Speculation grows over fate of Chinese tech billionaire Jack Ma

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Written by northsouth

Category: Asia

Published: 08 January 2021

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By Yu Zhou

BEIJING - China's Jack Ma, a onetime schoolteacher, billionaire co-founder and former chairman of tech giant Alibaba and philanthropist is missing from the spotlight, and speculation about his fate is mounting because when high-profile Chinese figures disappear, arrests and prosecutions often follow.

Unseen in public since October, analysts say Ma may be lying low as Chinese authorities investigate his sprawling business empire after he made an incendiary speech days before the highly anticipated stock market listing of Alibaba's financial affiliate, Ant Group.

The speech, delivered at the Shanghai Financial Summit on October 24, blasted China's financial regulators as unreasonable and urged them to be more innovative. He also likened the Basel accords, the global banking regulatory system, to an "old people's club."

That was Ma's last public appearance.

On November 2, financial regulators of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) interviewed Ant Group executives and Ma, who no longer holds executive or board level positions at either of the companies he co-founded but is the largest individual shareholder of Alibaba with approximately 5%, worth some $25 billion.

On November 3, authorities suspended the Ant Group IPO. Scheduled simultaneously in Shanghai and Hong Kong for November 5, it was expected to generate $37 billion, which would have made it the world's biggest IPO. At the time, The Wall Street Journal reported that Xi Jinping, president of the People's Republic of China and the CCP chief, had personally ordered the Ant Group IPO blocked after hearing Ma's speech.

Later in November, Ma failed to appear to judge the finale of a game show he created, according to the Financial Times. He was replaced as a judge of the second season of Africa's Business Heroes, a contest for entrepreneurs developed by Ma's foundation, even though he had tweeted he "couldn't wait to meet the contestants."

On December 14, Beijing fined Alibaba Investment Limited, which is owned by Alibaba, 500,000 RMB, or $77,200, for violating antitrust laws, according to Reuters.

On December 24, China's State Administration for Market Regulation (NIM) opened an investigation into Alibaba for possible monopolistic practices, and Alibaba stock lost more than $110 billion in market value that day.

A week later, the agency fined Alibaba's Tmall, an online business-to-consumer website, for antitrust violations.

On January 4, Bloomberg News quoted people familiar with the matter as saying that in early December Ma had been advised by Chinese authorities not to leave China. Also this week, an Alibaba spokesperson told CBS News that "no further information can be shared for now" about Ma's whereabouts.

While some believe that Ma has left China, Ge Bidong, an economist based in Los Angeles and a current affairs commentator, told VOA that this is impossible. "No matter how powerful and rich he is, he wouldn't be able to escape from China," said Ge, who told VOA he was a political prisoner in China for seven years before arriving in the U.S. in 2018. "If he could leave, there is only one possibility — that is, the Chinese Communist Party wanted him to leave."

The German government-funded news outlet Deutsche Welle quoted analysts as saying that this episode represents just the beginning of Beijing's efforts to strengthen its control over China's increasingly powerful tech giants.

Gene Chang, retired professor of economics at the University of Toledo in Ohio, told VOA what is happening to Jack Ma is not just about Alibaba's monopoly power.

"Alibaba does seem to have a monopoly but it can be solved through government regulation," said Chang. "But if the government politicizes this regulation, fearing that private companies pose a challenge to communist rule, the economy will become a victim."

Ge, who also writes for the Epoch Times, told VOA that Alibaba's online shopping model is not only good for consumers, but also "stimulated a significant increase in physical production and led to an expansion of logistics."

Chang believes that market imbalances such as monopolies are natural consequences of economic development, and that it is the responsibility of government to use regulation to achieve the appropriate social balance.

"The government should come forward to digest or reduce the negative impact the transformation generates and balance social welfare," he said.

Ge said there is only one future for Alibaba: It will be transformed into whatever ownership the CCP wants, and "Jack Ma and people like him will be eliminated."

And Ge's certainty is part of what fuels the speculation. In June 2017, Wu Xiaohui, the onetime chairman of the vast and well-connected Anbang Insurance Group, disappeared from view only to resurface at trial in March 2018. He was found guilty of financial fraud and abuse of power and sentenced to 18 years.

In early 2020, Ren Zhiqiang, former chairman of the state-owned property developer Huayuan Real Estate Group, went missing after criticizing the government's mishandling of the coronavirus outbreak.

