Ancient poem has adverse impact on company’s shares
Meituan founder sparks stock sell-off after post about book burning was seen as critical of Beijing
Wang Xing, co-founder of China’s dominant food delivery service Meituan, has sparked a social media frenzy and a sell-off of its stock, after posting a 1,000-yearold Chinese poem seen as an unsubtle jab at the government.
The 42-year-old internet entrepreneur, whose company is under investigation for possible breaches of China’s antitrust laws, posted a poem on Sunday that was written during the late Tang dynasty about the burning of books by China’s first emperor Qin Shihuang.
The ancient poem is usually interpreted as an anti-establishment clarion call.
Book burning has always been a very sensitive issue for Chinese rulers
XU GUOQI, UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG
“Anything related to the Cultural Revolution or book burning is particularly sensitive because it will soon be the [Communist] Party’s centennial celebration,” said Professor Xu Guoqi, the Kerry Group Professor in Globalisation History at the University of Hong Kong. “Anything which doesn’t openly praise the party can be taken to mean different things. You cannot undermine the glory of the party.”
Wang’s post, which has since been taken off the Fanfou social media platform – where he posted three times a day on average for 14 years – raised eyebrows.
Meituan shares tumbled by as much as 9.8 per cent in Hong Kong, their biggest one-day percentage plunge in two months, before clawing back some of the losses for a 7.1 per cent decline, wiping out US$16 billion in market value. Meituan officials declined to comment.
The poem by Zhang Jie, written during the late Tang dynasty (618-907 AD), harshly criticised
Qin Shihuang over his tyrannical acts of burning books as a form of thought control.
“Before ashes [in the book burning pit] turned cold, revolts rose east of the mountain,” the poem read. In another line, the poet wrote that two major leaders of the revolt who overthrew the Qin dynasty, Liu Bang and Xiang Yu, were not fond of books, belittling the first emperor’s futile efforts of trying to strengthen his rule by punishing intellectuals and suppressing ideas.
Meituan, founded in 2010, could be on the hook for as much as US$700 million in fines, as it finds itself under scrutiny by the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) over whether it forced merchants to sell exclusively on its platform. The regulator announced its investigation into Meituan on April 26 after receiving complaints.
The crackdown on Meituan’s business practices followed similar fines, reprimands and penalties meted out to Alibaba Group Holding, China’s dominant social media network operator Tencent Holdings and dozens of other technology companies and their units, as China’s regulators caught up with the sector’s winner-takes-all corporate behaviour after decades of giving them free rein. Alibaba owns the Post.
“This poem was a reminder to me [that] the most dangerous rivals are often not the usual suspects,” Wang wrote, explaining why he posted the poem.
“These years Alibaba has been defending against JD.com but Pinduoduo came out of left field and it now has more users than Alibaba.
“Likewise, Meituan’s biggest rival may seem to be Ele.me. But it is more likely that companies and business models we have yet to focus on will disrupt the delivery business.”
The University of Hong Kong’s Xu said: “Book burning has always been a very sensitive issue for Chinese rulers, and particularly with the Chinese Communist Party, [dating] back to the days of Chairman Mao who had openly defended Qin’s acts of burning books and prosecuting scholars.
“The poem will never be openly appreciated in China, and certainly not under the Communist regime.”