BANK EMPLOYEES FEDERATION OF INDIA NARESH PAUL CENTRE
53 Radha Bazar Lane (1st Floor), Kolkata – 700 001 e-mail: gsbefi@gmail.com
Website: www.befi.in
Circular No 58/2026 To all Units, Affiliates, Office Bearers, CC Members, GC Members 27 Sep 2026
Dear Comrade,
Minutes signed with IBA – UFBU defers strike call
The United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU) has decided to defer the proposed agitational programmes and strike actions, following the signing of Minutes between the Indian Banks’ Association (IBA) and UFBU on 27 September 2026.
The decision to defer the strike has been taken in the context of the developments recorded in the Minutes and the understanding reached between IBA and UFBU. The decisions recorded in the Minutes are furnished herein:
- a.high-level committee of IBA and UFBU will be formed immediately to deliberate on the issue of declaring the remaining Saturdays as holidays. This committee will explore, all possible alternatives; discuss with all stakeholders, and work out a solution acceptable to all stakeholders and, more importantly, the customers.
- b.As regards the PLI Scheme for Scale IV and above officers, the discussions can start with IBA to propose modifications to the Government in the scheme to address the observations of the Unions/ Associations.
- c.The residual issues as listed in the minutes dated 8.3.2024 will be discussed between the parties for expeditious resolution.
- d.In view of the above, it was agreed by the UFBU that the proposed agitational programmes and strike actions will be deferred.
Salute to the Banking Fraternity: At this juncture, we extend our heartfelt congratulations and revolutionary greetings to the entire banking fraternity for the magnificent preparations made to make the three-day strike commencing from 28 September a resounding success.
The response of employees and officers demonstrated once again that unity, collective determination and organisational strength remain the most powerful instruments of the banking workforce.
The preparations assumed special significance because the workforce had to face an unprecedented atmosphere of pressure, intimidation and attempts to create fear
among individual employees and officers. Various forms of threats were reportedly employed, including references to FIRs, surveillance and even facial mapping through CCTV footage, creating an impression that employees and officers participating in a peaceful and lawful industrial action were being treated as though they were anti-social elements.
Such an approach is deeply disturbing. The exercise of the legitimate right of workers to participate in industrial action cannot be equated with criminal or anti-social activity. Bank employees and officers who were preparing to participate in a peaceful and legally recognised industrial action were standing up for issues concerning their service conditions and collectively negotiated rights. The courage displayed by the employees and officers in the face of such pressure deserves our highest appreciation.
Attempts to break the Strike: Equally concerning were the reported attempts by certain authorities to undermine the proposed strike by making extensive arrangements to keep branches functioning.
A considerable number of officers and clerical employees were reportedly deputed to open and operate various branches, in some cases even by sending officers to branches located in other States. Such extraordinary measures reveal the extent to which administrative machinery was being mobilised to dilute the impact of a collective industrial action. These highly depressing incidences are unprecedented in the banking industry.
We appreciate the steadfastness of all those employees and officers who stood firm despite such pressure and attempts to weaken the collective response. The banking workforce has once again demonstrated that the unity achieved by way of struggle cannot be defeated merely through administrative pressure, intimidation or elaborate contingency arrangements.
Banking operations on a holiday - A matter of concern: We also place on record our strong concern over the decision to conduct banking operations on a declared holiday today, apparently as part of the efforts to dilute the impact of the proposed industrial action. The very fact that employees and officers were required to attend to banking operations on a holiday, even while they were engaged in intensive preparations for the three-day strike, reflects the extraordinary pressure being placed upon the workforce. At the same time, we salute and appreciate the employees and officers who, wearing black as a symbol of protest, responded to the needs of customers and discharged their responsibilities with dedication on a Sunday which also justified the demand of 5-day banking week. Their conduct demonstrated that the workforce can simultaneously uphold its commitment to customer service and firmly register its protest against policies and practices affecting their legitimate rights. The black attire worn today was a dignified and peaceful expression of protest and solidarity, reflecting the resolve of the banking fraternity to defend its collective interests through democratic and lawful means.
