the Capitalist Class of the So-Called "Communist" Countries

A total of 64 people from the Chinese mainland made the Forbes magazine list of the world's richest billionaires, moving up to take second place for the first time.

The US led the list, released Wednesday, with 403 billionaires. The Chinese mainland was followed by Russia with 62 billionaires. Of the world's 97 new billionaires, 62 were from Asia.

Among the super-rich from the Chinese mainland, 27 made the list for the first time.

In addition, 25 people from Hong Kong made it into the billionaires club, while 18 Taiwan people entered the list. More than 10 percent of billionaires on the list came from the Greater China Area, namely the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan.

The total number of billionaires stood at 1,011. That's much higher than the 793 super-rich who made in onto the list last year, but lower than the record number of 1,125 in 2008.

Chinese entrepreneur Zong Qinghou, CEO of eastern Hangzhou's Wahaha Group, is the wealthiest person in the Chinese mainland, according to the list.

China Daily

According to Doi song va Phap luat newspaper, in 2010, Chair of Hoang Anh Gia Lai Doan Nguyen Duc is the richest stock millionaire in Vietnam with assets worth 11,500 billion dong. Other businessmen in the top five stock millionaires are Pham Nhat Vuong, the owner of Vincom, (9 trillion dong), Chair of Kinh Bac Group Dang Thanh Tam (4.727 trillion dong), Chair of Hoa Phat Group Tran Dinh Long (3 trillion dong) and Chair of Tan Tao Group Dang Thi Hoang Yen (2.7 trillion dong).

The total assets of the 20 top stock millionaires in 2010 are worth 60 trillion dong, an increase of 10 trillion dong over the last year. In 2009, only 13 people had assets worth more than one trillion dong, and now the figure has risen to 19.

If calculating the values of stock assets in dollars, Vietnam now has more than 450 stock millionaires.

vietnamnet.vn

Just take the testimony of 38-year-old defector Choi In Ho (not her real name), who left the North in October 2004. Once the 2002 reforms legalized private trading, she says, shrewd speculators spotted an opening. They reap huge profits by buying up grain at times of plenty and then throwing it back on the market during shortages. Others take advantage of the miserable transport system by quietly commandeering state-owned trucks and using them to bring products to areas where demand is greatest. "Through such trading, some people are becoming richer and richer, while others nearly starve," Choi says. "Because North Korea is a socialist country, everyone is supposed to be equal. In reality, the income gap is growing, and it's making people angry."

North Korea has always had a stark social divide. Reports on the lavish lifestyle of the country's ruling elite have trickled out for years. Kim Jong Il's personal sushi chef and pizza cook have regaled readers with accounts of the Dear Leader's rarefied taste in cognac and seafood. Last summer a Japanese TV station caught one of Kim's children following Eric Clapton on concert tour across Europe—the sort of luxury the vast majority of North Koreans could only dream of, assuming that any of them were in a position to learn about it. Earlier this year Kim's elder son, Kim Jong Nam, was apparently persuaded to give up his home in the Chinese territory of Macao when journalists there began trading details of his extravagant partying. Lately, it's said, he's been holed up somewhere on the mainland.

And yet something does appear to be changing. Economist Yoon Deok Ryong from the Korean Institute of Economic Policy notes that in the past North Koreans who wanted a better life simply joined the Communist Party, which assured them a certain level of privilege. These days, by contrast, they can achieve the same end by going into business. Hazel Smith, a professor at the University of Warwick in England, says the North Koreans she's surveyed once hoped their children would join the army as a way of getting ahead. Now, she says, the hope is that they'll go into private trade—ideally with a few hundred dollars in capital provided by their parents. North Korea is beginning to register the rise of homegrown business tycoons like Jon Sung Hun, head of Korea Pugang Corp., a conglomerate that exports pharmaceuticals, machinery and minerals in return for consumer and investment goods.

Jon is the son of a former North Korean ambassador to China—which shows, among other things, that it still helps to know the right people. Still, says Yoon, the new class of North Korean entrepreneurs can no longer count on the cash-strapped Communist Party to provide them with their livelihoods. Rampant corruption at virtually all levels of the North Korean state ensures that money increasingly trumps ideology—in ways that could potentially threaten the system. "From the standpoint of the state, people in the army and party are getting rich," says Noland. "

Newsweek

It is worth noting that the Soviet Union had a class known as the Nomenklatura.