Briefing: China’s Dwindling Number of Billionaires

A rundown of the news making headlines in and around China:

Ranking the rich: China continued to shed billionaires this year. That’s according to this year’s Hurun China Rich List, the annual accounting of the country’s rarified wealthy. In U.S. dollar terms, the number of billionaires in the country shrank by nearly 16% to 753 individuals in 2024. China has lost just over one-third of its billionaires since the number peaked in 2021 at 1,185. And China’s fewer billionaires had fewer billions. The total combined wealth of the people on the list fell 10% from 2023 to $3 trillion. ByteDance Ltd. co-founder Zhang Yiming topped this year’s list. He supplanted Nongfu Spring Co. Ltd. founder Zhong Shanshan, who had held the title of China’s richest man for three years running.