"Alibaba Management is somehow increasing the length and content of their 20-F's, yet, incredibly, they seem to disclose and communicate an even smaller snippet of "meaningful" financial information every year. In fact, there's no longer any doubt in my mind, that they actually go out of their way to deliver ever larger bales of content-free financial silliness. They are not "unfamiliar with Western Financial Reporting Conventions" or doing things "the way they do it in China" as some pundits would have us believe. Math is math no matter where you are on the planet. Gravity is the same whether you are in London, New York or Beijing. Alibaba Managers are in fact masters of manipulation, bending the truth brilliantly to suit their needs. Perhaps they are banking on the premise that nobody actually reads their filings/drivel anyway? (The SEC staff doesn't seem all that concerned!)"

"If, by some strange, impossible happenstance, I'm completely, totally wrong.... and Alibaba isn't actually the tip of the spear for the CCP's full frontal assault on the Western Financial System, the only other conclusion I can possibly come to is that Alibaba the goofiest, most convoluted, opaque, mis-managed accounting mess and business structure in history. That, unfortunately, is the "best case" scenario."

"Yet, Alibaba (BABA) continues to trade higher as increasing numbers of shares find their way into US Financial/Custodial Institutions. Because its value, like the RMB, at least for a time, is pegged/driven by the CCP through off-shore mechanisms, the risk of collapse grows larger by the day. At some point it all has to come tumbling down. But when? That's the immediate, multi-trillion-dollar question."

https://deep-throat-ipo.blogspot.com/2018/08/the-baba-20-ffi...

I think they are referring to Alibaba (allegedly) being a front for the Chinese Communist Party to launder money.