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China CCP to Nationalize Jack Ma's Alibaba and Ant Group – Report

485 points by masonhensley 6y ago

philipov 6y ago
Something about how the images and their captions have nothing to do with the topic of the article seems very suspicious.
xster 6y ago
Is it me or there's some cognitive dissonance going on with the whole article discussing the ramifications of a nationalization without describing at all what sourced this "news" in the first place? A cursory search seems to show this is a regurgitation on a sourceless Radio Free Asia article (https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/alibaba-probe-12252020170303.html https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/alibaba-probe-1225202...) from December?
- DaedPsyker 6y ago
  I think the CCP is mostly at fault. They wanted to control and limit discussion and even news on alibaba so of course people are going to speculate in the absence of information.
  - whimsicalism 6y ago
    Shitty reporting is not always the CCPs fault.
  - xster 6y ago
    How are you sourcing that conclusion? I'm not well versed but I enjoy watching finance related UGC and analyses on Bilibili. There's certainly tons of in-depth content and discussion about Ant's leveraging practices and the involvement of financial regulations.
  - Barrin92 6y ago
    Misunderstanding about the inner workings of China isn't the CCP's fault, at least not at this level. The discourse about China, misunderstandings about how the Chinese systems functions, and lack of even a basic interest in getting a realistic view of China are rampant. The average view of China in the US is so cartoonish it's quite ridiculous. If you talk to an educated, middle-class Chinese audience about the US people generally have actually a surprising amount of understanding of the basic structure of government, values and so on. You go to a very educated audience in the US or other Western nations and it's still embarrassing. And it's actually a huge problem for the West that both government and citizens do not engage China seriously.
    - whimsicalism 6y ago
      > lack of even a basic interest in getting a realistic view of China are rampant It's crazy how tied to a warped view of China people get. Like, I have serious issues with China too, but the picture many people seem to have in their mind is just not modern China whatsoever.
    - quonn 6y ago
      > The discourse about China, misunderstandings about how the Chinese systems functions It functions like a dictatorship functions. The dictatorship of the party. > And it's actually a huge problem for the West that both government and citizens do not engage China seriously. The West will mostly separate production within about a decade or two. It‘s not a problem at all.
      - bun_at_work 6y ago
        Do you have any sources to support the claim that the West will separate production within a decade or two?
        quonn 6y ago
        My reading of the news in the last year or so and connecting the dots. I‘m not the only one saying it of course.
- thewarrior 6y ago
  Radio free Asia has deep ties to US agencies. It isn’t really a credible source.
  - devy 6y ago
    Yep. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Free_Asia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Free_Asia
  - reaperducer 6y ago
    Radio free Asia has deep ties to US agencies. "Deep ties to US agencies" is sensationalizing the facts. It's part of the United States government, and nobody has ever tried to keep that secret. Not RFA, not the U.S. Government. Nobody. "Deep ties" makes it seem like it's trying to be covert. It's not. It isn’t really a credible source. It's one of the more credible sources of news in Asia. Especially for more authoritarian countries. I used to know a number of its journalists, and they strive for neutrality and factual reporting in places where that is not allowed. It's the Asian version of Radio Marti, or Radio Free Europe. Funded by the U.S. taxpayers, run by the U.S. government, to bring information to the world. There's nothing new here. This has been going on longer than most of us have been alive. It's like BBC News, but without all of the sensationalism that has crept into the Beeb over the last couple of decades. Trying to paint it as some kind of covert propaganda machine illustrates a lack of knowledge, or a personal political agenda.
    - Leary 6y ago
      NYTimes seems to disagree: https://www.nytimes.com/1977/12/26/archives/worldwide-propaganda-network-built-by-the-cia-a-worldwide-network.html https://www.nytimes.com/1977/12/26/archives/worldwide-propag...
      - reaperducer 6y ago
        That article is 44 years old. RFA isn't part of the CIA. It's part of U.S. Agency for Global Media. From Wikipedia: an independent agency of the United States government which operates various state-run media outlets.[2] It describes its mission, "vital to US national interests", to "inform, engage, and connect people around the world in support of freedom and democracy"[3] and in accordance with the "broad foreign policy objectives of the United States".[4] USAGM supervises Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio y Televisión Martí, Radio Free Asia, and Alhurra TV and Radio Sawa.
- bigpumpkin 6y ago
  The RFA references Song Qing, "Internet finance industry insider": "These nationalizations are definitely happening, and [the antitrust investigation] will likely speed up that process," Song said. "It's also, I think, about making an example of [Ant and Alibaba]." So I would trust the article as much as I would trust Song Qing.
  - reaperducer 6y ago
    So I would trust the article as much as I would trust Song Qing. What does that mean in this context? What do you know about Song Qing that the rest of us don't that makes him untrustworthy? A quick search didn't come up with anything. Do you have an informative link?
    - eloff 6y ago
      What do you know that makes him trustworthy? This is just a rumor spread by a single person at the point. Not very substantial at all. About as believable as when Sally at work says there's layoffs coming - but she's the receptionist.
      - reaperducer 6y ago
        Because I trust the reporters at RFA and RFA's long-earned reputation not to select Sally the receptionist as a credible source. That's the difference between bloggers and journalists. That's why I want to know who this person is, and why I asked the critic for more information about him. I trust RFA more than I trust some rando commenter on HN.
        eloff 6y ago
        You also have to weigh that with how unusual the news is. The more unlikely the event the more credible the source would need to be. This doesn't seem impossible knowing the CCP, but it would take more than a single source rumor before I'd consider it credible.
        6y ago
- dang 6y ago
