Alibaba, Tencent among surging Chinese tech stocks

Leading Chinese tech stocks such as Alibaba (NYSE:BABA), JD.com (NASDAQ:JD) and Tencent Holdings (OTCPK:TCEHY) flexed their muscles on Wednesday amid reports that Beijing is taking steps to ease its Zero-Covid policy, and asking some companies to help design new homegrown semiconductors.

With regards to Covid, Chinese officials on Tuesday announced new efforts to vaccinate more elderly citizens, who have long-been seen as among the most-vulnerable to contracting Covid.

But, at least as important as far as Chinese businesses go, was Beijing lifting lockdown restrictions in the so-called "iPhone City" of Zhengzhou, where Foxconn has a massive facility for building Apple (AAPL) iPhones. The region had been wracked in recent days by protests against ongoing lockdowns that had kept people from leaving or entering the area.

Adding to the day's activity was a report from the Financial Times, which said that Chinese officials had asked Alibaba (BABA), Tencent (OTCPK:TCEHY) and other tech giants to help design new semiconductors in order to counter new U.S. restrictions on allowing certain chip technologies to be sold in China. The new U.S. efforts are aimed at keeping American chip technologies out of the hands of companies and organizations with ties to the Chinese military.

Alibaba (BABA) surged by almost 10%, while Tencent (OTCPK:TCEHY) gained almost 4% and JD.com (JD) climbed by more than 7% on the day.

Gains also came from Bilibili (NASDAQ:BILI), up by almost 13%; Weibo (WB), which rose more than 8%; Baidu (BIDU), which rose 9%; Pinduoduo (PDD), up by 4.6%; NetEase (NTES), up by 3.4%, and JOYY Global (YY), which rose almost 2%.

The KraneShares CSI China Internet ETF (KWEB) also took to the high ground, and ended the day up by almost 8%.

While Chinese tech companies had a good day as trading progressed, there were some concerns about Tesla's (TSLA) prospects for growth in China in 2023.