaba, an online retail platform which has grown to be a global leader in e-commerce, digital media and entertainment. He resigned as CEO in 2013 to take on the role as the firm’s executive chairman, where his eccentric visibility increased. Infamously, he dressed up and danced as Michael Jackson in front of 5,000 employees who presumably felt obliged not to tell him how toe-curlingly awful it was. At its peak in 2017, the company’s revenues were growing by more than £7 billion every quarter. His fame and confidence seemed limitless.
Via a relatively opaque series of corporate manoeuvres, after leaving Alibaba Ma became head of Ant Group, an affiliate company that includes the online and mobile payment system, Alipay, currently used by one quarter of the world’s population. Ma was scheduled to announce a £35 billion Initial Public Offering (IPO) for Ant Group in 2020 when he mysteriously disappeared.
Ma seemingly had the audacity to criticise Chinese regulators for their incompetence. After his obvious capitalist success, he became frustrated by China’s officialdom and the Party’s clear lack of enterprise. For his insolence, his IPO was halted and the company was fined £2.5 billion and told that “no shareholder, alone or jointly with other parties, will have control over Ant Group.” Ma was not seen for over three months and reappeared in 2021, “reprogrammed” to be a little more humble.
Ma’s mistake was his cockiness. His early success served the Chinese narrative promoting entrepreneurial achievement. His business acumen, and the nous of others like him, created the conditions that allowed China’s economy to out-perform most of the West. But by President Xi Jinping’s second term of office it was becoming increasingly obvious that enterprising individuals were undermining the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party. Initiative, wealth and the emergence of a powerful business elite calls into question the primacy of the state.
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
SubscribeXi, is arguably the most powerful man the world has ever known, and seemingly mad too. A paranoid and psychopath Louis the XVI…. Not the ideal kind to have such ultimate power of: High, middle and low justice:
”High, middle and low justices are notions dating from Western feudalism to indicate descending degrees of judicial power to administer justice by the maximal punishment the holders could inflict upon their subjects and other dependents.”
The Lockdown thing shows the impossibility of one man taking on every decision to himself, over a Nation of 1.3 Billion people, wile constantly purging all who gain any power, or deliver bad news; and who could have helped manage the government if Xi was rational.
The most amazing show I have ever seen was the National Party Conference recently, where a top power man was ‘Purged’ right there in the opening scene in the cameras; pour encourager les autres one suspects.
It comes as no surprise a man of such wealth and power as Ma would be disappeared, it is surprising he has reappeared.
That purge on tv has to be the most chilling politics recorded in this times
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ifILvaAnAU
Xi, is arguably the most powerful man the world has ever known, and seemingly mad too. A paranoid and psychopath Louis the XVI…. Not the ideal kind to have such ultimate power of: High, middle and low justice:
”High, middle and low justices are notions dating from Western feudalism to indicate descending degrees of judicial power to administer justice by the maximal punishment the holders could inflict upon their subjects and other dependents.”
The Lockdown thing shows the impossibility of one man taking on every decision to himself, over a Nation of 1.3 Billion people, wile constantly purging all who gain any power, or deliver bad news; and who could have helped manage the government if Xi was rational.
The most amazing show I have ever seen was the National Party Conference recently, where a top power man was ‘Purged’ right there in the opening scene in the cameras; pour encourager les autres one suspects.
It comes as no surprise a man of such wealth and power as Ma would be disappeared, it is surprising he has reappeared.
That purge on tv has to be the most chilling politics recorded in this times
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ifILvaAnAU
For some reason that picture of Jack Ma at the top reminds me of The Mekon of Dan Dare fame.
For some reason that picture of Jack Ma at the top reminds me of The Mekon of Dan Dare fame.