  I think we need to wait until there's something more substantial to go on. The headline makes it sound like this is a thing, when in fact (as far as we know so far?) it's a rumor. There's a long tradition of "$Person hasn't been seen in public -> gigantic dramatic narrative" in media stories about authoritarian countries. No doubt it's great for clicks, but these things mostly turn out not to be true. If this one turns out to be true, we'll certainly find out and discuss it then. Edit: also, there have already been a bunch of major threads on basically this same story: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=%22jack%20ma%22%20comments%3E10%20points%3E10&sort=byDate&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
rootsudo 6y ago
Wow. This, alongside Jack Ma being "missing", is really curious. https://au.finance.yahoo.com/news/jack-ma-missing-232138645.html https://au.finance.yahoo.com/news/jack-ma-missing-232138645.... Best, semi-legit source I can find, there's other news postings, but from more tabloid and sources that aren't as sincere as Yahoo Financial News. Which, itself is curious, because CNBC spins it differently: "https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/05/alibaba-founder-jack-ma-is-laying-low-for-the-time-being-not-missing.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/05/alibaba-founder-jack-ma-is-l..." Which also falls under the AU-CN struggle, but also curious about how CNBC did not outright say he's missing yet. And technically, both could be correct, imprisoned means missing from society but not exactly "missing" in terms of knowing general wherebouts.
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  I am most surprised about how surprised everyone is about these events. Did Jack Ma think he was going to tell the CCP how it is? China is executing an executive for bribery and corruption [1] (a lot of bribery and corruption though!). Perhaps it's simply the Overton Window [2] delta between the US and China. [1] https://www.dw.com/en/china-sentences-ex-banker-to-death-for-corruption-bribery/a-56132658 https://www.dw.com/en/china-sentences-ex-banker-to-death-for... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window (nothing in this comment should be construed as approval, support, etc for the actions of the CCP; this is only intended as an observation)
  - xiphias2 6y ago
    Isn't that overton window closing though? Twitter, Facebook and Apple is doing the same thing at the same time with the US president means that US control is getting more centralized over time, which makes sense with the FED's money printing going on. The real question is why this wouldn't be able to happen in the US in 10 years.
  - cbozeman 6y ago
    > Did Jack Ma think he was going to tell the CCP how it is? Yes, I did actually. There's every reason to believe that the people installed to run Alibaba / Ant after Jack gets sent off to "re-education camp" will be unable to propel it to further heights. Stagnation is likely as good as it'll get and there's every reason to believe it'll be run into the ground eventually. I see Jack Ma as a sort of Chinese Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos. Shooting yourself in the foot like this seems to be incredibly stupid. American government officials would never consider even hobbling someone like Jeff Bezos... that could be partially out of fear (he could literally just liquidate a portion of his wealth and have someone else elected in your place through campaign contribution), but its more because of the incredible value someone like a Bezos, Musk, or Ma brings to your economy.
metabagel 6y ago
China previously required Alibaba and other companies to accept government officials within their companies. https://www.ft.com/content/055a1864-ddd3-11e9-b112-9624ec9edc59 https://www.ft.com/content/055a1864-ddd3-11e9-b112-9624ec9ed... Fraser Howie, author of "Red Capitalism", says that all Chinese corporations are either state owned enterprises or state overseen enterprises. It appears China may want to transition Alibaba from the latter to the former.
- chrischen 6y ago
  All US companies are also either state owned (USPS), state overseen (regulated), or even state subsidized as well (Boeing). You can add state monitored (Telcos) in there as well.
  - autokad 6y ago
    there's a difference between regulation and inserting officials throughout the organization. Also the US Postal Service doesn't trade as a company, as some similar run Chinese entities.
  - metabagel 6y ago
    Not in the way that they are in China. In China, state overseen means there are government officials working within the company.
    - chrischen 6y ago
      Nothing is ever the exact same way elsewhere. Everything is along a continuum but and the differences are measured in degrees, but there is no fundamental difference.
karmasimida 6y ago
Except for the title, I don't think this article substantiate what it addresses as nationalization.
dgellow 6y ago
Quite hard to believe. Does someone have a source for this report?
- pizazzz23 6y ago
  Not hard to believe at all. China, Russia, DPRK, Saudi Arabia. The. State. Will. Take. Your. Property. And. Kill. You. If. You. Step. Out. Of. Line.
xyzelement 6y ago
I was thinking about nationalization separately from this. The west has invested a lot into the Chinese economy hoping to translate the corresponding equity into growth. I wonder if the Chinese are really long term interested in honoring the equity. Meaning - take the money now, grow the businesses and the economy and then at some point say "It's stupid that we're letting foreigners have 20% (or whatever) ownership of our economy" and just deem it illegal / confiscate that equity. Obviously it will prevent future foreign investment but if China is in a place where they don't care about that, it would be the move.
- razius 6y ago
  Congrats, you discovered communism.
- gruez 6y ago
  >Obviously it will prevent future foreign investment but if China is in a place where they don't care about that, it would be the move. In that case the state can still get sued. see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yukos_shareholders_v._Russia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yukos_shareholders_v._Russia As for actual compensation to the shareholders, it can range between money seized from foreign accounts (think US treasuries) to sanctions.
  - whimsicalism 6y ago
    Great, glad we will find a way to sanction China when the CCP's skepticism of massive private ownership hurts the interests of the ultra-wealthy in the US, but not when there are massive human rights issues now around how they treat minorities.
- ethbr0 6y ago
  Yes. The CCP has pretty explicitly said and proved that it places itself and its interests above Chinese and/or international law. It's playing nice with international investment for now, because it's free money, but ultimately any investment in China is only valued to the extent the CCP feels it's in its best interests. The West's intent was to make China dependent on the international banking and trade system, such that they would provide additional levers to control China's behavior, but we're talking about a government that starved its population to prove a point... Nothing shy of being able to melt down the Chinese economy is going to change their decision, if they make it.
nowherebeen 6y ago
I wonder how SoftBank will take this news.
orange_tee 6y ago
