Xi s new frontline corporate guard showcases his priorities control

BEIJING/SHANGHAI - When President Xi Jinping hosted entrepreneurs at a rare meeting in Beijing in 2018, the executives granted coveted front-row seats came from industries ranging from high-tech to energy, and few were familiar names.

Fast-forward seven years and that line-up has changed markedly as Beijing buckles down to navigate a deepening technology war with the United States and celebrate powerful Chinese firms that have triumphed in the face of U.S. pressure.

On Monday, Xi mobilised to the frontlines a private sector battalion that included the founders of electric car maker BYD, tech giants Huawei, Alibaba, Tencent and Xiaomi as well as AI start-up DeepSeek.

The firms, most of which are giants in their sectors and controversial abroad, are key to achieving Xis belief that new productive forces are needed for China to escape its middle-income trap, compete with the United States and revitalise a stubbornly sluggish domestic economy, analysts said.

The line-up of entrepreneurs suggests that Xis priority for the private sector is for it to support his goals of achieving technological self-reliance and supply-chain security, said Neil Thomas, a fellow on Chinese politics at the Asia Society Policy Institutes Center for China Analysis.

Indeed, the global and domestic backdrop for this weeks meeting stood in stark contrast to the situation in 2018, when growth was still robust and the geopolitical landscape had not deteriorated to the present point, despite a trade war with U.S. President Donald Trump during his first term.

By contrast, the symposium held that year drafted companies from across industries that included many smaller firms, such as software engineering firm Neusoft and car parts manufacturer Wanxiang. Tencent and Baidu attended, according to local media, but were not given front-row seats.

The mentality of the Chinese leadership has changed, said Alfredo Montufar-Helu, head of The Conference