Nicholas Netzer
Contemporary China 370
Dr. Charles Hammond
Journal #7
A list of the 100 richest people in China came out Oct. 22nd and was printed in the Beijing Times. This list is obviously a show of who are the heavy hitters in the economy in China, but apparently many Chinese love to see it. They see it as a list of prosperity and it shows how the Chinese economy is booming. Most Americans do not pay a whole lot of attention to whoever is the cream of the crop, Americans know they are there. One would figure that the reason U.S. citizens are not really interested in the list of who is on top is because they know being really rich is possible, while to a great many in China it may seem to many like a fairy tale more than a possibility.
“A list like this…highlights the degree of wealth concentration. It sheds light on how business people have grown in this country. And more importantly, it reflects the industries that support the accumulation of wealth," stated Wang Jun, an economist at Sun Yatsen University. Although this list is well liked, some believe that the people on the list should be the richest and most influential, as some of the rich people on the list have made their money via internet games and so forth. To counter that critique, Forbes made a top ten list of China’s most rich and influential. Basically, what it all comes down to now that I think about it, is that the Chinese like it because it gains face for their country and their people. They like it that people around the world can or will know there are very rich people in China, and that China is becoming prosperous.
