China’s leading technology entrepreneurs, including Huawei Technologies founder Ren Zhengfei and Xiaomi founder Lei Jun, voiced their confidence in the country’s development prospects at a symposium chaired by President Xi Jinping this week.
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Ren, the face of China’s resilience against US hostilities in technology, told Xi that concerns had eased over China’s lack of home-grown chips and operating systems – the “heart and soul” of modern technology – according to a report from the People’s Daily on Friday.
“I firmly believe that a stronger China is rising at an accelerated pace,” the 80-year-old founder of the US-sanctioned telecoms equipment giant was quoted as saying.
Lei, the CEO of smartphone and electric vehicle (EV) maker Xiaomi, said “there is nothing that cannot be overcome” in China’s progress, despite the “changes in international winds and clouds” – likely a reference to the intensifying Sino-US tech rivalry.
He added that Xiaomi’s revenues had been growing at “more than 30 per cent” after two years of decline. The Beijing-based company is scheduled to release its fourth-quarter financial results on March 18.
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While the People’s Daily article did not mention the US directly, Xi’s symposium with the country’s top entrepreneurs on Monday came as China shows perseverance under US export restrictions aimed at curbing the country’s technological advances. Breakthroughs, such as the artificial intelligence (AI) models from start-up DeepSeek, have been hailed as China’s secret weapon to surviving the tech war.