China's Xi Jinping to hold high-level meeting on Monday with top tech entrepreneurs
Chinese President Xi Jinping will host a meeting next week with some of the nation's top entrepreneurs - including six Hangzhou-based start-ups known as the "Six Little Dragons" - to recognise progress in critical areas of technological advancement and show support to the private sector, according to sources.
Between 20 and 30 founders and chief executives from China's largest technology companies were expected to assemble in Beijing on Monday, according to the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The meeting comes at a critical time for China before the national legislature and the political advisory body enter their annual meetings to formulate the nation's strategies to regain its economic growth pace and chart a course through the evolving trade war and technological race with the US. The "two sessions" process is also expected to legislate to better protect the private sector, the Ministry of Justice said last October.
Do you have questions about the biggest topics and trends from around the world? Get the answers with SCMP Knowledge, our new platform of curated content with explainers, FAQs, analyses and infographics brought to you by our award-winning team.
Against the headwinds, companies such as DeepSeek and Huawei have broken through with new services and products that have mitigated US restrictions, the sources said.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (left, front) in a meeting during a symposium on private enterprises at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on November 1, 2018. Photo: Xinhua alt=Chinese President Xi Jinping (left, front) in a meeting during a symposium on private enterprises at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on November 1, 2018. Photo: Xinhua>
DeepSeek in December launched a low-cost large language model (LLM) with 671 billion parameters called the DeepSeek V3, which it claimed was trained in around two months for US$5.58 million. The feat by the Hangzhou-based company seemed to challenge Silicon Valley's dominance in artificial intelligence, which thus far has been led by US companies such as OpenAI, Microsoft and Google.
China's "DeepSeek moment" and its implications will be "good for innovation because making AI less costly and more accessible means more companies and developers can participate in the upside of AI development, and more consumers will benefit from the proliferation of useful and cool applications", Alibaba Group Holding's co-founder and chairman Joe Tsai recently wrote in an op-ed column in the Post. Alibaba owns the Post.
DeepSeek's breakthrough was matched - surpassed, in certain parameters - by other Chinese companies. Alibaba's latest open-source Qwen artificial intelligence model called the 2.5-Max beat DeepSeek V3 to become the top-ranked non-reasoning model from a Chinese developer, according to a third-party benchmarking and ranking platform. Alibaba this week struck an agreement to supply Qwen to run on Apple's iPhones in China, an endorsement of the company's AI prowess.
Advances have been made elsewhere to break out of America's technological chokehold. Huawei surprised the world in September 2023 when it launched its Mate 60 Pro flagship smartphone with its own Kirin 9000s processor that was capable of supporting 5G connectivity. The move broke through the 2020 US export restrictions that prevented Huawei from obtaining advanced integrated circuits from major contract chipmakers around the world.
Unitree's H1 humanoid robots appeared in the 2025 Lunar New Year Gala performance on CGTN on Jan 28, 2025. Photo: Unitree alt=Unitree's H1 humanoid robots appeared in the 2025 Lunar New Year Gala performance on CGTN on Jan 28, 2025. Photo: Unitree>
The invited companies are understood to include Huawei Technologies, Tencent Holding, Xiaomi, DeepSeek, Alibaba and Unitree Robotics, the sources said.
Spokespeople from Huawei, Tencent, Xiaomi, DeepSeek, Alibaba and Unitree declined to comment. Reuters first reported the Monday meeting, citing unidentified sources.
Among other invited companies are the so-called Six Little Dragons of China's technology prowess: half a dozen start-ups based in the Zhejiang provincial capital of Hangzhou. Besides DeepSeek, they are the robot maker Unitree, Deep Robotics, the video game studio Game Science, the brain-machine interface innovator BrainCo and the 3D interior design software developer Manycore.
