The Chinese regime enlisted billionaire Jack Ma, co-founder of Alibaba, in a campaign to intimidate a businessman into assisting in the purge of a top official, documents reviewed by the Guardian suggest. The businessman, named only as “H” to protect his family still in China, faced a series of threats from the Chinese state in an attempt to force him to return from France, where he was living. These threats included a barrage of phone calls, the arrest of his sister, and the issuance of a red notice through Interpol.
The climax was a call from Ma himself in April 2021, during which he claimed he was the only one who could persuade H to return. H recorded the call, along with others from friends and Chinese security officials, which were later used in a French court. These transcripts provide insight into how the Chinese regime uses a mix of threats, legal mechanisms, and pressures to control individuals beyond its borders.
The case is part of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists’ (ICIJ) China Targets project, which documents how the Chinese regime tracks and suppresses dissent abroad. A spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in the UK denied these claims, stating that the so-called “transnational repression” by China is a fabrication.
The businessman H, a China-born citizen of Singapore, was in Bordeaux, France, when he received the call from Ma. A year earlier, Chinese police had issued a warrant for H’s arrest on charges of financial crime, and China had issued a notice for him through Interpol’s international criminal alert system. The French authorities confiscated H’s passport as they considered his extradition.
H’s lawyers fought his extradition in the French courts and successfully argued that the extradition request was issued for political purposes. The red notice was later removed from Interpol’s systems. H is unable to pay back loans or rent on a property in China and has incurred significant debt.
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/apr/29/how-china-apparently-involved-jack-ma-in-push-to-prosecute-out-of-favour-official
