![](\"https:\/\/www.thesun.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/NINTCHDBPICT000828187728.jpg\")
<\/p>\nFROM the founder of TikTok to an online gaming kingpin, Forbes has named China's wealthiest billionaires of 2023. <\/p>\n
The top five make up an impressive portfolio of individuals you may have never heard of – who are richer than rapper Jay-Z and Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The combined wealth of China\u2019s 100 richest in 2023 dropped slightly to $895billion from $907.1billion last year, Forbes said.<\/p>\n
Bottled water billionaire\u00a0Zhong Shanshan\u00a0remains the richest in China for the third year in a row with a net worth of $62.4billion – and\u00a0Zhang Yiming kept his spot in second.<\/p>\n
But China's battery king\u00a0Robin Zeng slipped out of the top five, along with Alibaba founder Jack Ma. <\/p>\n
Two newcomers joined the top ranks – online gaming tycoon William<\/span> Ding and e-commerce giant Colin Huang. <\/p>\n Here's China's top five wealthiest billionaires.<\/p>\n Zhong Shanshan – From humble journalist to 'lone wolf' billionaire<\/strong><\/p>\n Zhong Shanshan, 68, is the second richest man in Asia and the richest billionaire of China. <\/p>\n He is the founder and chairman at bottled water company Nongfu Spring<\/span>and the majority owner of Wantai Biological – which makes tests for infectious diseases including Covid-19. <\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n With an estimated fortune of $62.4billion, Zhong's lifestyle is more low-key than expected of a billionaire. <\/p>\n The bottled water and tea magnate comes from humble beginnings. <\/p>\n He dropped out of primary school during China's Cultural Revolution, and picked up a job as a construction worker, and later as a newspaper reporter. <\/p>\n He was also a beverage sales agent before starting his own beverage venture. <\/p>\n In 1988, Zhong moved to\u00a0Hainan, an island off the coast of southern China, where he sold mushrooms, prawns, and turtles.<\/p>\n In 1996, he founded his bottled water company in Hangzhou – which grew to be the largest bottled water maker in China.<\/p>\n It's also one of the largest beverage companies in the world.\u00a0<\/p>\n Nongfu Spring<\/span>'s\u00a0initial public offering\u00a0in September 2020 massively increased Zhong's wealth – expanding his fortune from $18.9billion dollars to more than $50billion.<\/p>\n Zhong is known as a "lone wolf" in China, leading a private life, rarely appears on media and stays out of politics. <\/p>\n He has one son – who is a non-executive director at Nongfu Spring<\/span>. <\/p>\n Zhang Yiming – The man who gave us TikTok<\/strong><\/p>\n Zhang Yiming, 40, is the youngest billionaire in the list and founder of the hugely popular app, TikTok.<\/p>\n With a net worth of over $43.4billion, Yiming built his fortune after co-founding ByteDance – the Chinese tech giant behind TikTok. <\/p>\n Yiming is a son of civil servants and studied software engineering in Nankai University in 2005. <\/p>\n In 2012, the tech mogul started ByteDance in a four-bedroom apartment in Beijing and launched news-aggregation app Toutiao months later. <\/p>\n In just a year's time, Yiming was listed in Forbes China's 30 under 30.<\/p>\n And in just two years, daily active users of Toutiao climbed to over 13 million. <\/p>\n In September 2016, the tech tycoon created Douyin, a short-video app, which gained international success under a different name – TikTok. <\/p>\n Yiming's creation has become a serious threat to giant players on both domestic and international arena. <\/p>\n In 2021, TikTok, which has over a billion users, surpassed Google as the world's most popular online domain based on web traffic, according to web performance and security firm Cloudflare.<\/p>\n And Douyin, now one of China's biggest advertising platforms, could snatch a crown from the giant online shopping empire – Alibaba. <\/p>\n The father of TikTok stepped down from his position as a CEO in 2021 amid China's tech crackdown when other high-profile tech founders were also giving up their roles. <\/p>\n The government has cracked down on everything from anti-competitive policies to data and algorithms and dictating where companies could list their shares publicly.<\/p>\n Yiming has kept a low-profile since, reportedly living in Singapore. <\/p>\n Colin Huang – Budget shopping magnate<\/strong><\/p>\n Colin Huang has broken into the ranks of China's top three richest for the first time – up for number nine last year. <\/p>\n The businessman is the founder and former chief executive of the e-commerce company PDD – now the largest agriculture platform in China.<\/p>\n And his fortune nearly doubled this year to $38.6billion.<\/p>\n Born in Hangzhou to factory worker parents, Huang graduated with a degree in computer science from the University of Wisconsin.