Social media accounts of Chinese national, Hong Hao, who spoke against the country’s slow economy and the effects of government policy on the technology industry, have been banned. Hong Hao, managing director and head of research at BOCOM International, a state-owned bank, posted about the huge outflow of the capital from the country and made bearish predictions about the Chinese stock market on social media, after which the Tencent’s (TCEHY) WeChat banned his public account, CNN Business reported. “All content has been blocked.
The user is banned from using the account,” a notice posted on the WeChat account read. It further added that the account had “violated” the government’s internet rules, without giving much detail about the rules that have been broken and also did not specify which post had led to the suspension. Not only WeChat, but the Weibo account has also frozen Hao’s account, which had over 3 million followers. According to the publication, Hao’s account now shows the message stating that the user. Hong’s account on Weibo (WB), which had more than 3 million followers, has also been removed. A search by CNN Business for the account resulted in a message stating that the user “no longer exists.” The covid lockdown has impacted Beijing’s economy. According to the government survey data, released on Saturday, the activities across the manufacturing and the services slumping to their lowest level since February 2020, reported CNN. Beijing’s zero Covid policy and the Russia-Ukraine crisis have triggered an unprecedented flight of the capital by foreign investors in recent months. Chinese currency recently falls to its lowest level in 17 months.
On Tuesday, Chinese President Xi Jinping called for the infrastructure spending spree to promote growth and the Communist Party’s Politburo on Friday promised that specific measures will be taken to support the internet economy. Hong Hao is not the only one who expressed his concern over the country’s economy, earlier, Shan Weijian, founder and chair of Hong Kong-based private equity firm PAG also criticized the government’s policies that resulted in a “deep economic crisis”, according to CNN citing Financial Times. In order to reduce the people’s online anonymity, Weibo announced on Tuesday that it will start publishing the IP locations on their account pages and when they post comments, in a bid to combat “bad behaviour.”
In October, Tencent suspended over 1,400 WeChat accounts after the government launched a crackdown on internet posts that it deems are harmful to the economy. The last reports posted on his WeChat public account were titled: “Be wary of capital flight” and “What should Chinese ADRs worry about.” ADRs are securities issued by Chinese firms listed in the United States, as reported by CNN. Hong Hao posted several posts regarding the foreign investors dumping the Chinese stocks and called attention to the most severe capital outflow since the pandemic began. He also blamed China’s tech crackdown for being behind an epic sell-off in Chinese ADRs in March. On another note on March 21, Hong also predicted the Shanghai Composite would drop below 3,000 points, reported CNN. Last Monday, the Shanghai Composite fell below 3,000 for the first time in 21 months, as rising Covid-19 cases in Beijing sparked fears that the Chinese capital could join Shanghai and other major cities in lockdown.