Of course you’d deny.

In the last several years, particularly under Xi Jinping’s rule, there has been an even greater attempt by the political leadership to increase their control over the private sector, reduce its political influence, and ensure its loyalty to the system. This has included expanding the reach of national security policies and regulations. For example, the adoption of the National Intelligence Law in 2017 requires all firms in China to accede to government demands to provide information and data as authorities deem necessary to protect China’s national security. It has also meant using carrots, such as providing industrial policy opportunities to private firms, and sticks, such as the regulatory crackdown on private Internet firms that started in late 2018 and recently concluded. Finally, the CCP has also stepped up efforts to directly influence the corporate governance of private firms, in some cases taking “golden shares” in companies, pushing private firms to form CCP branches (see Figure 3), and integrating firms into the burgeoning “corporate social credit system” (CSCS).

https://bigdatachina.csis.org/can-chinese-firms-be-truly-private/