Commentary Entrepeneur Jack Ma’s downfall has been stunning in speed and magnitude. Since Beijing suspended Ant Group’s highly anticipated IPO in November 2020, Chinese entrepreneur Jack Ma has been met with one obstacle after another. Ma, an apparent Chinese Communist Party (CCP) member, has also witnessed Chinese authorities launch an investigation into e-commerce giant Alibaba Group while being publicly rebuked in state media and at the same time, lose his status as China’s richest person. Ma—whose Chinese name is Ma Yun—has long rankled CCP authorities, enjoys a “larger than life” rock star status among Chinese youth, and oversees a technology empire that pushes the regulatory envelope. It’s understandable that CCP regulators are irked. But Beijing’s sudden and draconian pushback against Ma underscores the problems within the country’s economic system—a system that runs on mafia capitalism. The CCP’s thin-skinned reaction to Ma proves that its political system continues to hold the …