Business leaders bow to all-powerful Xi
BEIJING: Chinese billionaires are boasting about their Marxist bonafides. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is tightening its grip on state-owned companies. And foreign companies are being asked to invite party cells into their offices.
Under President Xi Jinping, the country’s ruling party is muscling back into business, expanding its reach in private enterprise and even laying out a plan for the government to take stakes in high-profile technology and media companies.
With a stronger mandate after receiving a second term as head of the party on
Wednesday, Xi plans to deepen its control in
“all areas of endeavour in every part of the country”, as he said in a 3½hour speech last week.
Last month, the CCP released a new document on entrepreneurship, calling it a part to strengthen teaching of “socialist core values” to the new generation of entrepreneurs.
This year, a few business icons have disappeared, and others like Wang Jianlin, chairman of entertainment conglomerate Dalian Wanda, have faced immense pressure from regulators over the growing debt in their companies.
Listening to Xi’s speech, “I was overwhelmed by emotions,” Wang told state-run Beijing News. “As a Chinese, I’ve never been so proud.”
The sentiment was echoed by other industry titans like Jack Ma of Alibaba and Liu Chuanzhi of Lenovo, who told Beijing News the party would unite the people to “realise grand dreams”.
To celebrate Xi’s address, Tencent, China’s largest tech company, created an online game for the masses to applaud Xi, which has racked up 1.4 billion claps.
The app’s release followed a Wall Street Journal report that the state is looking to take a one per cent stake and gain a board seat in the company, along with other major Internet firms. AFP