If you open the American edition of Forbes, you will find articles about the richest people in America. If you open the Russian edition, you will find articles about the richest people in Russia. If you open the Chinese edition, you will find articles about the richest people in America.
A Russian friend of mine noticed this. He happened to know an sophomore economics major at Tsinghua. It is incredibly difficult to get into Tsinghua and the economics major is the most desirable major of all. To be an economics major at Tsinghua you need a test score that is in something like the top 1 out of 100,000. Staggeringly high. My Russian friend asked the Tsinghua economics major, “Who is the richest person in China?”
The economics major didn’t know. He seemed a little angry. “Why should I know? We’ve never been taught that,” he said.
“Why should I know? We’ve never been taught that”: sounds like the sort of laddie who fails Oxbridge entrance interviews.
The authoritative Chinese publication on rich people is HunRun: https://www.hurun.net/usen/NewsShow.aspx?nid=349
Off topic, but a story you might like, Seth: The enteric coating commonly used in aspirin may render it useless in up to 40% of the population, at least in terms of cardiac protectiveness. (The study didn’t indicate whether aspirin’s ability to relieve pain was also disabled.)
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/05/business/coating-on-buffered-aspirin-may-hide-its-heart-protective-effects.html
The study was funded by Bayer, which sells mostly coated aspirin.
The richest man in China is Li Ka-Shing (李嘉誠) as far as I know. “Richest person of Asian descent in the world” according to Wikipedia.
Li Ka-Shing is also quite a philanthropist — he funded a very nice building on the Berkeley campus that is named after him.
Can someone explain to me how Li Ka-Shing can be the richest person of Asian descent in the world but NOT be the richest man in China? He lives in Hong Kong, which is in China last time I checked. Are the other richest people in China not of Asian descent? Their names certainly seem Chinese…