Why let Xi Jinping dismantle the entire circle of Jia Qinglin, Li Botan, and Jack Ma? | Maotai Club·Taishan Club | Yaoyao Jiang

This episode explores how, over the past decade or so, circles such as the Red Family’s Maotai Club and the private‑capital Taishan Club gradually formed and intersected on platforms like Ant Group, creating a cross‑sectoral community of shared interests. It analyzes how Xi Jinping, through systematic actions such as halting Ant’s IPO, regulating the platform economy, and dissolving entrepreneur clubs, preemptively dismantles this emerging political‑business stratum to eliminate its potential threat to the monopoly of supreme power.

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Hello everyone, I’m Yao Yao Jiang, a thinker who values logic. Over the past decade, Xi Jinping has dismantled two types of clubs. One is Li Botan’s Maotai Club; the other is Duan Yongji’s Taishan Club. At first glance they seem unrelated—Maotai Club is backed by the Red Family, i.e., political power, while Taishan Club gathers China’s most successful private entrepreneurs, i.e., private capital. One has power, the other has money; they belong to two different worlds. But I believe that, in Xi’s view, they represent the same kind of threat because power seeks capital and capital seeks power. When the two forces start to combine, they give rise not merely to clubs but to a new stratum with shared interests and common political demands. What Xi has truly been trying to dismantle in recent years is this emerging new stratum, because the threat is not to the regime itself but to the supreme leader’s monopoly over that regime. Why do the seemingly unrelated Maotai Club and Taishan Club end up with the same fate? Today we’ll start from these two tables to explain.

First, look at the first table, the Maotai Club. It represents the level of power. To understand this table, you must first figure out what the red family holds and what it lacks. What they hold is power, i.e., the authority to mobilize national resources. But power has an inherent characteristic: it has a time limit. When a leader is in office, a single sentence can be worth a fortune, but once they retire, that power quickly depreciates. Wealth is different; assets do not disappear when a person steps down. They can be passed to the next generation. Therefore, for the red family, the most important thing is not to hold power but to cash out while that power is still effective. And to achieve this, power alone is not enough; it also requires capital, markets, financial instruments, listed companies, and people who know how to manage wealth. Thus, power begins to actively seek capital, and the Maotai Club is the hand through which this power reaches out. The person who runs this table is Li Botan; his father‑in‑law is Jia Qinglin, who served as Chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference for ten consecutive years from 2003 to 2013 and was a member of the CCP Central Committee’s Politburo Standing Committee. Jia Qinglin’s daughter runs Zhaode Investment, and using this position he holds shares in a large number of enterprises. In 2016, the globally shocking Panama Papers revealed Jia Qinglin’s family on the list. Li Botan and his wife, Jia Qinglin’s daughter Jia Qiang, control multiple offshore companies. A former Politburo Standing Committee member’s family publicly appears as a clean party and state leader, but privately hides wealth through sons‑in‑law and daughters in offshore financial centers such as the British Virgin Islands. The Jia family is not an exception; if you look at the CCP’s senior families, almost every family has a figure similar to Li Botan—could be a son‑in‑law, son, relative, or a fully trusted proxy—responsible for business, shareholding, and investment, converting political power into commercial wealth. Among the public they are called “red‑capped businessmen,” more accurately they are the white gloves of the red family. The person who perfects the white‑glove role is Che Feng. Che Feng, after taking money, quickly entered the top‑tier elite circle of China through the daughter of People’s Bank of China Governor Dai Xianglong, becoming an important agent for multiple red families to manage wealth. Later disclosed information shows he participated in capital operations of Haitong Securities, Ping An Insurance, and other ventures, arbitraging amounts up to tens of billions of yuan. In 2015, Che Feng was taken away for investigation.

