Founder and Chairman of Chinese internet giant Alibaba Jack Ma continues to suffer from China's authoritarian political system. In this situation, the concept of the rule of law is completely neglected: the rules could be changed in each specific case, and the laws are a mere formality.
One of the world's largest companies has fallen out of favour after criticising China's regulators, and this conflict is just heating up. Another attack on Alibaba has been the removal of its browser from Chinese app stores. UC Browser is no longer available on the app stores of several device manufacturers, including China’s Huawei and Xiaomi. Nevertheless, the users of South Korean smartphones Samsung and US Apple still have access to Alibaba’s browser.
Such a decision was caused by strong criticism of the popular mobile browser from state-backed broadcaster CCTV. Talk show members blasted UC Browser for including medical ads by allegedly unqualified companies. However, this reason seems rather weird, especially given that these ads were immediately deleted, and the UC representatives apologized.
“We will further strengthen the supervision mechanism and sense of responsibility of the platform, and provide users with high-quality information services with more stringent standards,” the company said in a statement. However, most experts are confident that advertising is not the issue. They believe that UC’s removal is another blow against Jack Ma.
