Actress Zhang Ziyi has placed first on a list of the 50 "most beautiful people in China."

Zhang Ziyi and Tony Leung Chiu-Wai top the list of the 50 "most beautiful people in China." [Xinhua photo]

The fourth annual event was organized by The Beijing News, which announced the result in its Friday edition.

The paper said Zhang's press conference during the Cannes film festival to raise money for the Sichuan earthquake garnered respect worldwide. The earthquake killed 70,000 people in May.

"I don't pay a lot of attention to matters of appearance," she told the newspaper. "Beautiful women are fundamentally independent and confident."

Zhang, who starred in the films Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Memoirs of a Geisha, was first partly because she organized an overseas fund drive for survivors of the May 12 Sichuan earthquake while attending the Cannes Film Festival, said judge Hai Yan, a playwright and TV producer.

Hong Kong-based Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, a Cannes Film Festival best actor, came in second.

Olympics diving champion Guo Jingjing, martial arts star Jet Li and Li Yuchun, who made her name in a singing contest Super Girl, the Chinese version of American Idol, also made it into the top 50.

(Xinhua News Agency December 20, 2008)