Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has been named among year 2008’s ‘Top Ten Prominent Foreign Figures’ by a Chinese newspaper.

The paper called Guangming Daily has even profiled Zardari, and published details of his education and political career.

“Consensus says that Zardari’s time commenced while Musharraf’s time concluded,” the Daily Times quoted the Chinese-language paper as noting.

According to the newspaper report, Zardari was nominated as co-chairman of the PPP, and became a prominent political figure both within the country as well as

internationally after former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s assassination on December 27 last year.

Time Magazine also list Zardari among the world’s top twenty personalities of the year 2008 in its December 26 issue.

U.S. President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown have also made it to the list.

The magazine chose U.S. President-elect Barack Obama for its annual person of the year award.