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Jack Ma makes first live appearance in three months in online meet

reuters.com

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Re: Jack Ma makes first live appearance in three months in online meet

#101

Post by baybal2 »

FooBarWidget wrote: post #28
sebmellen wrote: post #5

> In the 50-second video, Ma, dressed in a navy pullover, spoke directly to the camera from a room with grey marble walls and a striped carpet. It was not clear from the video or the Tianmu News article where he was speaking from. Uh, resurfacing from a fancy prison cell, perhaps? Can anyone find the video? EDIT: Here's the raw video: https://twitter.com/globaltimesnews/status/13517514568277196... . If you watch his…

How much more mental gymnastics do we need? I think it's time to accept that he WASN'T jailed rather than trying to forcefully shoehorn the facts into a 'but China still bad' narrative. The HN commentary went from 'Jack Ma is a national security threat' to 'Jack Ma is a poor victim of the CCP will will never be seen again' to 'this is fake, he is still jailed'. If he shows up someone else in person next time, will pe…

Quite naive so. The thinking that one can at least understand the rationale of not killing a hen laying golden eggs has no place in China.

The reality is exact the opposite, and elites routinely keeping shooting the country, and themselves in the foot. Why should they care?

Any ranked party member half way the ladder already has enough privileges to swim in lard for the rest of his life.

I was pretty much there when Shenzhen govt bulldozed close to 10000 factories in between 2009, and 2012 for universiade vanities. That was one third of regions industry! One third

That was single most economically suicidal move I've seen any government do, and that was right after the global financial crisis.

That made a double digit dip in country's exports, and industrial output, so big it was.

Re: Jack Ma makes first live appearance in three months in online meet

#103

Post by ipiz0618 »

FooBarWidget wrote: post #28
sebmellen wrote: post #5

> In the 50-second video, Ma, dressed in a navy pullover, spoke directly to the camera from a room with grey marble walls and a striped carpet. It was not clear from the video or the Tianmu News article where he was speaking from. Uh, resurfacing from a fancy prison cell, perhaps? Can anyone find the video? EDIT: Here's the raw video: https://twitter.com/globaltimesnews/status/13517514568277196... . If you watch his…

How much more mental gymnastics do we need? I think it's time to accept that he WASN'T jailed rather than trying to forcefully shoehorn the facts into a 'but China still bad' narrative. The HN commentary went from 'Jack Ma is a national security threat' to 'Jack Ma is a poor victim of the CCP will will never be seen again' to 'this is fake, he is still jailed'. If he shows up someone else in person next time, will pe…

Given China's history to staging videos / forging evidence / faking suicides for oppositions [1][2], I'd say this is a valid concern.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gui_Minhai#Release_from_PSB_cu...

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causeway_Bay_Books

Re: Jack Ma makes first live appearance in three months in online meet

#104

Post by JMTQp8lwXL »

FooBarWidget wrote: post #20

In the last Hacker News thread, people were so sure that the government jailed him for criticizing the party. Even though there was no evidence of such, people just assumed it MUST be true because the CCP MUST be evil. And before Jack Ma "disappeared", people were worried about Jack Ma and Ant Group being a national security threat, because of his ties with CCP. Because "CCP evil". No matter the facts, people just co…

> people just assumed it MUST be true because the CCP MUST be evil.

Whether or not assertions about Ma's whereabouts are true or false, the conclusion holds in either case. The predicate for westerners is largely, yes, the CCP is evil. But most aren't so reductionist as to say, that means {random bad thing} happened to Ma.

Intentional or not, the phrasing reads like a defense of the CCP -- because regardless of the CCP's actions towards Ma, the CCP has historically gone through with some internationally questionable acts. Or that, because the CCP didn't do anything bad to Ma, the CCP isn't bad. It's the phrasing that's concerning, and it taints the interpretation of rest of the comment. That's how Westeners will read this.

Re: Jack Ma makes first live appearance in three months in online meet

#105

Post by Magodo »

FooBarWidget wrote: post #20

In the last Hacker News thread, people were so sure that the government jailed him for criticizing the party. Even though there was no evidence of such, people just assumed it MUST be true because the CCP MUST be evil. And before Jack Ma "disappeared", people were worried about Jack Ma and Ant Group being a national security threat, because of his ties with CCP. Because "CCP evil". No matter the facts, people just co…

Pray tell me, what is the benign reason for all the territorial aggression that China is showing? Is the West supposed to ignore all that and the 'whole world will win'?

https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/not-just-india-s-g...

