When Chinese 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 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 mobilized to the front lines a private sector battalion that included the founders of electric-car maker BYD, tech giants Huawei, Alibaba, Tencent and Xiaomi as well as artificial intelligence startup DeepSeek.
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