For China’s Business Elites, Staying Out of Politics Is No Longer an Option

The fallout from Beijing’s crackdown on the ride-hailing app Didi has ensnared even those who made it a point to not mix business with politics.

Liu Chuanzhi, the founder of the tech company Lenovo and a towering figure in China’s private sector, has long held the view that business people should steer clear of politics. Yet he recently found out firsthand that in President Xi Jinping’s China, which is engaged in a tech Cold War with the United States, business cannot just be business. Over the past week, Mr. Liu became collateral damage when the ride-hailing giant Didi, where his daughter Jean Liu is a top executive, came under fire after its blockbuster initial public offering in New York. Chinese regulators ordered the company, where Ms. Liu is president, to stop signing up new users. They said Didi should also be pulled from Chinese app stores because of national security concerns and to protect the data of Chinese users.