By Callum Keown

Chinese tech stocks have been red hot lately and now they appear to have the support of President Xi Jinping.

Xi met with tech leaders Monday in a rare symposium on private businesses. The meeting suggests Beijing's regulatory crackdown on the sector is a thing of the past -- the attendance of Alibaba's Jack Ma highlights that in particular.

Ma largely disappeared from public view after he criticized China's regulatory crackdown in a speech in 2020. Beijing responded by halting the initial public offering of Ant Group -- Alibaba's financial services company.

But Ma was seen applauding in the front row in video footage shown on state television, cementing his return from the wilderness.

In a classic "buy the rumor, sell the news" play, Alibaba stock slipped 1.5% Monday -- the shares jumped more than 6% Friday as reports emerged that Ma would be among those meeting Xi.

Alibaba stock has surged more than 50% over the past month, buoyed by its artificial intelligence partnership with Apple and the broader sector's rally since the emergence of Chinese AI start-up DeepSeek. The Hang Seng tech index is up 23% over the past month.

Shares of Tencent jumped 4% Monday as the technology giant launched testing to integrate DeepSeek's AI model into its Weixin messaging app. Tencent CEO Pony Ma was also at the meeting with Xi, along with leaders from electric vehicle maker BYD, and battery maker CATL.

But the guest list was also significant for who it didn't include. Baidu CEO Robin Li and JD.com founder Richard Liu were absent from the video footage of the meeting, the Financial Times reported. That spooked investors. Baidu stock plunged 7%, while JD.com fell 3.6% Monday.

Write to Callum Keown at callum.keown@dowjones.com

This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 17, 2025 05:45 ET (10:45 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.