22 April 2023

This is probably more a theme of blockbuster scripts, a rarified atmosphere beyond the pale of concerns of the commons. Here the big and the bigger are by themselves, where the leverage and manipulation can hold a candle to even the best twists and turns of a potboiler…Art imitates life, life imitates art, however, in this realm where there is always a possibility provided it has the right price tag, the two blur. The stakes are not fully known until long long after when speculation becomes meaningless and truth has lost its bite. Yes, this is the world of Corporate Governance, and very very clearly a place where Government itself plays handmaiden to the hidden and the obvious. Here the moneyed are sovereign, be they entities or individuals, not the State. Of course, we have had a fair share of this malaise of capitalism exposed for its worth, with very telling narratives like the best seller “Dark Money”.

So what brings Carlos Ghosn, Jack Ma, Meng Wanzhou, Lee Jae Yong together in this blog? Carlos ( Not ‘ Gone’ as the French converted him but Gho-Sun or Gho-Sn as his Lebanese compatriots call him) is a remarkable person, who had he joined an American carmaker would have been today in the same league as the legendary Lee Iacocca, is today a fugitive wanted through an Interpol Red Corner notice, taking refuge from the law in the country of his birth. He is the subject of a Netflix movie… The writings about him are more about his daring escape from bail in Japan and about Japanese legal system than about what actually happened to him. Jack Ma was the rising and towering star of Ali Baba and its ‘parent’ Ant Group and even led ‘corporate China’s efforts in the face of the Pandemic. Ma is the mascot of Chinese entrepreneurship, he is regarded well within his country and by his international peers as a business leader of great distinction who founded internet based service sector in China, which includes payment platforms and online stores. His Alipay services supervised the exchange of close to what is India’s GDP annually at 2 trillion $ USD before the pandemic and is still growing, begetting a spurt after Covid Protocols made non contact payments binding in ‘Zero Covid’ China. Then Ma disappeared, ahead of his company’s mega IPO issue, and we now know that briefly he was in a Japanese country side town and has since returned to China, but now no longer involved in any of his founding companies after the parent company underwent a rejig of its share holding that removed Ma from corporate power. Meng Wenzhou is the daughter of Huawei Technologies founder and CFO who supposedly violated Iran specific sanctions and was held in Canada on America’s specific request. The most reported versions are about financial services her company offered to allow concerns to beat the sanctions regime in place and she was offered a plea bargain and her charges are now dropped. In an extraordinary swap of two Canadians, she was repatriated to China, where she was received as a ‘Hero’, a modern day ‘Mulan’ after being in custody of foreign intelligence and law enforcement for more than 1000 days. Meng, Michael and Michael are the 3Ms involved in what most observers link to the start of the new “Cold War”. Lee Jae Yong is a ‘like father like son’ case of corporate crony capitalism that has been the watermark of South Korea’s experiment with ‘free market economy’. Chaebols as these conglomerate families came to be known, were handpicked by the then military led governments of South Korea which wanted to promote local manufacturing and allowed them to grow into what today Koreans dub as ‘octopus’. The plot of a recent K Drama ‘Reborn Rich‘ or ‘Chaebol Family’s Youngest Son’ ran parallel to the Samsung corporation’s internal politics and the need for the owner promoter to shore up share holding through illegal methods which need lawmakers and the resident of the ‘Blue House’ ( Presidential Palace of South Korea) to bless. Unlike his father who was indicted and convicted but never served a day in prison, Jae was sentenced to five years, imprisoned in 2017 and was in and out of jail until he was pardoned by the successor to the successor Moon Jae In who became president of Korea after Park Geun-Hye who was first female president of Korea was impeached and imprisoned for 25 years in 2017. Like how Pakistan’s military coups are justified under ‘doctrine of necessity’, Korean courts routinely allowed the Chaebols to escape the dragnet of the law by citing similar extraneous reasoning. Incidentally President Park was pardoned by her successor too and that was for ‘reasons of national unity’.

Now what gets interesting is how the differing nature of governments from Communist China to Democratic Rules Based Order advocating Canada and America, and Democratic Korea and Democratic Japan actually end up looking starkly like Siamese Twins, as if born of one singular purpose, to uphold a vested business interest by ‘hook or crook’. In Jack Ma’s case, the parallel closest is to Apple founder the charismatic Steve Jobs who was similarly overthrown when he brought in ‘business leadership trained professionally’ to lead his company. Then Ma and Ghosn can have similar opinions on their leadership like that of Jobs, as his biographer recounts-

William Simon, co-author of “iCon: Steve Jobs, the Greatest Second Act in the History of Business.”

