Xi Jinping, the country’s leader since 2012, has moved China instead toward a much more authoritarian, state-led society in which national security concerns increasingly take precedence over economic growth. Business leaders and human rights activists alike who dare to question Mr. Xi publicly have been jailed as China has tightened the reins on the private sector.
Updated
Sept. 7, 2022, 5:07 p.m. ET
Very wealthy entrepreneurs used to be “able to operate as they wished, as long as they did not step over certain political boundaries, but those boundaries were pretty loose even through the first term of Xi Jinping,” which ended in 2017, said Victor Shih, a specialist in Chinese business and politics at the University of California San Diego. “All that changed, they are no longer such stars.”
Jack Ma, a co-founder of Alibaba who went on to lead the company to dominance in China’s e-commerce sector, has stepped down from the top jobs at the company. Colin Huang, founder of Pinduoduo, a rival to Alibaba, resigned as chairman early last year, less than a year after he stepped down as chief executive.
A year ago, Zhang Yiming, founder of TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, said he would hand over the chief executive post to focus on long-term strategy. And as Shanghai went into a two-month lockdown last spring as part of China’s “Covid zero” strategy, Zhou Hang, another prominent tech entrepreneur and venture capitalist, left the city for Vancouver, Canada, where he issued a strong denunciation of China’s current policies.
Soho China’s troubles have been accumulating. The company disclosed on July 7 that police were investigating its chief financial officer for possible insider trading in Soho’s shares. Over the past year Soho has also been accused of overcharging tenants for electricity and fined nearly $30 million.
Soho China and Ms. Zhang, who frequently spoke for the company, did not respond to calls and text messages requesting comment. Two company executives who have each been with Soho for about two decades were promoted to become co-chief executives, Xu Jin and Qian Ting, according to a filing on Wednesday with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. A private equity executive, Huang Jingsheng, was named nonexecutive chairman of the company.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nytimes.com
