Who Is “Ma Mou”? <\/h4>\n\n\n\n
The saga began on May 3, as China Central Television announced through its official news app that a certain individual surnamed \u201cMa\u201d from the city of Hangzhou, their given name unspecified, had been subjected to \u201ccriminal coercive measures\u201d owing to suspected national security related crimes. This meant essentially that curbs had been placed on the personal freedom of this \u201cMa\u201d in order to ensure a smooth investigation. The crimes, according to the brief news item, included \u201ccolluding with external anti-China forces\u201d (\u52fe\u7ed3\u5883\u5916\u53cd\u534e\u654c\u5bf9\u52bf\u529b), inciting separatism, and other alleged national security crimes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The point of misunderstanding was simple. The name given in the CCTV news app report was \u201cMa __\u201d (\u9a6c\u67d0), the given name elided, as is common practice in releases related to criminal arrests. But two-character names, like that of Alibaba\u2019s Ma Yun (\u9a6c\u4e91), or Jack Ma, are relatively uncommon, as opposed to the more common three-character names. Alibaba is headquartered in Hangzhou. Wasn\u2019t it possible, then, that this unspecified Ma in breach of national security laws was none other than Jack Ma, who since last year has been mired<\/a> in political troubles?<\/p>\n\n\n\n The CCTV news app post, made at 9:01AM, was followed within minutes by re-posts from a host of over media outlets, including Shanghai\u2019s Jiemian<\/em> (\u754c\u9762). These posts immediately kicked up a wildfire of speculation, prompting the CCTV news app to delete the post shortly after and publish a new post in which the suspect\u2019s name had three characters instead of two. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This slight alteration did little to quell attention online to the issue. Other than the addition of a single place-holding character mou<\/em> (\u67d0), standing in for a missing character, the CCTV post made no explanation. Why had the reporting of the name changed?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Meanwhile, Alibaba stock was slipping sharply on the Hong Kong exchange. And behind the scenes, evidently, state media bosses were scrambling to forestall the real-life impact of a news app blunder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At 9:33AM, the Global Times<\/em> also released a version of the story of alleged national security crimes in Hangzhou in which the suspect\u2019s name had three characters. This was followed seven minutes later by a television news broadcast by CCTV also reporting the crimes of three-character \u201cMa.\u201d There was no mention of earlier inaccuracies or corrections \u2013 just an assumption that new reporting could gloss over the uncomfortable error.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At 9:49AM, Hu Xijin <\/a>(\u80e1\u9521\u8fdb), the former editor-in-chief of the state-run Global Times<\/em> newspaper, waded in on his Weibo account in an attempt to clarify the matter and dampen speculation. \u201cAccording to confirmations I\u2019ve made with [relevant] authorities, the State Security Bureau in Hangzhou arrested a certain \u2018Ma Moumou,\u2019 not a certain \u2018Ma Mou,\u2019\u201d he wrote. \u201cAny media reports mentioning \u2018Ma Mou\u2019 are incorrect.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thirteen minutes after Hu\u2019s explanation, and almost exactly an hour after the original post, CCTV News released another new post<\/a>, this time on its official Weibo account, reporting the same Hangzhou news as the original 9:01AM post, but with the simple addition of a second \u201cMou.\u201d Like the original post, this one said that the three-character \u201cMa\u201d was \u201ccurrently under in-depth investigation\u201d for national security crimes, suspected of colluding with anti-China hostile forces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Less than 15 minutes later, at 10:16AM, the Global Times<\/em><\/a> rushed out with an article on its English-language site that offered further information about the \u201cMa\u201d in the original CCTV news post. Exclusive sources had told the Global Times<\/em>, according to the article, that the \u201cMa\u201d in question was \u201cthe director of hardware research and development department of an IT company.\u201d Unlike Jack Ma, who was born in 1964, this \u201cMa\u201d was born in 1985.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There was no mention of earlier inaccuracies or corrections \u2013 just an assumption that new reporting could gloss over the uncomfortable error.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n As for his crime, the \u201cMa\u201d in question, said the Global Times<\/em>, had been \u201cbrainwashed by outside anti-China forces,\u201d and had \u201cbecome one of their tools to contain China.\u201d More specifically, it said, he had \u201ccreated an online anonymous group to play the role as agent of outside forces.\u201d The goal had been to \u201cspread rumors and disinformation and release [a] so-called independence declaration to split the country and subvert the state.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n As mainstream news media focused on reports about the alleged national security crimes of \u201cMa Mou,\u201d attention turned on social media, including in WeChat groups, to the timeline of state media reporting and the problems it exposed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In a comment shared by a number of media professionals, including Lu Xuning<\/a> (\u5362\u65ed\u5b81), a former news editor at the news portal Sina.com, former journalist Shi Feike (\u77f3\u6249\u5ba2) went through the timeline of reporting through various state media and their affiliated social media accounts \u2013 along the lines of the above CMP summary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Shi followed with three thoughts, or lessons, stemming from the morning\u2019s dramatic back-and-forth and the related dive in the Alibaba stock price. First, he said, the authorities in charge of the case need to be far more transparent in offering information. \u201cMystery gets people killed,\u201d he said, underscoring the real-life consequences of secrecy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u00a0Second, news media must be reformed. The news release system (\u901a\u7a3f\u5236\u5ea6), said Shi, also \u201cgets people killed.\u201d By \u201cnews release system,\u201d Shi was referring to the current state of affairs by which official news releases from Party-state media are given too much latitude for use by other media. Because these releases are privileged as \u201cauthoritative,\u201d for the simple fact that they come from central media (trusted by the leadership), they are simply passed along by other media outlets in the vast state-controlled press system. In this way, the system discourages independent reporting and verification by other news outlets. And ultimately, this is harmful both to the truth and to real people — like Alibaba investors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, said Shi, he wished the best for Alibaba, for Jack Ma, and \u201cfor all private enterprises and private entrepreneurs in our country.\u201d This was a reference, no doubt, to the crackdown<\/a> over the past year on China\u2019s tech sector, and fears over possible curbs<\/a> on the private sector more broadly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was also, perhaps, an indirect reference to the uncertainties hanging over China\u2019s future \u2013 when its politics and law are so steeped in mystery. \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Alibaba stock was driven down sharply last week by furious online speculation stemming from a mysterious state media report. It’s time, some said afterward, to reform to the national system of Party-state driven news releases, which encourages a culture of error and secrecy. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":51047,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines-and-hashtags"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/chinamediaproject.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/Ma-trouble-2-1024x516.jpg\")
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<\/div>Corrections Needed<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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