Jack Ma flees to Tokyo
asia.nikkei.com
asia.nikkei.com
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2022/12/14/business/jack-m...
Note this is not a sudden development; Mr. Ma has been in Tokyo for more than six months, and has done successful business in Japan for over twenty years.
The reasons offered might not be fully satisfactory, but I find this to be a better perspective than the explanations that try to pin the cause of such massive changes in policy on individual people and their personalities, be they Jiang Zemin, Margaret Thatcher, Donald Trump etc. Until we figure out how to stabilize these fluctuations then they, and we, and Jack Ma too, are just riding these long waves, trying to navigate the opportunities and/or disadvantages that each phase offers.
> Who are you?
Nobody special. As a semiretired programmer I have some spare time that I seem to spend on HN to a large degree. I like the dispassionate discourse across divides that this forum sometimes (often?) enables.
Same about the rest of the article. It is so typical for the international "business magazines" to characterise Jiang Zemin's rule through the lens of "neo liberalism", "opening up" etc. This is all bull**. Liberalism (neo or otherwise) requires liberty, while Jiang has built one of China's biggest oppressive aparatus in a form of his "office 610". Its idea was to persecute Falun Hong practitioners, but horrible as it is, it was only a cover story for his personal gestapo. It killed and jailed extrajudicially millions. Let's not forget his rise in the previous leader's eyes was thanks to his "hard line stance" towards the Tiananmen massacre.
Jiang Zemin didn't open up China. He just allowed selected foreigners to get rich too. Just look at all those "billionaires" that appeared during "his era". They are all tied to him or his faction (there was no other way to succeed at a time). This is precisely why they are all distrusted by the current ruling faction. There has been antagonism between the Jiang and the Xi factions for a long time.
The only thing Jiang was objectively better at was in projecting China's image abroad.
Also Jack Ma is no saint. He's pushed for the 996 hour system (9am-9pm, 6 days a week) which is illegal under Chinese labor law. Most of his grips with the Chinese government has nothing to do with "liberty". Unless you consider being able to exploit already disempowered workers a "right"
Can we stop trying to make this such a black/white issue? The fact that someone hates China doesn't make them somehow worthy of praise
For every Jack Ma who’s left, there are a thousand lesser known entrepreneurs who’ve shipped out, and a hundred thousand folks who’ve moved their money out/sent their kids abroad.
It’s not a twilight of neoliberalism. It’s the twilight of China’s rise.
[1] https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/taiwan-votes-loca...
One politician's failed attempt at using fear-mongering about imminent Chinese to get elected does not imply the Taiwanese want to become part of China.
Compare that Hong Kong, where life sucks but, end of the day, it isn't a war zone. Not as civilised as it once was, but still a respectable city.
At the end of the day, there are some very difficult decisions to be made by Taiwan. Integration into China is an option that they will at least have to consider. It is a terrible option. It may be the best option they have. In their shoes, I'd be wargaming ditching the US and negotiating some sort of protectorate deal with China. Probably thinking very hard about trying to be grandfathered in as some sort of neutral Switzerland. War is still just as horrific as it ever was and being at war with the world's most industrial superpower is a very bad plan A.
In fact, the only way that ends well for Taiwan is if China experiences some sort of collapse. Possible, but not really a good strategy.
If we had let the people decide in Ukraine, we probably wouldn't be at war now. Zelenskyy ran on and was largely elected because of a platform of making peace. And he kept his word once elected and negotiated a peace deal with Putin. It was the US and NATO that stepped in to break that apart when it was just about to be signed.
The people of Ukraine clearly supported peace and we should have respected the people's will
Why should anyone believe a word from a Russian peace agreement is actually going to be honoured?. They already previously promised to respect Ukraines sovereignty and to never invade it but they went ahead and did it anyway.
Russia is not a good faith actor, and you cannot treat it as one.
Americans need to own up to their role in this (no, I'm not a Russia apologist)
So? it doesn't matter what Russia thinks, Ukraine is a sovereign country that can join NATO if it wants, just like other former Warsaw pact countries they all probably have a very good reason.
> And NATO has actually made multiple promises to NOT expand to the point of Russia's border but has made those exact expansions 3 times in the past decades.
This is actually false, NATO has never made this promise, there is time just after the fall of the Soviet Union that people claim this was made but the person who was there at the time disagrees, you can read about that here.
https://theconversation.com/ukraine-the-history-behind-russi...
> Everything Russia's done has pretty much been a direct response to this.