Re: Jack Ma makes first live appearance in three months in online meet

#106

Post by waihtis »

FooBarWidget wrote: post #77
sebmellen wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With all due respect it seems all of your tweets center around defending the Chinese government. Why??? I mean, saying that: > Many people see the Chinese govt's deficiencies as a result of "evil". I don't really subscribe to that. I think it has more to do with "incompetence". Building a large organization, with the right culture, is hard . is kind of ridiculous. Would you say the same thing about the Soviets (with…

Of course it's ridiculous if you only know China through the media. But have you considered that maybe the media representation is inaccurate? I've actually lived there, my wife comes from there, and my family is still there. This is combined with new information about China coming from the west, and having no restrictions here. I've studied some of China's recent history, a subject which is rarely taught in the west…

I think people on both sides of the border need to acknowledge the limited value of news; not only will it give you a severely distorted lens of reality, but more importantly it is borderline ignoramus behaviour to base your reality of something on news as a source.

Re: Jack Ma makes first live appearance in three months in online meet

#107

Post by baybal2 »

FooBarWidget wrote: post #28
sebmellen wrote: post #5

> In the 50-second video, Ma, dressed in a navy pullover, spoke directly to the camera from a room with grey marble walls and a striped carpet. It was not clear from the video or the Tianmu News article where he was speaking from. Uh, resurfacing from a fancy prison cell, perhaps? Can anyone find the video? EDIT: Here's the raw video: https://twitter.com/globaltimesnews/status/13517514568277196... . If you watch his…

How much more mental gymnastics do we need? I think it's time to accept that he WASN'T jailed rather than trying to forcefully shoehorn the facts into a 'but China still bad' narrative. The HN commentary went from 'Jack Ma is a national security threat' to 'Jack Ma is a poor victim of the CCP will will never be seen again' to 'this is fake, he is still jailed'. If he shows up someone else in person next time, will pe…

> rather than trying to forcefully shoehorn the facts into a 'but China still bad' narrative.

And it is bad. The country run by a freaking communist party, if somebody didn't notice. And we are not even mentioning gulag, and hookers.

> In contrast to China's reputation here in the west, the govt actually DOES listen to criticism.

Because it is afraid of it?

> The key is to be constructive, and to criticize policy rather than people.

And follow the example of thousands of Chinese rural petitioners "constructively" sent to gulags.

> Calling for violence and overthrow of the govt is not allowed.

But how else would people stage a revolution against Beijing?

Re: Jack Ma makes first live appearance in three months in online meet

#108

Post by seanmcdirmid »

FPGAhacker wrote: post #93
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone who is living in China, citizen or expat, is going to toe the party line (literally) since the consequences for not doing so these days can be severe. We’ve been through this before with other business people or defrocked public officials: Jack Ma is currently having a peaceful relaxing vacation at one of the party’s many secure resorts (Chinese have memes too). Whether he comes out of this like Fan Binbin or…

It’s “toe the line.”

Fixed.

Re: Jack Ma makes first live appearance in three months in online meet

#109

Post by chrischen »

howlgarnish wrote: post #100
chrischen wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming the standards of appearance for public figures are based on specific people from America of specific ethnic and cultural backgrounds. I mean if I video conferenced with you right now you'd probably speculate I've been coopted by Communist powers because simply because my background isn't up to your standards (it'd be of a water heater and radon pipes since I'm in the basement).

With all due respect, you are presumably also not the multibillionaire CEO of one of the world's largest Internet companies. If I saw Zuck, Satya or Sundar do a video conference looking like they're chained to the radiator in somebody's basement, I'd also be kinda concerned. (At least for the latter two. Zuck, maybe not so much.)

With all due respect if we judged people by their appearances we'd have discredited Paul Graham long ago for eschewing the traditional VC outfit.

The OP's comments about the appearance of the video is completely irrelevant and merely serving to throw speculative shade. For what it's worth, something probably did happen but his choice of webcam + background probably has nothing to do with it, but rampant speculation and false information is how we lead to the capital riots.

While the idea of gulags and "re-education camps" pervade Western perceptions of Chinese life, the reality is that conformity and centralized government is probably more dull than you think.

Re: Jack Ma makes first live appearance in three months in online meet

#110

Post by nickysielicki »

arcticbull wrote: post #87
FooBarWidget wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much more mental gymnastics do we need? I think it's time to accept that he WASN'T jailed rather than trying to forcefully shoehorn the facts into a 'but China still bad' narrative. The HN commentary went from 'Jack Ma is a national security threat' to 'Jack Ma is a poor victim of the CCP will will never be seen again' to 'this is fake, he is still jailed'. If he shows up someone else in person next time, will pe…

So... where's multi-billionaire Xiao Jianhua? After being abducted from the Four Seasons in Hong Kong by the CCP, he popped up to explain he was seeking medical treatment on the mainland (haha) three years ago , and nobody's heard from him since. Also laying low? Or do you think he's discovered a new love of mining rare earth minerals in Xinjiang? C'mon now, this isn't exactly some big exoneration one way or the othe…

And where's Chen Qiushi -- or any of the other journalists who covered the draconian coronavirus measures taken in China, who suddenly disappeared a year ago?
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