In September, Ren, who once referred to Xi Jinping as a "clown," was found guilty of corruption, having reportedly received an illicit gain of nearly $7.4 million, taken $184,500 in bribes and embezzled $8.9 million in public funds between 2003 and 2017.

China launches 1st lunar sample return mission

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Written by northsouth

Category: Asia

Published: 24 November 2020

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By Deng Xiaoci and Fan Anqi, The Global Times

BEIJING - The Long March-5 Y5, China's state-of-the-art carrier rocket and strongest member of the Long March launch vehicle family, blasted off early Tuesday morning from the Wenchang Space Launch Center located in South China's Hainan Province, successfully sending the Chang'e-5 lunar probe into planned orbit.

About 2,200 seconds after lift-off, the Chang'e-5 lunar probe separated from the rocket and entered the Earth-Moon transfer orbit with the perigee at 200 km and the apogee at about 410,000 km.

Despite the difficulties brought by the COVID-19 epidemic, China's aerospace sector has been able to launch not only the country's first-ever Tianwen-1 Mars probe, but also the latest lunar sample return mission, showcasing the country's resilience and increasingly mature capabilities in the space sphere, according to observers.

Dubbed one of the most complicated and challenging space exploration projects ever attempted, Chang'e-5 will carry out the third stage of China's current lunar programs, which involves three phases—orbiting, landing and return. The first two phases have been completed successfully.

Wang Yanan, chief editor of Aerospace Knowledge magazine, told the Global Times that the highly complex, forward-looking technology applied in this project could be regarded as "an unmanned task that lays the foundation for future manned lunar missions."

"Analysis of the lunar samples shows that contents within the soil and rocks could be turned into water and oxygen, which will be useful in supporting the operation of the Moon base and serve as supplementary fuel for lunar landing vehicles," Pang Zhihao, a Beijing-based space expert, told the Global Times.

More importantly, scientists have found in the lunar samples the ideal material for nuclear fusion, and enough of it to meet human's energy needs for about 10,000 years, Pang added.

China's future Chang'e-6 mission will also automatically collect lunar samples for comprehensive analysis and research, and hopefully carry international payloads on board.

Chang'e-7 will comprehensively explore the moon, while Chang'e-8 will explore the possibility of building an international lunar research base, Global Times previously learned from CNSA. Chang'e-8 will also test 3D printer technology in the hopes of assisting future lunar residents.

"To build a research base on the Moon, we first need to figure out what it is made of, by analyzing the soil composition and geological structure, and then making use of the raw materials at hand on the Moon for our own exploration purposes," Song Zhongping, an aerospace observer and TV commentator, told the Global Times.

Perfect success rate

China launched its first lunar probe mission, Chang'e-1, in October 24, 2007 via a Long March 3A Y14 carrier rocket. In the 13 years since then, China has launched a total of five missions, all named after the lunar goddess Chang'e, with domestically developed Long March rockets, scoring a perfect success rate.

The 57-meter-long Long March-5, with a take-off weight of about 870 tons and a thrust of over 1,000 tons, is capable of launching a payload of up to 14 tons into the geosynchronous transfer orbit (GTO), making it the go-to rocket model for the mission, as the Chang'e-5 lunar probe weighs 8.2 tons, one of the heaviest probes that has ever been launched by China.

According to China Launch Vehicle Technology (CALT), during the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25), the Long March-5 rocket series will be deployed to launch core and experimental cabinets for the country's first-ever space station, and will be tasked with completing the construction of the space station in two to three years.

"Long March-5 is the only member of the Long March family that is capable of launching such a heavy payload into the lunar transfer orbit. And the mission in return examines the rocket's capabilities and showcases the strength of China's space sector," Li Minghua, the first commander-in-chief of the Long March-5 and Party chief of CALT, under the state-owned aerospace giant China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), the rocket's developer, told the Global Times.

Breakthroughs to make

The Chang'e-5 probe is expected to carry out lunar sample collection, takeoff from the moon, rendezvous and docking on lunar orbit and high-speed reentry into the Earth's atmosphere, marking breakthroughs in China's aerospace history.

Sources close to the lunar probe mission told the Global Times that the Chang'e-5 probe is set to achieve four firsts in China's aerospace history.

It will conduct the first-ever robotic sample collecting on the lunar surface, spending two days on the Moon collecting around 2kg of lunar material.

