In a symposium to promote the private sector, Chinese leading tech entrepreneurs informed President Xi Jinping of their concerns. China’s leading technology entrepreneurs, including Huawei Technologies Founder Ren Zhengfei and Xiaomi Founder Lei Jun, voiced their confidence in the country’s development prospects at a symposium chaired by President Xi Jinping last week. Ren, the face of China’s resilience against U.S. hostilities in technology, told Xi that concerns had eased over China's lack of home-grown chips and operating systems – the “heart and soul” of modern technology – according to a report from the People’s Daily. “I firmly believe that a stronger China is rising at an accelerated pace,” the 80-year-old founder of the U.S.-sanctioned telecoms equipment giant was quoted as saying. Lei, the CEO of smartphone and electric vehicle (EV) maker Xiaomi, said “there is nothing that cannot be overcome” in China’s progress, despite the “changes in international winds and clouds” – likely a reference to the intensifying Sino-U.S. tech rivalry. He added that Xiaomi’s revenues had been growing at “more than 30%” after two years of decline.
While the People’s Daily article did not mention the US directly, Xi’s symposium with the country’s top entrepreneurs came as China shows perseverance under U.S. export restrictions aimed at curbing the country’s technological progress. Breakthroughs, such as the artificial intelligence (AI) models from start-up DeepSeek, have been hailed as China’s secret weapon to surviving the tech war. DeepSeek Founder and CEO Liang Wenfeng attended the symposium but did not make a speech. Wang Xingxing, Founder and CEO of Unitree Robotics and the youngest entrepreneur at the meeting at just 35, told Xi that the humanoid robot developer and its team were “born and raised in China”. In response, Xi said the country’s innovation required contributions from a younger generation. Yu Renrong, Founder of Will Semiconductor and the only delegate from the legacy chip industry at the symposium, told Xi that the “localization ratio” – the proportion of domestically developed technology and equipment – continued to increase in the semiconductor supply chain, with momentum seen in both “upstream and downstream” sectors. Wang Chuanfu, Founder of the world’s top EV maker BYD, shared his experience of building the industry “from ground zero”. Liu Yonghao, Founder of China’s largest animal feed producer New Hope Group, explained to Xi how traditional agriculture businesses could thrive by adopting new technologies.
Xi’s gathering with dozens of entrepreneurs, including Alibaba Group Holding Founder Jack Ma, sought to boost confidence in China’s private sector. It underscored the role of “national champions” in the technology sector in propelling the world’s second-largest economy forward. Also at the meeting was Pony Ma – Founder, Chairman and CEO of Tencent Holdings – who said he was confident that China’s business environment would get “better and better”. Tencent planned to increase investment in technological innovation to accelerate the development and adoption of large language models (LLMs), he was quoted as saying. President Xi told the assembled business leaders that the East still holds a great deal of promise and the Chinese economy remains incomparable on the world stage. “In the long term, the East wind is still prevailing, confidence is very important,” he said, as reported by the South China Morning Post.
