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CHINA'S ECONOMIC WAR PREPARATIONS: YESTERDAY AND TOMORROW China's new tech regulations are punishing the West, not Didi By Berit Anderson
China is a bad place to be a billionaire. Just ask Jack Ma, founder of Ant Group, who suddenly went missing for three months in late 2020 after he criticized the Chinese financial system, characterizing banks as operating with a "pawnshop mentality." His Shanghai IPO, slated for the next day, was supposed to have been the world's biggest. Instead, the listing was blocked. And Ant Group lost $76 billion in market value. Whether Ma was detained or forced into house arrest during that time is murky. But what is crystal clear is that Chinese companies are operating at the whims of their leader, President Xi Jinping. Not the other way around, as is the case here in the US. |
