Jack Ma, the head of e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd and China’s best-known capitalist, is a Communist Party member, the official Party newspaper said on Monday, debunking a public assumption the billionaire was politically unattached. [More]Foolish proletariat...
Lacking other information, I wouldn't read too much into it.
ReplyDeleteAssuming it's true at all - state-run media tending to be pure propaganda to promote The Party[TM], and often willing to lie to the public to make The Party[TM] look good - here are several reasons to take it with the proverbial grain of salt (from the article itself, with emphasis added):
"Jack Ma, the head of e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd and China’s best-known capitalist, is a Communist Party member, the official Party newspaper said on Monday, debunking a public assumption the billionaire was politically unattached."
Of course they'll claim a successful person as their own.
"It was unclear why the paper chose to mention Ma’s affiliation now but it comes amid a push by Beijing to bring the country’s private enterprises more in line with Party values...."
Whatever eases that transition without excessively devaluing the commodities.
"The paper did not say when Ma had become a Party member."
No, and if it's true I'd almost be willing to bet it was pretty recently, and at least partially due to this: https://www.businessinsider.com/china-social-credit-system-punishments-and-rewards-explained-2018-4
More here: https://www.wired.co.uk/article/chinese-government-social-credit-score-privacy-invasion
Also, from the Wired UK article: "Predictably, data giants currently run two of the best-known [social credit] projects.
The first is with China Rapid Finance.... The other, Sesame Credit, is run by the Ant Financial Services Group (AFSG), an affiliate company of Alibaba."
If anyone can see the writing on the wall and where the culture is going, and leverage himself into prosperity among the proles, even despite his great capitalist wealth (which is normally problematic under communist regimes), it's Jack Ma.
I can't tell if he's actually a communist, but it wouldn't surprise me if he said he was in order to avoid the negative social consequences of wrongthink.
Just sayin'.