Four Chinese nationals made it into Time Magazine's 2009 "100 Most Influential People in the World", including Chinese Vice-President Xi Jinping, Vice Premier Wang Qishan, Alibaba.com founder Jack Ma, and pianist Lang Lang.

Among the others named are US President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle Obama, US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the co-founders of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone and Evan Williams, and the world-famous golfer Tiger Woods.

Wang is "the man China's leaders look to for an understanding of the markets and the global economy" and "decisive and inquisitive," said his long-time friend and former US Secretary of Treasury Henry Paulson.

Running one of the world's biggest B2B online marketplaces, the soft-spoken Jack Ma "did so well that in 2006, eBay shut down its own site in China," the magazine writes.

If Jack Ma influences the world through his business instinct and acute vision, Lang Lang, who has been playing the piano since he was around 2 years old, is influencing others through his humane sensitivity and prodigal talents.

"You hear him play, and he never ceases to touch your heart," according to Time. It also calls him "the new phenomenon".

"The Time 100 is not a list of the most powerful people in the world, it's not a list of the smartest people in the world, it's a list of the most influential people in the world," says Executive Editor Rick Stengel.

"They're scientists, they're thinkers, they're philosophers, they're leaders, they're icons, they're artists, they're visionaries.'"

First published in 1999 as a result of a debate among several academics, the Time 100 has become an annual event since 2004.