Xi Jinping Assembles Jack Ma, Pony Ma, and Other Big Tech Leaders to Revive China’s Private Sector

• A group of leading Chinese tech executives attended a rare meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
• The meeting aimed to build confidence in the country’s private sector amid challenges slowing down the economy.
• A large portion of the guest list was made up of leading executives from the technology industry.

Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday, Feb. 17, led a rare high-level meeting with domestic business leaders, including Alibaba’s Jack Ma, to address concerns about the country’s private sector.

The meeting comes as China faces increased pressure on its economic stability from ongoing U.S. tensions and a slow-growing economy.

Xi Jinping Wants To Boost Private Sector Confidence

The meeting is understood to have been held to boost confidence in the country’s private sector, with Xi urging executives to expand their businesses overseas and domestically despite the weight of tensions with the U.S.

Xi delivered a speech at the meeting after sitting down to discuss China’s challenges with the attending private companies, according to news agency Xinhua.

The publication did not provide any further details about the rare meeting.

Over the past few years, Xi has called for private firms to be “rich and loving” and “patriotic,” claiming that China needs to achieve “common prosperity.”

This strategy promotes the country becoming more inclusive and stable after historically chasing rapid growth at the expense of widening inequalities.

However, some in the country have taken the sentiments as discouragement against riskier investments.

Leading Chinese Tech Executives Attended

The meeting included Tencent CEO Pony Ma, electric vehicle firm Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun, and robotics company Yushu Technology founder Wang Xingxing.

DeepSeek founder Liang Wenfeng was also in attendance, following the breakthroughs his AI startup made overseas.

Despite being developed with significantly fewer resources than its U.S. rivals, DeepSeek’s breakthrough performance has rattled Silicon Valley, causing a dramatic one-day decline in Nvidia’s share price.

U.S.-China Tensions Continue

U.S. export controls on advanced semiconductors—designed to restrict China’s access to critical chips—continue to create friction between the two countries.

However, there is growing debate over whether these measures are adequate or might even backfire by pushing Chinese firms to innovate with lower-cost, more resource-efficient models.

Xi has repeatedly called for China to become self-sufficient in domestic semiconductor manufacturing, blaming the West for the difficulties faced by China’s economy.

In 2023, Xi was quoted on state radio: “Led by the United States, the West has implemented all-round containment to suppress China, bringing unprecedented challenges to China’s development.”