But for the red family, having white gloves is not enough; they also need a secret room that leaves no trace. After all, a Politburo Standing Committee member cannot negotiate deals with entrepreneurs or his white gloves in broad daylight. So in December 2009, Li Botan founded the Maotai Club with the purpose of setting up a platform for more red families and entrepreneurs to sit at the same table. The club’s location is an old, tree‑lined street in the Forbidden City, a traditional siheyuan. This siheyuan also has a special status: it belongs to the Beijing municipal government, yet it is used as a private clubhouse with state assets. A place where the elite conduct business is itself part of public resources. The most striking feature of the clubhouse is a six‑meter‑long yellow‑wood table surrounded by antiques, with membership fees reaching several million dollars. However, what truly made the Maotai Club famous was not the table or the antiques, but its Maotai liquor. Li Botan essentially secured about one‑third of the aged Maotai production from the Maotai distillery—those red‑bottled aged Maotai are nicknamed “red hair” within the circle. In Chinese official circles, Maotai is no longer just ordinary baijiu; it functions as a special exchange medium. Giving cash is too conspicuous, giving antiques is too cumbersome, but giving Maotai is both dignified and easily circulated. Li Botan controls the most premium supply of aged Maotai, effectively holding the most scarce hard currency in this circle.

These details are not rumors; they are written by someone who actually sat at that table. He is Shen Dong, the author of “Red Betting Board.” In the previous episode we discussed his story with Duan Weihong. Shen Dong is not an outside observer; he once cooperated with Li Botan to organize a wine club and in 2011 toured European vineyards with entrepreneurs such as Xu Jiayin. What he writes is not hearsay but what he saw with his own eyes. In his book, Shen Dong lists some of the Maotai Club’s guests, including Alibaba founder Jack Ma, CITIC Group chairman Kong Dan, Phoenix TV chairman Liu Changle, and Jiang Zemin’s grandson Jiang Zhicheng. When you look at this list together, its significance becomes clear. The table was prepared by Jia Qinglin’s son‑in‑law, and seated at the table are members of Jiang Zemin’s family, a financial platform like CITIC, a media resource like Phoenix, and the most successful private entrepreneur, Jack Ma. This is not a friendly dinner; it is a resource allocation. Jack Ma represents commerce and capital, CITIC represents finance and capital operations, Phoenix represents public opinion and dissemination capability, and Jiang Zhicheng represents another strand of red political bloodline. You will find that almost every resource needed for power to convert into wealth has been invited to this table.

It was only at this point that I truly understood why the Maotai Club must be held in a private club. Hotels can only serve meals, whereas a club can forge relationships. What truly matters has never been the meal itself, but the way each table continuously consolidates scattered resources into a sustained interpersonal network. This is the most important value of the Maotai Club: an organizational platform that connects power and capital. Shen Dong later summarized why these red elites are so keen on private clubs, outlining three points. First, in a private club one can speak freely, discuss politics with confidence, and also discuss business without fear. There are no journalists, no meeting minutes, and no one knows whom they met or what they talked about. Second, red families are not suited to flaunting wealth publicly because their official identity is that of Communist Party cadres, servants of the people. Yet behind closed doors they also need a circle that can confirm each other's identities, exchange information, and build trust, and the Maotai Club provides exactly this kind of identity verification. Being seated at the table itself is a qualification; you don’t have to repeatedly introduce yourself or prove your background, because being seated already says it all. Third, and most pragmatic, such private clubs are built on public resources. For example, that courtyard belongs to the Beijing municipal government; the state bears the real cost, while the private network of relationships enjoys the convenience. When you look at these three aspects together, the role of the Maotai Club becomes very clear. Here, power seeks people who understand business, companies that can go public, and financial and media resources, while capital seeks political connections that can protect it. The exchange between the two sides is far more than business cards; it is trust that can lead to long‑term cooperation.

So why does capital also want to be seated at the table? The answer is simple: for Chinese private entrepreneurs, the greatest anxiety has never been the inability to make money, but the uncertainty of when their wealth might lose protection. A company can become huge, a listed firm can have a market value of hundreds of billions, but a single document, an investigation, or a policy adjustment can instantly wipe out years of accumulated wealth. Consequently, proximity to power becomes an instinctive choice for many entrepreneurs. Sitting at the same table as Jia Qinglin’s son‑in‑law or Jiang Zemin’s grandson itself conveys a sense of security—a feeling that, in a critical moment, someone might speak up for you. At this point, power has already reached out to capital, but the real danger has not yet occurred. The real danger is not that power has found capital, but that changes are also happening on the capital side. A group of entrepreneurs who were once competitors and independent begin to gather more and more frequently, exchange information, co‑invest, share risks, and gradually form their own organizations and networks. When capital starts to organize itself, a second table emerges.

