Agenda Setters: Where are they now... Hu Jintao

As the launch of silicon.com's fifth annual Agenda Setters poll of tech's 50 most influential individuals approaches (mark your calendars: 27 September), it is time to look back at those individuals who held top 10 positions in 2003. Here we assess the chances of the Chinese premier making the list again.

While Hu Jintao has yet to be seen tweaking the Linux kernel, there's no doubt the Chinese premier has wielded his fair share of clout in the worldwide tech industry. Having rated fourth in the Agenda Setters top ten last year, Jintao made it in not for his own IT power but for that of the country he's in charge of.

So has China been keeping up the pace?

It's one of the key economies - along with Japan and South Korean - to be working on its own, dubbed Asianux.

The wireless space, too, has found China ready to not follow the herd and push for non-Western - the country's readying its own flavour of 3G and caused Intel execs a few sleepless nights when it demanded all Wi-Fi equipment in the country comply with its security standards.

It's also making progress on spam, now playing host to an international branch of anti-spam campaigners SpamHaus. That said, spammers aren't the only ones finding they have less internet freedoms than they might like.

The Chinese government is threatening life imprisonment for internet pornographers, arrested dissidents who criticised the Communist Party online, censored the Chinese's web access and shut down non-state-controlled internet cafes.

Will Jintao and China be back in the Agenda Setters list again this year? If the attitudes of tech's biggest players - Amazon, eBay, Ericsson, Motorola, and others are all trying to grab a slice of China's burgeoning tech market - are anything to go by, China's still got a long way to go before its technological well runs dry.

silicon.com's Agenda Setters panel, made up again of CIOs, analysts, VCs, consultants, lawyers, academics and other experts, are convening this September at our London offices with our results revealed at the end of the month. If you want to pass on your comments for our experts, about Hu Jintao or any other contender, drop us an email at editorial@silicon.com.