The struggle has produced results: The developments culminating in the signing of the Minutes on 27 September have to be viewed against the background of the highly successful one-day strike on 11 September 2026 and the massive preparations for the three-day strike.
It is the strength of collective action and the determination demonstrated by the workforce that created the circumstances in which the issues could once again be brought to the negotiating table. The deferment of the strike, therefore, should not be viewed as any weakening of our resolve. It is a decision taken in the course of the struggle and collective bargaining process.
We congratulate all the fraternal organisations of different sectors including Insurance, RBI, NABARD, Petroleum & Gas, Railways, several pensioners’ associations, ten Central Trade Unions who encouraged the movement extending their wholehearted support and solidarity. We also congratulate the employees, officers and pensioners of the Regional Rural Banks who observed successful strike on 11 September 2026 and were preparing for 3-day strike also braving threat and intimidation at the call of All India Regional Rural Bank Employees Association (AIRRBEA).
Remain vigilant and united: While the strike call stands deferred in view of the understanding recorded in the Minutes, our vigilance must continue unabated. The banking fraternity will carefully examine the commitments and assurances contained in the Minutes and assess their implementation in due course.
The events of the last several weeks have once again established a fundamental lesson: When the workforce stands united, no amount of pressure, intimidation or administrative manoeuvring can undermine its collective strength.
Let us therefore preserve the unity achieved, strengthen our cohesion at every level and remain vigilant in defence of collective bargaining, implementation of negotiated settlements and the legitimate rights of bank employees and officers.
Congratulations to the entire banking fraternity for the magnificent preparations for the multiple day strike actions which will not go in vain with deferment of the agitational programme. Let us work together to accomplish our mission.
With greetings,
Yours comradely,
(Debasish Basu Chaudhury)
General Secretary
8 comments:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qd3a6Y8ZHqg
How Jack Ma Was Erased. They Didn’t Kill Him or Jail Him… They Did Something Worse On the twenty-fourth of October, twenty twenty, a man in a well-cut suit walks onto the stage of the Bund Finance Summit in Shanghai. In three days, his company is supposed to carry out the largest initial public offering in history. Not the largest in China, not the largest in Asia, but the largest that humanity has ever seen. The company is valued at around three hundred and thirteen billion dollars. To put that number in something you can feel, that is worth more than McDonald's and Nike combined. It is roughly the entire budget of NASA for twelve years of work. The man on the stage smiles, he jokes, he says that the banks operate like pawnshops, that the regulators are strangling innovation, that even the poorest person deserves a loan. The hall applauds and laughs. The man on the stage laughs too, and why wouldn't he. The value of his empire is more than a trillion dollars. And yet, within ten days, that offering will be cancelled. Within half a year, his companies will lose almost eighty percent of their value. And within a year, he will vanish from public life almost entirely.
His name is Jack Ma. In that moment he is the richest man in China. A former English teacher who built Alibaba. A man whom, in twenty twenty, absolutely everyone applauds, and who, by twenty twenty-five, will not be permitted to speak for longer than thirty seconds. Today I want to tell you how Jack Ma said, a little too loudly, something that everyone already knew. You will understand why China shut his mouth, and why it chose to shut his mouth rather than kill him or imprison him, the way some other regimes deal with such people. And at the end, I will ask you a question, after which every interview with a great inspiring billionaire that scrolls past you will never feel quite the same again. My name is Sasha Barin, and this is a channel about all of us, about how we arrived at the point where we stand today, and where we go from here. To understand what happened back in October of twenty twenty, I think it helps to understand who Jack Ma was before all of it. So let us rewind. An English teacher, earning almost nothing.
let us rewind. An English teacher earning almost nothing. Hung
Joe, a provincial city in China. He failed the university entrance exams twice. Later, when he applied to Harvard, he was rejected 10 times in a row. 10 times. And before that, when the first KFC opened in Hjo, there were 24
candidates for 23 jobs. They hired 23 people. The only one they turned down
was Jack Ma. So, here is a man who was rejected even for a job flipping fried chicken at the end of the 20th century.