I agree thats it's very likely that everything Russia has done has to do with either perceived slights (that dont actually exist) or imperialism.
> The primary ask of the peace deal was basically just that Ukraine doesn't join NATO
The reason Russia doesn't want Ukraine joining NATO is so that they can try this again in the future, Ukraine needs solid military alliances (even if not NATO) that mandate boots on the ground.
> That's exactly what this proxy war is and exactly why we keep sending so much "aid"
Our "aid" actually stops Ukrainians being killed and tortured, but if your all for letting Ukraine been steam rolled and genocided by Russia you wouldn't want any "aid" sent I guess.
> Americans need to own up to their role in this (no, I'm not a Russia apologist)
I'll take your word for it but every single sentence so far has been pretty much straight pro Russian so don't be surprised if I find it not believable.
If your not a Russian apologist I take it you want Russia to leave Ukraine (including Crimea) and for war crimes proceedings to begin against the Russians who are committing war crimes in Ukraine?.
This is nonsense. Zelenskyy is on record saying the opposite and blaming Putin for not accepting the peace offering and also it’s obvious Putin started the war. Nobody else did
On the contrary, Russia's invasion of Ukraine has strengthened America's hegemony massively by showing the world how weak Russia is and how good the US's military and intelligence are.
"Taiwan will avoid the faith of becoming another Ukraine."
By just rolling over for China?
Overall you seem pretty pro-CCP.
Just checked my calendar again, it is 2022, not 1992. The US has a single challenger in this entire world, it is China. How strong/weak is Russia is irrelevant.
That military budget got criticized by many Chinese. With a comparable GDP to the US, the CCP constantly refuses to further increase its military spending. As a result of such policy failure, its defense budget is just about 20% of the US one.
Because PRC has greater population and GDP than rest of region combined, of which she spends less than 2% on defense, less than most of her neighbours, less than what America wants NATO allies to spend on, and now less than JPs revised budget. All in all, too modest.
See the chart here: https://www.grid.news/story/global/2022/09/02/three-reasons-...
There does seem to be recent (~2018) in support for independence. But the interesting thing is there was actually a shift towards more support for unification right before that. It's also probably important to take into account the methodology[1] and the low sample sizes corresponding with the largest shifts
[0]: https://esc.nccu.edu.tw/PageDoc/Detail?fid=7801&id=6963
[1]: https://esc.nccu.edu.tw/upload/44/doc/6965/%E9%87%8D%E8%A6%8...
The lack of support for "Full Independence" rather than the Status Quo of effective independence they have now is usually explained by people not choosing a policy that provokes China into attack.
The principle is simple for any entity (and a wild west capitalism stint too), when the party need you, you give them your best, and when they don't, according to their grand plan, you must sacrifice without a word.
Nothing is more important than the safety of the party and the ruling class.
You seem to be pretty happy on ignoring all Ma's very dodgy dealings.
It’s really hard to break the cult of nationalism. I’m often wondering how one can do that, besides showcasing the freedom of expression that people can have in the west.
It doesn't matter how good is Xi at running an economy, no one can, not even McKinsey. What makes capitalism successful is millions of initiatives, most of which random, which are tested against the market, the good ideas succeed and take over the bad ones, and in the long run you get extraordinary results. Centralisation always loses.
Good thing he doesn't micromanage the economy then. PRC private sector responsible for 60% of gdp, 70% of innovation, 80% of urban employment and 90% of new jobs. CCP+SEOs does some direction, but most of PRC run on market forces, while (IMO) top down / centralized priorities are more competently directed than inept, seeing as PRC is rapidly closing gap in myriad of industries, so much so that others are centralizing and restarting industrial policies in response to PRC moving up value chain. At least US sees enough PRC potential to rationalize massive unilateral tech sanctions because centralization was winning. See similar response when US had to slap JP semi when their centralized approach worked too well. Reality is, for strategic sectors with high moats, centralization always wins because you can't rely on private sector and capitalism to maintain market lead when the board would rather do stock buy backs. And sometimes centralization requires solid dose of corruption and political connection to align resources with strategic goals that private sector is not capable of tackling.
Years ago this was also noted by Yukon Huang, former World Bank director for China, Russia, and Former Soviet Union Republics, where he observed that PRC is the only country where increased corruption is correlated to increased growth - a paradox according to classical development theories. Essentially everywhere else corruption leads to inefficient allocation because corruption always almost not aligned with state interest. There elite are more just strait up involved in "grand" theft because the system is not aligned to make corruption contingent on realizing state goals. Of course at some point the corruption becomes so much that it affects social fabric, hence Xi's anti corruption drive that some think may have gone over board with respect to development because wheels stopped being greased due to fear/paralysis, no one want to do anythign for little reward or worse.
