As far as the most talked-about figure among Chinese netizens this week, apart from Liu Qiangdong, there is probably no second person.
Liu Qiangdong, 45, the founder of Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com and chairman and chief executive of JD.com, was arrested last week on suspicion of first-degree rape while studying in the United States. He was later released and has returned to China.The police claimed that the case was not closed and was still under investigation. JD.com's stock price plummeted this week, but Liu Qiangdong's lawyer was full of confidence and used his license to pat his chest to assure that he would be fine, which made people feel that something was wrong.
So far, there are many rumors about the wine bureau and the female victim on the night of the incident, but none of them have been confirmed. The case is full of doubts, but most netizens sympathize with and support Liu Qiangdong.After Huawei, Liu Qiangdong is another large Chinese company that was hunted down systematically by the United States in a premeditated manner;Money to eliminate disasters.
Past experience is that if such cases happen in China, online public opinion is usually more inclined to the victim. Instead, netizens this time went to human flesh searches and even questioned the female victim, and dragged a suspected outsider innocent into the water. They are so tolerant of Liu Qiangdong., in addition to the emotions generated by the overall situation of the Sino-US game, I am afraid it is also related to Liu Qiangdong's status in the world.
Liu Qiangdong opened a restaurant, worked in a Japanese company, sold CDs, and then started to get involved in e-commerce. Finally, he simply closed his offline business and focused on the online market. He was listed on NASDAQ in the United States in 2014. Today, his net worth is about 6.7 billionUS dollars (S$9.2 billion), becoming another self-made internet star in China.
JD.com is one of China's largest e-commerce sites and competes fiercely with Alibaba, but JD.com's guarantee to only sell genuine products is of great significance in a country where copycat products are rampant.The media often report on the dispute between Liu Qiangdong and Alibaba founder Jack Ma.But among the two, Liu Qiangdong is considered more down-to-earth.At the end of last year, he coldly criticized Ma Yun for earning 100 million or 20 billion a month, saying that this is a shame for the Chinese, especially those who have already become rich, which made many netizens applaud.
He is from Suqian, Jiangsu. Some local villagers once proudly said that Suqian produced two great men, one is Xiang Yu, the overlord of Western Chu more than 2,000 years ago, and the other is Liu Qiangdong.In fact, the recent turmoil has once again exposed that Liu Qiangdong’s management company is also quite domineering: JD.com’s board of directors has only five members, including Liu Qiangdong himself. The company’s internal regulations also stipulate that if he is absent, the board of directors cannot hold formal meetings.In addition, although Liu Qiangdong is only the second largest shareholder of JD.com, holding nearly 16% of the shares, he has 80% of the voting rights.Tencent and Alibaba have a large number of important executives, but JD.com doesn’t even have a second person. Liu Qiangdong has the final say. Once he has an accident, the company will have no leader.
Although the market value of JD.com still has a long way to go, someone once said that the so-called BAT (Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent) of China’s Internet giants should actually add a J (JD.COM, or JD.com) to become BATJ in order to fully represent China.Internet industry.
However, Liu Qiangdong is now involved in a suspected sexual assault case. How JD.com's market image and business influence will be impacted depends on the announcement made by the US police.
