Why China’s Been Changing Its Mind About Billionaires

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s newfound emphasis on promoting “common prosperity” to deal with the large wealth gap in the ostensibly communist nation has led to tough times for some of China’s billionaires. Jack Ma, formerly the richest person in the country, is among those whose net worth has fallen as a wave of new state controls and regulations drove down share prices for some of China’s hottest companies. The government’s campaign is about more than reducing inequality, however. There’s also increasing concern in Beijing about great wealth translating into political power separate from the Communist Party.

Of the 500 richest individuals globally on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, 81 are Chinese with a combined fortune of $1.1 trillion. That’s second only to the U.S., where 162 billionaires hold a combined $3.4 trillion. UBS Group AG estimates the world’s second-largest economy had more than 380 billionaires last year, and that this wealth pool had grown tenfold since 2009. Another ranking, the Hurun Global Rich List 2021, counts more than 1,000 billionaires in China, the most in the world.