The West thought once China is full of billionaires, the billionaires having all that wealth would then have the power to oppose and dissolve the CCP. Didn't go as planned.
- bmitc 6y ago
  How's it working in the U.S. where billionaires are dissolving the U.S. government?
  - sidlls 6y ago
    Why do they need to dissolve something they already control and/or own?
    - dredmorbius 6y ago
      Because all the billionaires aren't on the same team.
  - orange_tee 6y ago
    Yes, they thought China would turn into a plutocracy. Of course they were modeling after themselves.
    - QuesnayJr 6y ago
      They thought China would in the footsteps of South Korea and Taiwan.
    - yangvz 6y ago
      > Modeling after themselves This is such a polite way to say that they are idiots, lol
  - Shivetya 6y ago
    No, what we have been shown in the US is that it takes a billionaire to challenge the two existing political parties. Parties who through laws and regulation pretty much isolated themselves from other means of being challenged and even go so far as to have us pay for their conventions and even security at times. The difference in the US is the billionaire was able to challenge the existing parties in control and beat them both, in China your wealth is pretty much meaningless unless you came upon it through your party affiliation; there of course is only one party that matters.
f00zz 6y ago
Article looks fishy. But if China goes down this route, it looks like fears of China economically overtaking the US are overblown.
- echelon 6y ago
  Xi Jinping played his hand early. They needed a slow burn to achieve world domination, but he's much too eager.
- f430 6y ago
  > China economically overtaking the US are overblown. They never really stood a chance. Militarily, economically, socially, culturally and spiritually they offer no better alternative to the American one. Similar to how "China owns US treasuries and can crash the US dollar" was the common trope until recently, the US called them out the trillion dollar loan to Qing dynasty which was transferred from KMT to CCP after Chiang Kai Shek's defeat (and really a symbol of CCP's legitimacy over Taipei), and China began buying more US treasuries to increase its US dollar dependence. Without HK, the yuan-hkd-usd peg is collapsing and CCP is running low on US dollars. Kyle Bass's interview with Guo Wengui explains this in detail [1] I even had Chinese students condescendingly tell me that China is taking over and everybody will be speaking Chinese by 2020 back in 2005. If Winnie the Pooh, censoring wikipedia, university students protesting over Tibet, Tianmen Square massacre, organ harvesting of Falun Gong (they are "scientology" so its okay they said) causes the security apparatus kick into high gear then you really are the complete opposite of anti-fragility which is what the US is. US is anti-fragile, authoritarians are not because they are susceptible to even the smallest shock in the economy or the mindset of its citizens, so they use excessive violence and fear to maintain its power. They don't last at all. It's more likely that people who made a lot of money working with/in China have an extremely skewed view of the world. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBl05xNq_AU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBl05xNq_AU
  - gedy 6y ago
    I used to think that way, but demographics seem to favor China growth for much more people for longer than US and Europe. Seems that will drive growth quite a bit.
gher-shyu3i 6y ago
Does that mean that they will be kicked out of the US stock market? They should.
boringg 6y ago
Great timing to do this if you are the CCP - the world is focused on the US right now not much oxygen for anything else in the news cycle. I think the CCP's true colors have been showing up a lot recently. I feel badly for the Chinese population as a whole as the rest of the globe finds it difficult to disentangle the two, and that the CCP applies pressure on foreign nationals (see: Australia).
29athrowaway 6y ago
If Jack Ma is still alive, he must be enjoying the blessing of 996 somewhere.
- antoniuschan99 6y ago
  For the uninitiated https://github.com/996icu/996.ICU https://github.com/996icu/996.ICU 996 doesn’t sound bad at all if it’s my own Company and I’m not constantly worried about Cash flow or run rate. Maybe that’s why in the quotes they say stuff like “996 is a blessing” :P
ogre_codes 6y ago
Wow.. this is like a giant gift to Amazon. Obviously they aren't getting more Chinese business, but they've struggled there already. But it makes it a lot easier for them to compete everywhere else. Competing against CCP is going to be a lot easier than competing against Jack Ma.
- scarmig 6y ago
  Let's play this out. Suppose the CCP does nationalize BABA, and as a result Amazon starts beating it. Over time Amazon comes to dominate Chinese ecommerce, with hundreds of billions of yuan flowing from Chinese consumers to Bezos' pocket. Bezos then says something critical of the CCP. How is this scenario likely to develop after that point?
  - Natfan 6y ago
    I'd be very interested to see what the CCP would do in that instance. I don't believe they've gone after Western billionaires in the same way that they've gone after their own before. Also, with Bezos being the (second) richest person in the world, and with Amazon being very much a household name, I wonder if they would risk the backlash from Western governments and private entities if they were to carry out a "disappearing act" on Bezos.
  - ogre_codes 6y ago
    > billions of yuan flowing from Chinese consumers to Bezos' pocket I started my post with the assumption that Amazon is never going to get big in China. Regardless of whether Bezos is nice to the CCP or not, the CCP is not going to allow Amazon to displace Alibaba. My comment is referring competing for business in the rest of the world. Other countries where Alibaba and Amazon are both trying to gain marker share.
    - scarmig 6y ago
      I didn't see the part including and following "Obviously they aren't getting more Chinese business..." when I made my comment. I don't think we disagree, then.
trhway 6y ago
it may happen not necessarily as straight "nationalization", instead the CCP/government would just buy a controlling interest at a very sweet non-cash price what Ma and other shareholders would be more than happy to sell at ... given the alternatives.
f430 6y ago
Guo Wengui said back in September 2019 that "Jack Ma would be jailed or killed" on Kyle Bass's youtube channel. [1] At this point its not even a question of whether we will see Jack Ma in public again. Overnight he went from billionaire to peasantry. We've seen dozen cases like this: 1) Billionaire disappears or is "killed" 2) Billionaire's company becomes nationalized 3) Rinse & Repeat Everybody who isn't familiar with the inner workings of the CCP thinks that Jack Ma openly challenged the CCP. That simply isn't the case. They are using as an excuse to take over the company because they can. As much as people in the West praise CCP's economic rise, and some even point to its authoritarian system as superior to our democracy, but little do they know the very laws that protect them isn't an option in China. Imagine spending most of your life building a massive business and then one day it is taken from you by force by an authoritarian ruler. This is why anyone that has money send their kids abroad and move permanently to a Western country that their kids despise and criticize their host for calling out the CCP. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtJK_5qDraM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtJK_5qDraM
