This morning, Fortune‘s Chinese edition published its list of the top 50 most influential business people in China. If there was anyone who was doubting how important — and how influential — the tech sphere in China has become, just take a gander at the top ten:
- Ren Zhengfei (Huawei)
- Liu Chuanzhi (Lenovo)
- Zhang Ruimin (Haier)
- Yu Liang (Vanke, real estate)
- Pony Ma (Tencent)
- Zhang Jindong (Suning)
- Fu Chengyu (Sinopec, oil)
- Jack Ma (Alibaba)
- Feng Guojing (Hong Kong Fengli, exports)
- Liu Deshu (Sinochem, energy/agriculture/chemical/finance etc.)
Further down, the list continues to be filled with tech companies. Sina’s Charles Chao is number 15, Baidu’s Robin Li was ranked 18th, and 360Buy’s Liu Qiangdong was 21st. Plenty of other tech companies also made the list, and several appeared more than once. All in all, it was a strong showing for tech companies, if you believe in this sort of seemingly-arbitrary list.
Perhaps tangentially, it was also a strong showing for old men, with just a few women making the list and pretty much everyone listed being old. At 37, 360Buy’s Liu Qiangdong is actually the youngest person on the list. Perhaps the real reason Mark Zuckerberg is in China is to inspire China’s young people to get out there and start influencing things so that they don’t miss next year’s list.
[Fortune Chinese via Sina Tech]