Besides, if you believe so much in the mainland and CCP, why did you leave?
In my opinion, if the mainland was a democracy, it would have probably overtaken the US by now in almost metric other than the military. Shenzhen would have also left Silicon Valley in the dust a long time ago. It’s too bad.
That only works for people who give a damn about freedom of expression. Can you imagine what it'd be like if almost every conversation you had were linked to money somehow?
Reality demonstrates otherwise. Slapping speculative billionaries and tax evading actors is a great way to improve prospects of country. Deng: let some people get rich. Many did, excessively so. Under Hu, his policies ran it's course, the next step was always to reign the extravagantly rich in. Breaking softwares hold on monopolizing talent to shave seconds of food delivery and tech workforce has now been reoriented towards strategic hardware, sectors that's seen huge growth in employment and wages post soft tech crackdown. Capital controls slowed enormous capital flight, while PRC has been consistently moving up value chain (even during zero covid), with waves of sea turtles abroad flooding back, including record amount from academia now that PRC is flush with resources and opportunities. There's reason US (and TW) literally has to sanction their workforce from working in Chinese semi, while hammering their industrial policies. Meanwhile PRC kids being sent abroad are mostly those too dumb to make it in Gaokao, this isn't the 70-00s where state was sending out top talent to learn abroad, now PRC is not sending their best anymore. See how PRC rapidly climbing science and innovation indexes (controlled for quality) in last few years. All of which doesn't factoring in the fundemental human capita math that PRC is now generating so much high skilled talent (~OECD combined) paired with mature industrial base, that brain drain no longer meaningfully impedes her rise. And last I checked PRC is still generating plenty of media and winning tons of the medals in the last few olympics. Believe it or not, most Chinese are fine pursuing the dream of being an apolitical millionaire with an escape plan abroad just incase their kids are too dumb to compete in pressure cooker PRC society.
Last party congress the CCP had a problem. There wasn't enough place within the walls of the forbidden city ... for all the VERY expensive cars (>120k USD) the politicians arrived in.
These people, presumably the main decision makers, you say are going to chose against their own wealth over a very long period of time just because that would be the better thing to do for their children and grandchildren? Just because the party policy no longer wants them to have luxury cars from moment X?
I find it very hard to believe the CCP will make better choices than any western democracy. Oh, and by any indication the cars are still there.
Article doesn't mention party congress at all. Last party congress was 2022, before that was 2017. Your article from Jan 2012 is almost year before Xi entered office and his anti corruption drive that dramatically reduced public displays of extravagance, which is not "very expensive" 100k-300k luxury cars. Chinese sentiment circa 2012 was generally fine with top 100s officials and their rich spawn driving nice cars, let alone Audi A6s. Because ultimately that was peanuts to the stupid extravagance like banquets officials were flaunting that cost more than said cars.
The actual article covers post Gansu bus crash negative sentiment that resulted in school bus safety reforms. Some kids died, people whined, it was loud enough, reforms happened. It also touches on low-mid level bureaucrats and their beyond salary nice cars, many of which are not still there after 2M+ anti corruption cases by CCDI. In fact, article highlights why someone like Xi was selected to rule, and why he hammered anti corruption so hard. Again, low-mid level bureaucrats driving Benz =/= hundreds of standing/presidum of NPC or central congress members, aka literally the creme de la creme of most powerful politicians / wealthy industrialists in PRC being able to afford nice cars. It would be wierd if they couldn't.
> against their own wealth over a very long period
If they get purged by CCDI where does that leave their children / grand children? Hence sitting on their piles of gains quietly with escape plan abroad. If anything anti-corruption has been too effective because historically corruption facilitated getting things done fast and there are signs of paralysis down the bureaucracy chain due to caution. Or recent analysis trying to hammer Xi for increasing income inequality, but actual data shows top 1% share of wealth relatively stagnant and most grown among burgeoning middle class. Ultimately, it's easy for 1% to go against accumulating more excessive wealth. for very long period of time, if it means holding on to what they have while avoiding the guillotine, especially if they can still enjoy their nice cars in moderation. Behaving is path of least resistence vs even running abroad where PRC long arm can still harass while capital controls makes it impossible to take out all wealth. Jack Ma can chill in JP, but most of his money is still trapped in PRC, by design.
