new delhi chinas embattled tech tycoons linedup to pledge their support for president xi jinpings common prosperity policy and marketroiling regulatory onslaught on the digital sector at the countrys annual internet conference alibaba group holding ltds chief executive officer daniel zhang and tencent holdings ltds senior vice president guo kaitian on sunday voiced their backing for xis flagship goal to narrow the countrys wealth gap at the world internet conference hosted in the resort town of wuzhen from september 26 to 28 xiaomi corps cofounder lei jun said on the same day that technology companies should help close the digital divide and boost small and mediumsized enterprises two of beijings longstanding policy pursuits the summit comes as chinas tech giants weather immense regulatory upheaval on everything from online gaming to data ownership and overseas financingalibaba and tencentbacked food delivery giant meituan and ridehailing app didi global inc are all under investigationthe campaign to rein in tech came after alibaba cofounder jack ma chastised regulators for stifling innovation last october illustrating the importance of not challenging government policy at a public forum eric jing chairman and ceo of ant group co said on sunday the recent slew of new policy guidelines for the internet were important and timely and a reminder for us in the industry not to be distracted by competition but to return to the original intent of the internet insteadhe also espoused the benefits of the blockchain saying the technology can provide a solid foundation of trust for industry collaboration and called attendees to contribute to the countrys inclusive and sustainable developmentxi launched chinas annual internet summit in 2014 to much fanfare and in previous years industry stars such as apple incs tim cook and googles sundar pichai flew in to hobnob with chinese apparatchiks strict pandemic border controls have limited inperson networking opportunities at recent events with us industry leaders this year paying heed to chinas economic and social goals via videotesla incs elon musk commended chinas new regulations to strengthen data management saying in a video message that his company localizes its china data qualcomm incs cristiano amon praised the speed of chinas 5g rollout and urged us and chinese companies to collaborate more while cisco systems incs chuck robbins spoke about aligning with xis vision of a shared cyberspace community for the benefit of allthe cybersecurity administration of china the agency at the forefront of chinas tech crackdown and organizer of the conference was also representeddata should serve the people said sheng ronghua vice minister of the cac we should promote information resources and outcomes sharing in the digital industryfounded in 2011 the once lowprofile watchdog which operates under the central cyberspace affairs commission chaired by xi shot to prominence this year setting new rules that mandates cac approval for any company that wants to go public abroad if it has more than 1 million users chinese authorities have also warned in recent months against the disorderly expansion of capital in platform economies