Rudd on TIME Magazine Influencer Xi Jinping: His Success Matters 'For His Nation and the World'

Is president Xi Jinping China's most powerful leader since Mao? (Greg Bowker/Getty Images)

Kevin Rudd would like to amend a comment he once made about Chinese President Xi Jinping. “Two years ago I wrote that Xi Jinping would be China’s most powerful leader since Deng Xiaoping,” Rudd writes in TIME’s newly released The 100 Most Influential People issue. “Now it seems he is likely to be China’s most powerful leader since Mao.” Rudd, president of the Asia Society Policy Institute and former Prime Minister of Australia, also praised Xi for his “clear vision” and “driving sense of national mission,” adding that “his success matters for his nation and the world.”

Xi was among over 20 individuals from Asia or of Asian descent highlighted on TIME's list, which included the categories Titans, Pioneers, Artists, Leaders, and Icons. They include:

• Haider Al-Abadi, Prime Minister of Iraq
• Rula Ghani, First Lady of Afghanistan
• Chai Jing, journalist, environmental activist, producer of Under the Dome
• Lei Jun, Founder, Chairman, and CEO, Xiaomi Inc.
• Kim Jong Un, Supreme Leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea
• Chanda Kochhar, Managing Director and CEO, ICICI Bank
• Marie Kondo, author
• Jimmy Lai, Founder and Chairman, Next Media
• Joanne Liu, International President, Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders)
• Lu Wei, Chief, General Office of the Central Leading Group for Internet Security and Informatization
• Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India
• Haruki Murakami, writer
• Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft
• Vikram Patel, psychiatrist, co-founder of Sangath and the Center for Global Mental Health
• Pardis Sabeti, biologist and geneticist
• King Salman Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Saudi Arabia
• Alexander Wang, designer, creative director for Balenciaga
• Joko Widodo, President of Indonesia
• Xi Jinping, President of the People’s Republic of China
• Malala Yousafzai, activist and Nobel Prize laureate
• Mohammad Javad Zarif, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Iran

Click to see TIME's full list of the world's most influential people.