And in 1999, this same man gathers 17 friends in his rented apartment and tells them something like, "We are going to build a company that will last a
2:582 minutes, 58 secondshundred years." At first, they all laugh at him. And then they borrow money from their parents, from anyone they know.
3:063 minutes, 6 secondsAnd off they go. Because this story is not about the company, but about the man. Let us jump forward to 2014.
3:143 minutes, 14 secondsOne way or another, when Alibaba lists on the New York Stock Exchange, it raises $25 billion.
3:213 minutes, 21 secondsAt that moment, it is a record for all of human history. To understand what that means, the previous record belonged
3:293 minutes, 29 secondsto Visa at $19 billion. So, Jack becomes the richest man in China, $61 billion at
3:363 minutes, 36 secondsthe peak. You know, when I try to picture a Chinese billionaire, I imagine a gray suit, a modest smile, rehearsed
3:443 minutes, 44 secondslines about harmony, common prosperity, restraint, calm, all of that. But not this guy. He came from ordinary people, and he knows he loves ordinary people.
Let me just give you a few scenes. One day, Jack walks out in front of thousands of his own employees with a guitar and he sings.
4:064 minutes, 6 secondsHonestly, he sings rather badly, but tens of thousands of people applaud him anyway because he is different.
4:144 minutes, 14 secondsA year later, he walks onto the same stage and dances in the style of Michael Jackson.
4:204 minutes, 20 secondsNot as a parody, but seriously, fully committed. A year after that, he steps into a ring dressed as a kung fu warrior
4:304 minutes, 30 secondsand shoots a short film in which he fights Jet Lee, not as a gag, a real full-length fight. Let me say it again.
4:374 minutes, 37 secondsThe richest man in your country is fighting in a movie. And then I remember this interview. He comes to Davos and argues with Elon Musk about the future
4:464 minutes, 46 secondsof artificial intelligence. Musk loses that exchange badly. And Jack wins the discussion because his speech is
4:544 minutes, 54 secondssimpler, his smile is wider, and there is a spark in his eyes. In short, Jack understands that popular love is earned
5:015 minutes, 1 secondthrough a show, and he puts on that show at every opportunity. In China at that time they call him uncle ma not Mr. Ma
5:105 minutes, 10 secondsnot chairman uncle. Let me explain the context because it matters. In Chinese culture calling someone uncle is not casual familiarity.
5:215 minutes, 21 secondsIt is something very warm and very respectful. It is how you address a beloved older relative, the person in the family you trust more than anyone.
5:315 minutes, 31 secondsLet me say it plainly. The head of the party, the single most powerful man in the country is called Comrade Shei. And
5:395 minutes, 39 secondsthe guy with the guitar, the richest man in the country, is called Uncle Ma. Do you feel the difference? Here is one
5:475 minutes, 47 secondsmore number. And I suspect that when it was made public, somewhere in Beijing, a person sat down their morning coffee a
5:545 minutes, 54 secondslittle too carefully. In 2019, in one Chinese province, they ran a survey among students asking who their main
6:016 minutes, 1 secondrole model was. And 36% named Jack Ma, not the party, not the great
6:086 minutes, 8 secondsphilosophers of the past, Uncle Ma. And it was probably right here that the first crack appeared. So that was Jack
6:166 minutes, 16 secondsthe Man. Now, fasten your seat belts, as worn out and awful as that phrase is, because we are going to talk about Jack the Empire.
6:256 minutes, 25 secondsAnd to make it easier to hold in your head, let us try it as a metaphor. Let it be a building. The ground floor is
6:336 minutes, 33 secondsAlibaba, the largest e-commerce platform in Asia. At one point it is worth more than Amazon. To make that easier to
6:426 minutes, 42 secondsgrasp, it is as if for a moment Bangladesh became richer than Norway.