The second table is the Taishan Club, representing the level of capital. But this chapter is not about how capital curries favor with power; on the contrary, I will talk about the changes happening within capital itself. A group of originally scattered private entrepreneurs, each working on their own, gradually formed a group with common interests, a common identity, and increasingly developed organizational capacity. Therefore, the Taishan Club was fundamentally different from the Maotai Club from the start. It was never a place for capital to court a particular official. It even set a very special rule: local leaders are not invited to gatherings. This rule precisely shows that it is not a merger of power and money, but something more important—private capital beginning to try to solve problems with its own strength. In the past, when an entrepreneur faced a problem, the first thought was to go to a leader, a department, or a patron. After the Taishan Club emerged, these entrepreneurs began to turn their attention to each other. They exchanged information, jointly assessed policy trends, warned each other of risks, and bolstered each other’s confidence. In 1993, Duan Yongji of the Four‑Way Group initiated this circle, and in 2005 it was formally named the Taishan Club. The member list is almost a history of the development of China’s private economy. Before it dissolved, there were only sixteen members—Liu Chuanzhi, Lu Zhiqiang, Guo Guangchang, Shi Yuzhu, Hong Yongping, Wang Zhongjun, Feng Lun, etc.—yet they controlled the most important private enterprises in China. They met several times a year; on the surface they talked about business, but the bulk of the discussion was about policy. In China, the biggest risk for private enterprises is often not the market but policy. An entrepreneur sees his own industry, but a dozen entrepreneurs together see the overall direction of the Chinese economy. When Liu Chuanzhi, Guo Guangchang, Qian Hong and others discuss which industries are still viable and where the next policies might go, they exchange not only commercial information but a collective judgment about the future. The rule of not inviting local leaders arose in this context. It was not to display aloofness but to preserve a space truly belonging to entrepreneurs. Here they do not need to rely on any official for information; they rely on each other’s experience and judgment to make decisions. The most important sign of an organization is not its size but that a group can rely on internal information circulation rather than wholly on external power. When capital acquires this ability, it has taken the first step toward organization.

The second step is turning common interests into a common destiny, which is the Jiangnan Club. Founded in 2006, its members include Jack Ma, Guo Guangchang, Ding Lei, Chen Tianqiao, Shen Guojun and others. Compared with the Taishan Club, its biggest characteristic is not discussion but investment. They co‑invested in Huayi, promoted Cainiao Network, participated in the privatization of Yintai, and helped the troubled Greentown. Your money goes into my project, my capital goes into your company, cross‑shareholdings increase, and the ties become harder to break. The greatest effect of joint investment is not just making more money but slowly binding a group of originally independent people into a community of shared interests. Friends can part, partners can part, but equity is hard to untangle. Thus, the organization of capital entered its second step: it not only has common interests but also begins to share a common destiny.

The third step is to learn to govern oneself. I think this step is the most easily overlooked, yet it may be the most important in the whole story. When the Alashan SEE Ecological Association was first established in 2004, the first members' meeting almost could not continue. According to many people's habit, the founding president Liu Xiaoguang had prepared a board of directors list in advance, intending to announce it directly at the meeting. But before the names were finished being read, the paper was snatched away and torn on the spot. Later, Ren Zhiqiang recalled that the meeting that day was noisy until 4 a.m. The reason was that no one in the room was anyone's subordinate; everyone was a boss, and no one was willing to accept a leadership team appointed by someone else. In the end they could only reach a method that almost everyone recognized: since no one obeyed anyone else, let the rules speak. One vote per director, one vote per president, competition for positions. The governance structure that Alashan SEE later formed grew out of that day. The highest authority is the members' assembly, with major matters decided jointly by members. The president is directly elected by members for a three‑year term. The charter contains many provisions specifically limiting the president’s power; no one can monopolize the organization indefinitely. Thus Wang Shi, Feng Lun, Ren Zhiqiang and others handed over leadership term by term, debating budgets, voting on projects, and repeatedly discussing charter amendments. I want to stress that I am not saying they therefore had any political goals, nor that they used the environmental organization for political activities—this boundary must be clear. What is truly noteworthy is that in governing the environmental organization they unintentionally developed a new capability. In the past they were used to waiting for one person to make a decision; now they began to rely on rules to resolve differences. Previously they sought an authority to decide for them; now they learned how a group of equal-status people can make decisions together through voting, discussion, and compromise. This ability itself has no political attribute, but it is an important self‑governance skill. Later Wang Shi said something interesting: “I learned compromise at Alashan SEE.” That sentence sounds like a simple sentiment, but it actually reveals more important information. It means they learned not only how to run a business, but how to coordinate interests and resolve conflicts through rules in a community of equal members. If the Tai Shan gatherings taught entrepreneurs to unite, and the Jiangnan gatherings gave them common interests, then Alashan SEE truly cultivated a deeper ability: a group that can rely on itself rather than external power to organize, govern, and coordinate. This step may seem far from politics, yet it gave the group, for the first time, the organizational foundation for forming a common agenda.

