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Where is Jack Ma? Social media buzz about the famous billionaire puts spotlight on Chinese tech.

InternationalJan 07. 2021

Jack Ma

By The Washington Post · Jeanne Whalen

China’s most famous billionaire has suffered months of mounting trouble, with regulators turning the screws on his tech empire. And now social media is abuzz with the darkest speculation yet: Is Jack Ma missing?

The charismatic founder of the e-commerce giant Alibaba, known for his frequent Davos appearances and Michael Jackson dance moves, hasn’t been seen in public since late October, when he criticized Chinese regulators in a speech.

His absence, combined with regulatory troubles including a recent antitrust probe, have fueled wild speculation on social media about his whereabouts, with some fearing he is under house arrest. In China, it’s not unusual for powerful figures to disappear with little public explanation when they fall afoul of authorities – such as in 2018, when the country’s most prominent movie star, Fan Bingbing, fell off the map for months before reemerging to confess to tax evasion.

A CNBC reporter who has interviewed Ma in the past tamped down some of the wilder speculation Tuesday, reporting that Ma was not missing but merely “being less visible, purposefully.”

Still, the saga has drawn attention to the increasingly uneasy position of China’s tech giants, which may be growing too big and powerful for the ruling Communist Party’s liking.

The increased scrutiny they are receiving has many Chinese characteristics, but it mirrors some of the anti-tech regulation happening in the United States and Europe, where worries have also mounted about the economic and political power of the world’s biggest companies.

“I think it’s relatively similar dynamics at play in all these places. There are lots of winner-take-all network dynamics, which raises some worries about competition and about the societal impacts,” said Martin Chorzempa, a research fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a Washington think tank. “In China, the societal concerns include worries about private entrepreneurs being able to challenge the party-state. In the U.S., it is more about misinformation and alleged political bias.”

In some respects, China’s internet giants are even more powerful than their Western counterparts, with the market more concentrated around a couple of top players.

Ma, a former English teacher from Hangzhou, founded the e-commerce company Alibaba in 1999 and built it into China’s version of Amazon, with annual revenue of $50 billion. Ant Group was spun off from Alibaba in 2014, after a decade as Alibaba’s in-house payment processing arm.

The companies were part of a group of tech start-ups, including Tencent and Baidu, that eventually grew into multinational behemoths, outside the more traditional system of state-owned enterprises. Ma became a business celebrity in China, widely admired for his success and colorful public appearances, including his rock-and-roll performances at annual employee galas.

Under President Xi Jinping, who has tried to reassert state control over the economy, the market might of the tech giants has at times caused tension.

Ant Group, a $16 billion-a-year business, has been chipping away at powerful state banks’ market share and unnerving regulators with investment and lending products that have become so popular that Ant sometimes acts as a lender to government banks – not the other way around.

In October, Ma offended the authorities by telling a technology conference that Chinese financial regulators stifle innovation and that big state banks are like “pawnshops.”

Soon after, regulators summoned Ma to Beijing for urgent meetings, and then quashed Ant Group’s plans to raise more than $34 billion by listing its stock on the Shanghai and Hong Kong exchanges.

And late last month, Chinese regulators said they were launching an antitrust investigation into Alibaba, and would question Ant Group executives about the financial platform’s competitive and consumer-protection practices.

Ma, meanwhile, skipped a planned appearance in November on a television show he created, “Africa’s Business Heroes,” the Financial Times reported.

Representatives of Alibaba, Ant Group and the Jack Ma Foundation didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Orville Schell, a longtime China watcher and Ma friend at the Asia Society in New York, said he doesn’t think this is a “fully scheduled voluntary retreat for him.”

“He is keeping his head down at the very least, and I don’t think he is going to rise again in the same dimension we were used to before,” Schell said.

Ma came of age in the 1990s, under then-Communist Party leader Jiang Zemin, when “civil society was strong and everybody was setting up environmental organizations and NGOs,” Schell said.

“That’s when he was in Davos. All these new, young entrepreneurs were infiltrating into global society and business,” Schell said. “That was just fine until Xi Jinping did not imagine Chinese society continuing to evolve in a more open and dispersed way.”

Large companies like Alibaba have gone from being “part of a quest for national greatness to being a potential threat to the preeminence of the party,” Schell said.