6:486 minutes, 48 secondsThe second floor is Taobao, roughly a Chinese version of eBay, but with one small correction. On a single day, on
singles day, Taoba once sold more goods than eBay sold in an entire year. Higher up is Hoopan University.
7:057 minutes, 5 secondsJack opens his own institution for entrepreneurs, a full university with a real diploma, an admissions competition tougher than
7:147 minutes, 14 secondsHarvard's, and two intakes a year. And the teachers there were genuinely impressive, including Jack Ma himself.
7:227 minutes, 22 secondsHigher still in our building is Africa's business heroes. This is his foundation and it operates on another continent entirely.
7:337 minutes, 33 secondsAfrican startups prizes worth millions.
7:357 minutes, 35 secondsCompetitions across all of Africa. A Chinese entrepreneur funding African youth. There is a well-known name for
7:427 minutes, 42 secondsthis kind of thing, soft power, but that belongs in another video.
7:477 minutes, 47 secondsAnd finally we reach the roof. The roof of this empire is Ant Group and its payment system Alipe.
7:557 minutes, 55 seconds1.3 billion users.
7:587 minutes, 58 secondsThat is more than half of the entire payment market in China. Every second adult in China when they reach into their pocket reaches for Alipe. When
8:078 minutes, 7 secondsthey travel to Paris or Bangkok or Macau, it is Alipe. When they pay for lunch at a roadside diner, it is Alipe
8:158 minutes, 15 secondsagain. Through the servers of Alipe, in the single year of 2019, roughly 17 trillion dollars flow. That is close to
8:248 minutes, 24 secondsthe entire annual output of China's economy. Through one private company passes about as much money as the whole Chinese economy produces. That is Alipe.
8:358 minutes, 35 secondsAn important footnote. Alipe held 56% of the market and it had a direct rival with 37%
8:448 minutes, 44 secondsWeChat pay from a company called 10 cent. That is a different hero and a different story.
8:528 minutes, 52 secondsI will say only one thing. Tencent has its own troubles coming within a year.
8:578 minutes, 57 secondsJust remember that name because it will surface again in our story. And so this company, the roof of our metaphorical
9:059 minutes, 5 secondsbuilding, Ant Group, with its Alipe, is preparing to go public, raising almost $35 billion at a valuation of 313
9:149 minutes, 14 secondsbillion. The largest initial public offering in human history again, or rather once more. But there is one small
9:249 minutes, 24 secondsdetail. Alipe is not just payments. It is a database on 1.3 billion Chinese citizens. Who buys what? Who transfers
9:339 minutes, 33 secondsmoney to whom? Whose name is on the lease of an apartment and in which district? Who is cheating on whom because a bouquet of flowers ordered
9:419 minutes, 41 secondslate at night delivered to a different address tells its own story. And all of that data on all of those people sits in
9:509 minutes, 50 secondsthe hands of one man. Not the party, not the state. Jack, be honest with me. If
9:589 minutes, 58 secondsone man in your country held information about all of your neighbors, all of your officials, all of your generals, and about you, would you feel calm about it?
10:0810 minutes, 8 secondsAh, but of course I don't know which country you are watching us from. Maybe where you are, you already feel uneasy,
10:1510 minutes, 15 secondsfrightened, very frightened. In short, the second crack between Jack and Comrade Shei opens right here.
