Bigger than Pixar
Xi Jinping boosts business and tech, and Nezha 2 is new box office king
This is The China Week, a succinct, analytical roundup of what you need to know to stay informed about business, politics, culture, and other news about the world’s other superpower. It’s free for the next few weeks—subscribe here if this was forwarded to you.
Each newsletter will summarize the most important stories of the previous seven days. I’ll also link to noteworthy China stories and podcasts that are not newsy, including articles I worked on or edited.
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Top story
Xi Jinping boosts business and tech
China’s tech stocks have been surging since homegrown DeepSeek stunned the AI world with the release of chatbot on January 20, 2025. The rally gained momentum after a meeting yesterday (February 17) convened by General Secretary Xi Jinping with a large group of business leaders, mostly from the tech sector.
Attendees included a few leaders from industrial companies, but mostly technology executives including, Jack Ma of ecommerce giant Alibaba (a sign of his return to grace after years of being in the cold after the Ant debacle?), Liang Wenfeng of DeepSeek, Robin Zeng of the battery behemoth CATL, Ren Zhengfei of Huawei, and Wang Chuanfu of the Tesla-beating electric car company BYD. (See Appendix at bottom of the email for full list of known participants and notable absentees.)
Xi has previously held three similar meetings with business leaders:
In May 2024, Xi hosted executives in Shandong in an apparent signal of welcome to foreign companies, as multinational confidence in China was declining steeply (see analysis by Lizzi Lee, Chinese state media report).
In July 2020, as the COVID pandemic was tanking the global economy, Xi held a similar meeting that state media said showed that the government was “‘doing everything possible’ to protect market players under unprecedented pressure caused by the pandemic” (state media reports in English, Chinese).
In November 2018, a number of rather obscure business leaders were invited by Xi to a meeting that seemed to message that while private enterprise was important, executives needed to toe the Party line (state media reports in English, Chinese)
What does this meeting mean?
It’s good news for private enterprise:
Xi’s gathering was the lead story on the front page of the People’s Daily, the Communist Party’s newspaper (original text, translation). The article notes that Xi emphasized that China’s basic policies on “the private economy have been incorporated into the socialist system with Chinese characteristics,” and that these “cannot and will not change”—in other words, as long as business leaders serve the Party’s interests, they will continue to be allowed and encouraged to operate.
But the Wall Street Journal is probably correct that Xi wanted to signal “to leading technology entrepreneurs and CEOs that he needed their help to deliver economic growth and self-sufficiency, more than four years after a crackdown by Beijing that dented confidence.”
Related: China’s top prosecutors today pledged to give more legal protection to the country’s private businesses, and CATL has filed for a secondary listing in Hong Kong.
Pop culture and soft power
Nezha 2: New box office king
Animated film Nezha 2 today overtook Inside Out 2 to become the world's highest-grossing animated film of all time with total box office takings of $1.69 billion, according to industry tracker Maoyan. However, 99% of the tickets sold were in China.
Nezha 2, currently in theaters in China, the U.S. and elsewhere, is a sequel to the 2019 hit Nezha, and is based on a mythical Chinese character described in the 16th century Chinese tale The Investiture of the Gods 封神演義. Nezha is a boy born with a demonic soul who becomes a hero fighting for good.
The film was written and directed by Jiaozi 饺子 (meaning “dumpling”), the pseudonym of Yang Yu 杨宇 who was born in Sichuan in 1980.
New world disorder
Uncertain times for Taiwan
Taiwan is worried about its future “under Trump 2.0” according to the Wall Street Journal which cites “critical comments by [the] president and members of his circle [that have left the] island less confident about U.S. support.”
In response to these worries, and to threats of tariffs from Trump, Taiwan’s President William Lai Qing-te 賴清德 pledged to boost investment and procurement, possibly including “billions of dollars” of arms.
Meanwhile, yesterday, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson blasted the U.S. after the State Department removed “we do not support Taiwan independence” from its Taiwan relations fact sheet. This comes as severe disagreements in Taiwan’s legislature are creating what some see as a “political opening” for Beijing.
China-U.S. relations
Beijing tickles Elon Musk’s soft underbelly
Elon Musk’s fortune is still reliant on China as a marketing and manufacturing base, which provides Beijing with real leverage in its dealings with the Musk-dominated U.S. government. Now, according to the Financial Times, “Tesla is bracing for a potential delay in obtaining Chinese approval for its autonomous driving technology, as Elon Musk’s electric-vehicle company risks getting dragged into the escalating U.S.-China trade war.”
Authorities told Tesla that “there is no definitive timetable for regulators to approve a license for it to begin widespread training of its ‘full self-driving’ technology, despite an earlier indication that it would get the green light in the second quarter of 2025.”
This is another setback in Tesla’s rivalry with China’s BYD, the world’s biggest electric car company, which last week, unveiled a self-driving system that it plans to install on all of its cars including the Seagull hatchback which sells for under $10,000.
Appendix
Known attendees to Xi Jinping business leader meeting (based on this list)
Huang Daifang 黄代放, Chairman of Tellhow Group (an industrial conglomerate in infrastructure and military technology)
Lei Jun 雷军, Chairman of Xiaomi (smartphones, electronics and electric cars)
Leng Youbin 冷友斌, Chairman of Feihe (infant formula and dairy)
Liang Wenfeng 梁文峰, Founder of AI firm DeepSeek and hedge fund High-Flyer
Liu Yonghao 刘永好, Chairman of New Hope Group (livestock feed and agricultural products)
Pony Ma 马化腾, Chairman and CEO of Tencent
Jack Ma 马云, Founder of Alibaba and Ant (ecommerce, fintech)
Nan Cunhui 南存辉, Chairman of Chint Group (power transmission, low voltage electrical products)
Qi Xiangdong 齐向东, Chairman of Qi An Xin Group (cybersecurity)
Ren Zhengfei 任正非, CEO of Huawei (telecoms equipment, phones, operating systems for electric cars)
Wang Chuanfu 王传福, Chairman of BYD (world’s largest electric car company)
Wang Xingxing 王兴兴, CEO of Unitree Robotics (quadriped and humanoid robots)
Yu Renrong 于仁荣, Chairman, Will Semiconductor Shanghai (which acquired California-based OmniVision Technologies in 2019)
Robin Zeng 曾毓群, Chairman of CATL (world’s biggest battery company)
Notable absentees: Leaders from Baidu, JD.com, PDD, ByteDance.