By Chen Guancheng
On the morning of February 17, 2025, the Chinese Communist Party held a high-level “Private Entrepreneurs Forum” at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, attended by Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping, Premier Li Qiang and the Vice Premiers. It is reported that Alibaba founder Jack Ma, who was suppressed and almost imprisoned by the CCP, was present, as was CCP entrepreneur Ren Zhengfei of Huawei. Chairmen and CEOs such as Ma Huateng of Tencent, Lei Jun of Xiaomi, Zeng Yuqun of CATL, and Wang Xingxing, founder of Yushu Technology were also in attendance, as well as Wang Chuanfu of BYD, Liu Yonghao of New Hope, and other private business leaders.
For years, private enterprises have experienced takeovers and suppression under China’s communist dictatorship. However, the Communist Party seems to have recently changed its attitude, as China’s economy is now in trouble. It seems that the Party is now showing some good will to private entrepreneurs and is trying to encourage them to bolster consumption.
I remember that in 1998 Former Premier Li Peng publicly stated that more than 80% of China’s GDP was created by state-owned enterprises, and he believed that private enterprises were insignificant. But the reality is that in the past 20 years, traditional state-owned enterprises have been dying, and they have relied entirely on banks for continuous bailouts to keep them alive.
In the early 2000s, there was a significant number of laid-off workers from failing state-owned enterprises, which were referred to as “zombie” enterprises. Their dependence on state finances for sustenance was publicly exposed more than a decade ago in the documentary “Under the Dome,” shot by former China Central Television host Chai Jing. The documentary revealed that many of these state-owned enterprises have actually long been defunct, despite the CCP’s claims that they represented the socialist public ownership economy.
In the past two decades, the economy has been primarily supported by private enterprises, or semi-official and semi-private enterprises. Almost all technological innovations in the past 10 years or so have come from these companies. It is a miracle that traditional state-owned enterprises have survived.
Since the spread of COVID-19, the Chinese economy has suffered significant setbacks. The CCP thought that the economy would quickly recover after lockdowns but it never did. Faced with an ever-changing international landscape, the CCP looked to private enterprises after repeated attempts by the government to revitalize the economy failed. They wanted to take advantage of their technological innovation and competitiveness in the international community. Thus, in February of this year, the Party held a so-called “Private Entrepreneurs Forum.”
Entrepreneurs in economic sectors dominated by the CCP must not forget what Economist Xiang Songzuo mentioned in a speech in 2019: “Depending on us [entrepreneurs] is an unavoidable necessity; dispensing with us is wishful thinking.”
The Communist Party is surrounded by enemies and is in trouble. It needs private enterprises, so uniting with private entrepreneurs is a stopgap measure. However, the ultimate goal pursued by the Communist Party is still to eliminate all private ownership.
Therefore, as long as the communist autocratic system is not destroyed, as long as the Communist Party continues to wreak havoc in China’s economy and monopolizes all power, real private entrepreneurs should never think of entangling themselves with the Party. Out of desperation, the Communist Party is taking advantage of them.
Do not be misled by this forum. If private entrepreneurs want to keep developing their scientific and technological innovations in the long term and avoid being destroyed by the Communist Party, they have to think about how to preserve all their achievements while developing innovative technology.
Obviously, the best way to fundamentally solve the problem is to completely change the communist autocratic system and establish a constitutional republican system with checks and balances in China. Only by institutionally protecting everyone’s basic freedoms and human rights, including intellectual property rights, can we ensure that the fruits of our own business are not stolen by those in power.
Translated From
https://www.rti.org.tw/news/view/id/2239014