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Why is China fighting against Jack Ma's Alibaba Group?

After some months of discussion, the Chinese government stopped the initial public offering of “Ant” which is a subsidiary company of the Alibaba group. Furthermore, they put a punishment of 2.8 billion $ on the online payment service “Alipay”, because the company didn’t allow their users to sign up at other concerns. This penalty on an internet company is the biggest in Chinese history and from the first impression a big hit against the Alibaba group and Jack Ma.



On the 12th of April, the Chinese central bank ordered that the Ant group is supposed to be transformed from a tech company to a financial holding company. This transformation means a big hit against the whole Alibaba group because it slows down the fast-growing of the company. In the future, the Ant group will be treated like a bank which means that it is under the supervision of the Chinese central bank. This process will end in more regulation and limitation of the Ant Group which will now grow much slower than in the past.


At the end of last year, The Ant Group wanted the initial public offering and was rated with 315 billion $ and would be the highest-rated company that made the initial public offering.


This also would have announced and strengthened Alibaba's (Ant group) monopoly in the

area of electronic payment, commerce, and finance. The specific reasons for stopping the initial public offering aren’t very clear and it’s dubious why China could manage this in a very easy way without showing transparently what the company has violated.


This monopoly is probably the reason why China intervenes in the company activities of the Alibaba Group which consists of many sub-companies like the Ant group. China saw that the power of the Ant group would grow if the initial public offering went well. This growth would endanger Chinese socialism. And this leads to a big question: How long can china keep its tech and finance companies away from the capitalism of the western states without changing their own system?

 

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