List of Famous people born in People's Republic of China
Simu Liu
Simu Liu is a Canadian actor, writer, and stuntman. He is known for his performance as Jung Kim in the award-winning CBC Television sitcom Kim's Convenience. He received nominations at the ACTRA Awards and Canadian Screen Awards for his work in Blood and Water. He will portray the superhero Shang-Chi in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, beginning with the film Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021).
Xi Jinping
Xi Jinping is a Chinese politician who has served as General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and Chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC) since 2012, and President of the People's Republic of China (PRC) since 2013. Xi has been the paramount leader of China, the most prominent political leader in China, since 2012.
Peng Shuai
Peng Shuai is a Chinese professional female tennis player. She reached a career-high of world No. 1 in the doubles ranking by the WTA as the first Chinese tennis player in February 2014. In August 2011, she peaked at No. 14 of the singles rankings. Peng has won two singles and 22 doubles titles. She won a gold medal at the 2010 Asian Games, defeating Akgul Amanmuradova in the final. At the 2013 Wimbledon Championships, Peng won her first ladies' doubles championship with Hsieh Su-wei of Taiwan and again won at the 2014 French Open with Hsieh. Her best performance at a Grand Slam tournament in singles came at the 2014 US Open when she reached the semifinals, becoming the third Chinese tennis player in history to make a major semifinal after Zheng Jie and Li Na.
Charles K. Kao
Sir Charles Kuen Kao was an electrical engineer and physicist who pioneered the development and use of fibre optics in telecommunications. In the 1960s, Kao created various methods to combine glass fibres with lasers in order to transmit digital data, which laid the groundwork for the evolution of the Internet.
Chloé Zhao
Chloé Zhao is a Chinese filmmaker, known primarily for her work in America. Her debut feature film, Songs My Brothers Taught Me (2015), premiered at Sundance Film Festival to critical acclaim and earned a nomination for the Independent Spirit Award for Best First Feature. Her second feature film, The Rider (2017), was critically praised and received nominations for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Film and Best Director.
Zhang Gaoli
Zhang Gaoli is a retired Chinese politician. He served as the Vice Premier of the People's Republic of China between 2013 and 2018 and as a member of the Politburo Standing Committee, China's highest ruling council, between 2012 and 2017. Prior to his ascension, Zhang served as the Communist Party Secretary of Tianjin between 2007 and 2012, and the Party Secretary in the economic powerhouse of Shandong province between 2002 and 2007.
Meng'er Zhang
Meng'er Zhang is a Chinese actress from Nanjing, Jiangsu, China. She is known for portraying Xu Xialing in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, which is set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU).
Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong, also known as Chairman Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary who was the founder of the People's Republic of China (PRC), which he ruled as the chairman of the Communist Party of China from its establishment in 1949 until his death in 1976. Ideologically a Marxist–Leninist, his theories, military strategies, and political policies are collectively known as Maoism.
Li Jingliang
Li Jingliang is a Chinese mixed martial artist who competes as a welterweight for the Ultimate Fighting Championship. As of January 19, 2021, he is #12 in the UFC welterweight rankings.
Fala Chen
Fala Chen is a Chinese-American actress who has appeared on film, television, and stage. She is best known for her roles in Hong Kong drama series including Steps, No Regrets, Triumph in the Skies II, and Lives of Omission. She also stars in the Hong Kong films Tales from the Dark 2 (2013), Turning Point (2009), and Despicable Me 3. On stage, she portrayed Kyra Hollis in Skylight by David Hare (2016). In 2018, Chen wrote, directed and starred in the short film Passinger, which was a finalist for the Sundance Film Festival: Hong Kong Short Film Competition. She made her first Hollywood appearance in the HBO miniseries The Undoing in 2020 and is set to star in the upcoming Disney Marvel film Shang-Chi and The Legend of the Ten Rings in 2021. Fala’s mother tongue is in Mandarin, but she is multilingual, and is fluent in English, Cantonese, and Japanese.
Zhao Xintong
Zhao Xintong is a Chinese professional snooker player, widely considered one of the most promising upcoming snooker talents.
Zhou Guanyu
Zhou Guanyu is a Chinese racing driver who currently competes in Formula One for Alfa Romeo. He is the first Chinese driver to compete in Formula One. He competed in the FIA Formula 2 Championship for UNI-Virtuosi Racing from 2019 to 2021, having finished 3rd in the 2021 campaign.
Meng Wanzhou
Meng Wanzhou is a Chinese business executive, who is the deputy chair of the board and chief financial officer (CFO) of telecom giant and China's largest privately held company, Huawei, founded by her father Ren Zhengfei.
Lidiya Vertinskaya
Lidiya Vladimirovna Vertinskaya, born Tsirgvava was a Soviet and Russian actress and artist.
Zhang Weili
Zhang Weili, nicknamed "Magnum", is a Chinese mixed martial artist. She was the former Kunlun Fight (KLF) strawweight champion and currently competes in the strawweight division of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), where she is the current UFC Women's Strawweight World Champion. She is the first ever Chinese and East Asian champion in UFC history. As of November 23, 2020, she is ranked #3 in UFC women's pound-for-pound rankings.
Qian Xuesen
Qian Xuesen, or Hsue-Shen Tsien, was a Chinese mathematician, cyberneticist, aerospace engineer, and physicist who made significant contributions to the field of aerodynamics and established engineering cybernetics. Recruited from MIT, he joined Theodore von Kármán's group at Caltech. During WWII, he was involved in the Manhattan Project, which ultimately led to the successful development of the first atomic bomb in America. Later on, under the pressure of deportation for suspicions of association with Communists, he would eventually return to China, where he would make important contributions to China's missile and space program.
Bai Ling
Bai Ling is a Chinese-American actress known for her work in films such as The Crow, Red Corner, Crank: High Voltage, Dumplings, Wild Wild West, Anna and the King, and Southland Tales, as well as TV shows including Entourage and Lost. Notably, she won the Best Supporting Actress awards at the 2004 Hong Kong Film Awards and the 2004 Golden Horse Awards in Taiwan for her role in Dumplings.
Ip Man
Ip Man, also known as Yip Man, was a Chinese martial artist and a grandmaster of the martial art Wing Chun. He had several students who later became martial arts masters in their own right, the most famous among them being Bruce Lee.
Wei Jingsheng
Wei Jingsheng is a Chinese human rights activist who is known for his involvement in the Chinese democracy movement. He is most prominent for having authored the essay "The Fifth Modernization", which was posted on the Democracy Wall in Beijing in 1978. Due to the manifesto, Wei was arrested and convicted of "counter-revolutionary" activities, and was detained as a political prisoner from 1979–93. Released briefly in 1993, Wei continued with his dissident activities by speaking to visiting journalists, and was imprisoned again from 1994–97, spending a total of 18 years in different prisons. He was deported to the United States on 16 November 1997, on medical parole. Still a Chinese citizen, in 1998 Wei established the Wei Jingsheng Foundation in New York City whose stated aim is to work to improve human rights and democratization in China.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama 14 Tendzin Gyatso
The 14th Dalai Lama is the current Dalai Lama, the highest spiritual leader of Tibet, and considered a living Bodhisattva, an emanation of Avalokiteśvara. The Dalai Lamas are also leaders of the Gelug school, which is the newest school of Tibetan Buddhism and was formally headed by the Ganden Tripas. From the time of the 5th Dalai Lama to 1959, the central government of Tibet, the Ganden Phodrang, invested the position of Dalai Lama with temporal duties.