Jack Ma had everything in life. He had founded Alibaba.com, the Asian e-commerce giant whose international version, AliExpress, overshadowed Amazon itself; he was a billionaire, the richest person in his country; he had been praised by the Chinese government itself for creating a successful business model, he was one of the most important personalities in China… until everything changed.
At the end of 2020, the businessman criticized the financial laws of his country in a public forum. He said that traditional banks in China were run as "pawnshops", which caused the authorities of the Asian country to put the cross on him. This marked a before and after in his life. He came to disappear for months from public life.
The campaign against Ma and his company began with the halting of Ant Group's listing on the Hong Kong stock exchange. In addition, the government also fined it nearly 2.3 billion euros (18.2 billion yuan) for violations by Alibaba related to its dominant market position.
It was then that Jack Ma decided to withdraw from public life. First, he abandoned the leadership of the business conglomerate that he had founded and, later, he eliminated any public appearance. It was rumored that he had been arrested.
In fact, it was recently reported that Ma went into self-exile from China so that the government could no longer persecute him. Both he and his family moved to Tokyo, where he now teaches at the prestigious University of Tokyo at Tokyo College. According to the university website, Jack Ma shares "his rich experience and innovative knowledge of him in entrepreneurship, business management and innovation" through different seminars.
The case of Jack Ma is paradigmatic of how the Chinese regime treats critical citizens, however solemn they may be. The businessman has gone from being one of the country's personalities to persona non grata in a matter of months.