Historians say as much because Xi Jinping and his generals are uneasy too precisely because all of this
10:3010 minutes, 30 secondsinformation sits in one private pair of hands and Jack in that moment well I cannot claim he understood any of this
10:3710 minutes, 37 secondsbut the man is at his peak. He is the richest person in the country 3 days from the largest offering in history
10:4710 minutes, 47 secondsriding high as we would have said where I grew up. And it is at exactly this moment that he walks onto the stage. The
10:5510 minutes, 55 seconds24th of October 2020, the Boond Finance Summit. There he says precisely what I quoted at the very beginning. The banks
11:0411 minutes, 4 secondsare pawn shops. The regulators are strangling innovation. Even the poorest person deserves a loan. In the hall,
11:1211 minutes, 12 secondspeople laugh and applaud. Someone films it on a phone. Someone says, "Yes, yes, Jack." But in the third or sixth row of
11:2111 minutes, 21 secondsthat hall sit China's most senior financial regulators and they are not laughing at all. They are listening and
11:2811 minutes, 28 secondsthey understand that they have just been publicly spanked on that stage in front of the entire world. And the next
11:3511 minutes, 35 secondsmorning a report on his speech lands on Chairman Shei's desk. And here you the viewer probably expect the logical move.
11:4411 minutes, 44 secondsYou expect me to start in on how dare they silence a genius. This is how an authoritarian regime crushes free thought. Behold the difference between
11:5211 minutes, 52 secondseast and west. No, I am not going to do that. Let us just stop for a second and look soberly at this so-called genius of
12:0112 minutes, 1 secondfree thought. By this point, the man named Jackmaw controls a financial system through which the payments of every sixth person on the planet flow.
12:1112 minutes, 11 secondsHe has his own university which is educating the next generation of the country's leaders. He has his own foundation operating beyond China's
12:2012 minutes, 20 secondsborders. He has the image of a rock star loved more than the head of the party.
12:2512 minutes, 25 secondsAnd on top of all that, he publicly criticizes the very regulators who are supposed to be keeping him in check. Do you know what that is called in plain
12:3412 minutes, 34 secondslanguage? That is not a businessman, not a merchant. That is an alternative center of power. So the question has to change. It is not why was Jack punished.
12:4512 minutes, 45 secondsIt is. Why did they not do it sooner? Why did they allow him to grow?
12:5112 minutes, 51 secondsMy great-g grandandmother also tended little chicks, the ones she allowed to grow into chickens. I already know that somewhere in the comments someone is
12:5912 minutes, 59 secondsabout to write, "Sasha Baron, are you defending authoritarianism?" No, I am simply saying things that are
13:0713 minutes, 7 secondsuncomfortable to say out loud. Here is the thought. Every system, Chinese, American, European, any system at all, asks itself the same single question.
13:1913 minutes, 19 secondsCan we allow one man to become larger than the state? And Xiinping decided that the answer was no. In making that
13:2713 minutes, 27 secondsdecision, he was not some cartoon tyrant out of a human rights textbook. He acted as a system acts. Any system in his place would have decided the same thing.
13:3913 minutes, 39 secondsIt is just that in some countries this happens through antitrust investigations, in others through the tax office, and in a few through
13:4613 minutes, 46 secondsarrests. The scenery differs. The logic is identical. And again, I do not believe that Jack, whatever this
13:5513 minutes, 55 secondsinternet kid is telling you here, failed to understand all of this.
14:0014 minutesI think he did have certain arrangements, certain connections, but something broke. What exactly broke? We
14:0814 minutes, 8 secondswill probably never know. So the beginning of November 2020, 9 days after the speech at that same
Bund Finance Summit, Jack together with the top executives of Ant Group is summoned to Beijing and not to a single
14:2414 minutes, 24 secondsoffice but to four at once. The People's Bank of China, the Securities Commission, the Banking Regulation
14:3114 minutes, 31 secondsCommission, and the Foreign Exchange Administration. By the way, this kind of meeting has a name in Chinese, uh it
14:3914 minutes, 39 secondstranslates roughly as an invitation to a conversation. And already on the 3rd of November, 2 days before trading was to
14:4714 minutes, 47 secondsopen, the Shanghai exchange announces that Ant Group's offering is suspended. An hour later, Hong Kong does the same.
14:5614 minutes, 56 secondsI remember that day very well. 7 million retail investors get their orders returned. At that moment, demand for the shares was 10 times greater than supply.
