Capitalists & Billionaires are accused of controlling the Politicians and the Government in a Democratic country. They always seem to have an impact on the working of the government. But in China like dictatorship countries, the case is totally opposite.
In these dictatorship countries, Government tends to rule the people which includes the personalities having Billions in their pockets. And if anyone speaks against them then they are found MISSING!!
This is what has happened to the second richest person in China, Jack Ma. His last tweet was in October 2020 and after that, there is no trace of him on Social Media Sites and even in the real world. And the reason behind his absence is the fact that he criticized the Chinese Communist Party's policy.
This is the way China treats its Billionaire and people who rise against them.
"I think among the richest men in China, few have good endings." -Jack Ma in 2016
And the same thing has happened to himself. He was not fortunate enough to be in a few of those billionaires.
HISTORY OF JACK MA & ALIBABA
JACK MA
The story of Jack Ma is Rags to Riches type story. He was born in 1964 in a middle-class household. He was not good at studies. That's why he failed twice in his college entrance exams and somehow managed to pass in the third trial. And his bad luck was not limited to this stage of life only.
According to Bloomberg, Jack Ma applied for more than 30 jobs before becoming an English teacher and got rejected in all, including the job for KFC, where he was the only one to be rejected out of 24 people who applied for that job. I think if he would have got selected then could have taken some more years to reach the position where he was a few months before getting lost.
Jack Ma also applied to Harvard 10 times and unfortunately got rejected all the time.
ALIBABA
In June 1999, Jack Ma founded the company "Alibaba" which brought him all the fame and money that he has now.
He launched the site 'Alibaba.com' which is now the world's most famous E-commerce website and can be simply understood as a mixture of Amazon, eBay, and PayPal. Alibaba is the most profitable site in the world which even surpasses Amazon in terms of net profit.
When Alibaba was launched, it was a B2B(Business-to-Business) company. It was launched with the idea to establish a simple, fast, and secure trade between Business companies. But it later became B2C(Business-to-Consumer) site. The site became famous in China and grew mostly in China than the rest of the world.
In September 2014, when the company went for Initial Public Offering(IPO) at the New York stock exchange, it became the largest IPO of that time and valued at $168 billion.
After the success of Alibaba, it expanded to almost all the sectors:
- Alipay (Fintech Company)
- Alibaba Cloud (Cloud Computing)
- Alibaba Pictures (Movie Production)
- AliHealth (Healthcare)
- AliSports (Sports)
In 2014, Jack Ma launched a company "Ant Group" to run the Alipay service which currently has 1 billion active users and is mostly in China. This company helped Jack Ma to make his net worth $58 Billion.
Ant Group is also one of the reasons behind Jack Ma's absence.
MISTAKE | CONSEQUENCES | MISSING OF JACK MA
MISTAKE
On October 24, 2020, Jack Ma criticized Xi Jinping Government. He only targeted a specific aspect, financial regulators & state-owned banks. He said that these work with a 'Pawnshop' mentality and believes in the zero-risk principle.
He said that banks of China don't provide any loans without worthy collateral. This can be due to the fear of becoming a Non-Performing Asset(NPA). According to him, entrepreneurs and businesses cannot innovate due to collateral pressure and this hinders the innovation of the whole nation. People cannot convert their ideas into businesses by this policy.
CONSEQUENCES
This statement of Jack Ma is considered to be one of the biggest mistakes because it led to the banning of Ant Group in China and his missing.
Ant Group was scheduled to appear at IPO in the Chinese stock market and everyone expected it to be valued above $300 bn. But the week after Jack Ma criticized the Chinese government policy, the Government drafted new rules and regulation which automatically disqualified Ant Group.
Later Government launched an investigation into Alibaba accusing it to follow anti-competition practices. This dropped the value of Alibaba by 17%.
These are the partial reasons behind the banning of Ant Group. The other biggest reason was the fear of the Chinese Government. At the rate at which AliPay was growing, the Chinese Government started to fear that in the coming years, most of the money will start flowing to the e-finance giant instead of the state banks. They did not want that a private company should hold the money because it could make the contemporary government less powerful. And this reason ultimately led Ant Group, the parent company running AliPay, to its consequence.
After his statement, the online trolling of Jack Ma by IT cell trolls increased gradually. His fame and reputation were targeted. He was called 'Uncle Horse' because in Mandarin, his surname 'Ma' means 'Horse'. Then he was started being called a 'Vampire' who exploits the poor.
MISSING
Jack Ma was a judge in Africa's Business Heroes, a program founded by himself in Africa. But surprisingly he did not appear in the Finale of Africa's Business Heroes in November 2020. After this, his absence was started to be questioned by the media.
Till January, no news of his presence was proclaimed and the questions were started to rise again. He was missing but no one had the answer.
Then some newspapers, according to their sources, stated that Jack Ma is not missing but 'Laying Low'.
Alibaba saw a 5% increase in its shares after CNBC's David Faber reported that Jack Ma is lying low and has taken off from his work for some days.
But some questions are still there: Where he currently is? What is the main cause of his hiding?
Jack Ma is not the only person who has been found missing. There are other billionaires too whose reputed lives did not meet a good fate.
OTHER MISSING BILLIONAIRES OF CHINA
As Jack Ma, there are other rich people also who spoke against the Chinese government and ended up either in prison or got abducted.
1. REN ZHIQIANG
Reb Zhiqiang is a Chinese former real estate tycoon and a blogger on Sina Weibo(micro-blogging site) with more than 37 million followers. He is known for his outspoken criticism of the Communist Party. He disappeared on 12 March 2020 after criticizing the Chinese Communist Party's general secretary Xi Jinping over the handling of China's response to the COVID-19 pandemic and also called him a 'Clown'. In September 2020 he was sentenced to 18 years' imprisonment on corruption charges, after a one-day trial.
2. CHEN QUISHI
Chen Quishi is a Chinese lawyer, activist, and citizen journalist who covered the 2019–20 Hong Kong protests and the COVID-19 pandemic which included criticism of the government response and restrictions on Freedom of Speech. He was last heard from on 6 February 2020; as of August 2020, his whereabouts were still unknown. The Chinese government reportedly informed Chen's family and friends that he has been detained for the purpose of COVID-19 quarantine. Critics, including media freedom groups, have expressed skepticism about government motives, and have unsuccessfully called on the government to allow outside contact with Chen.
3. XIAO JIANHUA
Xiao Jianhua is a Chinese-Canadian businessman and billionaire known for managing assets for descendants of prominent Chinese leaders. He too criticized the Chinese regulator. Later he was abducted from a hotel in Hong Kong by the Chinese authority in January 2017.
These were some of the many people who are caught by the Chinese government because they put their views in front of the people. Like these rich people, hundreds of middle-class people have been caught by the local Chinese government.
At a personal level, I think that both the extremes: Capitalists and Billionaires controlling Politicians and Government in a democracy, and Government having control over everything including what will happen to a person, in a dictatorship, are bad for the country and its development. The coordination of the two and the people of a country can help it achieve great heights.
In the last, I hope that Jack Ma does not meet the same fate that these three have met as it would crush the talent of such a great man and the work he may do in the future.
What are your thoughts about this???
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