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 First Financial, Tiger News and Business Review, and acquired the South China Morning Post, a long-established 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.
Some scholars believe that the central government no longer trusts Ma, who has a background in red capital, and hopes that the party will take full control of public opinion to avoid the recurrence of the “Southern Weekend incident”.
Ma accused of having 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 the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) had been investigating the shareholding structure of Ant Group founded by Jack Ma for a long Time, and found that former CCP leader Jiang Zemin’s grandson Jiang Zhicheng and Jia Qinglin’s son-in-law Li Botan, a member of the CCP’s Politburo Standing Committee, were the secret investors behind Ant. The outside world speculates whether this move means that the CCP no longer trusts red capitalists like Jack Ma and wants to take full control of public opinion.
Financial scholars: the Chinese Communist Party no longer trusts Jack Ma to take full control of public opinion
Financial scholar “Commander” says the Chinese Communist Party no longer trusts Ma, who has a red capitalist background, and wants the party to take full control of public opinion to avoid a repeat of the “Southern Weekend incident,” which made newspapers write articles in line with Beijing’s voice.
The 2013 Southern Weekend New Year’s Special Issue (also known as the New Year’s dedication incident) is an incident in which the staff of Southern Weekend claimed that they were pressured by the Press Department of the Propaganda Department of the CPC Guangdong Provincial Committee to make substantial changes to the New Year’s message and related content in the 2013 New Year’s Special Issue without going through the normal publication process [1], and made several common sense errors [2] [3], which triggered protests by the editorial staff of Southern Weekend. The incident triggered protests by the editorial staff of Southern Weekend. The incident sparked widespread attention from global media and users of social networking sites such as Twitter and Sina Weibo, with the main focus on censorship and press freedom in the mainland of the People’s Republic of China.
“Commander”: “The Chinese government feels…that Ma’s influence, if he is simply left as a celebrity entrepreneur, is very uncomfortable for the Chinese government. For the media to be controlled by Ma, it would be better to say, completely controlled by the party directly, to come more smoothly and more comfortable, because she wants to avoid another ‘Southern Weekend’ incident.”
Hong Kong media “South China Morning Post” in the future or to “Xi”?
“Commander” continued to point out that since Jack Ma bought the South China Morning Post, he felt that the newspaper has long appeared self-censorship, but that the South China Morning Post “has not 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 named “Xi”, which is an inevitable trend, and can be seen from the newspaper’s interaction with China, whether it is named “Party” or “Xi”.
On December 11, 2015, Alibaba announced its acquisition of the Hong Kong newspaper South China Morning Post.
Commander: “If it’s surnamed Party, the main thing to return to is that the South China Morning Post, in reporting major events, has to first report (contact) the propaganda team of the Central Liaison Office in Hong Kong; if it’s surnamed Xi, it’s 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 newspaper.”
Scholars: It will take some time to determine whether the South China Morning Post has deteriorated
The South China Morning Post and the South China Weekend are different in nature, and it is difficult to draw an analogy because the South China Weekend was originally a media outlet within the system, but the South China Morning Post is still a commercial media outlet, no matter in the past, at present, or 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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