Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba, made headlines when he was recently spotted at Yungu School in Hangzhou, where the company is headquartered. He had rarely made a public presence since he irked the Chinese Communist Party for criticizing the country’s financial regulatory system in 2020.
"He described them as having a ‘pawnshop mentality,’ and that really ruffled a lot of feathers," said Dexter Roberts, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council Indo-Pacific Security Initiative and author of The Myth of Chinese Capitalism. "Also, just the brash character of Jack Ma rubbed a lot of regulators and very powerful people in China the wrong way."
Jack Ma wasn’t the first billionaire who mysteriously disappeared from public view. In 2015, Guo Guangchang, who is known as China’s Warren Buffet, went missing. The company later said he was assisting authorities with an investigation.
In 2017, Xiao Jianhua, a Chinese-Canadian billionaire, was abducted by Chinese security
Three decades after China enshrined the goal of a "socialist market economy" in its constitution, the era of "reform and opening up" appears to have ended, say experts.
Three decades after China enshrined the goal of a "socialist market economy" in its constitution, the era of "reform and opening up" appears to have ended, say experts.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has consolidated his grip on power as parliament wraps up its legislative meetings. But Xi faces immense challenges in his third term.