Jack Ma, China’s Richest Man, Belongs to the Communist Party. Of Course.
Jack Ma, China’s richest man and co-founder of the e-commerce giant Alibaba, in Shanghai this month. He was identified as a member of the Chinese Communist Party by its official newspaper.Matthew Knight/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
By Li Yuan
HONG KONG — Jack Ma, China’s richest man and the guiding force behind its biggest e-commerce company, belongs to an elite club of power brokers, 89 million strong: the Chinese Communist Party.
The party’s official People’s Daily newspaper included Mr. Ma, executive chairman of the Alibaba Group and the country’s most prominent capitalist, in a list it published on Monday of 100 Chinese people who had made extraordinary contributions to the country’s development over the last 40 years. The entry for Mr. Ma identified him as a party member.
It may sound contradictory that the wealthy Mr. Ma belongs to an organization that got its start calling for the empowerment of the proletariat. But Mr. Ma’s political affiliation came as no surprise to many Chinese and China watchers. Though it still publicly extols the principles of Karl Marx, the Chinese Communist Party largely abandoned collectivist doctrine in the post-Mao era, freeing private entrepreneurs to help build the world’s second-largest economy after the United States.
In fact, the disclosure reveals a party that is eager to prove its legitimacy by affiliating itself with capitalist success stories. Mr. Ma is a tech rock star in China, and his membership in the party could prod others to follow his lead.
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