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China Favors Chips, AI Executives Over Internet Tycoons at Top Political Meetings - WSJ
The Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference opened at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Saturday.PHOTO: SHEN HONG/ZUMA PRESS
By Shen Lu
Follow
March 5, 2023 11:00 am ET
A number of prominent Chinese internet executives have been left out of the country’s top political meetings in Beijing this week, giving way to experts in artificial intelligence and semiconductors as Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s priorities shift amid rising technology competition with the U.S.
Pony Ma, Robin Li and William Ding, the chief executives of Chinese internet companies Tencent Holdings Ltd., Baidu Inc. and NetEase Inc. respectively, are conspicuous in their absence from this year’s list of delegates to the National People’s Congress, China’s legislative body, and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, a political advisory body. Also missing was Lenovo Group Ltd. CEO Yang Yuanqing.
The meetings are largely ceremonial affairs designed to project unity and harmony across the world’s most populous country. Each year since 2018, the internet moguls had submitted policy proposals that attempted to align their business interests with the Communist Party’s policy priorities.
This year, their vacancies reflect the increasingly clear political reality that the online services industry, known in China as the platform economy, no longer sits at the center of Beijing’s development agenda.
For entrepreneurs, being named a delegate to China’s legislative or consultative body is largely honorary.
“Ding, Li, and Ma are the symbols of an older era,” said Xiaomeng Lu, a director at consulting firm Eurasia Group who focuses on emerging technologies and geopolitics. By appointing a new class of executives to the meetings, Ms. Lu said, Beijing is “endorsing their business models and suggesting they are the future of Chinese technology.”
Many of the new and reinvited delegates from the tech sector are entrepreneurs as well as researchers in strategic areas, such as AI, cloud computing, semiconductors and hardware.
The reshuffle underscores Beijing’s shifting policy focus toward boosting self-sufficiency in technology and supply chains as the country faces growing challenges from the U.S. on both fronts.
“Beijing needs private-sector companies to step up their game as Xi and the party gird for a long-term struggle with the U.S., not for ‘dominance’ of the technologies of the future, but for control over China’s technology supply chains free of U.S. regulatory encumbrances,” says Paul Triolo, senior vice president for China and technology policy lead at Washington-based advisory firm Albright Stonebridge Group.
Washington has announced a series of escalating U.S. export controls around chips, which could hinder Beijing’s technological advancement.
Mr. Xi has urged more basic research, original innovation and breakthroughs in strategic fields in the past few years, including in a report delivered at a conclave of China’s Communist Party last fall and in remarks last month to the Politburo, the party’s top policy-making body. He has also packed the top ranks of the party with a new generation of leaders who have experience in aerospace, AI and other key areas.
Departing Chinese Vice Premier Liu He on Thursday addressed semiconductor industry executives, saying that China must take advantage of a new “whole nation” approach to advance the sector, leveraging both government and market forces.
Chinese officials held a press briefing at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Friday ahead of the National People’s Congress and Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference.PHOTO: ANDY WONG/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Notable new faces at this week’s meetings include Tang Xiao’ou, the head of AI giant SenseTime Group Inc., Zhang Suxin, who helms the semiconductor firm Hua Hong Semiconductor Ltd., and Chen Tianshi, CEO of AI chip maker Cambricon Technologies Corp.
Other representatives from the semiconductor industry include Li Shushen, a chips expert and vice president of the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, and Guo Huiqin, an engineer at the Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp., China’s top contract chip maker.
Wang Jian, chairman of the Technology Steering Committee at Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and founder of the company’s cloud computing division, is a “special invitee” to the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference. Cao Peng, who chairs e-commerce platform JD.com Inc.’s Technology Committee and heads that company’s cloud division, also snagged a seat.
He Xiaopeng, CEO of Chinese electric-vehicle manufacturer XPeng Inc., is a newly invited delegate to the National People’s Congress.
