China asks Jack Ma's Alibaba to sell media assets fearing its growing influence on public opinion

A Reuters report said the Chinese officials were surprised to note the extent of Ali Baba's interests in media holdings.

The group, which started with online business, holds stakes in Chinese social media platform Weibo and Hong Kong-based news outlet South China Morning Post among others like television production companies, social media, advertising and online news and media outlets.

In several meetings since last year, Beijing has expressed doubt and suspicion on Alibaba's expansive media holdings, said a Bloomberg report.

The Chinese government is wary about the group's influence on public opinion and is viewing it as a challenge against Chinese Communist Party and its own propaganda apparatus, added the Reuters report cited above.

 Since last year, Jack Ma, the co-founder of Alibaba, has been on Chinese government's radar, bringing under its scanner the e-commerce giant and its finance affiliate Ant Group Co.

The Wall Street Journal initially reported that Chinese government has asked Alibaba to give up its media properties.

The Bloomberg report said Beijing was alarmed when social media posts about a scandal related to the company's youngest partner Jiang Fan started disappearing. The scale and speed at which the posts began to disappear from Weibo drew the ire of the government officials. China's internet watchdog imposed a hefty fine on the microblogging site for interfering with the spread of opinion.

Last week, Tencent Holdings Ltd was also fined as part of a crackdown on the country's technology giants to curb their influence.

However, South China Morning Post's CEO Gary Liu has told the newspaper's employees that "Alibaba's commitment to SCMP remains unchanged and continues to support our mission and business goals," according to the Reuters report.