- echelon 6y ago
  > As much as people in the West praise CCP's economic rise Who is praising the CCP's economic rise? The American consensus as far as I can tell is that we need to shut them out and push them into decline. The West should brain drain the best and brightest from China.
  - marcinzm 6y ago
    >Who is praising the CCP's economic rise? A majority of Americans until relatively recently? China was seen favorably by most Americans until the last decade. An economic world power that we should strengthen relations with if polls are to be believed. For example: https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2020/10/06/unfavorable-views-of-china-reach-historic-highs-in-many-countries/ https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2020/10/06/unfavorable-vi...
    - emteycz 6y ago
      It was a very different country 10 years ago. It was comparable to the EU (I lived in both).
nashashmi 6y ago
In a different time with a hardline conservative government we would see moves being drawn in the sand to prevent this kind of power domination by China. But neither Biden nor Trump have any incentive in drawing boundaries on CCP. I never thought I’d wish for bigger hawks in the white house.
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JumpCrisscross 6y ago
Not sure if someone in the party saw something wanted and created the groundwork to yank it. Or if this is genuinely punitive. Either way, a standard if frequently-forgotten message to innovators in such regimes.
martin1975 6y ago
This is scary. Thank you for posting things - I've reshared it to as many places as I can.
xwdv 6y ago
Will the Ant design framework for React be compromised because of this? Would you still use it?
liuliu 6y ago
This is a serious misunderstanding of what the means and ways at CCP's disposal. Nationalization or taking controlling share of a company is a very Western view and would not happen to Baba. I wrote a few days ago about what would likely to happen to Baba: https://drz.today/2020/baba-is-not-the-next-khodorkovsky/ https://drz.today/2020/baba-is-not-the-next-khodorkovsky/. Only time would tell of course.
idrios 6y ago
The CCP is caught in its own version of purgatory through paranoia. When the great famine happened under Mao, it was because Mao had surrounded himself by yes-men who were competing to be the most loyal. When the famine hit, the provinces all reported better yields than actual, collectivism happened based on reported and not actual yield, and millions of farmers starved. His successor, Deng Xiaoping started a lot of really great reforms, including term limits on leadership and granting Shenzhen & some other cities special/experimental economic status, to basically run autonomously as capitalist. Several decades later, paranoia is too strong. Xi Jinping removed term limits because he doesn't trust others to run the country better than him. The One China policy has killed a number of vibrant cultures including those of Tibet, Hong Kong, and the Uyghurs. A social credit system is being implemented. Now Alibaba is being nationalized. These issues will likely only get worse, until another great famine event.
ddmma 6y ago
that concludes the story of the 40s thieves in the Alibaba case
baybal2 6y ago
10 years ago, nobody would've believed me if I were to say China will slide back into mass nationalisation, let alone nationalising something like an Internet company. The real hardcore bolshevik style communists have clawed their way back into power. They are back. I'm very well convinced now that Chinese nouveaux riche class, and foreign capital in China are living on a leased time. The country is on its way back to seventies, irreversably now.
hungryhobo 6y ago
Honestly can we not post stuff from radio free Asia on hacker News, this isn't Reddit
- mhh__ 6y ago
  When appraising something from a propaganda-y source, the rule of thumb I use is to treat it like selling sausages - if they're your sausages, you don't go into detail, but if they're your competitors sausages and you know they're full of sawdust then you don't need to make anything up. Also "this isn't Reddit" is just delusions of grandeur, HN commenters are self-selected around technology for the most part not politics.
  - hungryhobo 6y ago
    Well depends on what your motives are when you are reading china related news. Do you want an accurate depiction of that's actually going on or do you want to read stuff that reaffirms your bias. The actual article linked has provided zero evidence that CCP is trying to nationalize Alibaba. So to me that's a low quality article that I think should not appear on hn
nabla9 6y ago
China is Unitary Marxist–Leninist one-party socialist republic. Communists are actually communists. This is what is eventually supposed to happen every Chinese company according to the Chinese Communist party. They just allow private ownership, "for now".
impalallama 6y ago
This is the most overtly communist thing China has done in a while.
skyde 6y ago
isnt jack ma still reported missing ?
didip 6y ago
Now this... is real totalitarianism.
PeterStuer 6y ago
In China the government silences the enterprises if they run out of step, in the US the enterprises silence the governments if they run out of step.
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guhcampos 6y ago
This is a highly speculative article with vast, global, implications. People should be taking this with Kilograms of salt. Food for thought: if this was to be true we would be seeing several bit coin whale operations going on from insiders, and this isn't the case even with the substantial drops in bitcoin value in the last 24 hours.
adam_ellsworth 6y ago
Excuse my ignorance here, but is the https://ant.design/ https://ant.design/ suite of React UI/UX components owned/operated by the Ant Group mentioned in the article?
ketamine__ 6y ago
What is Jack Ma's projected net worth after nationalization? Do investors get a buyout?
- pas 6y ago
  If he gets out of this with a few very long apologies and crippling debt, but alive and free, then he will be already much luckier than millions of others.
SZJX 6y ago
Simply sad to see such a garbage-quality piece of fear-mongering "journalism" (published more than 2 weeks ago, no less), with only wild anti-CCP speculations from a single random commentator for Radio Free Asia (spoiler: not exactly known for their neutrality), and practically non-existent factual information, getting so many upvotes here. If one applies the least bit of logic, one could immediately grasp the absurdity of such a "proposal", which would only do every party involved immense harm. Then again, maybe this is no longer anything surprising at all, given the multiple recent precedents, including e.g. the ridiculous "chromeisbad.com" post.

