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EconomyChina Economy

Top Chinese political journal calls for ‘patient capital’ amid AI investment frenzy

Communist Party journal runs three consecutive commentaries encouraging long-term perspective in funding for technological innovation

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A man checks his phone while walking in Beijing’s central business district. Photo: EPA-EFE
Sylvia Main Shanghai

The top theoretical journal of China’s ruling Communist Party has run commentaries urging the country to cultivate “patient capital” for three days straight, as Beijing seeks to harness investment to boost long-term innovation amid fears of speculative excess in the artificial intelligence sector.

The three posts, published on Qiushi’s official WeChat account from Wednesday to Friday, were drawn from an article in the journal’s latest issue by Xu Siwei, chairman of the vast Chinese state-owned investment firm China Reform Holdings.

The article argued that patient capital – long-term capital willing to tolerate greater risk and longer investment horizons – would be an important source of strength for China amid rising great-power competition on the global stage.

“Building a robust patient capital ecosystem with sufficient scale, appropriately matched investment horizons and strong risk tolerance ... has become a strategic, foundational undertaking to strengthen China’s long-term competitiveness and reinforce the foundations of innovation-driven development,” Xu wrote.

Beijing has increasingly promoted patient capital as a source of long-term financing for deep-tech research and development, where lengthy investment cycles and uncertain returns often deter traditional venture capital, amid an intensifying technological rivalry with the United States.
The growing emphasis on patient capital came amid a wave of investment that has flooded into China’s artificial intelligence sector since the emergence of DeepSeek, sparking a surge in domestic AI-related stocks and concerns that speculative capital could crowd out longer-term investment.
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