Xi Jinping summons private entrepreneurs (and 'rehabilitates' Jack Ma)

The Chinese president met today with the heads of leading digital companies. State TV showed Xi greeting Alibaba’s co-founder, the business giant forced to keep a low profile since 2020. The move comes as China’s economy struggles. “It is time for private enterprises and private entrepreneurs to show their talents,” Xi told his audience.

Beijing (AsiaNews/Agencies) – Xi Jinping today met with the bosses of China's largest digital and  technology companies in the Great Hall of the People, including Jack Ma, cofounder of e-commerce giant Alibaba, who fell out of favour with the Chinese leader and stepped down as the company’s chairman in 2019.

In the flagship news report of CCTV, China's public television, Ma was briefly shown shaking hands with Xi, although he was not mentioned by state media as a participant in the meeting.

The meeting was attended by a large group of technology CEOs, including from Huawei, BYD, Tencent, and DeepSeek, the new Chinese face of artificial intelligence.

Ma's presence at this meeting between Xi and China's business digital elite is seen by many as a kind of rehabilitation and a sign of the government’s desire to instil confidence in the private sector at a time when the Chinese economy is still struggling.

That Jack Ma had fallen out of favour with the Party leadership became clear in 2020, when a US$ 37 billion initial public offering (IPO) by the Ant Group, the fintech company Ma founded, on the Shanghai Stock Exchange of, was halted by regulators.

Since then he has kept a low profile, but last week, he was photographed with staff at an Alibaba-owned supermarket in Changsha (Hunan), just days after visiting the Hangzhou offices of Xianyu, a classified ads and online shopping app.

Ma's return comes just as Xi Jinping needs entrepreneurs to revive sluggish economic growth with innovation. The private sector accounts for more than half of China's economy and provides most urban employment and tax revenues.

According to the State Administration for Market Regulation, the number of private enterprises in China topped 180.86 million in September 2024.

The last time Xi held a high-level symposium with the private sector was in November 2018, when the trade war between the United States and China was heating up during the first Trump administration.

In his speech today, Xi – who is also general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China – called for “the healthy and high-quality development of the private economy,” adding that, “It is time for private enterprises and private entrepreneurs to show their talents”.

• china
• xi jinping
• jack ma
• alibaba
• ant group
• xianyu
• summit
• economy
• slump
• trade war