Xi Jinping’s Strategy Succeed as China Business Innovators Resist External Pressure
Some prominent tech leaders in China have said they’ll continue to innovate while giving little regard to external pressure. China’s business innovators made these pronouncements following a meeting that occurred between the private sector and President Xi Jinping, Reuters reported.
Notable Progress
Chinese innovators now consider Xi Jinping’s economic policies as critical to their success both locally and abroad. When he met private sector entrepreneurs, Jinping emphasized the need to eliminate barriers in the country in order to ensure ‘equal use of production factors and fair participation in the market’.
The President also committed to enhance fair ‘opening of the competitive field of infrastructure to all kinds of business entities, and continue to make great efforts to solve the problem of difficult and expensive financing for private enterprises’ during the summit.
Some Chinese executives, including Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun and BYD executive Wang Chuanfu, have said that the private sector was encouraged by the President’s comments about China’s private sector growth.
“Chinese enterprises actually form an ecosystem, and we become more united when we face external pressure. We have the global market in mind, and we want to increase the influence of Chinese products abroad,” Lei said.
Wang said that the Chinese electric vehicle industry is about three to five years ahead of rival companies. The BYD executive said the quality of Chinese EVs will stand on its own merit regardless of protectionist measures.
“Today, our country is moving from being a big market for cars to becoming a strong auto producer. We will continue to do real business and the industry will serve the country,” Wang said.
The Tariff Headache
BYD and Xiaomi global strategies have been hit hard by new tariffs. BYD has been hit by EU tariffs that the region imposed on Chinese manufactured EVs. The company is also staring at a US ban that could block it from selling its products in the American market.
Xiaomi’s innovation initiatives include EVs and smartphones. The company launched low-cost EVs in the Chinese market early last year. The EU and US launched investigations into the EVs to see whether they should allow the EVs to benefit unfairly from their markets. Both regions were concerned that the Xiaomi EVs could collect sensitive information about drivers.
Last year, the US government took steps to limit the entry of Chinese manufactured EVs into the American market. The government also mulled on the possibility of banning autonomous vehicle software in the country citing security reasons.
On his part, Unitree founder Wang Xingxing attributed the achievements that his company has realized to the resilience in the Chinese supply chain.
Xingxing also said that his company expects the AI humanoid industry in the country to achieve more this year. The robot maker has previously been compared to American robotics company, Boston Dynamics.
Soaring Share Prices
On Wednesday February 19, Chinese investment banks said President Jinping’s summit had built a case for the purchase of tech stocks, causing share prices to soar. Analysts say tech companies that participated in the summit are critical to China’s tech and supply-chain security.
These include companies that addressed President Xi and those that took the front row seats at the summit like the electronic vehicle manufacturer and smartphone maker Huawei technologies. President Jinping met tech executives and founders of some of the largest tech companies in China on February 17.
The Chinese leader encouraged private companies to make more investments amidst the economic slowdown and geopolitical friction that the company is experiencing. Public conversations about Jinping’s meeting with tech companies have been highly controlled. The state media only highlighted the President’s remarks and left out what tech leaders said.
The latest symposium with tech executives was the second since he ascended power. The first time that the Chinese President chaired a private sector symposium was in 2018, about six years after he assumed office.
