China minted 62 billionaires last year, more than any other country
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- China accounted for 62 of the 236 new names added to Forbes' latest World's Billionaire's list.
- Almost a third of China's newcomers are tech moguls.
- China's slowing economy and sweeping tech crackdown are weighing on billionaire's fortunes.
China minted more billionaires last year than any other economy globally.
That's according to this year's edition of Forbes' annual World's Billionaires' List, which features 236 newly minted billionaires. Of those, 62 are from China.
Despite Beijing's sweeping crackdown on the tech sector, China's tech industry accounted for almost a third of the new billionaires on the list.
New entrants from the sector include Hong Kong-based Tang Xiao'ou (net worth $5.7 billion), who built artificial intelligence outfit SenseTime; Chris Xu (net worth $5.4 billion), who founded online fast-fashion retailer Shein; and the creators of China's "Instagram-killer" Xiaohongshu, Miranda Qu and Charlwin Mao (net worth $1.8 billion each).
The US produced the second-largest crop of new entrants with 50 new billionaires, while India was third with 29 new billionaires. Forbes' ranking, published Tuesday, is based on the billionaire's net worth calculated via share prices and exchange rates as of March 11, 2022.
China implemented various lockdowns over the course of 2021 as outbreaks of COVID-19 flared up across the country. These restrictions impacted manufacturing and global supply chains and consequently, China experienced an economic slowdown. Some economists are sounding the alarm that China's slowdown worsened at the start of this year, Bloomberg reported.
At the same time, Beijing has been relentless in cracking down on its homegrown tech sector. Over the past year, it's targeted labor and consumer rights issues in the sector, launched antitrust probes against tech companies, and increased oversight on data security. As a result, "a lot of investors are freaked out," an expert told Insider. Earlier this week, the Hang Seng Tech Index was down almost 60% since its most recent peak in February 2021, Bloomberg reported.
These pressures chipped away at many billionaires' net worths.
Zhang Yiming, the second-richest person in China and the founder of TikTok's parent company ByteDance, saw his fortune shrink to $50 billion from $59.4 billion last year. Pony Ma, China's third-richest person and the founder of Tencent, saw his net worth fall to $37.2 billion from $49.1 billion in 2021. Zhong Shanshan, the chairman and founder of bottled water producer Nongfu Spring, remains China's richest person with a net worth of $65.7 billion.
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