China’s rich and famous judged on social media for donations to coronavirus relief

It’s hardly a competition – and it really shouldn’t be one – but when it comes to disaster relief, celebrities in China are being judged by its increasingly unforgiving (social) media, not only for their generosity, but also their patriotism (or lack thereof).

Take the recent coronavirus outbreak, for example. Some who gave over a million yuan (US$140,000) in donations to the relief effort have been crowned magnanimous philanthropists who did not think twice about helping their fellow countrymen in times of need.

So at one end of the generosity scale are Zhao Benshan, farmer-turned-showbiz tycoon, who gave 10 million yuan to the city of Wuhan, where the outbreak in China began; and Jay Chou and his wife, Hannah Quinlivan, who donated 3 million yuan through a charity in Hubei, the province surrounding Wuhan, in support of frontline medical personnel.

At the other end, trailing way behind, are those who made smaller charity pledges. Screen darlings and golden couple Huang Xiaoming and Angelababy, for instance, donated 200,000 yuan to the China Siyuan Foundation For Poverty Alleviation, which, accidentally, disclosed the amount in a Weibo post.

Indignant responses on the internet quickly followed. “How much do you earn a year?” one poster asked. “Are you looking down on the coronavirus victims by making such a small donation?” said another. In response to these online attacks, the couple subsequently increased the donation to one million yuan.

A list showing the amounts donated by various Chinese stars began to circulate among the public.

According to the list, published on entertainment channel ifeng at the end of January, there were others who donated 200,000 yuan. They included pianist Li Yundi, comedian Wang Baoqiang, and actresses Christy Yao Chen, Cecilia Cheung Pak-chi, Lin Chi-ling, Li Bingbing and Crystal Liu Yifei.

Chinese-American Liu, in particular, received some spectacular virtual thrashing, not least because the actress is from Wuhan. She was criticised for being ungrateful to her home city.

Taiwanese singer Chou Tzu-yu, a member of the K-pop girl group Twice, was another star who courted online ire in China after it was revealed she had made a 300,000 yuan donation to South Korea, where she is based, for medical supplies.

In 2016 Chou was at the centre of a media firestorm when she was accused of supporting Taiwan independence after she waved a flag of the Republic of China, as Taiwan is officially called, during a South Korean TV programme in 2015.

Reacting to the report of her donation to South Korea after it was made public, internet users asked her to stay there forever and not to set foot in China ever again. Criticism of Chou only subsided after Chinese charity Warm Current revealed she had also given it money. The charity posted a message on Weibo, thanking Chou for donating 300,000 yuan, and cited the slow process of cross-country currency transfer as the reason for its delay in announcing the gift.

Patriotism, it appears, is not only measured by how much these Chinese stars are willing to give for the cause but whether they were in isolation in the country, along with their compatriots, or “absconded” abroad at the first sight of the virus outbreak.

Actor Kris Wu Yifan went to Canada, but returned recently. Singer Cai Xukun left China for South Korea soon after cases of coronavirus were first reported in China, but was seen arriving back in Beijing earlier this month after the number of infections began to rise in South Korea.