485 points by masonhensley 6y ago

Something about how the images and their captions have nothing to do with the topic of the article seems very suspicious.

xster 6y ago

Is it me or there's some cognitive dissonance going on with the whole article discussing the ramifications of a nationalization without describing at all what sourced this "news" in the first place? A cursory search seems to show this is a regurgitation on a sourceless Radio Free Asia article (https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/alibaba-probe-12252020170303.html https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/alibaba-probe-1225202...) from December?

DaedPsyker 6y ago
I think the CCP is mostly at fault. They wanted to control and limit discussion and even news on alibaba so of course people are going to speculate in the absence of information.
- whimsicalism 6y ago
  Shitty reporting is not always the CCPs fault.
- xster 6y ago
  How are you sourcing that conclusion? I'm not well versed but I enjoy watching finance related UGC and analyses on Bilibili. There's certainly tons of in-depth content and discussion about Ant's leveraging practices and the involvement of financial regulations.
- Barrin92 6y ago
  Misunderstanding about the inner workings of China isn't the CCP's fault, at least not at this level. The discourse about China, misunderstandings about how the Chinese systems functions, and lack of even a basic interest in getting a realistic view of China are rampant. The average view of China in the US is so cartoonish it's quite ridiculous. If you talk to an educated, middle-class Chinese audience about the US people generally have actually a surprising amount of understanding of the basic structure of government, values and so on. You go to a very educated audience in the US or other Western nations and it's still embarrassing. And it's actually a huge problem for the West that both government and citizens do not engage China seriously.
  - whimsicalism 6y ago
    > lack of even a basic interest in getting a realistic view of China are rampant It's crazy how tied to a warped view of China people get. Like, I have serious issues with China too, but the picture many people seem to have in their mind is just not modern China whatsoever.
  - quonn 6y ago
    > The discourse about China, misunderstandings about how the Chinese systems functions It functions like a dictatorship functions. The dictatorship of the party. > And it's actually a huge problem for the West that both government and citizens do not engage China seriously. The West will mostly separate production within about a decade or two. It‘s not a problem at all.
    - bun_at_work 6y ago
      Do you have any sources to support the claim that the West will separate production within a decade or two?
      - quonn 6y ago
        My reading of the news in the last year or so and connecting the dots. I‘m not the only one saying it of course.
thewarrior 6y ago
Radio free Asia has deep ties to US agencies. It isn’t really a credible source.
- devy 6y ago
  Yep. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Free_Asia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Free_Asia
- reaperducer 6y ago
  Radio free Asia has deep ties to US agencies. "Deep ties to US agencies" is sensationalizing the facts. It's part of the United States government, and nobody has ever tried to keep that secret. Not RFA, not the U.S. Government. Nobody. "Deep ties" makes it seem like it's trying to be covert. It's not. It isn’t really a credible source. It's one of the more credible sources of news in Asia. Especially for more authoritarian countries. I used to know a number of its journalists, and they strive for neutrality and factual reporting in places where that is not allowed. It's the Asian version of Radio Marti, or Radio Free Europe. Funded by the U.S. taxpayers, run by the U.S. government, to bring information to the world. There's nothing new here. This has been going on longer than most of us have been alive. It's like BBC News, but without all of the sensationalism that has crept into the Beeb over the last couple of decades. Trying to paint it as some kind of covert propaganda machine illustrates a lack of knowledge, or a personal political agenda.
  - Leary 6y ago
    NYTimes seems to disagree: https://www.nytimes.com/1977/12/26/archives/worldwide-propaganda-network-built-by-the-cia-a-worldwide-network.html https://www.nytimes.com/1977/12/26/archives/worldwide-propag...
    - reaperducer 6y ago
      That article is 44 years old. RFA isn't part of the CIA. It's part of U.S. Agency for Global Media. From Wikipedia: an independent agency of the United States government which operates various state-run media outlets.[2] It describes its mission, "vital to US national interests", to "inform, engage, and connect people around the world in support of freedom and democracy"[3] and in accordance with the "broad foreign policy objectives of the United States".[4] USAGM supervises Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio y Televisión Martí, Radio Free Asia, and Alhurra TV and Radio Sawa.
bigpumpkin 6y ago
The RFA references Song Qing, "Internet finance industry insider": "These nationalizations are definitely happening, and [the antitrust investigation] will likely speed up that process," Song said. "It's also, I think, about making an example of [Ant and Alibaba]." So I would trust the article as much as I would trust Song Qing.
- reaperducer 6y ago
  So I would trust the article as much as I would trust Song Qing. What does that mean in this context? What do you know about Song Qing that the rest of us don't that makes him untrustworthy? A quick search didn't come up with anything. Do you have an informative link?
  - eloff 6y ago
    What do you know that makes him trustworthy? This is just a rumor spread by a single person at the point. Not very substantial at all. About as believable as when Sally at work says there's layoffs coming - but she's the receptionist.
    - reaperducer 6y ago
      Because I trust the reporters at RFA and RFA's long-earned reputation not to select Sally the receptionist as a credible source. That's the difference between bloggers and journalists. That's why I want to know who this person is, and why I asked the critic for more information about him. I trust RFA more than I trust some rando commenter on HN.
      - eloff 6y ago
        You also have to weigh that with how unusual the news is. The more unlikely the event the more credible the source would need to be. This doesn't seem impossible knowing the CCP, but it would take more than a single source rumor before I'd consider it credible.
      - 6y ago
dang 6y ago
I think we need to wait until there's something more substantial to go on. The headline makes it sound like this is a thing, when in fact (as far as we know so far?) it's a rumor. There's a long tradition of "$Person hasn't been seen in public -> gigantic dramatic narrative" in media stories about authoritarian countries. No doubt it's great for clicks, but these things mostly turn out not to be true. If this one turns out to be true, we'll certainly find out and discuss it then. Edit: also, there have already been a bunch of major threads on basically this same story: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=%22jack%20ma%22%20comments%3E10%20points%3E10&sort=byDate&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

