huxiu.com stopped updating for a month because it stood up for Jack Ma and sang against the authorities?

Ant Group’s actual controller Jack Ma has been frequently knocked recently.

The Chinese business information platform Tiger.com has announced that it will stop updating for 1 month from 11:59 pm on December 18, 2020. Previously, an article published by the network that disagreed with Beijing authorities was taken down, and there was speculation that the cessation of updates might be related to the article.

TigerSniff.com issued an announcement on the 18th, saying that TigerSniff.com website and App will stop updating for 1 month starting from 11:59 pm on December 18, 2020, and will enter maintenance status.

The announcement also stated that “we will actively create a clear space and strive to provide better services to our users”.

A day before that (17th), Eastland, the research director of Tiger.com, published an article titled “Anti-monopoly, but at the same time, we should be wary of “no monopoly to fight””. The article affirms the changes that online companies and Internet giants have brought to China’s economy and technology applications, and says that while regulation should be done, it should also be noted that China needs more powerful online companies to join the international competition, citing companies such as Tencent, Ali, and Byte Jumping.

On Nov. 10, Zhou Xiaochuan, the former governor of the Communist Party of China’s central bank, criticized the monopoly of online technology giants for inhibiting fair competition. On the same day, the Communist Party’s State Administration of Market Regulation published the “Anti-monopoly Guidelines on the Platform Economy (Draft for Comments)”.

On December 15, Sun Tianqi, director of the Financial Stability Bureau of the Central Bank, said that deposit products on Internet financial platforms are illegal financial activities that are “driving without a license” and should be included in the scope of financial supervision.

At the Economic Work Conference of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) from 16th to 18th, Li Keqiang made specific arrangements for next year’s economic work and proposed eight key tasks for next year, including “strengthening anti-monopoly and preventing disorderly expansion of capital”, stressing that “we will resolutely oppose monopoly and unfair competition. Financial innovation must be carried out under the premise of prudential supervision”.

The commentator pointed out in an article that this is tantamount to pointing the finger at Jack Ma and others without naming them.

On the 18th, Ma’s Alipay took down all its Internet deposit products. Ant Group responded by saying that it would carefully implement the relevant regulatory norms and requirements.

The above article in Tiger.com seems to have the intention of singing against the authorities and calling for injustice for Jack Ma and others. The article was quickly taken down.

In addition, some self-publishers pointed out that on the morning of the 18th, TigerSniff also published an article titled “What will Ali die from? which was also quickly removed.

However, we have not yet seen any official announcement from the central or local netizen office asking TigerSniff to rectify the situation.

According to Zhong Yuan, Ma and others certainly have people behind them, otherwise it would be impossible for them to get large sums of money and avoid tough regulations in mainland China. But now that the Chinese Communist Party is out of money, the opportunities for corruption are different. I’m afraid that the next round will not only be a mass cutting of leeks, but will also likely herald a new round of internal battles within the Communist Party after the uneven distribution of the spoils.