An internet entrepreneur explains why he deleted a 1,000-year-old poem on his blog, wiping US$16 billion off Meituan’s value
- Meituan shares tumbled by as much as 9.8 per cent in Hong Kong, their biggest one-day percentage plunge in two months
- Meituan’s co-founder Wang Xing posted a poem written during the late Tang dynasty about the burning of books by China’s first emperor Qin Shihuang
Wang Xing, the co-founder of China’s dominant food delivery service Meituan, has sparked a social media frenzy and a sell-off of its stock, after posting a millennium-old Chinese poem seen as an unsubtle jab at the government.
The 42-year-old internet entrepreneur, whose company is under investigation for possible breaches of China’s antitrust laws, posted a poem on Sunday that was written during the late Tang dynasty about the burning of books by China’s first emperor Qin Shihuang. The poem is usually interpreted as an anti-establishment clarion call.
“Anything related to the Cultural Revolution or book burning is particularly sensitive [in 2021] because it will soon be the [Communist] Party’s centennial celebration,” said Professor Xu Guoqi, the Kerry Group Professor in Globalisation History at the University of Hong Kong. “Anything which doesn’t openly praise the party can be taken to mean different things. You cannot undermine the glory of the party.”
Wang’s post, which has since been taken off the Fanfou social media platform – his de facto fan club, where he posted three times a day on average for 14 years – raised eyebrows. Meituan shares tumbled by as much as 9.8 per cent in Hong Kong, their biggest one-day percentage plunge in two months, before clawing back some of the losses for a 7.1 per cent decline, wiping out US$16 billion in market value. Meituan’s spokespeople declined to comment.
Wang posted the poem on Sunday by Zhang Jie, written during the late Tang dynasty (618-907 AD), in which the poet used 28 Chinese characters in four verses to harshly criticise Qin Shihuang over the first emperor’s tyrannical acts of burning books for thought control.
“Before ashes [in the book burning pit] turned cold, revolts rose east of the mountain,” the poem read. In another line, the poet wrote that the two major leaders of the revolt who overthrew the Qin dynasty, Liu Bang and Xiang Yu, were not fond of books, belittling the first emperor’s futile efforts of trying to strengthen his rule by punishing intellectuals and suppressing ideas.
“This poem was a reminder to me [that] the most dangerous rivals are often not the usual suspects,” Wang wrote in his post, explaining why he posted the poem. “These years Alibaba has been defending against JD.com but Pinduoduo came out of the left field and it now has more users than Alibaba.” Wang wrote. “Likewise, Meituan’s biggest rival may seem to be Ele.me. But it is more likely that companies and business models we have yet to focus on will disrupt the delivery business,” he added.
“Book burning has always been a very sensitive issue for Chinese rulers, particularly the case with the Chinese Communist Party, [dating] back to the days of Chairman Mao who had openly defended Qin’s acts of burning books and prosecuting scholars,” said the University of Hong Kong’s Xu. “The poem will never be openly appreciated in China, and certainly not under the Communist regime.”
Wang, however, has continued to use Fanfou as the main venue to express his view about the world.
The billionaire, who posted over 16,000 times on the platform, or an average of three posts a day for the past 14 years, has more than 200,000 followers on Fanfou.
Hashtag #MeituanSharesPlunge became a trending topic on Weibo. The hashtag has now generated nearly 4.2 million posts and comments on Weibo, making it the 23rd most popular hashtag of the day at one point, according to social media tracking firm Enlightent.
“You think you can so casually cite a poem?” says Kevinqin008, a user on China’s most popular microblogging site Weibo. “Maybe you think others can’t read between the lines or they can’t twist your words into meaning what you may have not meant?”
