MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Communist-ruled China has more billionaires that United States
China now has 596 billionaires, up a “staggering” 242 over the last year, Shanghai-based luxury magazine publisher Hurun Report said 
Real estate and entertainment magnate Wang Jianlin dethroned founder of e-commerce giant Alibaba Jack Ma as the country’s richest person 
The number of Chinese billionaires would increase to 715 if those from Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan were included, the survey said. The number of billionaires in China has overtaken that of the United States for the first time, an annual survey said on Thursday, calling it a “turning point” for the super-wealthy. Communist-ruled China now has 596 billionaires, up a “staggering” 242 over the last year, Shanghai-based luxury magazine publisher Hurun Report said, surpassing the 537 Americans.
“This is the first year we’ve seen they’ve been eclipsed. They are being overtaken by Chinese, and not just a little bit.”
The number of Chinese billionaires would increase to 715 if those from Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan were included, the survey said.
“The world used to look to American entrepreneurs... for inspiration. This year, 2015, is a turning point,” said Hurun Report chairman Rupert Hoogewerf.
“In 2015, the entrepreneurs are Chinese, they are not American. We have American ones, but the king is Chinese,” Hoogewerf said.
Real estate and entertainment magnate Wang Jianlin dethroned founder of e-commerce giant Alibaba Jack Ma as the country’s richest person, Hurun’s annual wealth ranking showed.
Wang, who founded conglomerate Wanda, saw his fortune jump more than 50% to $34.4 billion, helped by a surge in the stock price of a listed unit.
Wang is known outside China for a string of overseas acquisitions including the organizer of Ironman extreme endurance contests, Swiss sports marketing group Infront, and a stake in Spanish football club Atletico Madrid.
He burst into the spotlight in 2012 by buying US cinema chain AMC Entertainment for $2.6 billion.
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Read all commentsBillionaires in a communist controlled country? Something does not sit right with this.
Oct 16th, 2015 - 04:53 pm 0@1 Clyde15
Oct 16th, 2015 - 05:33 pm 0I'll bet you that most of these 'billionaires' are members of the 'Party', and those that aren't already have the majority of their cash squirrelled away outside of China in case of a return to the bad old days, and a fast jet on constant standby to get the hell out of dodge.
Communism was always a pipe dream. Sounds great in theory, but it can never work in practice. And the Communists did have many years to 'refine' their wonderful Communist Utopia. Such a wonderful Utopia it was that they had to build wall around it to keep people in.
And in each and every one of these Communist regimes there were dictators that were worst tyrants than those they claimed to be replacing.
It sort of reminds me of Cromwell. They got rid of the 'Tyrant' King (who wasn't really that much of a Tyrant really), and replaced it with a religious military dictatorship, that banned Christmas, persecuted both Catholics AND Protestants, and had Cromwell crown himself King in all but name.
Fortunately for the UK, this madness only lasted 11 years before sanity reasserted itself.
Other countries weren't so lucky.
China isn't really communist.
Oct 17th, 2015 - 09:50 am 0Maybe the “old guard” in government is, but most of the people are business oriented & very materialistic.
Communism does not suit the Chinese entrepreneurial character.
l can understand them embracing communism in the 1930s as China & her people were being exploited by all sorts of people & the Nationalist government were so corrupt & ineffectual.
Once had very tempting offers to set up a business in Shanghai.
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