Aaron Friedberg, a China expert and politics professor at Princeton University, said Xi’s desire to rein in large, independent companies runs counter to his other big goal – boosting China’s technological might.

“The most dynamic companies in China since the beginning of reform and opening up have been nominally private, not state-owned, enterprises,” he said. “And if they really want to become innovative, certainly the view of most Western economists is they are going to have to let the private sector have more space.”

There is a view among China’s leadership, however, that heavy state investment and goal-setting also have boosted China’s technological rise and that the Communist Party can have its cake and eat it, too, Friedberg added.

The theory goes, “We’re going to have a bigger role in driving and directing innovation because it’s so urgent for strategic reasons. And, yes, we’re going to have private companies, but we’re going to keep them under control,” Friedberg said.

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North Korea’s Kim Jong Un acknowledges ‘painful lessons’ as economy suffers

InternationalJan 06. 2021Kim Jong Un

By The Washington Post · Simon Denyer, Min Joo Kim · NATIONAL, WORLD, POLITICS, NATIONAL-SECURITY, ASIA-PACIFIC 

TOKYO – North Korean leader Kim Jong Un opened a rare ruling-party Congress this week with a frank admission that his country’s economy had “immensely underachieved” in the past five years, and said he had learned “painful lessons” from the experience, state media reported Wednesday.

Since taking power in 2012, Kim has made a habit of admitting failures even as he celebrates the successes of his regime. In October, he made a tearful apology to the North Korean people for failing to always live up to their expectations, under the twin pressures of sanctions and the coronavirus pandemic and after one of the toughest years for the economy in decades. 

Kim did not flag any fundamental change in direction, however, nor suggest in the Tuesday remarks that he would approach the West cap-in-hand for sanctions relief. The “quickest and surest solution” to the problems North Korea is facing is the “reinforcement of our very own self-reliant power by all possible means,” he said.

He also celebrated the regime’s “miraculous victories” over the past five years and the “remarkable” achievement of being able to hold the Eighth Congress of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea during a pandemic, as he addressed about 7,000 delegates who were not wearing masks. 

But he stressed the “heavy responsibility of leading Korea to a stronger and richer path in this world full of harsh challenges and instability,” and finding a “shortcut to bring happiness to the people of our nation.”

It was only the second party Congress to take place in the past four decades, with previous gatherings in 2016 and 1980, as Kim appears to move toward a Chinese model of five-yearly meetings to review and chart economic plans.

Kim made no mention of the United States in what was a domestically focused speech, although he said that “reactionary forces” who are hostile toward North Korea “suffered severe damage.”

But unlike in 2016, he also made no mention of nuclear weapons, and his language left the door open to possible engagement with the President-elect Biden, experts said.

“He’s leaving room to deal with the Biden administration,” said John Delury, a professor at Yonsei University in Seoul. “It’s very hard not to see that as deliberate.”

Some experts have expressed concern that Kim might greet the incoming Biden administration with a missile test, as a way of getting Washington’s attention and raising itself up the diplomatic agenda. So far, at least, there is no sign of that, and Delury said the two sides are “looking to size one another up.”

Lim Eul-chul, an expert on the North Korean economy at South Korea’s Kyungnam University, said he saw hints of possible economic reforms in the next five-year plan that should be announced this week as the Congress continues.

“Kim himself is painfully aware of the problems inside the North Korean society,” he said.

In his speech, Kim said officials had been dispatched to different parts of the country “to sincerely listen to voices of party members, farmers and workers on the ground.”

Lim said that signals Kim’s willingness to “understand public sentiment at the grass-roots level and develop a more realistic and effective solution.”

After closing its borders soon after the coronavirus pandemic emerged in neighboring China, North Korea says it has not recorded any cases of the virus, although experts and South Korea’s government say this is hard to believe.

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Control of the U.S. Senate goes down to the wire in Georgia runoff races

InternationalJan 06. 2021Democratic Senate hopeful Rev. Raphael Warnock speaks to canvassers in Georgia on Tuesday, Jan. 5, 2021. MUST CREDIT: Photo by Kevin D. Liles for The Washington Post

By The Washington Post · Reis Thebault, Michael Scherer, Cleve R. Wootson Jr. · NATIONAL, POLITICS, CONGRESS 

ATLANTA – Control of the U.S. Senate hung in the balance Tuesday night as Georgia election officials counted the results of two closely contested runoff races that will determine whether Democrats can enact a sweeping legislative agenda during the first years of Joe Biden’s presidency. 