15:0715 minutes, 7 secondsInvestors wanted to pour some $3 trillion into this company. Just so you understand the scale of the anticipation.
15:1515 minutes, 15 secondsAnd two weeks later comes the final of Africa's business heroes. Jack is not at the final. This, let me remind you, is
15:2415 minutes, 24 secondshis own competition, his own foundation, his own money in the prize pool. He is
15:3115 minutes, 31 secondsthe founder, the head judge, the public face of the entire event.
15:3715 minutes, 37 secondsIn his place, an Alibaba executive walks onto the stage and reads out something about a scheduling conflict. The
15:4415 minutes, 44 secondspromotional clips featuring Jack, filmed, of course, well in advance, are neatly re-edited. Every frame of him cut
15:5115 minutes, 51 secondsout as if there had never been any Uncle Ma at all. And then then the cascade begins. Not fast, but methodical in the
15:5915 minutes, 59 secondsChinese way. In April of 2021, Alibaba is hit with a fine of $2.8 billion for
16:0716 minutes, 7 secondsmonopolistic practices. And to be completely fair, the fine was justified.
16:1316 minutes, 13 secondsAlibaba really did squeeze its sellers, forcing them to work exclusively with Alibaba. But the fine arrives at
16:2116 minutes, 21 secondsprecisely this moment, not earlier when all those sellers were being squeezed.
16:2616 minutes, 26 secondsAnt Group is restructured from a technology company into a financial holding under the direct supervision of the People's Bank of China. Its
16:3516 minutes, 35 secondsrecommendation algorithms are added to the state's list of technologies restricted from export. UC Browser, the
16:4216 minutes, 42 secondsnumber one browser in China, is removed from every app store. Hupan University loses the right to call itself a
16:4916 minutes, 49 secondsuniversity. Now it is simply Hupon. And by the start of 2023, Jack officially gives up control of Ant Group. That
16:5816 minutes, 58 secondssounds dry, as if the man retired of his own free will. Sure, in reality, it looks like this. His share of the voting
rights in his own company falls from 50% to 6%. from 50 to 6.
17:1617 minutes, 16 secondsNow he can do nothing at all inside the company he built because control of the company he created and grew is divided
17:2217 minutes, 22 secondsamong other shareholders including guess who correct state structures. Not directly of course not openly but
17:3017 minutes, 30 secondscarefully through subsidiary companies through funds through municipalities and through one more little device a golden
17:3817 minutes, 38 secondsshare carrying the right to veto any strategic decision. And who controls those subsidiaries? Correct. People
17:4517 minutes, 45 secondsclose to the chairman, the so-called wallets of the party. A familiar theme.
17:5117 minutes, 51 secondsAnd it is worth noting that Jack does not fall under the roller alone. He falls together with 10 cent. Remember I told you 10 cent. Remember the name?
18:0118 minutes, 1 secondWell, here it surfaces. In that same period, 10 cent is also fined some staggering sum for antirust violations.
18:1018 minutes, 10 secondsThen its gaming division is restricted and gaming is essentially the core of 10 cents earnings.
18:1618 minutes, 16 secondsThen they begin to tear into bite dance, the parent of Tik Tok. So it is worth understanding that what is happening to
18:2418 minutes, 24 secondsJack Ma at that moment is not some personal act of revenge.
18:2918 minutes, 29 secondsIt is a general trend. My greatg grandmother raised chickens. In short,
18:3518 minutes, 35 secondsby 2024, Jack's companies have lost $891 billion in value. $891 billion.
18:4618 minutes, 46 secondsTo picture that, if you spent $100 every single day, you would need about 24,000
18:5218 minutes, 52 secondsyears to spend it all. And Jack himself simply disappears.
