Wealthy people in the shadow

Gates' project office is still having difficulties in confirming the attendance of others in the select group of about 50 wealthy individuals, as many still hesitate, said Zhang Jing, spokeswoman of the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation Beijing Representative Office on Tuesday.

She said the office had to repeatedly convince those who received invitations that the organizers had no combined donation plan for the charity meeting and that the activities would be closed to the media in order to keep the participants' identities confidential.

According to Hurun Wealth Report 2010, China has 55,000 billionaires.

Zhang said the office did not intend to invite the richest 50 on the wealthy list, but selected wealthy people who had shown an interest in philanthropy.

The charity meeting has also sparked considerable discussion on charity among the Chinese public on the Internet.

"China's charity cause is still at a primitive stage," noted one comment.

"Few on China's wealthy list have taken on philanthropy. Those who donate are not very rich," said net surfers on the popular Chinese Internet portal sina.com.cn.

But netizens generally hope the American philanthropists would give a push to China's charity system and its management mode so that those who have a philanthropist' s heart would have easier access to charitable giving.

Enlightened interest on charity  

The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences reported in September last year that China's individual donations had surpassed corporate donations for the first time in 2008 to account for 54 percent of total donations.

Wealthy Chinese individuals have also opened their purses after severe disasters, such as the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake and Yushu earthquake this year, as well as the Zhouqu mudslide.

"These charitable actions have rebuilt the image of wealthy Chinese people," said Zhang Yiwu, a professor with the prestigious Beijing University and a renowned commentator.

He said although some media reports suspected some donations are only a show for some wealthy people, the "show" at least was evidence of the wealthy group's increasing interests to build their image of giving to charity.

"The problem is that the number of wealthy people who donate to a charitable cause is still too small in China," he said.

A Chinese businessman who only gave his name as Lin said his donations had helped build several schools in poverty-stricken areas in northeast China as part of the Hope Project.

"It is difficult to find a trusted channel to manage my donations. I chose to give the money directly to the people who used it. Students and their parents often lined in queues in front of my office to get donation money at the beginning of every semester," he said.

He added that business people like himself are not "rich enough to get on Gates and Buffet's invitation list."

"I believe a great number of rich people have a loving heart, but their charitable actions are obstructed by concerns about the management of the fund," he said.

Zhang Yinjun said that China, so far, has neither specific law or administrative regulations for charities, nor a social supervision system of it, but wealthy people interested in charity should be encouraged and tolerated.

"The public should not always criticize those wealthy people, claiming that they donate only for public appreciation," Zhang said. "What' s more, charity has no necessary bond with how much wealth an individual has. That is to say, charity is a cause that everyone could participate in."