Just Saying | Jack Ma is a Communist Party member – so what?

Shock and horror! Jack Ma is a member of the Communist Party of China!

The big “revelation” first appeared in the form of an innocuous mention in a report by party mouthpiece People’s Daily on the founders of the three Chinese internet giants – Jack Ma of Alibaba, Baidu’s Robin Li and Tencent’s Pony Ma – being included in an honours list for their contribution to the country’s reform and opening up.

That was enough to send Western media outlets into a tizzy and set off a barrage of breathless “news” reports suggesting scandal and ominous portent.

Never mind that this piece of information has been public knowledge since at least 2015. Or that the party has nearly 90 million members, which makes affiliation just a fact of life in China. It doesn’t automatically make them all card-carrying fanatics in Mao suits hiding behind the Bamboo Curtain.

Sure, the Communist Party counts among its ranks some of the most hard-core nationalists and sycophants, but it also boasts countless reformers and liberal minds. Party affiliation is simply a matter of practicality for advancement in China, and to see it as being synonymous with political stance and skulduggery smacks of ignorance and prejudice.

Demonising China has long been a preferred pastime for the xenophobes and fearmongers, but here’s some breaking news for them: the McCarthy era ended in the 1950s. In any case, you wouldn’t be too far off the mark to argue that socialism only exists by name in the country and the CCP is no longer a communist party in the conventional sense of the term, as dictatorial as it may still be.

Notice that local media outlets in Hong Kong collectively shrugged their shoulders at the “news” and most did not bother to play it up. Obviously they understand China far better than the purported luminaries of the Western media.