Why Beijing was right to rein in Jack Ma's rogue Ant Group IPO

Bad behaviour by China's richest man put the global financial system at risk

20210226 Ant Group headquarters Hangzhou.jpg

Ant Group's headquarters in Hangzhou: the company had little incentive to control the risk. © VCG/Getty Images

Nan Li is associate professor at the Antai College of Economics and Management at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. John D. Van Fleet supports industry relations for Antai College.

When Alibaba's Jack Ma asserted in his now-famous Oct. 24 tantrum that "the risk in China is not systemic financial risk, but the risk of a nonexistent financial system," the system responded by sending him to his room for a few weeks of timeout.

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