Wang Lei, who is also the company's global executive vice president, made the comment at an event in the eastern city of Wuxi to celebrate the drugmaker's 30th year in China, according to a person familiar with the matter.

While many local companies have in recent years pledged allegiance to the ruling Chinese Communist Party as President Xi Jinping has strengthened its social and economic role, such messaging is still unusual from foreign ones.

"Build a local, transnational company that loves the Communist Party and loves the country," Wang said in his presentation to an audience of a few hundred participants. Photographs showed the words flashing across a screen behind him.

In response to questions from Reuters on whether Wang’s pledge, and the contents of the presentation, were approved by AstraZeneca’s senior management, a spokesperson at the company’s headquarters in Cambridge declined to comment.

The spokesperson also declined to comment on what Wang’s comments meant for its business plans in China.

Among the world's biggest pharmaceuticals companies, AstraZeneca's large and growing business in China is notable. It is the country's biggest drugmaker and has operated there for 30 years.

Last year it made 13% of its sales there, and it is investing $450 million in a factory to make inhalers to treat "smoker's lung".

Since China started reopening its borders this year after it zero-COVID policy ended, many heads of foreign firms include AstraZeneca's CEO Pascal Soriot and Apple's Tim Cook have visited to stress their commitment to the country.

AstraZeneca was upbeat about China's economy, had signed three licensing deals with Chinese companies and was interested in doing more, Soriot said in a first-quarter earnings call this month.

A recent crackdown on consulting and due diligence firms by Chinese authorities has unnerved many foreign companies, which have tended to use such consultancies to research the market and prospective deals.