Chinese authorities have fined Alibaba, founded by Chinese tycoon Jack Ma, 18.2 billion yuan for anti-monopoly reasons. While there is still much speculation about whether Jack Ma will emerge from the storm, some analysts believe that the authorities’ regulatory storm may subsequently affect more platform giants, among which Ma’s Tencent may be the first to bear the brunt.
Alibaba was “beaten up”, Tencent is next?
According to Reuters, it is believed that Alibaba is being punished as a “bird in the head”, but more platform giants are likely to face anti-trust investigations next. After Alibaba, the market will start to speculate on which company will be next, said Huang Deji, executive director of Hong Kong-based Goldlion Securities.
China’s two biggest tech giants, Alibaba and Tencent, each have their own anti-monopoly risks, or abuses of their dominant market positions, according to You Yunting, a lawyer at Shanghai Dabang Law Firm. However, Alibaba is involved in the charge of forcing merchants to “choose one or the other”, which is relatively easy to prove.
Reuters reported in March that Tencent Holdings founder Ma Huateng met with officials from China’s antitrust regulator that month to discuss the company’s compliance, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said. Tencent is expected to be the next company to face stricter anti-monopoly regulatory investigations.
Ma has been away from the public eye for more than a year compared with Ma’s high-profile past, having applied for medical leave last year to miss the “two sessions.
The CEO of Hong Kong’s Wisdom East Securities, Lin Changnian, also believes that after Alibaba’s punishment, other Chinese internet giants may be repaired next.
Shanghai AEQUITAS RESEARCH analyst Lu Ming said that China’s General Administration of Municipal Supervision will punish more e-commerce platforms, like online auto or real estate agencies.
Jack Ma’s dive Ali was heavily fined by the sky
Jack Ma has had a series of woes since he blasted Chinese Communist Party regulators in Shanghai in October 2020. First, he was interviewed by officials, then the $37 billion IPO of Ant Group was temporarily called off, Ali’s stock price plummeted, and Ma himself was “disappeared” and his situation has remained unclear. But in recent days, the news about Ma’s bad luck has continued to be released.
The Financial Times reported on April 9 that Hupan University, the university founded by Jack Ma, has suspended enrollment of new students under pressure from Beijing authorities.
The report cited sources as saying that some senior officials are viewing Hupan University as a modern-day version of the “Donglin Academy,” fearing that it will gather like-minded thinkers and threaten the Communist regime, just as the Ming Dynasty’s “Donglin Academy” did.
On the same day, Alibaba’s media outlet, the South China Morning Post, said in an internal letter that it would lay off 4% of its staff to “reorganize its structure”. On the same day, the Beijing Municipal Housing and Urban-Rural Development Commission’s official microblog, Anju Beijing, also released news that Alibaba’s second-hand trading platform, Idlefish, had been interviewed by the Beijing Municipal Housing and Construction Commission for allegedly publishing illegal rental information.
On April 10, the Communist Party’s General Administration of Market Supervision (GAMS) suddenly announced that Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group had been fined 18.228 billion yuan for violating the Anti-Monopoly Law.
This is the highest amount of fine issued since the CCP enforced the Anti-Monopoly Law; it is also the first time that the CCP has taken on a high-tech company after years of laissez-faire anti-monopoly enforcement of Internet platforms.
Alibaba Group announced immediately after the fine that it would “resolutely comply” with the law.
The Chinese Communist Party’s anti-monopoly water is deep and Ma Yun has broken his fortune to avoid disaster?
Current affairs commentator Situ Jian analyzed that the authorities imposed an astronomical fine on Ali, which was actually the result of some bargaining between Jack Ma and the Chinese Communist Party’s top management. On the one hand, it shows that the Chinese Communist Party’s plundering of private wealth is further open, on the other hand, it is also a way to compromise with money between different factions of the Chinese Communist Party’s power elites. The fact that Alibaba immediately issued a statement to soften its position shows that Ma wanted to avoid the disaster by breaking his fortune, probably remembering what happened to Wu Xiaohui, Xiao Jianhua and even Lai Xiaomin.
However, he believes that this matter should not be concluded, otherwise Ma Yun has been able to show up to report peace.
Li Jun, a well-known media person, said that Alibaba was fined 18.228 billion yuan. This matter is very unusual. In China, as long as you admit your mistakes with a good attitude, the fine is usually just symbolic, a few hundred thousand.
He said Ali was heavily fined 18.2 billion to make history, Lakeside University stopped recruiting, and Ma and Ali’s troubles began to escalate. Is this an anti-monopoly or a money grab? Shouldn’t the anti-monopoly first look for PetroChina, China Telecom, China Electric Power Company, China Railway ah? They are absolute monopolies.
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