Beijing pressures Alibaba to offload media assets, including Hong Kong's top newspaper

The Chinese government has asked Alibaba to give up some of its holdings, including Hong Kong's top English daily newspaper The South China Morning Post. Numerous reports say the request comes amid governmental concerns that the e-commerce giant has amassed undue influence over media and China in general. The company has …

[Anonymous Coward]

The SCMP actually was a good read, not just a mouthpiece for the CCP. Until last year.

[Potemkine!]

HK democratic aspects are being crushed, and I doubt nobody can do anything about it. China knows it, that's why it isn't shy about destroying any opposition to its dictatorship.

[Anonymous Coward]

At least they aren't pacifying the population a la Uyghurs. Small mercies.

[Anonymous Coward]

China has to be bigger than one man

Xi is getting older, makes more mistakes, and all Jack Ma did was be mildly critical of one of Xi's decisions.

China has to outgrow one man and his frailties.

Remember Chairman Mao? A foolish old man doing a food export drive that killed so many Chinese people. His pride and vanity wouldn't let him admit his mistake and so he continued the food export drive and continued to let his people starve. The food rotted at the port, there was simply no market for it within export range, but to let his people eat the food, he would have to admit his mistake, admit his imperfection.

Xi is the new Mao. Full of pride, unable to admit mistakes, his mental cognition fails as gets older, yet he's unable to admit mistakes.

China shouldn't keep making the same mistake over and over again. Men get old, senile, incoherent, and intransigent in the face of their mistakes, and Xi is just a man. Why should China follow him into decline?

[Paul Crawford]

Re: China has to be bigger than one man

They could follow democracies like the USA that vote in the "old, senile, incoherent, and intransigent in the face of their mistakes"

[Gary Stewart]

Re: China has to be bigger than one man

Yes, but in the USA we can also vote in a slightly older, much less senile, mostly coherent, and much less intransigent leader 4 years later. I'm certain this can no longer be done in China now. I do wish we would vote for people that are younger and more mentally agile than the last two, like the one we had before them. Unfortunately he spent most of his time fighting the "old, senile, incoherent, and intransigent" people in another branch of our government.

[Paul Crawford]

Re: China has to be bigger than one man

More seriously, any leader how throws a strop about being compared to Winnie the Poo is losing the plot, and for China and the world that has serious consequences.

[Withdrawn]

Ma

Did he ever turn up?

[Allan George Dyer]

Re: Ma

He made a short appearance in a video in January, saying, “Working hard for rural revitalisation and common prosperity is the responsibility for our generation of businessmen.”