With 2009 coming to a close, TALK honours those who have exerted the most influence in China this year: People who have made special contributions in their respective fields, whether striving for change as reformers, endeavouring to promote social change through the arts, pushing the boundaries of business beyond making money, scoring victories in sports, or just refusing to play by the rules.

This list is not the be all and end all. It’s intended to be the beginning of a conversation, rather than the final word. These are people to talk about.

 

REFORMERS

Winner: Corruption Crusader Bo Xilai

Chongqing’s party chief, Bo Xilai, came to the public’s attention this year as a crusader against corruption. Bo is the poster boy for the new generation of leaders who will assume power in 2012 and, some believe, he also demonstrates a shift in the way political power is gained in China. His charisma and savvy dealings with the media are not the norm here, and are more comparable with politicians in Western countries, especially the United States.

Chongqing's recent corruption trials, spearheaded by Bo, involved more than 9,000 suspects, 50 public officials, a billionaire and dozens of stories that recounted random acts of savagery, including the murder of one man for his “unbearably loud karaoke voice.”

So far, six people have been sentenced to death, and Xie Caiping – ‘the godmother of the Chongqing underworld’ – has been sentenced to 18 years behind bars. She was found guilty of running 30 illegal casinos, including one opposite the courthouse. She is also now famous across China for employing 16 young men who, according to the China Daily, “were exceedingly handsome and obliging.”

But despite these successes, Bo is not universally popular. Questions remain in some quarters about his motives, and whether this crackdown is spurred more by political ambition than a commitment to transparency and rule of law. Nonetheless, it’s impossible to deny that he’s making waves, in Chongqing and around China. Plenty of people will be waiting to see what’s next for Bo Xilai.

 

Runner Up: Legal Eagle Xu Zhiyong

Thirty-six year old Xu Zhiyong is a rising star in China’s legal world and the co-founder of the Open Consititution Initiative. His stated aim is to to allow people from all walks of life to gain access to legal representation.

Xu began the year continuing his most famous legal crusade to date, acting on behalf of 213 families whose children were affected by last year’s tainted milk scandal.

But his year took a turn for the worse in July, when he was detained for tax offences. Xu was released after a month, and in August he was featured on the cover of China’s Esquire magazine.

After his release he was quoted as saying: “I am an optimist in the long run. More and more lawyers are prepared to defend dissidents and stand up for independence of the courts and help people fight for their rights.''

 

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SPORTS

Winner: Whistle Blower Ma Ming

If it wasn’t for Ma Ming, the dark secret of the 11th Chinese National Games might never have been revealed.

Days before the event began, reports of match-fixing in the diving competitions formed a cloud over the National Games. This came after one of the judges, using the alias of Ma Ming, suddenly resigned on 9 October. 

The official reason for her departure was illness, particularly a heart condition, but domestic media reports told a different story. A day after quitting, the former head coach of Hunan’s provincial diving team told a Herald Union reporter: “I left early, not only because I am sick, but also because I'm fed up with the current National Games, the dark secret of the diving competitions. All of the gold medals are decided internally ahead of time."

Ma accused Zhou Jihong, head of the Chinese national diving team, of manipulating the referees and predetermining gold medal divers. To boost the legitimacy of her claim, she even forecasted four gold medallists before the competition began – all of whom won, exactly as predicted.

“Ma Ming is interesting because she’s someone who is willing to talk about the darker side of Chinese sports,” says David Yang, editor of the China Sports Review blog. “This match-fixing is really unhealthy for young athletes, and for all the people who care about sports in this country.”

Ma’s resignation means that at the very least, Chinese sports fans now know that divers are jumping off from different points, and will hopefully call on sporting officials to clean up their act.

 

Runner Up: Freestyle Phenom Zhang Lin

He’s being, unimaginatively, called ‘Liu Xiang in Water’, but Zhang Lin definitely deserves the title after becoming China’s first man to ever win a world swimming championship.

