Editor’s note for Thursday, November 12, 2020

My thoughts today:

Xí Jìnpíng 习近平 “personally made the decision to halt the initial public offering of Ant Group, which would have been the world’s biggest, after controlling shareholder Jack Ma (马云 Mǎ Yún) infuriated government leaders, according to Chinese officials with knowledge of the matter,” report Jing Yang and Lingling Wei of the Wall Street Journal.

This is hardly a surprise:

• Ma had gone out of his way to complain about China’s financial regulators at a financial forum on October 24, accusing traditional Chinese banks of operating with a “pawn shop mentality.”
• Then Ma and the two most senior executives at Ant Group were called in (in Chinese) for a late-night chat with four regulators on November 2, and the next day, the IPO was suspended, mere days before it was scheduled to take place.
• Yesterday, the Chinese service of Radio France Internationale reported “analyst” comments that Ma’s speech was like a “slap in the face to Wáng Qíshān 王岐山, the vice president of the country, which in turn was seen as challenging Xi Jinping’s authority.”

The whole thing reeks of politics, despite many observers justifiably saying that China’s financial regulators had long been unhappy with Ant Group, which has always pushed the envelope, behaving like a bank but not willing to submit to the rules of the banking industry.  

Meanwhile: Jack Ma’s botched Ant IPO becomes a boost for state banks, reports Bloomberg via Caixin.  

Our word of the day is something a dear old Beijinger friend of mine often says that means, roughly, China only has one granddaddy; everyone else is just a little grandkid (中国只有一个爷爷，剩下的都是孙子 zhōngguó zhǐ yǒu yí gè yéye, shèngxià de dōushì sūnzi).

—Jeremy Goldkorn, Editor-in-Chief