Jack Ma's Purchase of the SCMP Reflects Hong Kong's "New Normal"

Everyone Knew This Was Coming

The South China Morning Post was once the world’s most profitable newspaper. While its salad days are long gone, it still represents a beacon of independent news coverage and opinion within China. That may be about to change.

It looks increasingly like Alibaba.com magnate Jack Ma will be purchasing the newspaper. While some have compared the move to the effort by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos’ to save the Washington Post, Ma’s interest in purchasing the paper is likely as a favor to the Chinese government, in exchange for easing Ali Baba’s transition into financial services. Former SCMP editor Willly Lam is not optimistic about the paper’s direction:

"For all readers of the South China Morning Post the paper has become progressively pro-Beijing, I think this trend will continue," said Willy Lam of the Chinese University of Hong Kong's Centre for China Studies, a former China editor at the paper.

"Ma has very close ties with the government so I'm sure he doesn't want any so-called embarrassing or offensive articles to appear in the Morning Post after he has taken over," Lam said.

"He... has been a major beneficiary of the Chinese system, so it is logical to expect... that he would not want any criticism of the system."

That said, the SCMP has been gradually moving towards a sympathetic view of the Chinese Communist Party for a while now; some say this started after the paper’s Malaysian owner, Robert Kwok, fired Lam in 2000:

Lam’s departure from the newspaper in 2000 was regarded as one of the early warning signals of the impact Beijing’s sovereignty would have on basic freedoms in Hong Kong. It prompted a letter of protest at the time to the newspaper from the Hong Kong Foreign Correspondents’ Club’s Freedom of the Press Committee.

Kuok, who is heavily invested in China, bought the Post from media tycoon Rupert Murdoch in 1993.

“I was kicked out because Robert Kuok was very unhappy with what he considered to be (my) excessively critical view on Chinese politics,” said Lam, who added that Hong Kong-based media companies are being influenced by their shareholders in China who are set on Beijing extending its authority over the semi-autonomous city.

“For the past several years, they have gradually but relentlessly boosted control over Hong Kong media,” he said. “(Ma) has to walk a fine line, if either the Post or any other major media becomes a propaganda sheet then its value is lost.”

But the Communist Party's remolding of Hong Kong will still have consequences.  If the acquisition turns out to be yet another move to change the complexion of Hong Kong society, it will likely only increase the likelihood that the coming Taiwan elections have an unwelcome result for the Mainland.