At China political meeting, internet bosses are out, chip execs are in

Nearly 3,000 members of the National People's Congress (NPC) will gather in Beijing on Sunday for its first meeting since Xi Jinping secured a norm-breaking third leadership term at a congress of the ruling Communist Party last October.

The makeup of the nation's top legislative body, mostly local government officials but also representatives from other sectors, signals who lies in Beijing's good graces, although the ultimate barometer of power remains the ruling Communist Party's 205-member Central Committee.

This year, a new crop of representatives from the tech hardware sector appeared on delegate name lists for the first time, a sign of Beijing's changing priorities as it looks to bolster its capabilities as Washington cuts off access to cutting edge technology.

Pony Ma is absent from this year's list after previously serving two five-year terms. The chief executive of China's most valuable company has kept a low profile in recent years while rival tech entrepreneurs were targeted by a wide-ranging state crackdown on internet firms and as Xi urged greater scrutiny of the ultra-wealthy.

Tencent did not provide an immediate comment.

Other former darlings of China's internet scene including Alibaba's Jack Ma, NetEase founder William Lei Ding and Wang Xiaochuan, founder of search engine Sogou, were also absent from the delegate list of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) after previous inclusion.

However, lower-profile executives from Alibaba and e-commerce giant JD Group are delegates to the CPPCC, a largely ceremonial political advisory body that meets around the same time as the NPC.