rootsudo 6y ago

Wow. This, alongside Jack Ma being "missing", is really curious. https://au.finance.yahoo.com/news/jack-ma-missing-232138645.html https://au.finance.yahoo.com/news/jack-ma-missing-232138645.... Best, semi-legit source I can find, there's other news postings, but from more tabloid and sources that aren't as sincere as Yahoo Financial News. Which, itself is curious, because CNBC spins it differently: "https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/05/alibaba-founder-jack-ma-is-laying-low-for-the-time-being-not-missing.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/05/alibaba-founder-jack-ma-is-l..." Which also falls under the AU-CN struggle, but also curious about how CNBC did not outright say he's missing yet. And technically, both could be correct, imprisoned means missing from society but not exactly "missing" in terms of knowing general wherebouts.

toomuchtodo 6y ago
I am most surprised about how surprised everyone is about these events. Did Jack Ma think he was going to tell the CCP how it is? China is executing an executive for bribery and corruption [1] (a lot of bribery and corruption though!). Perhaps it's simply the Overton Window [2] delta between the US and China. [1] https://www.dw.com/en/china-sentences-ex-banker-to-death-for-corruption-bribery/a-56132658 https://www.dw.com/en/china-sentences-ex-banker-to-death-for... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window (nothing in this comment should be construed as approval, support, etc for the actions of the CCP; this is only intended as an observation)
- xiphias2 6y ago
  Isn't that overton window closing though? Twitter, Facebook and Apple is doing the same thing at the same time with the US president means that US control is getting more centralized over time, which makes sense with the FED's money printing going on. The real question is why this wouldn't be able to happen in the US in 10 years.
- cbozeman 6y ago
  > Did Jack Ma think he was going to tell the CCP how it is? Yes, I did actually. There's every reason to believe that the people installed to run Alibaba / Ant after Jack gets sent off to "re-education camp" will be unable to propel it to further heights. Stagnation is likely as good as it'll get and there's every reason to believe it'll be run into the ground eventually. I see Jack Ma as a sort of Chinese Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos. Shooting yourself in the foot like this seems to be incredibly stupid. American government officials would never consider even hobbling someone like Jeff Bezos... that could be partially out of fear (he could literally just liquidate a portion of his wealth and have someone else elected in your place through campaign contribution), but its more because of the incredible value someone like a Bezos, Musk, or Ma brings to your economy.

metabagel 6y ago

China previously required Alibaba and other companies to accept government officials within their companies. https://www.ft.com/content/055a1864-ddd3-11e9-b112-9624ec9edc59 https://www.ft.com/content/055a1864-ddd3-11e9-b112-9624ec9ed... Fraser Howie, author of "Red Capitalism", says that all Chinese corporations are either state owned enterprises or state overseen enterprises. It appears China may want to transition Alibaba from the latter to the former.

chrischen 6y ago
All US companies are also either state owned (USPS), state overseen (regulated), or even state subsidized as well (Boeing). You can add state monitored (Telcos) in there as well.
- autokad 6y ago
  there's a difference between regulation and inserting officials throughout the organization. Also the US Postal Service doesn't trade as a company, as some similar run Chinese entities.
- metabagel 6y ago
  Not in the way that they are in China. In China, state overseen means there are government officials working within the company.
  - chrischen 6y ago
    Nothing is ever the exact same way elsewhere. Everything is along a continuum but and the differences are measured in degrees, but there is no fundamental difference.

karmasimida 6y ago

Except for the title, I don't think this article substantiate what it addresses as nationalization.

dgellow 6y ago

Quite hard to believe. Does someone have a source for this report?

pizazzz23 6y ago
Not hard to believe at all. China, Russia, DPRK, Saudi Arabia. The. State. Will. Take. Your. Property. And. Kill. You. If. You. Step. Out. Of. Line.

xyzelement 6y ago

I was thinking about nationalization separately from this. The west has invested a lot into the Chinese economy hoping to translate the corresponding equity into growth. I wonder if the Chinese are really long term interested in honoring the equity. Meaning - take the money now, grow the businesses and the economy and then at some point say "It's stupid that we're letting foreigners have 20% (or whatever) ownership of our economy" and just deem it illegal / confiscate that equity. Obviously it will prevent future foreign investment but if China is in a place where they don't care about that, it would be the move.

razius 6y ago
Congrats, you discovered communism.
gruez 6y ago
>Obviously it will prevent future foreign investment but if China is in a place where they don't care about that, it would be the move. In that case the state can still get sued. see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yukos_shareholders_v._Russia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yukos_shareholders_v._Russia As for actual compensation to the shareholders, it can range between money seized from foreign accounts (think US treasuries) to sanctions.
- whimsicalism 6y ago
  Great, glad we will find a way to sanction China when the CCP's skepticism of massive private ownership hurts the interests of the ultra-wealthy in the US, but not when there are massive human rights issues now around how they treat minorities.
ethbr0 6y ago
Yes. The CCP has pretty explicitly said and proved that it places itself and its interests above Chinese and/or international law. It's playing nice with international investment for now, because it's free money, but ultimately any investment in China is only valued to the extent the CCP feels it's in its best interests. The West's intent was to make China dependent on the international banking and trade system, such that they would provide additional levers to control China's behavior, but we're talking about a government that starved its population to prove a point... Nothing shy of being able to melt down the Chinese economy is going to change their decision, if they make it.

nowherebeen 6y ago

I wonder how SoftBank will take this news.

orange_tee 6y ago

The West thought once China is full of billionaires, the billionaires having all that wealth would then have the power to oppose and dissolve the CCP. Didn't go as planned.

