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China's Xi holds rare meeting with Jack Ma, business leaders amid slowing economy

Published: 17 Feb. 2025, 18:52

Chinese CEO Jack Ma of Alibaba listens to Chinese President Xi Jinping at a U.S.-China business roundtable comprised of U.S. and Chinese CEOs in Seattle on Sept. 23, 2015. [REUTERS]

Chinese President Xi Jinping held a rare meeting on Monday with some of the biggest names in China's technology sector, including Alibaba founder Jack Ma, in what sources previously billed as an effort to boost private business sentiment.

The meeting highlights a turnaround in Beijing's approach to its tech giants after a regulatory clampdown a few years ago, as well as more recent concerns about a slowdown in economic growth and efforts by the United States to stunt its technological development.

Liang Wenfeng, founder of DeepSeek, a startup that is threatening to upset the technology world order with its AI models, also attended, two sources familiar with the meeting said.

Liang was not pictured in CCTV's video, and DeepSeek did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

Other private business leaders who attended the symposium included Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei, Xiaomi's Lei Jun, BYD's Wang Chuanfu, Unitree Robotics' Wang Xingxing and Contemporary Amperex Technology's Robin Zeng, a video published by CCTV showed.

The meeting was also attended by Meituan's Wang Xing, China Feihe's Leng Youbin and Will Semiconductor founder Yu Renrong, the video showed.

Tencent's Pony Ma was there too, a source familiar with the matter said, declining to be named as the meeting details were not public. Tencent did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Xi delivered a speech after listening to representatives of private companies, Xinhua News Agency said. The report did not provide any details about the symposium, held in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

Reuters reported on Friday that Xi planned to chair a symposium to boost private sector sentiment on Monday that would be attended by the country's business leaders, including Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma.

Chinese President Xi Jinping attends a meeting with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, in Brasilia, Brazil on Nov. 20, 2024. [REUTERS]

The symposium would be aimed at boosting private sector sentiment, and Xi was expected to encourage company chiefs to expand their businesses domestically and internationally amid an intensifying China-U.S. technology war, the sources had said.

Investors on Monday were scouring pictures and footage of the meeting to spot top bosses and trading accordingly, with Baidu shares down more than 8 percent — the largest loser on the Hang Seng Index — after no top executive was spotted.

Founders of Baidu and ByteDance were among the prominent private business leaders in China who did not attend the meeting, according to two sources familiar with the matter. Neither company immediately responded to requests for comment.

The presence of top executives and companies at these high-profile events are typically seen by foreign investors as a sign that the businesses or individuals that are favored by the government.

Achieving self-sufficiency

The meeting took place against the backdrop of U.S. tariffs threatening to pile more pressure on the world's second-largest economy, which has been reeling from weak domestic consumption and a destabilizing debt crisis in the property sector.

The private business sector contributes more than 50 percent to China’s tax revenue, more than 60 percent of its economic output, 70 percent of tech innovation and 80 percent of urban employment, according to official estimates.

The meeting also comes as global excitement over DeepSeek's AI platform has spilled over into investor speculation about its potential positive effects on China's broader tech sector and has triggered calls for an upward repricing of Chinese assets.

Xi has long stressed the need for China to achieve self-sufficiency in semiconductors and wants the country to use AI to drive economic development.

But China's efforts have been hampered by export control measures on chips imposed by Washington, which is worried Beijing could use advanced semiconductors to boost its military capabilities.

“It's a tacit acknowledgment that the Chinese government needs private sector firms for its tech rivalry with the U.S.,” said Christopher Beddor, deputy China research director at Gavekal Dragonomics in Hong Kong.

“The government has no choice but to support them if it wants to compete with the U.S.”

'Potential risks'

Tech shares in Hong Kong have roared higher in recent weeks on a combination of optimism about the DeepSeek AI breakthrough and a thawing of authorities' approach to internet giants.

The Hang Seng technology index hit a three-year high in morning trading on Monday, having rallied on Friday after Reuters reported Xi was to chair Monday's symposium. It slipped in volatile afternoon trading and was last down 1.3 percent.

Xi first chaired a high-profile symposium for the private sector in 2018, six years after he came to power. At the time, he pledged tax cuts and a level playing field while reaffirming that private firms would have access to financial backing.

“Despite the rising opportunities in the case of DeepSeek, it is also about guiding the private sector in the government-led direction and containing the potential risks to compete with the U.S.,” said Gary Ng, senior economist at Natixis.

“Still, the regulatory environment is the black box. As most AI development happens in the private sector, we cannot entirely rule out the outcome of a tighter-than-market-expected regulatory environment than we see now.”

Attendance by Jack Ma, in particular, has the potential to boost business confidence, analysts have said.

The once high-profile entrepreneur largely withdrew from public life after the IPO of his fintech company Ant was halted by authorities in 2020, a move triggered by a speech he gave that year criticizing China's regulatory system.

His business empire and the wider technology industry were then targeted by a regulatory crackdown, with his time out of the limelight symbolizing a reversal of fortunes for China's private sector.

Reuters