(Reuters) -China’s President Xi Jinping has delivered a speech at a symposium on private enterprises attended by tech entrepreneurs including Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma, official media reported on Monday.
There were no specific details about the symposium.
Reuters reported last week that the symposium is aimed at boosting private-sector sentiment, and Xi was expected to encourage executives to expand their businesses domestically and internationally amid a deepening China-U.S. technology war.
Here’s what people are saying about the meeting:
XIAOYAN ZHANG, CHAIR PROFESSOR OF FINANCE AND ASSOCIATE DEAN AT PBC SCHOOL OF FINANCE, TSINGHUA UNIVERSITY, BEIJING:
“I think for a lot of private sector owners, for the past few years, they have this worry about … a private sector setback. I think the meeting’s purpose is to make sure that the private sector understands, for the stability and for the growth of the economy, they are a very important part of the economy.
“I think the purpose is to tell them ‘we want to support you. We need you to boost innovation, technological innovation, and we need you to boost consumption’. I think (the purpose is) to inject confidence in there. And regulation wise, we want to be promoting more of their growth.”
GARY NG, SENIOR ECONOMIST FOR NATIXIS, HONG KONG:
“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.
“The market reads it as a positive signal to include Jack Ma in such a meeting and hope for the end of the tech crackdown. 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.”
CHRISTOPHER BEDDOR, DEPUTY CHINA RESEARCH DIRECTOR, GAVEKAL DRAGONOMICS, HONG KONG:
“I think it’s a tacit acknowledgement that the Chinese government needs private-sector firms for its tech rivalry with the U.S. Policymakers would probably prefer if industrial-policy planning and state-owned enterprises were able to make innovative breakthroughs at the technological frontier.
“But the disruptive innovations are coming from private-sector companies. The government has no choice but to support them if it wants to compete with the U.S. His (Jack Ma’s) presence would be hugely symbolic of how the government’s stance towards the tech sector has changed. If there’s one person associated with the tech crackdown, it’s Jack Ma.
“As for the signal – we’ve seen Xi run this playbook before. He clearly wants to send a message that the government is now supportive of the tech sector, and in turn instil confidence among tech entrepreneurs. It’s more or less a total reversal of the policy stance from a few years ago, when officials vowed to curb the “disorderly” expansion of capital.
“But we know that Xi is concerned about the tech sector, based on his striking public remark last year about the declining number of unicorns.”
ALFREDO MONTUFAR-HELU, HEAD OF THINK TANK THE CONFERENCE BOARD’S CHINA CENTER:
“After DeepSeek, Beijing is showing it understands that innovation and growth from the private sector, especially tech companies, is the best way forward for economic growth.”
(Reporting by Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong newsrooms; Editing by Anne Marie Roantree and Gerry Doyle)