After packaging the lunar material, the probe's lander will perform a highly complex take-off mission from the rough lunar terrain, overcoming the lack of a proper launch tower and other difficulties, which will also be a first.

A greater challenge lies in wait after the lander's lift-off, as the Chang'e-5 ascender will have to rendezvous and dock with the orbital module at the lunar orbit some 380,000 kilometers away from Earth, which has never been done before.

Finally, the return capsule carrying moon samples will then fly to Earth from 380,000 kilometers away at a speed of 11 kilometers per second, reaching second cosmic velocity.

Interestingly, based on what the sources revealed to the Global Times, designers with the China Academy of Space Technology under CASC have come up with a semi-ballistic reentry to help the high-speed spacecraft return to Earth safely.

Similar to the way a stone can skip over water, the return capsule will sprint into the atmosphere and then ascend again out of it, in order to reduce its flying speed to first cosmic velocity, which is around 8 kilometers per second, before landing safely at the designated site on Earth.

Wang Yanan explained that this measure will greatly reduce the risk of damaging the return capsule and will ensure the sample's safety.

When asked why it was decided that the Chang'e-5 probe would take off early in the morning rather than in the daytime, CALT insiders told the Global Times that early morning would make it easier to enter the trajectory designed for the complex mission.

Also, taking off in the early morning will help reduce interference from the Sun, as solar radiation will disrupt the transmission of electric signals, affecting the tracking and controlling of the spacecraft from ground personnel, they said.

There are also less clouds and stabler weather conditions in the early morning, which will also help signal transmission and scientists' observations, they revealed.

The Chang'e-5 is scheduled to touch down in an area that has never been visited either by probe or human, in a massive lava plain known as Oceanus Procellarum, or "Ocean of Storms" - a region in the Moon's northwest corner which is visible to the naked eye from Earth.

Scientists believe that the rocks and soil in the region are only 3.7 billion years old. Compared with the previous lunar samples brought back to Earth, it will help scientists to understand better the volcanic activities of the Moon. Some engineering factors were also taken into consideration in choosing this site.

The lunar material collected by the Chang'e-5 probe was formed from the space weathering of lunar rocks after meteorite impact, solar wind and cosmic ray radiation. It consists of a considerable amount of rock fragments, minerals and meteorites, which provide valuable information for studying the geological evolution of the moon, as well as solar activities, Xiao Long, a professor at the Wuhan-based China University of Geosciences, told the Global Times.

In the 1970s, the Soviet Union successfully carried out three robotic sample return missions that retrieved a total of 330 grams of lunar soil. The Chang'e-5 plans to bring back 2 kilograms in one single mission.

The gap in weight reflects how much the ability to retrieve lunar samples has advanced over the past decades, Pang Zhihao said.

He explained that back in the 1970s, the Soviet Union missions adopted a direct ascending and return plan from the lunar surface, which required the ascender to use large amounts of fuel to carry the huge load on the return capsule, resulting in the sample weight being greatly compressed.

The Chang'e-5, however, is expected to carry out rendezvous and docking with the orbital module in the lunar orbit, greatly reducing the amount of fuel needed for the ascender and allowing room for more samples.

At least 19 students killed by gunmen at Afghan University

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Written by northsouth

Category: Asia

Published: 02 November 2020

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KABUL - Gunmen stormed Kabul University, killing students in their classrooms and firing on others as they fled on Monday, in the second attack on an educational institution in the city in just over a week, officials and witnesses said.

The three attackers killed at least 19 people including students before Afghan security forces shot the gunmen dead, authorities said.

Photos shared by a senior government official showed students lying dead in classrooms, some next to their books. One student appeared to have been shot as they were climbing out of a window.

"They were shooting at every student they saw ... they even shot at the students who were running away," witness Fathullah Moradi told Reuters.

The Taliban said their fighters were not involved in the assault. No other group immediately claimed responsibility.

Nineteen people were killed and 22 wounded before the security services ended the assault, interior ministry spokesman Tariq Arian said.

"This is the second attack on educational institutions in Kabul ... Afghan children & youth need to feel safe going to school," NATO Senior Civilian Representative to Afghanistan Stefano Pontecorvo said in a statement.

A suicide bomber killed 24 people including teenage students at an education centre in Kabul on Oct. 24. Islamic State claimed responsibility for that attack, without providing evidence.

Violence has plagued Afghanistan while government and Taliban negotiators have been meeting in Qatar to try to broker a peace deal and as the United States brings home its troops.