Zanimiva zgodba v Foreign Policy, kjer nenadoma hvalijo kitajski “crack down” nad Jackom Majem, lastnikom imperija Alibabe in kjer so oblasti z regulacijo uspele tehnološke velikane spraviti pod nadzor in da služijo interesom razvoja države. V ZDA pa se dogaja nasproten proces, sedanja administracija je v službi tehnoloških milijarderjev, ki želijo doseči še manj kontrole nad svojo dejavnostjo. Zanimivo je dvoje. Prvič, da “liberalni” ameriški mediji šele zdaj – ko so Elon Musk in ostali milijarderji s Trumpom prevzeli oblast – priznavajo kitajskim oblastem, da so ravnale prav, ko so z regulacije spravile pod nadzor tehnološke mogotce. In drugič, da tehnološki mogotci “osvobojeni spon regulacije” niso nujno tudi bolj učinkoviti od reguliranih tehnoloških podjetij. Dober primer so razvoj čipov in umetne inteligence v Kitajski. Zadnji primer z “revolucijo DeepSeek” kaže, da je enako ali celo bolj močne aplikacije umetne inteligence v reguliranem in sankcioniranem sistemu mogoče narediti zgolj za delček (3 %) stroškov kot v popolnoma sproščenem sistemu, kjer so na voljo neomejene količine kapitala, ki išče donose.

Five years ago, Jack Ma was not just one of the world’s richest billionaires, but also—perhaps only after President Xi Jinping—the most famous Chinese person in the world.

In the early aughts, Ma built a business empire around his company, Alibaba, which quickly took off as an online shopping juggernaut that first challenged and then outsold Amazon in China, all while branching out into countless other services. For millions of young Chinese people, Ma was their country’s answer to Bill Gates: Ma, a former English teacher, was a self-made man whose example seemed to illustrate the sky-high achievement and wealth that one could attain through a combination of entrepreneurial vision and relentless drive.

In China, Ma was in constant demand, the subject of numerous films and TV shows, while overseas, he became a kind of unofficial face of his country. He operated his own philanthropic organization, paying special attention to Africa just as China was becoming the continent’s leading global partner. He took star turns at Davos. And he bought the struggling English-language Hong Kong newspaper, the South China Morning Post, evincing a willingness to risk losing a great deal of money to revive an old publication with British colonial-era roots and turn it into a globally respected, Chinese-owned news operation.

Then, in 2020, on the eve of what was expected to be one of the biggest initial public offerings (IPOs) in history, Ma’s world was turned upside down as his empire became the target of hostile regulatory actions from the Chinese Communist Party. Authorities canceled the IPO of Ma’s Ant Group (an Alibaba affiliate), levied anti-monopoly actions against his businesses and those of other tech giants, and summoned Ma for hostile lectures and questioning.

Soon, the man who once seemed to be everywhere was scarcely seen at all. To avoid further trouble, without fanfare, he reportedly slipped away to live in a kind of exile in Japan.

In certain ways, Ma’s story is a uniquely Chinese one. It demonstrates the Communist Party’s obsession with control, as the party has long worked to prevent the emergence of a fully independent private sector in China. It is also part of the saga of Xi, who has worked hard to concentrate power in his own hands and who brooks no rivals in public attention and adulation.

Yet the humbling of Ma—and an entire class of other newly minted, mega-rich tech entrepreneurs in China—also speaks profoundly to political developments in the United States surrounding President Donald Trump’s reconquest of power after four years out of office.

In bringing this new class of business titans to heel, China’s leaders made a carefully considered strategic decision about the direction of their country’s political economy. In effect, they were saying that Beijing would never grant a dominant role to the extraordinarily lucrative and freewheeling private technology sector. Put slightly differently, that sector would have no sacred cows and would never be allowed to cast a shadow on the party and state.

In the emerging Trump regime, we are seeing just the opposite. The administration is a collection of billionaires that almost mindlessly celebrates wealth. On his first full day in office, for example, Trump gathered in the White House with two of the world’s richest men—Larry Ellison of Oracle and Masayoshi Son of Softbank—along with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman to salute the launch of a new project called Stargate, billed as a $500 billion joint venture to build artificial intelligence infrastructure.

Trump’s explanation for why this merited his support was almost childishly vapid. “AI seems to be very hot,” he said. “It seems to be the thing that a lot of smart people are looking at very strongly.”

So far, few details about the project are known. But as Washington Post coverage suggests, the companies investing vast amounts of money in AI are almost giddy that, unlike the Biden administration, the new White House seems willing to largely let the tech giants make up their own rules as free from regulation as possible.

Vir: Foreign Policy