The opening quote from Xi seems to come from an exaggerated report from FT. The original Mandarin report [^1] has a milder tone. AI and EV were only mentioned in a passing comment, not the focus of the meeting or the report.
Feel free to skip the next section about the culture-aware interpretation of that quote. Xi's warning is more about the so-called "political tournament". Usually the central government sets some industrial policy goal (AI and EV now, but it could be other things like real estate, chips, or drones from before). The local government would collude with companies to start "projects". The goal is to get brownies points for the former and subsidy package for the latter. Of course, nothing usually comes out of these "projects". Most just stops at the factory building phase. Such practice has always been a real headache to the central government. Xi is warning about it showing up in the AI and EV industry now.
Feel free to skip the next section about the culture-aware interpretation of that quote. Xi's warning is more about the so-called "political tournament". Usually the central government sets some industrial policy goal (AI and EV now, but it could be other things like real estate, chips, or drones from before). The local government would collude with companies to start "projects". The goal is to get brownies points for the former and subsidy package for the latter. Of course, nothing usually comes out of these "projects". Most just stops at the factory building phase. Such practice has always been a real headache to the central government. Xi is warning about it showing up in the AI and EV industry now.
[^1]: https://paper.people.com.cn/rmrb/pc/content/202507/17/conten...