Alibaba's Ma makes star turn as Davos pivots to China
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President Xi Jinping wowed the audience in Davos with his exaltation of globalisation, but China's real "Davos Man" may be the omnipresent and deal-hungry founder of Alibaba, Jack Ma.
From his ties to US president-elect Donald Trump and his appetite for Hollywood cinema to a new partnership with the Olympic Games, Ma was everywhere at the World Economic Forum, the yearly chat-fest for the world's most powerful leaders and executives.
Ma's star turn -- and another in Davos by Xi, who extolled globalisation and denounced protectionism -- came as US tycoons jetted back to Washington in time for the inauguration Friday of the unabashedly populist Trump. "He is very open-minded," Ma said of the Republican property developer at one of several Q&A sessions he headlined over the four-day Davos forum, which ends shortly after Trump's investiture.
Ma is one of the few business leaders to have made it up the golden elevator at Trump Tower in New York. I n a meeting earlier this month, Ma told Trump his online trading company could help deliver a million jobs to the US, a bold commitment the Chinese businessman staunchly defended in Davos.
"I'm not talking to a normal person, I'm talking to the president-elect about the creation of jobs... This couldn't be a joke," he said. C hummier relations with the US will be a priority for Ma. In December, Washington put a division of Alibaba back on a blacklist of "notorious markets" known for selling counterfeit goods and violating intellectual property rights.
"Things like fake products, counterfeit, we've been fighting for 17 years, since the day we set up," Ma said. "We have 2,000 people devoted to the problem, the largest counterfeit-fighting team in the world."
'Die on the beaches'
Quick with a smile or jokey quip, the former English teacher was at ease before the elites gathered in Davos. "My favourite movie, 'Forrest Gump': you know, life's tough, this is what I've learned, and that inspired me," Ma said at another session that delved into his love for Hollywood.
"That is why when people call me crazy, stupid for the past 17 years... I told myself, Forrest Gump said go ahead. Never care about the other people." Ma's rags-to-riches history is atypical in Davos, where many attendees are top executives who rode a seamless track from exclusive schools to senior jobs at multinational companies.
They have given rise to the caricature of "Davos Man", a rich, rootless tourist of international conference venues. Seventeen years ago, after an inspirational visit to the United States, Ma persuaded friends to back him with 60,000 dollars to start an e-commerce firm called Alibaba.
Now, the company is an Internet giant and Ma is among the topmost ranks of China's super-rich. Then again, he believes that life should not be all work. "The world is so wonderful. Why should I be the CEO of Alibaba all the time?" Ma said, goading the Davos audience of highly paid workaholics.
"I don't want to die in my office. I want to die on the beaches," he said. But Ma is also an avid deal-maker and his visit to Davos was not all glad-handing and photo ops. On Thursday he announced a partnership with the International Olympic Committee to give the organisers of the Olympic Games a digital overhaul.
This month he took control of Chinese malls operator Intime in a 2.6 billion deal. Last year, his company bought a stake in Steven Spielberg's Hollywood studio. In Davos, Ma said he was eager to explore more Hollywood investment.
"We believe Hollywood, the movie industry, brings people happiness. Because today, nobody's happy," he said . Ma is careful to steer clear of China's communist politics, but did suggest the US might have avoided the anti-globalisation backlash if it had spent less on foreign wars and more on helping the average Joe at home.
"What if they had spent part of that money on building up the infrastructure, helping the white-collars and the blue-collars?" he said . (AFP)
Photo: Courtesy of the Alibaba Group