China Arrests Ma Mou Who Outlined an ‘Interim Congress’

Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping and other leaders applaud during the closing session of the rubber-stamp legislature’s conference at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on March 11, 2022. Leo Ramirez/AFP via Getty Images

Analysis

On May 3, Beijing revealed the investigation of a national security case involving a person with the surname Ma. The coverage immediately caused Alibaba’s stock to tumble more than 9 percent in a day, because people took it that the co-founder of Alibaba, Jack Ma, had been arrested.

Chinese state outlet CCTV reported Ma Mou, who has the surname Ma, is a “foreign hostile force engaging in establishing an interim congress with the intention to subvert state power.”

The report stated that Ma Mou’s anti-communist organization, targeting the young and students, has a political agenda of inciting secession in the regime.

The Chinese stock market reacted to the report and Alibaba fell nearly 10 percent, until the regime’s English outlet clarified that it had nothing to do with Jack Ma.

Is Ma Mou Supported by a Communist Party Member?

The CCTV report indicated that Ma Mou, a native of Zhejiang and born in 1985, is an R&D director of an IT company.

The report alleged that through an anonymous online group, Ma Mou has spread rumors since March, and issued a declaration of independence.

“Ma outlined an anti-government propaganda program, an interim congress, and a legal system, with the aid of foreign forces, to ultimately subvert the communist regime,” said the report.

The report also stated that the investigation was conducted to discover the detrimental effect of Ma’s activities on state power and social stability.

Through an online search, the Chinese edition of The Epoch Times found the three online platforms Ma Mou established on Telegram. One was to defend human rights by engaging in a propaganda war against the regime; the second was to organize a Chinese interim congress; and the third publicly denounced Chinese leader Xi Jinping while exposing the regime’s crimes.

The interim congress posted a declaration of independence on April 22 through Twitter.

Activists including members of the local Hong Kong, Tibetan, and Uyghur communities hold up banners and placards in Melbourne, Australia, on June 23, 2021, calling on the Australian government to boycott the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics over China's human rights record. William West/AFP via Getty Images

The declaration listed some of the crimes the regime has committed since it took power, including its current lockdown policy which has resulted in many Chinese starving to death, and the disaster the Party brought to the world via its economic initiative “One Belt, One Road.”

Chinese human rights activist Li Hengqing expressed his views on the incident. He said, “The sentiment of anti-communist is rising, even inside the Party.” He anticipated similar incidents would only become more popular.

Democracy activist Wei Jingsheng said he suspects that there are insiders in the Party backing Ma Mou’s activities. He said, “We know it’s a signal that there’s some internal fight taking place within the Party.”

The Landmark of an Interim Congress

Commentator Wang He believes that the incident has a major implication for the core of the Chinese regime, given Ma Mou’s IT skill level. He said that there’s a large population of young IT professionals, occupying major online activities in the Chinese Internet. The recent large lay-offs in tech companies including Alibaba and Tencent have created unemployment and dissatisfaction in China.

He said: “These youngsters have never experienced the brutal suppression of the political campaigns in the regime. Their lack of innate fear of the Party, along with their knowledge of the overseas free world through the Internet, are indeed real headaches for the regime,” and this crackdown on Ma Mou served as a warning to these youngsters.

Wang believes the interim congress is significant in that it represents the political awakening of the younger generations, and their desire to change the regime and the political environment inside China.

He said: “There is a large societal foundation, because it’s not just one Ma Mou. There is a cohort of the tech elite who could impose a great challenge to the Chinese Communist Party.”

Wei Jingsheng emphasized that the zero-COVID policy has awakened many people and the demise of the Party is getting closer.

Li Hengqing also agreed that the regime is entering its final days, with many more rebellions to come inside China.

Haizhong Ning, Luo Ya, and Chang Chun contributed to this report.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.