More than two years later, Jack Ma reappeared. The Chinese businessman, founder of the technology company Alibaba and one of the richest men in the world, who has not been seen in public since 2021 — Going so far as to think that he would have been arrested by the authorities for his criticism of the regime — made an appearance at a school in the city of Hangzhou, signaling an apparent reconciliation with Beijing.
The visit of the businessman, who in recent years has dedicated himself to philanthropy and the promotion of educational activities, was confirmed by the school itself (which receives funding from Alibaba) in a publication on the Chinese social network WeChat on Monday. The Jack Ma Foundation also confirmed the businessman’s trip, stressing in a statement to CNN that “Mr. Ma travels regularly, both in and out of China.”
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These “regular trips” seem to contradict the reality of recent years, during which Jack Ma has been absent from the public spherewith various news reports that he has been staying out of China, splitting his time mainly between Japan and Hong Kong.
With an estimated fortune of around 30 billion euros, Ma was until recently one of the most prominent Chinese businessmen and a kind of business ambassador for Beijing in the world. Relations between the two parties deteriorated starting in 2020, when the Xi Jinping regime began to exert pressure on the technology sector.
In November of that year, the government prevented at the last moment an Initial Public Offering of the company Ant Group, affiliated with Alibaba and also owned by Jack Ma, valued at about 34,000 million euros. The blockade came shortly after Ma criticized Chinese banks and financial regulators.whom he accused of being too afraid to take risks.
Since then, their appearances have been sporadic, the last public action being in January 2021, during a virtual conference with teachers from rural areas. Since then, signs point to Ma opting out of China. In October 2021, Ma was seen shopping in Spain, on the island of Mallorca; a year later, the news reached the public that she was living quietly in the Japanese capital Tokyo.
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Recently, the Chinese government has shown openness towards the technology sector and the rest of the private sector, in an attempt to recover and boost an economy that is still suffering from the impact of the pandemic. In this regard, Bloomberg News reported on Monday that the Beijing regime has made efforts lately to convince Ma to return to the country.
The expectation with the policy change is that Beijing will be able to boost economic growth and job creation through the private sector. The opening remarks transmitted by the new Chinese prime minister, Li Qiang, have even led to an increase in investment in the country.
Source: Observadora