Jobs “demanded so much from the people who worked for him. That was part of his greatness,” Simon said. “But he drove people too hard. … being gentle and polite was not part of his demeanor.”

Yet the sheer scale of Ma and Ghosn’s achievements in founding or turning around their companies is quite unparalleled and comparable to only Jobs’ own second coming and the conversion of Apple from laughing stock to the most valued stock in tech world. So the old canard Mr Jealousy made a pitch? For Ghosn it was closer to Shakespearean ‘et tu Brute’ moment when he was arrested very publicly on arrival at a Japanese airport, based on a ‘whistle blower’ who was party to the supposed ‘corporate malfeasance’ that led to Ghosn’s denouement and downfall. The fact that Ghosn was paid less than the international bench mark, that both Renaults and Nissan offered to pay the balance that was due to him as wages through ‘other means’ included a bulk that was ‘deferred to be paid after retirement’ led to Ghosn actually incurring financial loss by continuing to work for Renault and not joining the US Automakers Industry who had made offers severally to him. So basically the hatchet job done on him led to his isolation as a corporate pariah and legally ensured that he was ‘non compete’ becoming unemployable after his ‘retirement’. Nissan took advantage of Japan’s legal system, the process of discovery, of filing of charges and the nature of trial including the high rate of conviction ( close to 100% in Japan’s confessional and confrontationist system) and this entire charade of his arrest, his being held on bail and his subsequent thrill a minute escape from Japan and present isolation somewhere in Lebanon, all smell of the hidden hand of High Government and High Corporate Nexus. That’s why it was such a ready Netflix script. Nissan and Renault took ‘revenge’ on Carlos Ghosn for his genius in turning around these car companies into profit and leading them autocratically for close to two decades much like how the Roman Senate rewarded Julius Caesar with a knife through his chest! A mix of patriotism, ‘othering’ and sense of entitlement that denies genius and smothers talent universally led to the disgrace of Carlos Ghosn. For Ma, the reasons are more simple, that he had become, like Jobs in Apple of 2010 a ‘pirate within the navy‘. So as an analyst who firmly believes that precedences and history are meant to be recalled lest we confound a repeat as ‘deja vu’, one must entertain the possibility that Mr Ma will return to the helm of affairs should Ant flounder in the near future.

Ms Meng was a victim of what one choses to call ‘Deep State’. Basic American attempt to hijack Huawei which emerged as a technology leader in 5G was foiled when China countered by arresting as bargaining chip two Canadians and following it up with renewed diplomatic and business pressures on Canada. So the smokescreen of Iranian sanctions vaporised and wiser counsel prevailed especially after the sister countries of the Anglican led West committed to exclude Huawei from their own 5G roll out. Hence the successful exchange of Michael and Michael for one Meng! What this play revealed was how ‘fugitive’ and ‘charge’ and ‘Rules’ are mangled and mauled by vested Players. When Mr Jae Yong was released from jail because Samsung needed him desperately to turn the company and Korean economy around after the reverses of the Pandemic, the reasons obvious were the return of popular theme of how ‘untouchable’ the Chaebols were, above the law. Yet, Samsung used its ‘chip manufacturing’ as a chip in the stakes, to get the American Deep State interested after worries over Taiwan rose acutely in the same window. That President Joe Biden met Jae in Korea on a visit shows how much importance the Americans give to the world of semiconductor chips and foundries and now American government has offered unparalleled subsidies to local chip manufacturers to ramp up both expertise and volumes domestically. So both Meng and Jae Yong are linked by the growing identification of technological edge and high commerce as an asset of Comprehensive National Power and how unabashed America is in protecting its identified vested interests by pressuring those it can pressure, be they neighbouring Canada or trans Atlantic partners or a protectee ally as Korea.

What these cases of corporate executives and their fortunes have on offer is the clear evidence of collusion between the State and the Entity. It shows how shallow the West is in practising the so called free and liberal market economy that it prescribes routinely through the World Bank and how some of these vices have percolated or penetrated even clear Communist regimes like China’s. It reveals a truth that where money is, is power, often power becomes a handy tool to further the cause of money. And yes, rules be damned! It is interesting to see how regardless of the colour of the cat, if it caught mice, it was pampered…and this was true for Deng’s China as it is true to Biden’s America. The Beast as the Government is dubbed in American political discourse, shows How it is lame or tamed by big money, How increasingly industrial espionage and industrial hi-tech knowhow are part of the matrix for CNP and National Security calculus.

“No one is truly free, they are a slave to wealth, fortune, the law, or other people restraining them from acting according to their will.”

― Euripides

All Men Are Slave to Wealth and Fortune, Wealth & Fortune Are Slave Unto Themselves! Where Money is Free, There is no Free Will!

• Modern version of Euripides’ quote.