The fourth step is to enable this community to be replicated generation after generation, which is the purpose of Hupan University. In 2015, Jack Ma, together with Liu Chuanzhi, Feng Lun, Guo Guangchang, Shi Yuzhu and several other entrepreneurs, founded Hupan University and announced a goal of operating for 300 years. Note that these names are almost all from the Tai Shan, Jiangnan gatherings and the entrepreneur circles we discussed earlier. In other words, Hupan University is not a suddenly emerging new project; it is the same group of entrepreneurs, after achieving unity, joint investment, and self‑governance, beginning to think about the next generation. Hupan University is, of course, a business school teaching entrepreneurship, not a political curriculum—this boundary must also be clarified. Its special aspect is not only in the classroom but also in the selection of applicants. Applicants must have entrepreneurial experience, team size, and business performance; admission rates are extremely low. Once admitted, participants do not simply finish a course and go their separate ways; they are incorporated into a long‑lasting alumni network. The notion of “never graduating” means that the relationships between participants and the school, and among participants themselves, do not end after three years but continue to extend into investment cooperation, information sharing, and future entrepreneurial connections. Therefore, Hupan University aims to replicate not just entrepreneurial knowledge but a shared identity. It selects the most promising young entrepreneurs, immerses them in a common language and network, and connects them with the previous generation of business leaders. If the Tai Shan gatherings solved how this generation of entrepreneurs could work together, and Alashan SEE solved how they could manage shared affairs without a superior making decisions, then Hupan University solves how this community can absorb newcomers, cultivate them, and perpetuate itself.

Now we stack those four circles together again and look at them. On the surface they have different functions, but their members overlap heavily. Names like Liu Chuanzhi, Feng Lun, Guo Guangchang, Shi Yuzhu, Jack Ma and others appear repeatedly in different organizations. This is not a group of unrelated people, but the same group of entrepreneurs using different platforms to fulfill different organizational functions. Of course, public material cannot prove that these organizations have formed a unified political action, nor can it prove that they are preparing to engage in any struggle for the highest power. What we can prove is that this is an organizational condition: this batch of entrepreneurs has learned to band together and also to share risk, set internal rules, and possess the ability to continuously replicate their own network. Consequently, they began to contemplate a common question: who will set the rules that affect our destiny? And can we propose our own opinions on those rules? Capital has arrived here, still separated from politics by a door, yet already standing at the doorway. What it lacks is a channel that can truly connect its wealth and organizational capacity with the political resources of the red families. Later, that channel actually appeared, called Ant. So when did they first truly own common assets? The answer is Ant. The most important significance of Ant Group is not how valuable it is, but that it for the first time placed the two forces from the previous two chapters on the same shareholder list. Of course, to understand this, one must first know what kind of company Ant actually is. By 2020, Ant was no longer an ordinary internet company. Tens of millions of people use Alipay to pay, transfer, purchase wealth management products, and apply for micro‑loans; massive amounts of payment and credit data are collected into this system every day. It is not only a profit‑making company, but also a crucial machine that influences the operation of the entire financial system. Remember this: money is just wealth, data is power. If a company can record the payment behavior of billions of people, decide who can get loans, who has higher credit, who can obtain more financial services, it controls not just commercial resources but a capability to reallocate social resources. Thus, in 2020 Ant prepared to list simultaneously in Shanghai and Hong Kong, and the market gave it a valuation of over 300 billion, not because it was more profitable than banks, but because everyone realized an unprecedented financial platform was forming.

