China orders Alibaba to lose its media assets amid ongoing crackdown on Jack Ma

China has ordered Alibaba to lose its media assets as Beijing is concerned about its influence over public opinion, a report has claimed.

A report by the Wall Street Journal on Monday, quoting people familiar with the matter, said the issue was being discussed since 2021 following a review of media assets of the Alibaba group by Chinese regulators who were appalled at how huge Alibaba’s news interests have become.

The report said the regulators then asked the company to find a way to substantially curtail its media holdings even as the government didn't specify the assets that needed to be unloaded. It said even though the total value of Alibaba’s media assets couldn’t be obtained, the holdings in the publicly-listed companies had a combined market value worth billions of pounds.

The latest move by Beijing comes amid China’s ongoing crackdown on Jack Ma, who founded the online retail giant in 1999, and over the years has invested in several media firms.

Alibaba has stakes in Weibo, a Twitter-like platform, digital and print news outlets such as the South China Morning Post (SCMP), an English-language newspaper in Hong Kong. It also has partnerships with state-run media like Xinhua news agency and local government-run newspapers groups in Zhejiang and Sichuan provinces.

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The people quoted in the report also said that the group's media presence were seen as posing a challenge to the Chinese Communist Party and its powerful propaganda apparatus.

But the company, in a statement, said that it is not involved in “day-to-day operations or editorial decisions” of the media assets. It said that the “purpose of its investments is to provide technology support for their business upgrade and drive commercial synergies with our core commerce businesses.”

However, Alibaba is not the lone Chinese tech group to be involved in the media business as there are others like Tencent and Bytedance as well.

Technology experts said the move is aimed at controlling media.

Elliott Zaagman, co-host of China Tech Investor podcast, tweeted: “Looks like Alibaba will need to shed SCMP, as well as its other media entities. Things don’t look good for the future of these outlets’ editorial independence.”

While Rui Ma, a former investor and a Chinese Tech expert, tweeted: “If it were a problem of tech owning media period, not just Alibaba would be asked to divest. I think this is about reining in corporates controlling media for own interests.”

It has been a downhill journey for Mr Ma since October 2020 when during a public speech at a summit, he attacked the communist nation's banking system and called for reforms while stating that the Chinese banks operate with a “pawnshop” mentality.

His remarks had come just a couple of weeks before the scheduled initial public offering (IPO) of the Ant Group, which is backed by Mr Ma but just a couple of days before it was to happen China’s regulatory authorities suspended it, citing “major issues”. Before the suspension, it was being hailed as the world’s biggest IPO with a value of about $35bn (£25.5bn).

Subsequently, Mr Ma’s companies have faced a series of actions including an antitrust investigation into Alibaba and regulators.