China’s business innovators say will resist external pressure after meeting with Xi

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By Che Pan and Brenda Goh

BEIJING/SHANGHAI (Reuters) – Some of China’s prominent business leaders, including the heads of carmakers BYD and Xiaomi, said they would resist external pressure and keep innovating, following a rare meeting between President Xi Jinping and the private sector.

Xi on Monday met dozens of founders and heads of some of China’s largest companies and promising start-ups to encourage private firms to invest more as the Chinese economy slows and geopolitical frictions, especially with the United States, grow.

China shares rose on Wednesday, as investment banks said the meeting had improved the argument for buying Chinese stocks, particularly tech shares.

Analysts said the list of companies invited, especially those asked to sit in the front row and address Xi, such as Chinese tech giant Huawei and Chinese electric car maker BYD, are the ones he considers crucial to China’s technological and supply-chain security.

Public discussion of the meeting has been highly controlled, with state media only releasing Xi’s remarks and not details of what the founders said.

Some of the founders, including Lei Jun of Xiaomi, the world’s third-largest smartphone maker that ventured into making cars last year, and BYD’s Wang Chuanfu, however, said on state media they were encouraged by Xi’s comments.

“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 told Yuyuan Tantian, a social media account affiliated with Chinese state broadcaster CCTV, according to video it published late on Tuesday.

Wang, whose company has been hit by European tariffs on China-made cars and faces efforts from the U.S. to block it from selling its products there, said that China’s electric car industry was 3-5 years ahead of rivals and that quality products would succeed on their own merit despite 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,” Xinhua quoted him as saying.

Wang Xingxing, founder of Unitree, a robot maker that has been compared to Boston Dyamics, credited the company’s achievements to China’s resilient supply chain and said it expected the artificial intelligence humanoid industry to reach a “new level” by the end of this year.

(Reporting by Che Pan and Brenda Goh; editing by Barbara Lewis)