Chinese and Chinese-American billionaires’ philanthropy rising at ‘astounding’ rate
Chinese entrepreneurs in China itself, Hong Kong and America are giving back to society in ways unheard of even a few years ago, with Ronnie and Gerald Chan and Li Ka-shing among the big donors
Chinese businessman Lu Zhiqiang, chairman of Oceanwide Holdings, gave US$115 million to Fudan University in 2015. The previous year, Hong Kong entrepreneur Ronnie Chan Chi-chung and his brother Gerald had donated US$350 million to Harvard University, and the year before that another local tycoon, Li Ka-shing, gave US$130 million to Guangdong Technion Israel Institute of Technology.
Hong Kong’s super-rich are jumping onto the philanthropy bandwagon, but are they backing worthy causes?
They are among the more sizeable donations made by Chinese businessmen in recent years, but they are not anomalies. Major philanthropic giving by Chinese and Chinese Americans is soaring.
In China, the number of registered charitable foundations surged 430 per cent from 2006 to 2016 to 5,545. In the US, the number of Chinese-American foundations saw a similar increase, jumping 418 per cent from 2000 to 2014 to nearly 1,300. And major gifts by Chinese Americans rose nearly fivefold from 2008 to 2014.
Kwoh was in Hong Kong last month as part of a road trip to share the findings of the report, “Chinese and Chinese American Philanthropy”. Speaking on the sidelines of the one-day conference at the Asia Society, Kwoh said the extent of giving by Chinese and Chinese Americans is largely unrecognised.
“I know for a fact that philanthropic associations were very surprised at the growth of Asian-American philanthropy,” he says.