This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2025 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
Copyright (c) 2025. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
11 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Tariff fight escalates as Trump appeals second court loss
The Trump administration is fighting to pause a second court ruling that blocked President Donald Trump's sweeping and so-called reciprocal tariffs, the signature economic policy of his second term. The administration's new appeal, filed Monday in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, comes less than a week after a very similar court challenge played out in the U.S. Court of International Trade (CIT) in New York, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington. At issue in both cases is Trump's use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to enact his sweeping "Liberation Day" tariff plan. The plan, which Trump announced on April 2, invokes IEEPA for both his 10% baseline tariff on most U.S. trading partners and a so-called "reciprocal tariff" against other countries. Trump Tariff Plan Faces Uncertain Future As Court Battles Intensify Trump's use of the emergency law to invoke widespread tariffs was struck down unanimously last week by the three-judge CIT panel, which said the statute does not give Trump "unbounded" power to implement tariffs. However, the decision was almost immediately stayed by the U.S. Court of Appeals, allowing Trump's tariffs to continue. But in a lesser-discussed ruling on the very same day, U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras, an Obama appointee, determined that Trump's tariffs were unlawful under IEEPA. Read On The Fox News App Since the case before him had more limited reach than the case heard by the CIT – plaintiffs in the suit focused on harm to two small businesses, versus harm from the broader tariff plan – it went almost unnoticed in news headlines. But that changed on Monday. Trump Denounces Court's 'Political' Tariff Decision, Calls On Supreme Court To Act Quickly Lawyers for the Justice Department asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit – a Washington-based but still separate court than the Federal Court of Appeals – to immediately stay the judge's ruling. They argued in their appeal that the judge's ruling against Trump's use of IEEPA undercuts his ability to use tariffs as a "credible threat" in trade talks, at a time when such negotiations "currently stand at a delicate juncture." "By holding the tariffs invalid, the district court's ruling usurps the President's authority and threatens to disrupt sensitive, ongoing negotiations with virtually every trading partner by undercutting the premise of those negotiations – that the tariffs are a credible threat," Trump lawyers said in the filing. Economists also seemed to share this view that the steep tariffs were more a negotiating tactic than an espousal of actual policy, which they noted in a series of interviews last week with Fox News Digital. Trump Tariff Plan Faces Uncertain Future As Court Battles Intensify The bottom line for the Trump administration "is that they need to get back to a place [where] they are using these huge reciprocal tariffs and all of that as a negotiating tactic," William Cline, an economist and senior fellow emeritus at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, said in an interview. Cline noted that this was the framework previously laid out by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who had embraced the tariffs as more of an opening salvo for future trade talks, including between the U.S. and China. "I think the thing to keep in mind there is that Trump and Vance have this view that tariffs are beautiful because they will restore America's Rust Belt jobs and that they'll collect money while they're doing it, which will contribute to fiscal growth," said Cline, the former deputy managing director and chief economist of the Institute of International Finance. "Those are both fantasies." What comes next in the case remains to be seen. The White House said it will take its tariff fight to the Supreme Court if necessary. Counsel for the plaintiffs echoed that view in an interview with Fox News. But it's unclear if the Supreme Court would choose to take up the case, which comes at a time when Trump's relationship with the judiciary has come under increasing strain. In the 20 weeks since the start of his second White House term, lawyers for the Trump administration have filed 18 emergency appeals to the high court, indicating both the pace and breadth of the tense court article source: Tariff fight escalates as Trump appeals second court loss
Yahoo
11 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Springfield declares itself the world's Cashew Chicken Capital
SPRINGFIELD, Mo. – Springfield convention and visitors organization 'Visit Springfield' is declaring the city the 'Cashew Chicken Capital of the World' as it kicks off it's second annual event dedicated to the dish. Yes, the declaration made on June 2, 2025 is a promotion, but there is some truth behind Springfield's most well-known dish. According to a release from Visit Springfield, starting in June 2025, the Springfield Cashew Chicken Trail officially launched its second season, inviting food lovers to indulge in the dish that helped put Springfield on the culinary map. Previous coverage: Cashew Chicken could become Missouri's official dish Cashew Chicken was first created in 1963 when David Leong was looking for a way to better connect with Springfield customers eating at his Chinese restaurant. By frying chicken chunks and drizzling a concoction of Chinese oyster sauce, cashews, and chopped green onions, Leong was successful in finding the right combination for southwest Missourians taste buds. 'Soon, versions of 'Springfield-Style Cashew Chicken' appeared on menus coast to coast and even around the world,' states Visit Springfield in a article published on the history in March, 2017. You can find out more about the history of Springfield's famous Cashew Chicken by watching the video above, or by reading Visit Springfield's full history. Previous coverage: Springfield's first Cashew Chicken Trail The Cashew Chicken Trail is put on by Visit Springfield and features participating restaurants across the city by offering foodies the chance to sample a wide variety of takes on the classic. This season's trail includes: A brand-new, limited-edition Cashew Chicken Trail T-shirt for those who complete the challenge and earn enough points. Several new restaurants added to the lineup, expanding the trail with even more local flavor and creativity. Several new cashew chicken-inspired dishes such as cashew chicken pizza, wings, salad, and more that local restaurants have made their own. Participants can sign up starting June 1 and begin earning points by checking in at participating restaurants and trying their featured dishes. The more stops you make, the more points you earn, and the closer you get to tasty rewards. To sign up and get started on the trail, visit to learn more. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
11 minutes ago
- Yahoo
‘Largest in the western hemisphere': BAE Systems commissions new ship lift near JAXPORT
Naval Station Mayport is celebrating the opening of a new $250 million facility that will support and maintain U.S. Navy ships. Industry leaders cut the ribbon on the state-of-the-art shipyard addition in a ceremony Monday. BAE Systems said the ship lift is one of the ten largest ship lifts in the world, and the largest on the western hemisphere. 'It's not anything like dry docks. It's not like anything that's been done before,' Tim Spratto said. [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks] Spratto is the VP General Manager of BAE Systems, the British-based multinational defense company behind the ship lift. Leaders say the new addition will support work critical to America's national defense and provide massive upgrades to the area's shipyard service. The lift will also be able to provide shipyard services to commercial ships entering the port of Jacksonville. All this comes as the Trump administration calls for the restoration of the American maritime industry with an April executive order. [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter] Acting Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Jim Kilby, said it's an order his team is taking seriously. 'I'm here to tell you that shipbuilding is the Secretary of the Navy's number one priority,' he said. Right now, the workforce has more than 650 employees but expects to add about 300 more. Click here to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here to stream Action News Jax live.
