The Chinese authorities want to further limit the influence of tech billionaire Jack Ma, co-founder of tech group Alibaba, among others. Beijing is said to have forced an elite university founded by Ma to stop new enrollments. That writes the British business newspaper Financial Times.
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Hupan University, an executive education as difficult to access as the prestigious Harvard University, has suspended lectures for a new batch of freshmen, according to the paper’s sources. They should have started at the end of March. It is unclear when new students can re-register.
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Ma took the lead in 2015 when a group of industrial and technology companies decided to found Hupan. The aim of the academy is to teach a select group of people entrepreneurship, business management and corporate culture every year. Beijing is troubling that students are working towards top entrepreneurship with a common goal set by Ma rather than the Communist Party. Classes for current students are reported to continue as usual. Nor would the school intend to close its doors.
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Beijing v Ma
It is not the first time that Beijing has set its sights on Ma. Last November, policymakers in Beijing torpedoed at the last minute the multi-billion dollar exchange of Ma’s payments company Ant Group. A competition investigation into Alibaba followed a month later. The Chinese government decided to take tougher action against large corporations that have a lot of power and until recently had to adhere to few rules.
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Ma himself has not appeared in public since October, when he openly criticized Chinese regulators and state-owned banks. Only in January did he briefly be heard in a video message.
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