国际先驱论坛报 中国经济量产亿万富翁

美国的亿万富翁数量比任何其他国家都要多：根据《福布斯》最新的统计，有415位。正急起直追的第二名？中国。一年前，中国有15位亿万富翁。现在，根据胡润的调查，有超过100位，根据《福布斯》的，有66位。

　　不像美国的富人，中国的富人甚至在中国都不怎么出名。全世界都知道盖茨、巴菲特和布林（Brin）。但谁知道杨（杨惠妍）、郭（郭广昌）和张（张欣）呢？

　　然而，分析家认为，他们是谁，他们决定拿他们的钱和新发现的影响力做什么（或者获准做什么）将在中国产生政治和经济后果，而且影响可能远不止于此。上海中欧国际工商学院的经济学家常春（音译，Chang Chun）表示，他们可能开始在美国收购公司，他们有很大的影响力。

　　中国新的亿万富翁在你从没听过的最有钱的公司的背上建立自己惊人的财富。由于资本主义的股票热潮席卷共产主义大陆，中国的私营和国有公司的首次发股在投机者眼中变得令人难以置信的有价值，有时候仿佛就是一夜之间的事。11月5日是国有能源公司中石油在上海股票交易所上市的首日，它的市值超过1万亿美元。

　　分析家怀疑中国股票估价的方式，特别是那些有着大量不可交易的政府股份的公司，例如中石油。但至少对上海的买家而言，它赶跑了埃克森美孚，成为全世界市值最大的公司。而且以同样的标准，他们会认为中国移动是世界上最有价值的电信公司。国有工商银行在十年前几乎资不抵债，如今对投机者来说市值超过花旗银行。

　　但许多分析价认为暴涨的股值是什么根据的（或者，有时候，这些公司隐藏的财政状况令人们无法知道）。而且如果中国股市是一个泡沫，新的亿万富翁的消失将和他们的崛起一样迅速，因为他们的财富有很多产生于股市，以及中国房地产热，以及全世界增长最快的中国经济。

　　虚幻的亿万富翁仍然意义重大，因为超级富豪往往让他们的名声超出国境。他们吞并全球资产。他们通过慈善机构改变文化景观。许多分析家认为中国人对这类型的钱感到十分新鲜，以致于不知道他们要拿它怎么办，假定它会持续下去。

　　慷慨的亿万富翁是自豪感的一个源泉，而且在名义上的共产主义国家可能引起关切。中国的人均年收入低于1000美元。加州大学经济学教授萨伊斯（Emmanuel Saez）表示，一个问题是社会稳定。在拉美，如果你聚拢了这样巨大的财富，革命者就想让它重新分配。可能出于这种理由，许多富有的中国企业家不愿意上富豪榜。早期的财富榜常常导致不想要的审查，包括调查可能的逃税或贪污。

　　但时代变了。随着经济喧腾以及企业家感受股票财富的黄金时代，人人都似乎高喊“上市”。

　　分析家认为像《分众传媒（Focus Media）》创立者江南春（Jason Jiang）那样的年轻企业家可能是国家改革的最好希望。耶鲁大学金融教授陈知悟（音译，Chen Zhiwu）认为，“这些三十多岁的企业家已经变成亿万富翁，他们会成为其他人的楷模。他们彻底地激发了中国的企业家。”

　　中国亿万富翁的崛起不同寻常，不仅仅是因为事情发生的速度，而且因为事情的发生没有涉及单一全球品牌的帮助：没有索尼或丰田（日本只有24位亿万富翁）。

　　事实上，中国最富裕的人大部分是地产大亨或制造商，他们似乎离奇地偏重在中国内部缔造，而不是在国外。

　　这是亿万富翁的下一个挑战，而且有些人已经奉行了。施振荣（Shi Zhengrong）在2001年回国创办尚德太阳能公司以前，他在澳大利亚学习物理和太阳能。六年后，施振荣的太阳能公司市值90亿美元。在采访中，施振荣讨论太阳能在中国发展重的角色，他微笑着表示“有一天，这个公司将和微软一样大。”（作者 David Barboza）

The newest billionaires: China's economy churns out dozens

SHANGHAI: The United States has more billionaires than any other country: 415 by Forbes's last count.

No. 2, and closing fast? China.

A year ago, there were 15 billionaires in China. Now, there are more than 100, according to the widely watched Hurun survey, and 66, according to Forbes.

Unlike America's rich, China's are hardly famous, even in China. Gates, Buffett and Brin are known around the world. But Yang, Guo and Zhang?

Yet, who they are, and what they decide to do - or are allowed to do - with their money and newfound influence will have political and economic consequences in China and probably far beyond, analysts say.

"They could start buying companies in the U.S.," Chang Chun, an economist at the China Europe International Business School in Shanghai, said of the new rich. "They have so much influence."

Aptly, China's new billionaires are building their staggering wealth on the backs of the richest companies you have never heard of. Thanks to the capitalist stock mania sweeping the communist mainland, Chinese private and state-owned companies issuing stock for the first time are becoming incredibly valuable in speculators' eyes, sometimes overnight.

On Monday, the first day the state-owned energy company, PetroChina, listed shares on the Shanghai stock exchange, its market valuation - the value of all its stock combined, assuming that the value of a share in Shanghai translates to all shares globally - ran up to more than $1 trillion.

Analysts are skeptical about the way China's stocks are valued, particularly those with huge amounts of untradable government shares, like PetroChina. But to the buyers in Shanghai, at least, it dethroned Exxon Mobil as the most valuable company in the world. And by the same criteria, they would consider China Mobile the world's most valuable telecommunications company. ICBC, a state-owned bank that was nearly insolvent a decade ago, is worth more than Citigroup to the speculators.