After swapping leads over the course of the night, Democrats Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff benefited from late counts in Democratic areas of the state, which gave Warnock a narrow lead over Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler with nearly all precincts reporting. Ossoff was essentially tied with David Perdue, a Republican, whose Senate term lapsed Sunday.

A win by either Democrat would represent a historic upset in a longtime Republican bastion, signaling a clear shift in the political makeup of the state that Biden won nine weeks ago. Warnock would be the first African American Democratic senator from a former Confederate state, and Ossoff, 33, would be the youngest newly elected Democratic senator since Biden in 1973.

At stake was the governing coalition Biden will enjoy in his first years in office. If both Democrats win, they would flip control of the Senate, with the tie-breaking vote of Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, opening the door for potential passage of legislation Democrats campaigned on over the past two years, including an expansion of federal health-care subsidies, a tax increase on the wealthy and a comprehensive immigration overhaul. 

President Donald Trump had supported both Republicans in the race, most recently on Monday, calling Loeffler and Perdue close allies who were essential to holding back Democratic priorities. 

But his efforts were complicated by his simultaneous decision to attack Republican officials in the state, his proposal to increase stimulus payments to $2,000, which was opposed by GOP Senate leadership and embraced by Democrats, and his false allegations that the 2020 elections in the state were rigged.

Loeffler and Perdue closed out the campaign warning that unified Democratic control of the House, Senate and presidency would be catastrophic for the nation. Because of possible exposure to the coronavirus, Perdue had to finish the campaign with remote appearances.

“We have to STOP socialism. We have to PROTECT the American Dream,” Loeffler tweeted after polling places opened. “We have to SAVE our country!” 

Ossoff and Warnock, who reject the “socialist” label, closed the campaign promising dramatic changes in Washington, including a $1,400 increase to the $600 stimulus checks Congress approved last month, a surge in vaccine distribution, new civil rights legislation and an ambitious jobs and infrastructure bill. The Republican Senate had tabled the larger stimulus checks, holding to the lower level despite pressure from Democrats and President Trump.

“This is history unfolding in Georgia right now,” Ossoff said in a Tuesday morning appearance at a polling site in Atlanta. “Georgia voters have never had more power than you have today. That is the reason the whole world is watching us.” 

Republicans have a historical advantage in the traditionally lower-turnout runoffs in the state, and the Democratic Senate candidates ran behind both the victorious Biden and the combined votes of their Republican opponents in the first round of voting in November. They were given another chance because multicandidate fields prevented anyone from breaching the 50% threshold. 

Both parties immediately repurposed their presidential campaign ground operations and flooded resources to the state, embracing the all-or-nothing stakes of the final two contests of the election season. The four candidates and their supportive outside groups spent nearly $500 million on television and radio advertising on the runoff races, with the Republicans attacking their opponents as radical liberals with untested biographies and the Democrats labeling the incumbents as representatives of the status quo who profited from private stock trades after receiving official briefings about covid-19. 

To win their race, Democratic strategists said, they needed to repeat the strong November turnout among Black, Asian and Hispanic voters in the state while maintaining the anti-Trump margins they had received in college-educated suburban Atlanta communities. Republicans were counting on winning back some of the White, college-educated vote, with Trump off the ballot, while maintaining the high turnout that Trump had attracted in more rural parts of the state. 

That effort has been complicated by the president, who offered passionate endorsements for both Republicans in the runoffs, while pursuing his own sometimes contradictory agenda to overturn the results of the 2020 election in Georgia and elsewhere, prompting concerns among Republican strategists that he would dissuade their voters from casting ballots. He also told Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in a call Saturday that if Biden’s win in the state was not overturned, Republicans might stay home from the polls this week. 

Trump’s focus on the last election was an animating force for Republicans who traveled to campaign events in the closing weeks, with voters frequently repeating disproved conspiracy theories of a rigged November contest. Concerned that the misinformation would reduce turnout, Raffensperger’s office staged a news conference Monday to plead with Georgians to disregard Trump’s false arguments and vote in the runoff elections. 

In a final Georgia rally Monday night, Trump showed no sign of giving up on his crusade against state Republicans, whom he blamed for not overturning Biden’s win. 