18:5818 minutes, 58 secondsAnd here at last begins the part I love most in my own videos. Not just retelling someone else's story, but
19:0619 minutes, 6 secondsthinking about it. Look, Jackmaw was not imprisoned. He was not killed. He was
19:1319 minutes, 13 secondsnot exiled. He was not fully ruined. He was left with some of his money. He was not even officially charged with
19:2019 minutes, 20 secondsanything. For 5 years, he was seen here and there in Tokyo, in Hong Kong, in Bangkok. rumors, photographs, paparazzi,
19:3019 minutes, 30 secondsblurred frames, but not a single public speech. There is a saying, for every person there is a form of torture. And
19:3919 minutes, 39 secondsthey say that the most refined torturers punish a man by stripping away the thing most important to him while leaving the
19:4519 minutes, 45 secondslife itself intact. For Jack, that thing was probably his public voice. Or perhaps he was granted his freedom and
19:5419 minutes, 54 secondshis life in exchange for everything he handed over. Or a more interesting version. What if they preserved his life for something in the future?
20:0420 minutes, 4 secondsFebruary 2025.
20:0720 minutes, 7 secondsXiinping personally convenes a forum for top entrepreneurs in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. And in the front
20:1420 minutes, 14 secondsrow sits Jack Ma. Cameras, segments on state television, headlines around the world. the return of the disgraced
20:2220 minutes, 22 secondsbillionaire. Forgiveness, the end of exile.
20:2720 minutes, 27 secondsBut watch closely what happened in China between 2020 and 2025.
20:3220 minutes, 32 secondsForeign direct investment collapsed by 27%.
20:3620 minutes, 36 secondsWalmart, which for 8 years had been the largest investor in the Chinese firm JD.com, quietly sold its stake in August
20:4320 minutes, 43 secondsof 2024 and walked away. IBM shut down two research laboratories in China at
20:5020 minutes, 50 secondsonce, laid off more than a thousand employees and moved part of the work to India. Honda cut its production in China
by 500,000 cars a year. That is 10% of Honda's entire global output, 10%.
21:0721 minutes, 7 secondsDell by 2025 is preparing to move half of its production out of China. and Apple, the great symbol of the Chinese
21:1521 minutes, 15 secondsmanufacturing miracle of the last 20 years. The company for which they built an entire city of iPhones in Junga, if I
21:2321 minutes, 23 secondsam saying that correctly, Apple is leaving for India. Everyone is leaving.
21:2821 minutes, 28 secondsIn short, by 2025, the Chinese economic miracle is beginning to stall. Young people no longer believe in the future.
21:3621 minutes, 36 secondsUnemployment is rising, the economy is grinding, and suddenly she needs Jack.
21:4221 minutes, 42 secondsIt comes out as a strange sentence. She needs Jack. Xi Jinping needs Jackma Ma.
21:4721 minutes, 47 secondsNot because he has been forgiven, but because he has been tamed. And without him, the plaster is starting to flake. Just a little off the facade of China.
21:5621 minutes, 56 secondsThe chairman needs to show the whole world, look, everything is fine here with our businesses. Here is Jack Ma
22:0322 minutes, 3 secondsalive, seated, smiling. Investors, come back. So, let us look carefully at this
22:1022 minutes, 10 secondsJack. The Jack who walked onto the stage in 2020 joked, argued, said what he thought. That is the key phrase. He said
22:1822 minutes, 18 secondswhat he thought. This Jack sits, nods, and smiles at precisely the moment he is supposed to smile. Small comments in the
22:2622 minutes, 26 secondsstate press. No speeches, no jokes, and for some reason, no guitar either. It seems to me that this was not a return.
22:3622 minutes, 36 secondsIt was as if they took an exhibit and set it on a shelf, living proof he exists. And people nod. And in that
22:4422 minutes, 44 secondsmoment, the most unsettling thing in this whole story takes place. Yes, Jack is smiling. Jack is alive. But it seems
22:5322 minutes, 53 secondsto me he was carefully erased without killing the body. This is the Chinese version of punishment. In the West, they
23:0123 minutes, 1 seconddestroy your reputation. In some countries they imprison you or they kill you. But here there is a longer foresight. They leave the man alive.