A more stable measure of a hot stock prospect is the value investors place on its initial public offering. When Country Garden, a southern China real estate company, went public in Hong Kong in April, it raised more capital than Google, which took in $1.9 billion in 2004. PetroChina raked in $8.9 billion in capital in Shanghai the other day. ICBC raised about $21 billion last year in Hong Kong.

And on Tuesday, another newcomer, Alibaba.com, one of the biggest Chinese Internet companies, raised nearly as much as Google did. Afterward, the speculators sent Alibaba's stock soaring 193 percent on its first day of trading to a putative value of nearly $26 billion.

But many analysts argue that there is nothing underlying the skyrocketing valuations - or, sometimes, that the companies' obscure finances make it impossible to know. And if the Chinese stock market is a bubble, the new billionaires will disappear as quickly as they rose, since much of their wealth was generated by the stock markets, as well as by the Chinese real estate boom and the Chinese economy, the fastest-growing in the world.

"A lot of people are surprised at how fast this has happened," said Jing Ulrich, an analyst at JPMorgan. "But this is the power of the capital markets. A lot of people's wealth is based on newly listed companies."

Who the shadowy billionaires are will matter, because the super-rich tend to make a name for themselves far beyond their borders. They gobble up global assets. They change cultural landscapes through charity.

Many analysts believe the Chinese are so new to this type of money that they themselves do not know what they will do with it, assuming it lasts.

As much as the bounty of billionaires is a source of pride, it is also a potential cause for concern in a nominally communist country. Per capita income in China is less than $1,000 a year.

"One issue is social stability," said Emmanuel Saez, a professor of economics at the University of California. "In Latin America you had such a concentration that revolutionaries wanted to redistribute it."

Perhaps for that reason, many wealthy Chinese entrepreneurs fight to stay off lists of the rich. The early lists of the wealthy often led to unwanted scrutiny, including investigations into possible tax evasion or corruption.

But times have changed. With the economy roaring and entrepreneurs sensing a golden age of stock riches, everyone seems to be mouthing the phrase "shang shi," Chinese for initial public offering.

Among the most celebrated are the young Internet tycoons. Robin Li, the 38-year-old founder of Baidu, which is called "China's Google," is now worth about $2.4 billion, making him richer than Jerry Yang of Yahoo. Ma Huateng, 36, of Tencent, another Internet giant, is worth $1.9 billion. And Jason Jiang, the 34-year-old founder of Focus Media, is worth $1.1 billion.

Jiang grew up in Shanghai and studied literature before turning his focus to business in college. He says he started out selling advertising in Shanghai and then, in 1997, formed Focus Media with the idea of placing video monitors broadcasting advertisements in elevators, apartment complexes, supermarkets and even on street corners. With the help of Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse, Focus Media went public in 2005 on the Nasdaq, and its shares have jumped about 800 percent in two years.

But it may be ambition more than money, at least so far, that motivates him. "I want this company to be the greatest media group - the greatest media company in the world," he said in an interview. "I want Focus Media in every part of the world." He said he worked 8 a.m. to 2 a.m. and did not feel tired. He said he had no time for anything else, including spending his enormous wealth.

He has upgraded to a nicer home in recent years, he said, but has little time for sports or anything else. He is single and works through lunchtime at his desk, buying a $2.50 takeout meal nearly every day. "I think this is typical," he said of successful entrepreneurs in China.

Analysts call people like Jiang the country's best hope for innovation. "These young 30-something-year-old entrepreneurs have become billionaires, and they've become role models for others," said Chen Zhiwu, a professor of finance at Yale University. "They have totally energized Chinese entrepreneurs."

Rupert Hoogewerf, publisher of the Hurun Report, said 6 of the 10 richest self-made women in the world were also from China, including Zhang Yin, the founder of Nine Dragons Paper, which collects recycled paper from the United States and turns it into boxes in China.

The richest person in China, since last April, is also a woman: Yang Huiyan of Country Garden, the real estate company. Yang, 26, who did not grant an interview, is No. 1 on both rich lists and easily the richest woman in Asia. A graduate of Ohio State University, she is worth about $16 billion, making her richer than George Soros, Rupert Murdoch and Steve Jobs. Her father, a real estate developer in southern China, gave her most of the family's fortune in stock, just before Country Garden's blockbuster initial public offering in Hong Kong.

Keeping with their reputation for discretion, of about 15 billionaires contacted recently, only one, Jiang, agreed to be interviewed. They tend to hide their billions, friends say, sometimes with offshore purchases. Some even boast that they still get a $2 haircut.

Their stories, though, are remarkable. Huang Guangyu, 38, grew up in a poor village in southern China, where he and his brother started out selling plastic bottles and newspapers. Now, he controls Gome, one of the most popular electronics stores in the country.

The rise of the Chinese billionaire is remarkable not just because of the speed with which it has happened - the country opened up to capitalism only 25 years ago - but because it happened without the help of a single global brand: no Sony or Toyota. (But Japan has only 24 billionaires.)

Indeed, China's wealthiest, largely real estate tycoons or manufacturers, appear singularly focused on making it inside China, not outside.

That is the billionaires' next challenge, and some are already embracing it. Shi Zhengrong studied physics and solar energy in Australia before returning to China in 2001 to start up Suntech Power. Six years later, Shi's solar energy company is valued at $9 billion, its stock price up over 300 percent since its public stock offering in December 2005.

In an interview this year at his Shanghai headquarters, Shi discussed the role of solar power in China's development. As he finished the meeting, he smiled and said, "Some day, this company will be as big as Microsoft."