Xi Jinping Meets With China’s Jack Ma, Other Business Leaders

President Xi Jinping held a rare meeting with some of the biggest names in China’s technology sector, including Alibaba founder Jack Ma, urging them to "show their talent" and be confident in the strength of China’s model and market, Tom Westbrook reported for Reuters.

China's regulatory crackdown began in late 2020 after Ma publicly criticized Chinese financial regulators and banks in a landmark speech. I Photo: Foundations World Economic Forum

Besides Ma, other notable tycoons in attendance included Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei, BYD CEO Wang Chuanfu, CATL CEO Zeng Yuqun, and Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun, as reported by John Liu for CNN.

The symposium on private business took place just weeks after Chinese startup DeepSeek’s latest AI model disrupted global stock markets and AI competitors by delivering comparable performance to US-based giants at significantly lower costs.

The success of DeepSeek has brought renewed optimism to China’s tech sector, which is still recovering from a severe regulatory crackdown that lasted more than three years.

Huizhong Wu of the Associated Press (AP) reported that Xi assured business leaders of political stability, aiming to ease lingering concerns among Chinese entrepreneurs.

Notably, Ma is also a member of the Communist Party of China (CPC). The regulatory crackdown began in late 2020 after Ma publicly criticized Chinese financial regulators and banks in a landmark speech.

His remarks triggered one of the most extensive regulatory clampdowns in China’s corporate history, affecting major tech companies such as Tencent, ride-hailing giant Didi, and food-delivery platform Meituan.

Since then, Ma—once a vocal industry leader—has largely retreated from public view.

However, his high-profile appearance at the meeting with Xi suggests that authorities may now be moving past the crackdown, signaling that concerns surrounding Ma’s business empire have been resolved.

“With China’s economy slowing and geopolitical pressures mounting, the government is making it clear that it values and relies on the private sector to drive innovation and stimulate growth,” said Angela Huyue Zhang, a law professor at the University of Southern California, who has written extensively about China’s regulation of tech firms.

She shared her insights with CNN regarding the significance of the meeting.