But for Xi Jinping, the real concern is not how big Ant is, but who ultimately controls such a machine. Consequently, a shareholder list that originally only interested investors suddenly became a political map. In 2020, as Ant’s IPO entered its final sprint, the Wall Street Journal published an investigative report. It did not analyze how many Alipay users there were, nor discuss whether the valuation was too high; instead, it did something more interesting: it traced Ant’s pre‑IPO equity structure layer by layer upward to see who the true shareholders were. The characters from the first two chapters suddenly reappeared. The report first mentioned Boyu Capital, whose co‑founder is Jiang Zhi‑cheng, the grandson of Jiang Zemin. Then another name appeared: Zhao De Investment’s actual controller Li Botan, who is the son‑in‑law of Jia Qinglin, as we mentioned earlier. The WSJ specifically noted that Li Botan founded the Maotai Club, describing it as a frequent gathering place for the princeling faction and its supporters. If you recall the earlier text, it should now look familiar. Jiang Zhi‑cheng is the one sitting at the Maotai Club table, and Li Botan is the one setting the table. We always thought they were just drinking together, making deals, eating meals, and seeking business opportunities, but at this moment we realize that the true endpoint of that table is not a dinner, but the shareholder list.

This is also the most important connection in the entire program, because in Chapter One we talk about the red family actively seeking capital, in Chapter Two we discuss how private capital gradually organizes itself and forms its own strength, and in Chapter Three these two forces finally cease to be merely cooperative and become co‑shareholders of the same company. After drinking, they can each go their own way; after jointly investing in a project, they may also part ways, but jointly holding equity in a company means that both sides, for the first time, own common assets, share common profits, and also share risks together. From this moment on, they are no longer two parallel forces but truly form a community of interests. To achieve this combination, the equity structure is extremely complex; I am registered with capital in Hong Kong, then through a Shanghai subsidiary, an investment platform private‑equity fund, layer by layer, finally the Beijing Economic Management Investment Center holds the Ant Group shares. The whole structure goes through many layers and looks more like a professional investment institution rather than a red family directly holding shares. The more it looks like this, the more it shows they understand the sensitivity of the matter. If it were just an ordinary commercial investment, there would be no need to design the equity so convoluted; what truly needs to be hidden is never the money itself, but the identity behind the money. Because once the public discovers that the Jiang Zemin family, the Jia Qinglin family, and other red bloodlines are deeply linked with China’s most important private financial platforms, the issue ceases to be merely a capital‑market matter and instantly becomes a political event.

More importantly, these investments are not symbolic. Public data shows that Beijing, despite having invested hundreds of billions of yuan, acquired nearly 1% of Ant Group, entering the top ten shareholders. Based on the market valuation of over $300 billion at the time, once Ant successfully goes public, the investments hidden behind the multi‑layer equity structure will yield astonishing wealth returns. At this point, I believe the real point of this chapter is no longer how much Ant is worth, but that the Maotai meeting table finally turned into a shareholder list, which is what truly sets Ant apart from any other company. Jiang Zhicheng’s Boyu Capital did not place this single bet on Ant; over the years, overseas media have gradually mapped Boyu Capital’s investment trajectory and found an almost fixed pattern: he rarely runs businesses himself, yet consistently enters the equity structures of China’s top private enterprises at a very low cost just before they rapidly grow and prepare for IPOs. His presence can be seen in the development of Alibaba, Ant, and other companies. The question is why a young man in his twenties with almost no industrial experience can always obtain original shares at the most critical moments that others cannot. If we interpret this as ordinary investment, it is hard to explain such consistent success; but if we place it back in Chapter One, the answer becomes much simpler. What is truly valuable is never the investment insight, but the political resources behind the surname. This is also the most typical way red families accumulate wealth: they do not personally run enterprises, but when a company most needs policy resources and security, they enter the equity structure early through various investment platforms, so that if the enterprise succeeds, they share huge wealth, and if it fails, their risk is far less than that of true entrepreneurs. Power does not directly turn into cash, but quietly becomes original equity, waiting for the company’s IPO to complete the final wealth realization.

