Update: Alibaba"s communications department is disputing reports Ma backed away from his pledge to create one million jobs - a claim that was widely reported by both Chinese and US media.
Here"s a video of Ma"s remarks so you can draw your own conclusion:
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In a show of support for China"s leadership by one of the country"s most visible executives, Alibaba CEO Jack Ma said Monday that he would abandon his vow to create 1 million jobs in the US if the trade relationship between China and the US continues to deteriorate.
Dismissing Trump"s complaints about the US-China trade deficit, Ma said US economic growth and jobs growth data show the US economy already has a remarkable low jobless rate (at least, it would appear that way at first glance).
"I don’t think trade deficit is a problem... In the past twenty or thirty years, through trade, China made revenue and America made profit," said Ma.
"About jobs, last quarter, American unemployment was 4.1 percent, at historical low. There are about 6 million jobs waiting for Americans," he said.
"If China and US have good relationship, we can not only make 1 million (jobs), we can make 10 million or 20 million jobs for both countries. If they have no good relationship, we’re going to destroy 10 million jobs," said Ma.
Ma, who was being interviewed by IMF head Christine Lagarde at the Boao Forum in the island province of Hainan, said that while it"s normal that the world"s two largest economies might become embroiled in trade spats from time to time, solving this problem with a trade war would be like "treating a flu with chemotherapy."
Instead of curing the illness, the remedy is so intense that it destroys the host - in this case, the global free-trade order.
"You are not solving the problem of the cold, you are destroying the whole body, the whole system," Ma said.
Ma, who founded Alibaba in 1999 and originally ran it out of his apartment, promised President Trump shortly after he took office that Alibaba would aim to sign up one million small businesses for its platform while helping create one million jobs in the US, Xinhua reported.
Of course, creating one million jobs in the US is an incredibly lofty goal. For example, the entire US economy added a net 103,000 jobs in March.
However, a pair of Chinese researchers said Monday that the company created 36.8 million jobs in 2017.
Trade is about mutual respect, Ma said, adding that it"s imperative for world peace.
"Trade is about rules and negotiations. If trade stops, war starts," Ma said.
And while Ma admits that globalization "has not been inclusive enough" over the past decades, he insisted there are other ways to fix this.
“Globalization is great thing, but over the past forty or thirty years, it’s not inclusive enough. Developing countries, young people and small businesses do not benefit from that,” Ma made the comment at a dinner with International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Christine Lagarde.
The world is facing many challenges like poverty, and innovation is the only way to solve them, Ma said. If China had not started the opening up and reform policy 40 years ago, "there would be no Jack Ma sitting here today," he said.
According to Xinhua, Christine Lagarde also warned about the risks of protectionism and becoming closed off to the outside world.
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