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 people say that the CCP staged that too? It's getting too ridiculous.
Cyrus Janssen, an expat who has worked in China for 12 years, blogged about this. I think he has a much more accurate view of what happened. Jack Ma was laying low, not jailed. And the rrason why his comments pissed off people is because the phase of development China is now in, rather than a generic "thou shall not criticize the party" https://cyrusjanssen.substack.com/p/trump-free-speech-and-wh...
In contrast to China's reputation here in the west, the govt actually DOES listen to criticism. Yes they censor at the same time. Calling for violence and overthrow of the govt is not allowed. But at the same time they do listen, and for the past 20 years they've continuously reformed policy based on citizen's criticism on social media, or those submitted via official channels. The key is to be constructive, and to criticize policy rather than people.
This also applies to this latest incident. Yes it bugged a lot of people in the government, but at the same time they're really looking into the actual criticism made and whether there's a need for reform.
I am from China and I have family in China.
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 people say that the CCP staged that too? It's getting too ridiculous.
Cyrus Janssen, an expat who has worked in China for 12 years, blogged about this. I think he has a much more accurate view of what happened. Jack Ma was laying low, not jailed. And the rrason why his comments pissed off people is because the phase of development China is now in, rather than a generic "thou shall not criticize the party" https://cyrusjanssen.substack.com/p/trump-free-speech-and-wh...
In contrast to China's reputation here in the west, the govt actually DOES listen to criticism. Yes they censor at the same time. Calling for violence and overthrow of the govt is not allowed. But at the same time they do listen, and for the past 20 years they've continuously reformed policy based on citizen's criticism on social media, or those submitted via official channels. The key is to be constructive, and to criticize policy rather than people.
This also applies to this latest incident. Yes it bugged a lot of people in the government, but at the same time they're really looking into the actual criticism made and whether there's a need for reform.
I am from China and I have family in China.