Speaking of this, you might find the scene familiar, because in the previous episode when we talked about Duan Weihong we mentioned that The New York Times had revealed that Wen Jiabao’s family held shares in Ping An Insurance through white‑handed proxies. In 2012, before the 18th Party Congress, that report spread worldwide and put a soon‑to‑step‑down State Council premier on the international media spotlight for the first time because of his family’s wealth. This incident affected Xi Jinping far deeper than many imagined, because Xi saw a shareholding structure that had been well hidden; once exposed, it would instantly turn from a business news story into a political weapon. The hidden element behind the enterprise was no longer just wealth, but a series of red families, and the disclosure was no longer a financial statement but a top‑level political relationship map. So, when he faced Ant Group, what he saw was not just an internet company but a red family, and for the first time private capital’s interests were placed into the same machine. This point is more important than making money. The joint equity ultimately brings not only shared wealth but also shared policy expectations. In other words, they began to care not only about the operation of enterprises but also about the rules that determine the enterprises’ fate. From Xi’s perspective, what he saw was no longer a single internet company but a new force. This force is not prepared to challenge the Communist Party, nor is there evidence that they are planning any political action; what truly raises alarm is that he, for the first time, simultaneously possessed four things: massive wealth, a complete organizational network, the ability to replicate itself, and deep red political resources. In the past, these four elements were scattered among different people, organizations, and families, but Ant Group placed them together in one machine for the first time. This is exactly the judgment we raised at the start: the threat is not to the regime itself, but to the supreme leader’s monopoly over the regime, because any supreme leader can tolerate the existence of red families, can tolerate the development of private capital, and even can tolerate some exchange of interests between them. However, when these two forces begin to form joint assets, joint interests, and increasingly strong organizational capabilities, they may gradually develop an influence independent of the highest authority. They may not oppose the supreme leader, yet they already have the ability to bargain with him. I believe this is the real political significance of Ant Group’s halt. Therefore, Ant Group did not become the first monument of this new class; instead, it became an early exposure. Consequently, the machine was paused, but what was truly paused was not an IPO, but a nascent new class.

After Ant Group’s listing was halted, many thought the matter was over, but the real story actually began there. In the following years, China’s internet underwent an unprecedented crackdown: Ant’s listing was terminated, Hupan University was shut down, Didi was investigated, platform economics faced antitrust actions, the tutoring industry was almost completely overhauled, and a series of regulatory measures targeting data security and capital expansion of internet platforms were introduced—one after another, with almost no pause. If you examine each of these events individually, each has its own rationale: Ant involved financial regulation, Didi involved data security, tutoring involved educational fairness, platform economics involved antitrust. The problem is why these issues, originally belonging to completely different sectors—finance, internet, education, data, platform economics—concentrated in the same time period. If they were unrelated, why do almost all the heavily targeted entities share a common characteristic: they are not traditional enterprises in the conventional sense; more precisely, they are platform economies. The biggest difference between platforms and ordinary enterprises is not scale or profit, but connectivity. A manufacturing firm produces products; a real‑estate company develops land; a platform, however, produces connections—it links users to users, enterprises to enterprises, capital to capital. The more connections, the greater the value; the more stable the connections, the harder they are to replace. If the real danger of platforms lies in their continual linking of people, capital, and resources, then from Xi’s standpoint, where should the first strike be aimed? The answer is simple: not at the most profitable area, nor at the largest market cap, but at the point of strongest connectivity. Thus, I increasingly feel that the seemingly independent crackdowns over the past few years can actually be understood within a single framework.

The first category is the dismantling of common assets, with Ant Group being the most typical example. Halting Ant Group not only meant halting an IPO but also cutting off opportunities for this community of interest to continue expanding. The second category is the dismantling of common organizations, such as the cancellation of Tai Shan Club, the suspension of admissions and reorganization of Hupan University. A group of once-active entrepreneurs quickly fell silent, leading to the disintegration of previously formed and replicated organizational networks. The third category is the dismantling of platforms. In the following years, a series of regulations concerning platform economy and data security were successively introduced, targeting different companies but collectively pointing to the same phenomenon. When these three types of actions are considered together, it becomes clear that they are not aimed at any single company but at different forms of connection. Common assets were severed, common organizations were dismantled, and connections between platforms were weakened. Thus, the extending chain of connections from the first three categories was gradually cut off.

