Citing sources, the Wall Street Journal reports that Beijing has asked Alibaba to sell its media assets, including Hong Kong‘s South China Morning Post and Sina Weibo, in order to weaken its influence on Chinese public opinion. Some scholars believe that the central government no longer trusts Ma, who has a background in red capital, and wants the party to take full control of public opinion to avoid a repeat of the “Southern Weekend incident.
The Wall Street Journal report cited several sources as saying that after reviewing Alibaba’s media holdings earlier this year, China was surprised by the size of its media assets and worried that it might have a huge influence on public opinion, posing a huge challenge to the official propaganda system. It is unknown whether Alibaba will need to sell all of its media assets, though reports say all of its plans will need to be approved by top Communist Party officials.
Alibaba Group, founded by wealthy Chinese businessman Jack Ma, started out as an e-commerce company in its early days and now has a large number of media assets. The reporter looked up information and found that Alibaba’s media industry covers print media, social media, advertising, movies and commercials, among which Alibaba holds Sina Weibo, bilibili and other popular social media platforms in China, as well as Chinese media outlets such as China Business News, Tiger.com and Business Review, and acquired the South China Morning Post, a veteran English-language newspaper in Hong Kong, in 2017. In addition, Alibaba has also established joint ventures and partnerships with official media outlets such as Xinhua News Agency.
Jack Ma allegedly has ties to former leadership
Alibaba declined to comment on the incident, saying only that it is a passive investor in media assets. Earlier, the Wall Street Journal broke the story that China has been investigating the shareholding structure of Ant Group, founded by Jack Ma, for a long Time and found that Jiang Zhicheng, the grandson of former Chinese leader Jiang Zemin, and Li Botan, the son-in-law of Jia Qinglin, a member of the Communist Party’s Politburo Standing Committee, were secret investors behind Ant. The world speculates whether this move by the Chinese side means that the Chinese Communist Party no longer trusts red capitalists like Jack Ma and wants to take full control of public opinion.
Financial scholar: The Chinese Communist Party no longer trusts Jack Ma and wants to take full control of public opinion
Financial scholar “Commander” said that the Chinese side no longer trusts Ma Yun, who has a background of red capital, and hopes that the party will take full control of public opinion to avoid the recurrence of the “Southern Weekend incident”, which made newspapers write articles in line with Beijing’s voice.
“Commander”: “The Chinese government feels that… Ma’s influence is so great that it would be very uncomfortable for the Chinese government to simply let him be a celebrity entrepreneur. For the media to be controlled by Ma, it would be better to say that it would be smoother and more reassuring to have complete direct control by the party, because she wants to avoid another ‘Southern Weekend’ incident.”
Hong Kong media “South China Morning Post” in the future or to “Xi”?
“The commander” continued, since the acquisition of the South China Morning Post by Jack Ma, he felt that the newspaper has long appeared self-censorship, but that the South China Morning Post “has not yet been surnamed Party”, is still considered part of the Hong Kong media. For the future of the South China Morning Post, he believes that the central government wants the media to be called “Xi”, which is an inevitable trend, and can be seen from the interaction between the newspaper and China, whether it is called “Party” or “Xi”.
Commander: “In the case of the Party, the main thing is to return to the fact that the South China Morning Post, in reporting major events, should first report (contact) the propaganda team of the Liaison Office of the Central Government in Hong Kong; in the case of Xi, it is different, directly by the Chinese Communist Party officials or the Propaganda Department, or by the People’s Daily and Xinhua News Agency to send guidance staff directly into the South China Morning Post.”
Scholar: It will take some time to determine whether the South China Morning Post has deteriorated
According to Fang Fangcheng, an assistant professor at the School of Journalism and Communication of the Chinese University of Hong Kong who used to be a reporter for the South China Morning Post, the nature of the South China Morning Post and the South China Weekend are different and it is difficult to draw an analogy because the South China Weekend was originally an institutional media, but the South China Morning Post is still a commercial media, no matter in the past, at present or in the short term, and we do not think the South China Morning Post will become a Chinese daily in the short term. The South China Morning Post is still a commercial media, no matter before, now or in the short term. He believes that the overall press freedom environment in Hong Kong is narrowing, and the future of the South China Morning Post will depend on “who will take over”.
Fang Kecheng: “The next step is to see who will take over, to see how (the Chinese government) can control it commercially, for example, by having more shareholders with a national background, or through the influence of big advertisers. I personally think it will be something that will take a long time to observe, not something that will change immediately.”
The South China Morning Post, Hong Kong’s oldest English-language newspaper, was acquired by Jack Ma in 2015, and there were concerns about whether the editorial and publishing of the South China Morning Post would be affected. In 2017, the South China Morning Post published an opinion piece titled “How’s the Singaporean investor in the Peninsula’s holding company linked to Xi Jinping‘s right-hand man” (How’s the Singaporean investor in the Peninsula’s (How’s the Singaporean investor in the Peninsula’s holding company linked to Xi Jinping’s right-hand man? The report points out that the Singaporean investor, Cai Huabo, made a massive acquisition of shares in Hong Kong’s Shanghai Hotels Group in late June and used the same registered address as Li Qianxin, the daughter of NPC Chairman Li Zhanshu, suggesting that the two were a couple, and points out in the article that this type of shareholding is usually a common tactic used by the Communist Party of China’s princelings or connected mainland Chinese to start business in Hong Kong.
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