In July, the 22 year old Beijing native captured gold in the 800 metre freestyle at the World Aquatics Championships in Rome – annihilating Australian Grant Hackett’s four year old world record by about six seconds, with a time of 7:32.12. In 2007, Zhang – the first Chinese swimmer permitted to train outside the country – went to Australia to work with Hackett’s former coach Denis Cotterell.

But that’s still not enough for Zhang. The young swimmer’s eyes are set on Olympic glory after settling for silver at the Beijing Olympics, beaten by Park Tae-hwan of South Korea by a slim 0.58 seconds in the 400 metre freestyle.

“I hope through my years of effort I can make up for my regrets at the Beijing Games,” Zhang was quoted as saying in China Daily.

Bring on 2012. 

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ART & CULTURE

Winner: All Rounder Ai Weiwei

Artist, blogger, architect, social commentator, activist and all around provocateur – Ai Weiwei sure made a lot of headlines this year. He might look like a teddy bear, but this year he demonstrated more strongly then ever that he’s prepared to talk tough in the face of perceived injustice.

In March, after several months of 'citizen investigation' he published the names of more than 5,000 schoolchildren killed in last year’s Sichuan earthquake on his blog. At the time, he wrote: "Life has its own dignity. You cannot give us just numbers. What are their names? Who are their parents?" His site quickly and quietly disappeared.

Then, in August, when he travelled to Sichuan as a witness in the trial of Tan Zuoren (who is accused of subversion after campaigning against poorly constructed schools), Ai claims he was detained and beaten by police. The result of this altercation, he says, was the year’s most talked about subdural haematoma.

He underwent an operation for the condition while in Germany for a solo exhibition last September. The highly-publicised show, called ‘So Sorry’, included a frieze of children’s backpacks that covered the entire front wall of the exhibition centre as a requiem to the child victims of Sichuan’s earthquake.

Recently, after urging Barack Obama to make human rights a major issue during his trip to China, Ai made public his disappointment with the diplomatic approach favoured by the US President.

“Many Chinese, especially the young, hope for a more open and just society – this needs the support of foreign leaders,” Ai told AFP.

“I agree with some of the people who see his visit as a big Hollywood show. If he does not make a greater effort, the Chinese will become disappointed with these 'universal values' as well as with the United States.”

It’s impossible to predict what’s in store for Ai in 2010, but it seems unlikely he will be looking to settle down to enjoy life in the slow lane.

 

Runner Up: Realist Filmmaker Jia Zhangke

He has made a name for himself with his slightly controversial indie films, but in 2009, director Jia Zhangke seems to have hit a turning point.

Jia is known for movies that depict a less glamorous China – films that take the risk of portraying the struggles of the country’s working class through a mix of fiction and documentary. His 1997 movie Xiao Wu earned him a one-year ban on making films. And in 2006, Jia’s Still Life – which tells a story about demolition workers dismantling a Chinese village to make way for the Three Gorges Dam – earned him international acclaim with the Venice Film Festival’s Golden Lion award.

But this year, Jia has moved more mainstream, showing that he's not just a dissident indie director. He started his own studio and filmed a China Mobile advertisement. In a cautious move, Jia even pulled out of the Melbourne International Film Festival to avoid looking like he supported Rebiya Kadeer – the exiled Uighur leader accused of instigating riots in Xinjiang – and he is also helping Shanghai officials make a documentary for the 2010 Expo.

“[Jia Zhangke] has been compared and contrasted to Zhang Yimou,” says Jeffrey Wasserstrom, a history professor at the University of California-Irvine and co-editor of China in 2008: A Year of Great Significance. “So there's a special interest in seeing how differently he handles the challenge of a production linked to a big international event like the Expo.”

Jia's commercial successes do not mean he's abandoning his roots just yet. With his arrival in the mainstream of the Chinese film industry, the director may be able to push the envelope with his craft and reach the masses.

 

Runner Up: China’s Looking Glass Lu Guang

In Lu Guang’s photographs, a woman in a red sweater looks out to a Guangdong pond filled with more waste than water. Another image shows two 'black dragons' in Inner Mongolia – the Lasengmiao Power Plant pumping blackened smoke into the sky, casting nearby villages into shadow.