bmitc 6y ago
How's it working in the U.S. where billionaires are dissolving the U.S. government?
- sidlls 6y ago
  Why do they need to dissolve something they already control and/or own?
  - dredmorbius 6y ago
    Because all the billionaires aren't on the same team.
- orange_tee 6y ago
  Yes, they thought China would turn into a plutocracy. Of course they were modeling after themselves.
  - QuesnayJr 6y ago
    They thought China would in the footsteps of South Korea and Taiwan.
  - yangvz 6y ago
    > Modeling after themselves This is such a polite way to say that they are idiots, lol
- Shivetya 6y ago
  No, what we have been shown in the US is that it takes a billionaire to challenge the two existing political parties. Parties who through laws and regulation pretty much isolated themselves from other means of being challenged and even go so far as to have us pay for their conventions and even security at times. The difference in the US is the billionaire was able to challenge the existing parties in control and beat them both, in China your wealth is pretty much meaningless unless you came upon it through your party affiliation; there of course is only one party that matters.

f00zz 6y ago

Article looks fishy. But if China goes down this route, it looks like fears of China economically overtaking the US are overblown.

echelon 6y ago
Xi Jinping played his hand early. They needed a slow burn to achieve world domination, but he's much too eager.
f430 6y ago
> China economically overtaking the US are overblown. They never really stood a chance. Militarily, economically, socially, culturally and spiritually they offer no better alternative to the American one. Similar to how "China owns US treasuries and can crash the US dollar" was the common trope until recently, the US called them out the trillion dollar loan to Qing dynasty which was transferred from KMT to CCP after Chiang Kai Shek's defeat (and really a symbol of CCP's legitimacy over Taipei), and China began buying more US treasuries to increase its US dollar dependence. Without HK, the yuan-hkd-usd peg is collapsing and CCP is running low on US dollars. Kyle Bass's interview with Guo Wengui explains this in detail [1] I even had Chinese students condescendingly tell me that China is taking over and everybody will be speaking Chinese by 2020 back in 2005. If Winnie the Pooh, censoring wikipedia, university students protesting over Tibet, Tianmen Square massacre, organ harvesting of Falun Gong (they are "scientology" so its okay they said) causes the security apparatus kick into high gear then you really are the complete opposite of anti-fragility which is what the US is. US is anti-fragile, authoritarians are not because they are susceptible to even the smallest shock in the economy or the mindset of its citizens, so they use excessive violence and fear to maintain its power. They don't last at all. It's more likely that people who made a lot of money working with/in China have an extremely skewed view of the world. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBl05xNq_AU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBl05xNq_AU
- gedy 6y ago
  I used to think that way, but demographics seem to favor China growth for much more people for longer than US and Europe. Seems that will drive growth quite a bit.

gher-shyu3i 6y ago

Does that mean that they will be kicked out of the US stock market? They should.

boringg 6y ago

Great timing to do this if you are the CCP - the world is focused on the US right now not much oxygen for anything else in the news cycle. I think the CCP's true colors have been showing up a lot recently. I feel badly for the Chinese population as a whole as the rest of the globe finds it difficult to disentangle the two, and that the CCP applies pressure on foreign nationals (see: Australia).

29athrowaway 6y ago

If Jack Ma is still alive, he must be enjoying the blessing of 996 somewhere.

antoniuschan99 6y ago
For the uninitiated https://github.com/996icu/996.ICU https://github.com/996icu/996.ICU 996 doesn’t sound bad at all if it’s my own Company and I’m not constantly worried about Cash flow or run rate. Maybe that’s why in the quotes they say stuff like “996 is a blessing” :P

ogre_codes 6y ago

Wow.. this is like a giant gift to Amazon. Obviously they aren't getting more Chinese business, but they've struggled there already. But it makes it a lot easier for them to compete everywhere else. Competing against CCP is going to be a lot easier than competing against Jack Ma.

scarmig 6y ago
Let's play this out. Suppose the CCP does nationalize BABA, and as a result Amazon starts beating it. Over time Amazon comes to dominate Chinese ecommerce, with hundreds of billions of yuan flowing from Chinese consumers to Bezos' pocket. Bezos then says something critical of the CCP. How is this scenario likely to develop after that point?
- Natfan 6y ago
  I'd be very interested to see what the CCP would do in that instance. I don't believe they've gone after Western billionaires in the same way that they've gone after their own before. Also, with Bezos being the (second) richest person in the world, and with Amazon being very much a household name, I wonder if they would risk the backlash from Western governments and private entities if they were to carry out a "disappearing act" on Bezos.
- ogre_codes 6y ago
  > billions of yuan flowing from Chinese consumers to Bezos' pocket I started my post with the assumption that Amazon is never going to get big in China. Regardless of whether Bezos is nice to the CCP or not, the CCP is not going to allow Amazon to displace Alibaba. My comment is referring competing for business in the rest of the world. Other countries where Alibaba and Amazon are both trying to gain marker share.
  - scarmig 6y ago
    I didn't see the part including and following "Obviously they aren't getting more Chinese business..." when I made my comment. I don't think we disagree, then.

trhway 6y ago

it may happen not necessarily as straight "nationalization", instead the CCP/government would just buy a controlling interest at a very sweet non-cash price what Ma and other shareholders would be more than happy to sell at ... given the alternatives.