Among the tech heavyweights who secured reappointments to the legislative and consultative bodies are Zhou Hongyi, CEO of cybersecurity company Qihoo 360 Technology Co. and Lei Jun, CEO of smartphone maker Xiaomi Corp. Mr. Lei is leading a roughly $1.5 billion fund to invest in China’s chips industry.
Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun scored an invitation to China’s top legislative meeting this year.PHOTO: HUANG ZONGZHI/ZUMA PRESS
China’s new policy objectives were outlined in the 14th Five-Year Plan, a grand economic blueprint that covers the period between 2021 and 2025. The plan emphasizes innovation in technologies including 5G, AI, chips, robotics and smart manufacturing, placing them at the core of the country’s development agenda.
Part of the purpose of this week’s political meetings is to look at legislative and policy initiatives that can help to realize those objectives.
“We’re now at the point where these real policies now need to be developed,” said Rogier Creemers, an assistant professor at Leiden University who researches China’s digital-technology policy. “And so you really need those companies on board because they have the technical knowledge to know what needs to be part of the policy and what doesn’t.”
Internet companies such as Baidu and Tencent are taking a back seat as they emerge from a two-year regulatory clampdown, which Beijing signaled in January may be coming to an end. “There’s not any big reason to have these companies now as part of that landscape,” Mr. Creemers said.
Baidu, which operates the country’s main search engine and was once considered one of the three dominant players on China’s internet, has fallen from the top ranks in recent years, though it has touted its efforts in AI. Later this month, the company is set to release its answer to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Ernie.
For entrepreneurs, being named a delegate to the legislative or consultative body is largely honorary. Baidu’s Mr. Li and Tencent’s Mr. Ma had appeared at the meetings since 2013. Jack Ma, the influential Alibaba co-founder, has never held a seat at either body.
In 2019, JD.com founder Richard Liu resigned from the political advisory body after he was accused of sexually assaulting a young Chinese woman in the U.S. Mr. Liu settled the case last year.
Write to Shen Lu at shen.lu@wsj.com
Appeared in the March 6, 2023, print edition as 'Gatherings Snub Internet Moguls'.
China Favors Chips, AI Executives Over Internet Tycoons at Top Political Meetings
Seats once reserved for executives of internet companies are redistributed as Beijing braces for technological challenges from Washington
By Shen Lu
Follow
March 5, 2023 11:00 am ET
A number of prominent Chinese internet executives have been left out of the country’s top political meetings in Beijing this week, giving way to experts in artificial intelligence and semiconductors as Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s priorities shift amid rising technology competition with the U.S.
Pony Ma, Robin Li and William Ding, the chief executives of Chinese internet companies Tencent Holdings Ltd., Baidu Inc. and NetEase Inc. respectively, are conspicuous in their absence from this year’s list of delegates to the National People’s Congress, China’s legislative body, and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, a political advisory body. Also missing was Lenovo Group Ltd. CEO Yang Yuanqing.
The meetings are largely ceremonial affairs designed to project unity and harmony across the world’s most populous country. Each year since 2018, the internet moguls had submitted policy proposals that attempted to align their business interests with the Communist Party’s policy priorities.
This year, their vacancies reflect the increasingly clear political reality that the online services industry, known in China as the platform economy, no longer sits at the center of Beijing’s development agenda.
For entrepreneurs, being named a delegate to China’s legislative or consultative body is largely honorary.
“Ding, Li, and Ma are the symbols of an older era,” said Xiaomeng Lu, a director at consulting firm Eurasia Group who focuses on emerging technologies and geopolitics. By appointing a new class of executives to the meetings, Ms. Lu said, Beijing is “endorsing their business models and suggesting they are the future of Chinese technology.”
Many of the new and reinvited delegates from the tech sector are entrepreneurs as well as researchers in strategic areas, such as AI, cloud computing, semiconductors and hardware.
The reshuffle underscores Beijing’s shifting policy focus toward boosting self-sufficiency in technology and supply chains as the country faces growing challenges from the U.S. on both fronts.
