Bricks give way to clicks in wealth race

Jack Ma, co-founder of Alibaba, replaced Wang Jianlin, chairman of Wanda Group, as the richest man in China, according to the 2014 Forbes China Rich List. Chairman of a real estate behemoth (or for that matter any traditional industry) yielding pride of place to leader of an e-commerce giant is not an isolated case. But it is a noteworthy change, reflecting the relationship between manufacturing and real estate sectors on one hand and the Internet-related industry on the other.

Six of the 10 richest men in China are tied to the Internet, from e-commerce and search engines to social media. In terms of absolute wealth, Chinese online entrepreneurs are overtaking US tech-icons such as Paul Gardner Allen, co-founder of Microsoft, who with a net wealth of $15 billion was the world's 53rd richest person last year, and Eric Emerson Schmidt, executive chairman of Google, the world's 138th richest person with $9.4 billion of net wealth. The figures are from the 2013 Forbes list.

Perhaps we can say that, even if China cannot overtake the United States in e-commerce and the mobile Internet industry for a while, it will continue to contribute a larger share of the wealth generated through innovative technology. Also, if the government maintains a healthy business environment, China's e-commerce and mobile Internet industry may overtake those of the US some day thanks to its larger base of netizens. These industries will become the new engine powering the Chinese economy by helping boost consumption and developing new technologies, which is vital for the restructuring of the economy.