HONG KONG -- When billionaire Jack Ma flew to Hangzhou on the morning of March 27, few could have predicted the domino chain of events that would shortly unfold.
His arrival had ended a year of self-imposed exile outside of mainland China that had raised questions about whether, in fact, he could ever return. The co-founder of the $263 billion e-commerce company Alibaba Group Holding had stopped appearing in public following a dramatic public confrontation with the Chinese government in 2020 over the public listing of fintech arm Ant Group. Since last May, he has only been spotted overseas: in Spain, the Netherlands, Japan, Thailand, Australia, Fiji and Hong Kong.
