Ren has been the face of resilience against US technological sanctions and espionage accusations with its 5G network for years. "I firmly believe that a stronger China is emerging at an accelerated pace," said the father of Huawei during a speech in which he assured that the country was speeding up to become the great technological superpower despite the lack of advanced chips due to US sanctions.
"Despite all the changes in international winds, there is nothing that China's progress cannot overcome," added Lei Jun (55 years old), CEO of the smartphone manufacturer Xiaomi, one of the world's top-selling brands that has recently expanded into electric vehicles.
This latter sector is dominated globally by the manufacturer BYD. Its founder, Wang Chuanfu (58 years old), who held a prominent seat at the Beijing conclave, stated that Chinese electric cars are three to five years ahead of their competition. Also present was the trendy entrepreneur in China: Liang Wenfeng (40 years old), the developer behind the artificial intelligence phenomenon DeepSeek, which shook global markets in January and gave a big boost to Chinese tech companies listed in Hong Kong.
Chinese stocks have recently experienced their best streak of increases since 2020. Also contributing to this success are the achievements of another prominent figure in China, Wang Xingxing, founder of Unitree Robotics, a leading company in the robotics sector. At 35 years old, Wang was the youngest among all those who participated in the meeting with the president.
"AI-powered robots are evolving at an incredibly fast pace. By the end of the year, humanoid robots will reach a completely new level," Wang stated. For several days, to give more value to the unprecedented meeting, Chinese state media published new statements from the president. "In the long term, the east wind still prevails," Xi said, echoing an old slogan of Mao Zedong, founder of the People's Republic of China.
In the 1950s, the revolutionary leader adopted a phrase from classical literature ("The east wind prevails over the west wind") to proclaim the victory of Chinese socialism over Western capitalism. In front of the corporate leaders, Xi also mentioned one of his favorite slogans in recent years, that of "common prosperity," which is a policy focused on redistributing income and wealth more equitably.
However, unlike other speeches, the Chinese leader this time said that private companies had to continue "enriching themselves first."
In other words, the head of the Asian superpower is trying a different approach than Beijing executed when sidelining Jack Ma in 2020 to send the unequivocal message that no company, no matter how big and powerful, was above the CCP.