In a war against the Chinese billionaire Jack Ma and the China government, a new aspect has been unfolded. As per the latest reports, the government has asked Jack Ma to dispose of his media assets.
Chinese Government Is Reportedly Worried About Jack Ma’s Influence On Public
As per the reports from The Wall Street Journal, the Chinese government is concerned with the Alibaba conglomerate’s opinion. They are concerned that Jack Ma’s opinion could sway public opinion across the country. However, the Chinese government has not specified the media assets they ask him to dispose of.
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While the total worth of stakes couldn’t be obtained but some of the public listings report that Alibaba has the rough US $3.5 billion worth of stakes at Weibo Corp.
Alibaba stepped its foot in the media sector after they acquired the South China Morning Post. It is an English newspaper that was launched 118 years ago in Hong Kong. The company also owns a few holdings in mainland China. This includes the state-owned Shanghai Media Group, Weibo, 35Kr, and many other Chinese digital and print news outlets.
Alibaba is yet to react to the news.
Jack Ma Publicly Criticised Chinese Financial Regulators
This comes after Jack Ma recently criticized the Chinese Financial Regulators last year. He criticized them during the initial public offering of his fintech giant company named Ant Group. Soon after, China’s top market watchdog started to look into the anti-competition practices by Alibaba. They also introduced the rectification plan for Ma’s venture.
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The agenda (reportedly) was to bring the Ant Group back to their original business to handle payments and bring more transparency to the transactions. However, the case reached new heights when Jack Ma disappeared from the public view and triggered the point of view that he was “missing”. However, he was later seen in January this year in a video message.
In the past few months, China has helped a lot of pressure on Hong Kong journalists, especially after the media tycoon Jimmy Lai was arrested. Lai is the founder of a pro-democracy newspaper named Apple Daily and is still under national security custody. He has been denied bail. The police conducted a raid in Apple Daily’s newsroom and arrested a few other executives as well.
