Xi Jinping hosted a meeting of some of China’s top business leaders, including Alibaba founder Jack Ma, who had stayed out of public view for almost five years after making a speech critical of China’s regulators. Photograph: Daniel J. Groshong/Bloomberg Xi Jinping has hosted a meeting of some of China’s top business leaders, including Alibaba founder Jack Ma, telling them that the government would ensure that private companies would be able to compete on equal terms with state-owned enterprises. The meeting, which was the first of its kind for almost seven years, signalled a more benign official attitude to private…