Jack Ma hasn't been seen publicly in 2 months
businessinsider.in
businessinsider.in
Xi has been purging Jiang's people/influence on the Central Government for the last few years to strengthen his ruling. Originally he was going to leave Ma alone as he has proven himself to be useful.
But 2 things happened- 1. people start to idolize Ma the businessman over the party's absolute rule. 2. Perhaps as a result Ma is embolden to speak out against Xi's government directions.
So now Ma has to go. Ma knew this and that's why he resigned from Alibaba's Chairman position, but it was too late. Ant Financial, with its main backers from Jiang's gang, was put to a standstill. This is only the first step. Expect the party to eventually to take over the Alibaba group (国进民退). No private civilian will be allowed to gain this much power again.
https://time.com/5926062/jack-ma/
“There is no so-called [Ma] era,” read a recent headline in the CCP mouthpiece People’s Daily, “but only an era that has [Ma] in it.”
Anyway, to quote House of Cards-
“Such a waste of time. He chose money over power, in this town, a mistake nearly everyone makes. Money is the McMansion in Sarasota that starts falling apart after ten years. Power — is the old stone building that stands for centuries. I cannot respect someone who doesn’t see the difference.” - Frank Underwood
And despite having a majority in one legislative house, despite appointing tons of the judges, and despite having the ability to ruin the careers of numerous state legislators and executives, he is almost certainly going to fail.
There have been plenty of attempts to imprison people on a whim in the USA and while they have succeeded for a period, they tend not to survive long term either.
I'm not trying to say Americans are somehow better people than others but want to point out the important role unwritten rules and social norms have in our governance. Quite a few countries have tried to establish their government along the same lines as the US, UK, etc. but failed even though their structure is similar to ours and I think a lot of it has to do with what sorts of values people have and hold onto. In fact, the UK has even more unwritten rules than the US -- they lack a constitution but still functions well as a democracy. Pre-WWII Japan copied their government from the UK and it ended up more or less a military state.
https://www.opb.org/article/2020/10/13/new-eyewitness-accoun...
https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2019/03/the-untold-stor...