f430 6y ago

Guo Wengui said back in September 2019 that "Jack Ma would be jailed or killed" on Kyle Bass's youtube channel. [1] At this point its not even a question of whether we will see Jack Ma in public again. Overnight he went from billionaire to peasantry. We've seen dozen cases like this: 1) Billionaire disappears or is "killed" 2) Billionaire's company becomes nationalized 3) Rinse & Repeat Everybody who isn't familiar with the inner workings of the CCP thinks that Jack Ma openly challenged the CCP. That simply isn't the case. They are using as an excuse to take over the company because they can. As much as people in the West praise CCP's economic rise, and some even point to its authoritarian system as superior to our democracy, but little do they know the very laws that protect them isn't an option in China. Imagine spending most of your life building a massive business and then one day it is taken from you by force by an authoritarian ruler. This is why anyone that has money send their kids abroad and move permanently to a Western country that their kids despise and criticize their host for calling out the CCP. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtJK_5qDraM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtJK_5qDraM

echelon 6y ago
> As much as people in the West praise CCP's economic rise Who is praising the CCP's economic rise? The American consensus as far as I can tell is that we need to shut them out and push them into decline. The West should brain drain the best and brightest from China.
- marcinzm 6y ago
  >Who is praising the CCP's economic rise? A majority of Americans until relatively recently? China was seen favorably by most Americans until the last decade. An economic world power that we should strengthen relations with if polls are to be believed. For example: https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2020/10/06/unfavorable-views-of-china-reach-historic-highs-in-many-countries/ https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2020/10/06/unfavorable-vi...
  - emteycz 6y ago
    It was a very different country 10 years ago. It was comparable to the EU (I lived in both).

nashashmi 6y ago

In a different time with a hardline conservative government we would see moves being drawn in the sand to prevent this kind of power domination by China. But neither Biden nor Trump have any incentive in drawing boundaries on CCP. I never thought I’d wish for bigger hawks in the white house.

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JumpCrisscross 6y ago

Not sure if someone in the party saw something wanted and created the groundwork to yank it. Or if this is genuinely punitive. Either way, a standard if frequently-forgotten message to innovators in such regimes.

martin1975 6y ago

This is scary. Thank you for posting things - I've reshared it to as many places as I can.

xwdv 6y ago

Will the Ant design framework for React be compromised because of this? Would you still use it?

liuliu 6y ago

This is a serious misunderstanding of what the means and ways at CCP's disposal. Nationalization or taking controlling share of a company is a very Western view and would not happen to Baba. I wrote a few days ago about what would likely to happen to Baba: https://drz.today/2020/baba-is-not-the-next-khodorkovsky/ https://drz.today/2020/baba-is-not-the-next-khodorkovsky/. Only time would tell of course.

idrios 6y ago

The CCP is caught in its own version of purgatory through paranoia. When the great famine happened under Mao, it was because Mao had surrounded himself by yes-men who were competing to be the most loyal. When the famine hit, the provinces all reported better yields than actual, collectivism happened based on reported and not actual yield, and millions of farmers starved. His successor, Deng Xiaoping started a lot of really great reforms, including term limits on leadership and granting Shenzhen & some other cities special/experimental economic status, to basically run autonomously as capitalist. Several decades later, paranoia is too strong. Xi Jinping removed term limits because he doesn't trust others to run the country better than him. The One China policy has killed a number of vibrant cultures including those of Tibet, Hong Kong, and the Uyghurs. A social credit system is being implemented. Now Alibaba is being nationalized. These issues will likely only get worse, until another great famine event.

ddmma 6y ago

that concludes the story of the 40s thieves in the Alibaba case

baybal2 6y ago

10 years ago, nobody would've believed me if I were to say China will slide back into mass nationalisation, let alone nationalising something like an Internet company. The real hardcore bolshevik style communists have clawed their way back into power. They are back. I'm very well convinced now that Chinese nouveaux riche class, and foreign capital in China are living on a leased time. The country is on its way back to seventies, irreversably now.

hungryhobo 6y ago

Honestly can we not post stuff from radio free Asia on hacker News, this isn't Reddit

mhh__ 6y ago
When appraising something from a propaganda-y source, the rule of thumb I use is to treat it like selling sausages - if they're your sausages, you don't go into detail, but if they're your competitors sausages and you know they're full of sawdust then you don't need to make anything up. Also "this isn't Reddit" is just delusions of grandeur, HN commenters are self-selected around technology for the most part not politics.
- hungryhobo 6y ago
  Well depends on what your motives are when you are reading china related news. Do you want an accurate depiction of that's actually going on or do you want to read stuff that reaffirms your bias. The actual article linked has provided zero evidence that CCP is trying to nationalize Alibaba. So to me that's a low quality article that I think should not appear on hn

nabla9 6y ago

China is Unitary Marxist–Leninist one-party socialist republic. Communists are actually communists. This is what is eventually supposed to happen every Chinese company according to the Chinese Communist party. They just allow private ownership, "for now".

impalallama 6y ago

This is the most overtly communist thing China has done in a while.

skyde 6y ago

isnt jack ma still reported missing ?

didip 6y ago

Now this... is real totalitarianism.

PeterStuer 6y ago

In China the government silences the enterprises if they run out of step, in the US the enterprises silence the governments if they run out of step.

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guhcampos 6y ago

This is a highly speculative article with vast, global, implications. People should be taking this with Kilograms of salt. Food for thought: if this was to be true we would be seeing several bit coin whale operations going on from insiders, and this isn't the case even with the substantial drops in bitcoin value in the last 24 hours.

adam_ellsworth 6y ago

Excuse my ignorance here, but is the https://ant.design/ https://ant.design/ suite of React UI/UX components owned/operated by the Ant Group mentioned in the article?

ketamine__ 6y ago

What is Jack Ma's projected net worth after nationalization? Do investors get a buyout?

pas 6y ago
If he gets out of this with a few very long apologies and crippling debt, but alive and free, then he will be already much luckier than millions of others.

SZJX 6y ago

Simply sad to see such a garbage-quality piece of fear-mongering "journalism" (published more than 2 weeks ago, no less), with only wild anti-CCP speculations from a single random commentator for Radio Free Asia (spoiler: not exactly known for their neutrality), and practically non-existent factual information, getting so many upvotes here. If one applies the least bit of logic, one could immediately grasp the absurdity of such a "proposal", which would only do every party involved immense harm. Then again, maybe this is no longer anything surprising at all, given the multiple recent precedents, including e.g. the ridiculous "chromeisbad.com" post.