The noose will tighten' Alibaba's Jack Ma implicated in intimidation by China's regime

The Chinese regime enlisted Jack Ma, the billionaire co-founder of Alibaba, in an intimidation campaign to press a businessman to help in the purge of a top official, documents seen by the Guardian suggest.

- Maeve McClenaghan Tom Burgis

The Chinese regime enlisted Jack Ma, the billionaire co-founder of Alibaba, in an intimidation campaign to press a businessman to help in the purge of a top official, documents seen by the Guardian suggest.

The businessman, who can be named only as "H" for fear of reprisals against his family still in China, faced a series of threats from the Chinese state in an attempt to get him to return home from France, where he was living. They included a barrage of phone calls, the arrest of his sister and the issuing of an international alert through Interpol.

The climax, in April 2021, was the call from Ma. "They said I'm the only one who can persuade you to return," Ma said. H, who had known Ma for many years, recorded the call. He had done the same for calls he had received from other friends, as well as Chinese security officials, who had called in the weeks before, all with the same message.

Transcripts of those calls presented in a French court, along with other legal records, provide a rare insight into some of the methods used by the Chinese regime to exert its influence around the world. The findings are part of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists' (ICIJ) China Targets project, in which journalists documented the methods the Chinese regime uses to track and crush dissent abroad. The team includes the Guardian as well as Radio France and Le Monde, who obtained the transcripts and other legal paperwork.

A spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in the UK said: "The so-called 'transnational repression' by China is pure fabrication."