Xi’s Messages From Private Enterprise Symposium—Is the Tech Crackdown Over?

On February 17, 2025, Party Chairman Xi Jinping delivered an important speech to private enterprise leaders at a symposium in Beijing. Xi raised three points to the business community including “protecting and stimulating the vitality of market players, promoting entrepreneurial spirit, and focusing on doing our own business well.” This is the first symposium that Xi has held with private enterprises in nearly seven years; the last time a similar forum was held was in November 2018. 

Xi mentioned at the symposium: 

“I have stressed many times that China’s door of opening up will not close, but will only open wider. Taking the domestic circulation as the main body does not mean closed operation behind closed doors, but rather, by giving full play to the potential of domestic demand, better connecting the domestic and international markets, and better utilizing the two markets and two resources of the international and domestic markets to achieve stronger and more sustainable development.”

Wang Xing, the founder of Meituan, commented thereafter in an interview: 

“We will deeply understand the spirit of General Secretary Xi Jinping’s important speech, actively embrace new technologies such as artificial intelligence and big data, continue to actively promote the expansion of consumption, explore the research and development of technologies such as drone delivery and automatic delivery, strive to ‘go global’ to expand overseas markets, and constantly create a new situation for development.”

With both Xi Jinping and business leaders promoting outbound investments, this is a positive signal that Chinese companies should pursue their global ambitions.

The symposium attracted much attention because of the presence of Alibaba’s founder Jack Ma, a symbol of a possible change in the direction the government intends to take against private enterprises and the technology sector after years of scrutiny. Ma’s participation is indeed a signal of a possible policy shift— a sharp reversal from the position of curbing the “disorderly expansion of capital” a few years ago.    

The reaction to the meeting by government departments was quick. Multiple favorable policies for the private economy, including further removing market access barriers, are in the pipeline. The National Development and Reform Commission announced that it will soon revise and issue a new version of the negative list for market access, continue to promote the fair opening of competitive infrastructure fields and major national scientific research infrastructure to private enterprises, and at the same time further improve laws and regulations.

It’s too early to tell if Xi’s dialogue with the Chinese business community will have much impact on the policy trends ahead, or even whether it will improve the economic outlook. More signals will likely be forthcoming with the release of the Chinese Premier’s annual economic blueprint and work report at Lianghui (two sessions) in early March. More messaging is expected at the China Development Forum in mid-March, which is typically attended by CEOs from global companies. Stay tuned as we follow up with our assessment later in March.