Baidu chief Robin Li among rich and famous taking their place at top table

Robin Li, Baidu chairman and the mainland's third-richest man, and Yu Zhengsheng, No 4 in the Communist Party hierarchy, were named to the country's top political advisory body yesterday as a new generation of leaders prepares for power.

Yu, the former Communist Party secretary of Shanghai, is in line to be named chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.

This comes after he was the only member of the Politburo's seven-man Standing Committee to be appointed one of the CPPCC's 2,237 delegates, indicating he will replace Jia Qinglin as chairman next month.

The list of delegates was published yesterday as the nation prepares to hold its annual session of parliament next month, which will complete a once-a-decade power transition.

Ling Jihua, head of the United Front Work Department of the party's Central Committee, said nearly half of the delegates were new, and 40 per cent were Communist Party members, Xinhua reported.

Robin Li, whose Chinese name is Li Yanhong, is also the co- founder and chief executive of Baidu, the nation's biggest search engine, and has an estimated net worth of US$8 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.