Originally from Zhejiang, Lu is the 2009 winner of the W. Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography, a worthy nod for his passion and commitment to documenting ecological disasters in China since 2005. With his US$30,000 grant, Lu plans to continue his quest to show the environmental and human toll that comes along with China’s modern industrial revolution.

From factory worker to amateur photojournalist, Lu worked in a silk factory in his hometown of Yongkang County in 1980 when he held a camera for the first time. Since studying at the Fine Arts Academy of Tsinghua University, the photographer has created a number of photo essays on major social and environmental issues in China, including his series on AIDS villages in Henan province.

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BUSINESS

Winner: Dream Builder Wang Chuanfu  

With his personal fortune blooming to US$5.8 billion this year, Wang Chuanfu was crowned China’s wealthiest individual in 2009's Hurun Rich List. But that’s not why he’s TALK’s business person of the year.

Wang is the founder of BYD, or Build Your Dreams, a Hong Kong-listed rechargeable battery and auto manufacturing company that many hope will emerge as a world leader in making hybrid electric cars. American billionaire Warren Buffet has plugged into BYD’s green car dream as well – investing US$250 million in the company for a 10 per cent stake.

In December 2008, BYD began selling a plug-in electric hybrid car in China, driving past similar American and Japanese efforts. Priced at an affordable RMB 150,000 with the help of cheap abundant labour, BYD expects to sell the F3DM for a similar price in the US as early as 2010.

BYD has also been criticized for copying other companies’ designs, though the auto maker claims it’s just synthesizing good ideas in the industry. Still, the fact that Wang has built his start-up – which began with a US$300,000 loan from relatives to start BYD in Shenzhen when he was 29 – to please both big business and environmentalists, a feat already in itself.

 

Runner Up: China’s Henry Ford Li Shufu

Li Shufu comes from humble beginnings. He is the son of Zhejiang farmers, and with only RMB 2,000, he started his very first business in refrigerators.

Today, he is called the Henry Ford of China, the chairman and founder of China’s largest privately-owned car firm, and one of the country’s richest businessmen.

Although Geely only builds about 200,000 cars a year at present, Li has seen the stocks of his Hong Kong-listed company soar four-fold this year alone after Goldman Sachs invested US$245 million in September, a major seal of approval. And if that’s not enough for Li, Geely (which means ‘auspicious benefit’ in Chinese) is also currently in discussions to buy Volvo Cars from Ford.

His business savvy has pushed Geely towards becoming a global competitor. The company aims to increase output to 2 million cars a year by 2015, with 1.4 million cars expected to be exported or manufactured overseas by then. For Li, car-making isn't a complicated business: “Making cars is not as mysterious as people think. A car is merely four wheels, a steering wheel and an engine. The level of technology used in manufacturing cars is very high. It seemed to me that I just needed to buy the technology and the parts, and pay for engineers."

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MOST INFLUENTIAL GROUP

China’s Netizens

Time Magazine made 'you' its person of the year in 2006 for the web 2.0 contributions of ordinary people. In 2009 we thought you expats did just fine, but Chinese Netizens made a major impact.

Chinese web users started 2009 in top form, delighting in the “grass mud horse,” which first appeared online in January. A video featuring the alpaca-ish creature, whose name (when said aloud in Chinese) puns on an obscenity, gained millions of views. It was a small triumph that expanded the expressive power of the Sinonet.

Netizens also helped hold off the “Green Dam Youth Escort,” an internet censorship program that was to be installed on all computers sold from July this year. By mid-August, public complaints saw those plans permanently put on hold.

The influence of Chinese internet users isn’t always positive, however. Anonymous, online vigilantes – often characterized as patriotic but jobless and disenchanted – can be as senseless as a Simpsons mob.

An anonymous internet posting claiming that six Uighur men had raped two Han Chinese women led to a brawl at a Guangdong toy factory's dorms. Two Uighur men were fatally wounded and 120 others were injured. The incident also led to violent unrest in Xinjiang in July.