“I’m going to be here in a year and a half, and I’m going to be campaigning against your governor and your crazy secretary of state,” Trump said in Dalton, where he endorsed Loeffler and Perdue as the “last line of defense” against Democratic control. 

Trump’s efforts to overturn the last election also became a rallying cry for Democrats, who hoped the president’s continued involvement would drive their own turnout higher. When Biden traveled to the state Monday to campaign for the Democrats, he argued that Trump’s effort to reverse the election result was a reason for voters to go to the polls. 

“Politicians cannot assert, seize or take power,” Biden said. “Power is granted by the American people, and we cannot give that up.” 

Preliminary exit polls found roughly 7 in 10 Georgia voters were confident that votes in Tuesday’s runoff elections would be accurately counted. But there were sharp partisan differences, with about 3 in 4 Republican voters saying the presidential election in the state was not conducted fairly, compared with more than 9 in 10 Democrats who said the election was fair.

The Republican skepticism of the vote count marked a shift since Biden narrowly won the state in November. Then, network exit polling found that 92% of Republicans believed votes would be counted accurately, slightly higher than 79% of Democrats. 

Before election sites opened Tuesday, Democrats had racked up a significant lead among absentee votes that gave hope to party strategists that they could win the state if GOP Election Day turnout disappointed. Polls in the state since the last election have consistently shown a tight race in both contests.

If Warnock and Ossoff are victorious, it will be just the second time in nearly three decades that two Democrats represent Georgia in the Senate. 

Strategists and experts have attributed part of the escalating success of Georgia Democrats to a foundation of political organization powered by Stacey Abrams, who narrowly lost the 2018 gubernatorial race to now-Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, and the legion of activists who have since joined her cause. In 2016, Trump won Georgia by five points. Two years later, Kemp beat Abrams by about a point and a half.

Biden won the state in November by fewer than 12,000 votes, or about 0.2 percentage points, becoming the first Democrat since Bill Clinton in 1992 to carry Georgia. 

In the case of a close contest, extended litigation could also delay a final result. Republicans filed a lawsuit this week requesting greater transparency in the counting of absentee ballots in Fulton County, a Democratic bastion that includes much of the Atlanta metropolitan area. 

A victory for the Republicans would cement the third consecutive cycle, with Donald Trump leading the party, when Democrats have been unable to take back control of the upper legislative chamber despite high initial hopes. It would also underscore the challenges that Democrats had in state legislative and U.S. House races, in which they struggled to overcome Republican attacks about socialism and defunding the police, positions that most in the party do not support. 

The result will also give an early clue about the staying power of Trump, who has indicated that he will attempt to continue to be a major force in American politics after his long-shot bid to overturn November’s presidential election results is over. 

“The one thing I know, if they win, I’ll get no credit, and if they lose, they’re going to blame Trump,” he said Monday about his role in the race. 

Long lines formed early at polling places across the state Tuesday but dwindled throughout the day, and the secretary of state’s office reported average wait times of just a couple of minutes by the afternoon. Officials said it was unclear whether short wait times reflected low turnout or an efficient process. 

Bobby Caro, a 25-year-old first-time voter in Kennesaw, an Atlanta suburb, cast his ballot for Warnock and Ossoff on Tuesday morning. He described himself as “very new to politics” and said the drumbeat of advertisements about the runoffs convinced him he needed to register – that and the razor-thin margin in November. 

“In the presidential election, I didn’t vote; it got close, and I said, ‘I almost didn’t get what I want,’ so I decided to do something now,” Caro said. 

This time around, he saw more enthusiasm from young people like him, and he voted for Democrats because he felt they had a more positive outlook on the country and its future. 

At the same precinct, Jim Earwood, a 67-year-old retiree, said he appreciated Trump’s ceaseless commentary on the Georgia election, from his early and uncorroborated claims of fraud to his weekend call to the secretary of state. 

“I’m glad he’s involved,” Earwood said. “Everybody says he’s not presidential, and that’s what I like about him.” 

As he left the Christian church that served as a polling place, Earwood said he voted all Republican. 

“I wouldn’t vote for a Dem here lately unless they let Jesus on the ticket,” he said. 

Republican concerns about turnout were evident up to the final hours of voting, with Perdue and Loeffler releasing a joint statement Tuesday afternoon asking people to keep going to the polls, saying the election “could come down to the difference of just a few votes in a few precincts across the state.”