We were very cautious in the first three categories, not stating that this newly formed group possessed common political demands, as public information could not prove this. Similarly, for the fourth category, we do not intend to prove that Xi Jinping possesses some internal intelligence unknown to us. What we truly want to discuss is something else: for the supreme ruler, it is often not the dangers that have already occurred that need to be dealt with, but the potential dangers that are forming. Almost all highly centralized political systems in history share a common characteristic: they often address problems at an earlier stage than ordinary people. Ordinary people tend to act after seeing the results, while supreme power is more concerned with trends. Once it is judged that a certain trend will continue to develop and may change the power structure in the future, the ruler will usually intervene in its nascent stage rather than wait for things to fully mature. Individually, the Moutai Club was just a private club, the Tai Shang Club was just an entrepreneurs' club, Alashan SEE was just an environmental organization, Hupan University was just a business school, and Ant was just an internet company preparing to go public. The problem is, they were not isolated. From the perspective of the supreme ruler, the first thought is: if today he can connect business resources, will he connect financial resources tomorrow? If today he can influence entrepreneurs, will he influence more social elites tomorrow? If today he is merely forming common interests, will he gradually form a common stance in the future? No one can prove that these questions will definitely happen, but no one can prove that they will definitely not happen. For a highly centralized power system, the mere existence of such a possibility is enough to arouse vigilance. It is precisely for this reason that I believe what Xi Jinping truly needed to deal with later was this continuously strengthening ability to connect. This is also why many subsequent policies, while seemingly targeting different entities, were actually aimed at combating a newly forming social class.

If the preceding deductions are valid, then the events of the following years serve as a verification. Starting from the end of 2020, the platforms that had previously connected entrepreneurs gradually withdrew from the historical stage, and the newly formed community of entrepreneurs began to disperse again. The most noteworthy case is Ren Zhiqiang, as his experience almost encapsulates the main theme of this program. In the second chapter, we discussed how he was long active in Alashan SEE, where he discussed, voted, debated, and compromised with other entrepreneurs, gradually cultivating the habit of publicly expressing his opinions. In 2020, he published an article criticizing the supreme leader's remarks at the beginning of the epidemic without naming names. A few months later, he was investigated and, in September of the same year, was sentenced to 18 years in prison on charges of corruption and bribery. Ren Zhiqiang's experience precisely confirms one thing: the true danger of an organization lies not only in its wealth but in its possession of its own voice.

Another choice occurred with individuals like Jack Ma, Zhang Yiming, and Huang Zheng. They did not continue to express themselves publicly but chose to retreat behind the scenes around the same period. Some resigned as chairman, some handed over control, and some gradually faded from public view. The methods differed, but the outcome was strikingly consistent. The most dazzling group of entrepreneurs almost simultaneously learned to diminish themselves. This change quickly spread throughout the private entrepreneur community, with more and more people sending their assets and families abroad, reducing their exposure, and lowering their public profile. Today, for Chinese entrepreneurs, the greatest sense of security no longer comes from scale but from discretion. In September 2023, the Beijing Moutai Club was reported by the media to be empty. That courtyard house in the Forbidden City, that six-meter-long wooden table, have all become relics of the past. In the first category, that table has finally been cleared.

However, the ones truly emptied were not just a few platforms, nor just a few entrepreneurs, but an emerging group of entrepreneurs forming a shared identity, shared interests, and a shared voice. After this multi‑year rectification, they reverted to a state of mutual isolation and silence. When the alliance began, we started with two tables: one was the Maotai Club, the other the Taishan Club—one representing red‑family capital seeking investment, the other representing private capital seeking peers. Later the two tables met like ants, and later they dispersed together again. So this episode is not really about a single company or a few entrepreneurs; it is about a new political‑business community, how it formed step by step, and how it was dismantled prematurely before it could fully mature. Perhaps this is the key to understanding the changes in China’s political‑business relations over the past few years. That's all for today. Please click the little bell so you won't miss our program.

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