23:1223 minutes, 12 secondsOnly he is a different man. Now perhaps this is the most perfect form of punishment humanity has invented so far.
23:2023 minutes, 20 secondsHere is a man free with money smiling and on the outside everything is fine.
23:2623 minutes, 26 secondsTo me, if I am honest, there is more fear in that than in all the other versions combined.
23:3223 minutes, 32 secondsAnd here is something I did not grasp when I was writing the script, but that came to me while recording this video.
23:4023 minutes, 40 secondsSomething that is not in the text at all. In games against the state, you cannot win. The best you can manage is a draw.
23:5023 minutes, 50 secondsJack Ma did not lose on the 24th of October, 2020. He lost much earlier in the moment he first agreed to play. When
23:5923 minutes, 59 secondshe accepted the first money from state structures, when he first spoke at a forum with the party's blessing, when he
24:0624 minutes, 6 secondsfirst said something he did not want to say, because every word you speak that you do not want to speak is a small
24:1324 minutes, 13 secondsamputation of your tongue. With your own hands, you cut off a little piece of your own tongue with every deal. Another
piece, another piece. And by the time you finally want to say the most important thing out loud, the thing you truly think, there is no tongue left.
24:3124 minutes, 31 secondsBetween the Jack who danced in front of 40,000 people and the Jack who now sits at a forum with the correct smile, we
24:3924 minutes, 39 secondscannot see the difference. Both are smiling. Both are inexpensive suits. Both are quoted. Both are photographed.
24:4824 minutes, 48 secondsIt is just that one of them was alive and the second is already an exhibit. If we cannot see a living man being turned
24:5624 minutes, 56 secondsinto an exhibit in the case of Jack, the single most documented figure in Chinese business over the last 20 years, then
25:0325 minutes, 3 secondshow capable are we really of telling living people apart from their images, from their exhibits? That expert who
25:1125 minutes, 11 secondsexplains the world to you. That coach you follow. That politician you quote and support. That businessman whose
25:1925 minutes, 19 secondssayingings sit saved in the notes app on your phone. Do you see them or only the exhibits?
25:2625 minutes, 26 secondsAnd here I think I need to say one very important thing so that you do not misunderstand me. I am not claiming that I always say what I think. I smile too
25:3525 minutes, 35 secondswhen I would rather not. I too say the things people want to hear. I too strike my own little deals. But there is one
25:4325 minutes, 43 secondsline I have drawn for myself. Yes, I may say the things people want to hear, but I never say the things I do not want to say.
25:5225 minutes, 52 secondsDo you feel the difference? In the first case, that is ordinary social adaptation.
25:5925 minutes, 59 secondsYou choose the form in which to express a thought. You can soften it. You can stay silent. You can pick your words.
26:0826 minutes, 8 secondsThe point is that the thought remains yours. But in the second case, when you do not want to say what you are being
26:1526 minutes, 15 secondsmade to say, you are not choosing a form. You are substituting the content.
26:2126 minutes, 21 secondsYou say what you do not think. And in that moment, you betray your living self for a moment of comfort for the sake of
26:2926 minutes, 29 secondsbeing patted on the head. Friends, I am not a revolutionary.
26:3526 minutes, 35 secondsI do not love grand speeches. I am not calling on anyone to quit their job, walk out of the factory, and go to the
26:4226 minutes, 42 secondsbarricades. I am asking you for one thing only. Please keep at least some part of yourself alive, even a small part, even in one room inside your head.
26:5426 minutes, 54 secondsAnd do not simply believe everything you are told. And do not simply disbelieve it either, because that is a trap, too.
27:0127 minutes, 1 secondJust make the minimal effort. One extra tap on your phone screen, one extra question, one extra moment of asking. Is
27:0827 minutes, 8 secondswhat I am being told true or not? That alone is enough to keep you from becoming an exhibit. The next time you listen to some inspiring billionaire on
27:1727 minutes, 17 secondsa stage, ask yourself one thing. Is this a living person speaking or only what is left of
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