“Beijing needs private-sector companies to step up their game as Xi and the party gird for a long-term struggle with the U.S., not for ‘dominance’ of the technologies of the future, but for control over China’s technology supply chains free of U.S. regulatory encumbrances,” says Paul Triolo, senior vice president for China and technology policy lead at Washington-based advisory firm Albright Stonebridge Group.
Washington has announced a series of escalating U.S. export controls around chips, which could hinder Beijing’s technological advancement.
Mr. Xi has urged more basic research, original innovation and breakthroughs in strategic fields in the past few years, including in a report delivered at a conclave of China’s Communist Party last fall and in remarks last month to the Politburo, the party’s top policy-making body. He has also packed the top ranks of the party with a new generation of leaders who have experience in aerospace, AI and other key areas.
Departing Chinese Vice Premier Liu He on Thursday addressed semiconductor industry executives, saying that China must take advantage of a new “whole nation” approach to advance the sector, leveraging both government and market forces.
Notable new faces at this week’s meetings include Tang Xiao’ou, the head of AI giant SenseTime Group Inc., Zhang Suxin, who helms the semiconductor firm Hua Hong Semiconductor Ltd., and Chen Tianshi, CEO of AI chip maker Cambricon Technologies Corp.
Other representatives from the semiconductor industry include Li Shushen, a chips expert and vice president of the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, and Guo Huiqin, an engineer at the Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp., China’s top contract chip maker.
Wang Jian, chairman of the Technology Steering Committee at Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and founder of the company’s cloud computing division, is a “special invitee” to the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference. Cao Peng, who chairs e-commerce platform JD.com Inc.’s Technology Committee and heads that company’s cloud division, also snagged a seat.
He Xiaopeng, CEO of Chinese electric-vehicle manufacturer XPeng Inc., is a newly invited delegate to the National People’s Congress.
Among the tech heavyweights who secured reappointments to the legislative and consultative bodies are Zhou Hongyi, CEO of cybersecurity company Qihoo 360 Technology Co. and Lei Jun, CEO of smartphone maker Xiaomi Corp. Mr. Lei is leading a roughly $1.5 billion fund to invest in China’s chips industry.
China’s new policy objectives were outlined in the 14th Five-Year Plan, a grand economic blueprint that covers the period between 2021 and 2025. The plan emphasizes innovation in technologies including 5G, AI, chips, robotics and smart manufacturing, placing them at the core of the country’s development agenda.
Part of the purpose of this week’s political meetings is to look at legislative and policy initiatives that can help to realize those objectives.
“We’re now at the point where these real policies now need to be developed,” said Rogier Creemers, an assistant professor at Leiden University who researches China’s digital-technology policy. “And so you really need those companies on board because they have the technical knowledge to know what needs to be part of the policy and what doesn’t.”
Internet companies such as Baidu and Tencent are taking a back seat as they emerge from a two-year regulatory clampdown, which Beijing signaled in January may be coming to an end. “There’s not any big reason to have these companies now as part of that landscape,” Mr. Creemers said.
Baidu, which operates the country’s main search engine and was once considered one of the three dominant players on China’s internet, has fallen from the top ranks in recent years, though it has touted its efforts in AI. Later this month, the company is set to release its answer to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Ernie.
For entrepreneurs, being named a delegate to the legislative or consultative body is largely honorary. Baidu’s Mr. Li and Tencent’s Mr. Ma had appeared at the meetings since 2013. Jack Ma, the influential Alibaba co-founder, has never held a seat at either body.
In 2019, JD.com founder Richard Liu resigned from the political advisory body after he was accused of sexually assaulting a young Chinese woman in the U.S. Mr. Liu settled the case last year.
Write to Shen Lu at shen.lu@wsj.com
Appeared in the March 6, 2023, print edition as 'Gatherings Snub Internet Moguls'.