<\/p>\n He interned at Microsoft in Beijing and Seattle before joining Google in the US as an engineer in 2004. <\/p>\n In 2006, he came back to China to expand Google's services in his home country. <\/p>\n The 43-year-old created an online games firm and an e-commerce site in 2007 – selling it for $2.2million in 2010.<\/p>\n And in 2015, he set up Pinduoduo (PDD) in 2015 as a rival to Alibaba – founded by Jack Ma. <\/p>\n His company became publicly traded after an\u00a0initial public offering\u00a0in the US in July 2018 – raising $1.6billion.<\/p>\n After the public offering, Huang's 47 per cent stake in Pinduoduo was valued at $14billion, making him the thirteenth richest person in China.<\/p>\n His fortune has exploded in the last year as e-commerce continues to thrive in China. <\/p>\n Ma Huateng – 'A' game player in the industry<\/strong><\/p>\n Ma Huateng, 52, chairs Chinese internet giant Tencent Holdings – and is now worth $33.9billion.<\/p>\n His company is famous for its popular social messaging app WeChat, which has over 1.3 billion users. <\/p>\n Tencent is also one of the biggest video game publishers in the world and owns a stake in US video game company, Epic Games.<\/p>\n Huateng was born to a family of a port manager, and graduated from Shenzhen University where he studied computer science<\/span>.<\/p>\n The tech tycoon earned only \u00a3143 a month at his first job, developing software for pagers at China Motion Telecom Development before launching his own product.<\/p>\n In 1998, together with his university classmate, Zhang Zhidong, he co-founded Tencent, which means galloping message in Mandarin. <\/p>\n At first, his product was an instant messaging service, but it has now turned into China's largest internet community, offering messaging, news portals and e-commerce. <\/p>\n Today Huateng's company owns stakes in electric car maker Tesla and music-streaming service Spotify. <\/p>\n William Ding – Online gaming tycoon<\/strong><\/p>\n In 2023, William<\/span> Ding\u2019s net worth shot up by two-thirds to $32billion and he rose three spots to number five in the list. <\/p>\n Ding is the chief executive of gaming giant\u00a0NetEase, founded by the billionaire in 1997.<\/p>\n His company has released two new blockbuster titles in the last year – boosting Ding's wealth by 71 per cent.<\/p>\n NetEast started out as an email-service provider and Ding soon grew it into a games giant.<\/p>\nRead more on China<\/h2>\n
![](\"https:\/\/www.thesun.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/OP_LY_CHINA-GYM-COLLAPSE.jpg\")
<\/picture>GYM HORROR <\/span><\/p>\nThree dead after gym collapses as children played basketball inside in China<\/h3>\n
![](\"https:\/\/www.thesun.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/AK_SKULL_COMP.jpg\")
<\/picture>SAY WHAT? <\/span><\/p>\nEvidence of advanced brain surgery found on 2,700-year-old skull in China<\/h3>\n
![](\"https:\/\/www.thesun.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/2013-shares-chinese-bottled-water-774129423.jpg\")
<\/p>\nMost read in The Sun<\/h2>\n
![](\"https:\/\/www.thesun.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/KS_COMP_Mansellv2.jpg\")
<\/picture>‘DESPICABLE’ <\/span><\/p>\nGreedy son and wife jailed for robbing parents of \u00a3117k, leaving them with 28p<\/h3>\n
![](\"https:\/\/www.thesun.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/RW-COMP-PIES.jpg\")
<\/picture>PIE LIFE <\/span><\/p>\nI tested supermarket steak pies – the best is just \u00a32.99 and is good as any pub’s<\/h3>\n
![](\"https:\/\/www.thesun.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/crop-24677838.jpg\")
<\/picture>OUCH <\/span><\/p>\nCorrie’s Alan Halsall undergoes major surgery that will take a year to recover from<\/h3>\n
![](\"https:\/\/www.thesun.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/crop-23855085.jpg\")
<\/picture>OVER LOVE <\/span><\/p>\nLove Island star confirms split after boyfriend’s arrest<\/h3>\n
![](\"https:\/\/www.thesun.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/2017-company-best-known-mobile-626208940.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.thesun.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/colin-huang-chief-executive-officer-680468357.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.thesun.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/pony-ma-huateng-chairman-chief-857930706.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.thesun.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/netease-ceo-william-ding-lei-858309088.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/www.thesun.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/katie-wedding.jpg\")
<\/picture>![](\"https:\/\/www.thesun.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/photo-illustration-facebook-logo-displayed-820404043.jpg\"){kind=logo}
<\/picture>