> find it very hard to believe the CCP will make better choices than any western democracy
Not in every domain but but certainly some/many - again western democracies are trying hard to imitate CCP industrial policy - previously dirty neolib word - to maintain competitiveness. All while top western politicians are driving their own fancy cars. State department wouldn't label PRC as "only country with the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to seriously challenge" US if PRC leadership wasn't in aggregate, making better choices over past decades.
If you'd like a proper history of neoliberalism, check out the book "Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste" (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16284953-never-let-a-ser...).
Neoliberalism—at its core—is a term that comes from social science academia and refers to the post-WW2 trend of liberal ideological policies replacing e.g. traditional social democratic policies around the world.
Related terms: free-market capitalism, Washington Consensus, Third Way.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism
> Neoliberalism (also neo-liberalism) is a term used to signify the late 20th century political reappearance of 19th-century ideas associated with free-market capitalism after it fell into decline following the Second World War.
In terms of how China accepts or rejects "neoliberalism", the term basically means free trade and lightly regulated public markets.
More specifically though, it's globalization based on western (mostly US-centric) values.
Japan is probably the only place in Asia with decent snow and resorts, unlike Europe, South America, and The USA.
Add up tourists from China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, and you'll see that they make up half of the people visiting Japan.
As for why, I can speculate: These places are geographically close to Japan, so you're looking at under 5 hours of flying instead of 10 to 20 hours from Europe and North America. Japan is a safe country to travel around, unlike much of the world. Although the per-capita visitation rate from China is much lower than Taiwan and HK, having some middle-class people in a population of a billion means that some will afford to and choose to visit Japan.
For all the bad things happening in China, attempting to crack down on a borderline comic book villain and spread a little of his wealth isn’t one of the things I can criticize them for.
The government in China, while marginalizing figures like Ma, have done nothing but encourage the status quo. At least Ma challenged it.
If the CCP had not liberalized 30-ish years ago, sure, we'd have no Jack Ma. But we'd have no modern China either, would we?
Clearly, we have a long way to go towards life being livable in a place like China for the average person.
Plus, knowing people who’ve done 996 in China, they were basically sitting in an office with their brains being numbed by pretending to look busy so they could feed the ego of some insanely rich guy who’d use their hours of life wasted as a talking point for international speeches in which he praises himself.
Jack Ma didn’t build China. He’s been out of the country for apparently a long time but things are still trucking along there. So it seems like things would also be fine if he gave a little more back and gave employees an extra hour a day of their life back.
And he’s not really a product of his country. Every single country has insanely wealthy people who accumulate their wealth by exploiting those under them. This guy just packed his bags and cowardly ran when the government said it’s time for him to pay something back.
It's probably isn't actually helping him to be a slavedriver. It's unlikely you're getting your money worth making people work 12 hours six days a week.
Stronger labor laws will likely increase wealth generation and create a more powerful economic engine.
For all the bad things happening in China, attempting to crack down on a borderline comic book villain and spread a little of his wealth isn’t one of the things I can criticize them for.
Just because he's getting cracked down doesn't mean that the CCP is a good guy either. To me, it looked more like a consolidation of power, likely making inequality worse not better.
He is a truly an icon of the people.
Just because the CCP is bad doesn't make people like Ma the good guys.
I imagine that making a system that enables a billion people almost overnight delivery for most of consumer goods produced on the plant at low cost—might easily increase GDP by much more than 3 million dollars per hour.
Sorry, but I see it as just plain old “if a woman is beautiful, anyone who enjoys her beauty is entitled to sharing bed with her”. “If a business is successful, anyone who enjoys receiving salary from it, is also entitled to its shares”. No and no?
People give and receive what they had mutually agreed to give and receive without coercion.
Also I hope that you’re personally not a hypocrite, you will start a business and split shares among employees, and show the world how it is actually better for you, the business, and, most importantly, your employees.
Actually I think this IS a possible solution. For every dollar of wages an employee gets they should also receive a dollar of equity.
"People give and receive what they had mutually agreed to give and receive without coercion."
We see how rabidly Starbucks, Amazon, and Musk fight Unions. They do this because they know exactly how much harder it is to exploit workers who are unionized.
"you will start a business and split shares among employees,"
I would feel like a complete piece of shit if I got as rich as Musk or Bezos off the backs of my employees like they did.
Just check taobao, there are hundreds of millions faked or dodgy products openly being sold. Ma obviously doesn't have any sense of social responsibility for letting this to happen.
Let's don't even bother to start on the dodgy strategies from Ma's AliPay.