This incident seems to be a mark in the column of the old argument that authoritarianism is bad for economic growth because of the ever-present potential for capricious action such as this.
While we should take the WSJ's preliminary reporting with a grain of salt, the Ant IPO halt was shortly followed by the announcement that Beijing was going to be looking at antitrust and monopolistic behavior by big tech. [0] The 'angered Xi and the old guard' narrative seems very plausible.
Also, if anyone's interested, here's a translation [1] of the speech Jack Ma gave that set off the commotion. Interesting bits about what he thinks of incumbent financial powers (or at least, what he says to that audience). It's also interesting to see what relatively mild comments could trigger this kind of reaction when power is so centralized.
While we should take the WSJ's preliminary reporting with a grain of salt, the Ant IPO halt was shortly followed by the announcement that Beijing was going to be looking at antitrust and monopolistic behavior by big tech. [0] The 'angered Xi and the old guard' narrative seems very plausible.
Also, if anyone's interested, here's a translation [1] of the speech Jack Ma gave that set off the commotion. Interesting bits about what he thinks of incumbent financial powers (or at least, what he says to that audience). It's also interesting to see what relatively mild comments could trigger this kind of reaction when power is so centralized.
[0] - https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-11-11/china-...
[1] - https://interconnected.blog/jack-ma-bund-finance-summit-spee...