The 15 Most Influential Foreigners to China

December 3, 2008 10:49 PM

China has released a list of the fifteen most influential foreigners in the last three decades, according to a state-run report.  The International Talent Monthly, a periodical owned by the State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs, published the report in anticipation of China celebrating later this month.  The list includes businessmen, academics, policy leaders, and notably no highly political figures.  The list does, however, include several Japanese.  

Ranking in the top five were economist Robert Mundell, two physicists, Goldman Sachs veteran John L. Thornton, and Hong Kong businessman Ian Fok Chun-wan.  The full list with brief biographies can be found at the Wall Street Journal.  Several of these figures are profiled below: